Educational (but still fun!) Books for Christmas!

is for Educational!

Wait, where are you going?! Hey, come back here!

Seriously, educational gifts can be fun, too! You just have to sort through to find the best ones, the ones that align with your spouses, or child's, or friend's, or relative's interests!

Yes, I know, easier said than done.

Which is why I am here to help you! It's okay. I'll talk you through this.

So, when I was a kid, my parents Santa Claus used to leave comic books and paperbacks in our stockings. This was absolutely brilliant, because the rule was that, on Christmas morning, we could all attack our stockings BEFORE waking Mom and Dad (but none of the presents that Santa left under the tree).

So, we'd eat the odd candy or two, unwrap a small toy or pull out a (yay!) dollar bill, and then there'd be something to read. And we'd invariably open that up and at least read a page or two, and sometimes a whole chapter or an entire comic book, before we went in to wake up Mom and Dad.

That's right, they ended up with about another additional extra half hour's sleep with that little trick. Santa's pretty clever, isn't he?

So I like books as presents, and those are often educational as well.

One of my favorites each year is the Ripley's Believe it or Not and Guinness Book of World Records editions. My grandfather, bless his heart, used to always tell us stories about the tallest man in the world, and how he could wear a child's bracelet as a ring on his finger, and how Grandpa met this man at some time in his life. He LOVED the Guinness Book of World Records.

And the kids love Ripley's, because there is always something gross and/or bizarre in each edition.  So I can recommend both of those books, which have editions available at Amazon.com.

This year, I also had two new books that looked promising, Puzzle Baron's Logic Puzzles and World's Best Origami, to review in the Educational category.   

Logic puzzles are really great for keeping your mind active.


You know how these kinds of puzzles work, right? 


You are given a situation (picking one randomly from the book: a group of people running a race) and then a series of clues (all the racers come from different schools, each school has a colored uniform, and the one in red finished behind the racer from this school, etc.). 


I like the way Puzzle Baron's Logic Puzzles puts up charts so you can organize the information, fill in the chart and figure out a solution to each problem. This would have really helped me in school, and I think it would be great at teaching kids to organize their thoughts, eliminate unlikely solutions and come to the correct one through a process of logical deduction. +1 for getting kids to think! Also recommended for adults, especially anyone you know who likes Sudoku or brain puzzles. I'm thinking of putting one of these in the Engineer's stocking! (Puzzle Baron's Logic Puzzles is $10.17 at Amazon.com).

Unfortunately, I really can't wholeheartedly recommend World's Best Origami, though. This is because I feel that some of the directions are confusing. I tried out a few of the origami projects in the book, for instance, (to be fair, there are LOTS of projects in the book), first, a bird, and then a pig. Both of these are "Level 1" difficulty projects. I found the Bird quite easy to do. But with the Pig, I ran into difficulties with just the third step! Not only could I not figure out what I was supposed to do (it called for "sliding" the "right" edge of a basically equilateral triangle into the "left edge" layers), I called in my 17 year-old, and the Owl couldn't figure it out, either!


Okay, so that was frustrating, but that alone was not enough for me to give the whole book a bad review, though I did question the "Level 1" difficulty of the projects. I know I am not always the best at crafts.


No, what really curbed my enthusiasm for the World's Best Origami book was that, in trying to figure out how to complete the Pig origami project, I went online, hoping to see someone fold it in a video--and Every. Single. Video. I found used a different technique from the one in the book,  and they all used the same technique as each other, which makes me wonder why the book went in a completely different direction, one which, in my mind, made it more difficult to do. 


Add on to that the fact that I feel most kids would want to jump around, from project to project, doing the ones they found most interesting. I just can't see many kids sticking through to the more difficult ones if the Level 1 difficulty frustrated them they way it did me. So, no recommendation for me on this book. However, Amazon reviewers had different opinions, and you can check those out here.

I received both of these books to facilitate my review, but no other compensation for their inclusion in this guide, and my opinion is mine and mine alone.

Book Review: Some Girls Are

Courtney Summers, the author of YA novels like Cracked Up to Be, is, in my opinion, a rising star in the field. I definitely think she is the one to watch.

Not only does Courtney deal with timely and relevant tough subjects with empathy, her dialogue is spot on for teens, and her characters have depth.

What a welcome change from some of the shallow, two-dimensional novellas out there, with the stereotypical nerds, jocks, goths and the rest!

Teens, and parents of teens, will recognize within the pages of her works familiar faces and personalities from their own lives.

In her latest work, Some Girls Are, Courtney deals with the disturbing world of bullying and intimidation between teen girls desperately vying for popularity.

Regina Afton dreads the designated driver role when she goes to parties. No alcohol to deaden her ennui, and her friends' silliness gets wearisome to watch. But Regina has no clue just how bad it can get. When she turns, in tears, to an unlikely confidante after a nightmare encounter that's left her reeling, she learns just what it's like to be a victim of the exclusive, all-girl clique formerly known as the Fearsome Five--of which Regina was once a charter member.

Invisible to her former friends, Regina attempts to pull her life together amidst bullying and intimidation from the new Fearsome Foursome as she is "frozen out". Help comes in the form of an unlikely friendship with Michael Hayden, whose tragic past Regina once used as leverage in her own particular form of character assasination.

Viv's take:
Some Girls AreThis latest from rising star YA writer Courtney Summers is an experience not to be missed. Teens will love the realistic, in-depth characters, and parents can use this book as a "teachable moment" by talking about the plot with their teens. Warning: the cruelty in Some Girls Are, while scarily genuine, is just breath-taking in its scope and intensity, so I would not recommend this book for pre-teens. I would say the appropriate age group would be those about to enter, or enjoying their first year of high school.

I received a copy of this book from the great folks at Macmillan to aid in my review, with no other expectation than a fair and unbiased opinion.

Firsts! The First Gift on Your List for Christmas (and we're giving it away!)

Did you know:

The first blue jeans came into being in 1853, through the ingenuity of Levi Strauss?

The story goes that Strauss, a German immigrant in San Francisco setting up shop after the Gold Rush, met a prospector asking what he had for sale. At the time, his inventory included rough canvas for tents. The prospector said what he really needed was pants, as they were in short supply just then. So Strauss went right into the workshop and whipped up some overalls, which the miners liked, but as the material tended to chafe, Strauss switched over to a twilled French cloth, serge de Nimes--what we now know as denim. Their color gave them the nickname, "blue jeans."

The first burger chain was not (as I thought) McDonald's, but White Castle, established in 1921? And that, in 1961, White Castle became the first burger chain to sell a billion hamburgers?

The first computer dates from around the first century B.C.?

The first person buried on the moon (!) was an astro-geologist name Eugene M. Shoemaker?
These and other fun facts and odd occurrences can be found in firsts, the latest book by Wilson Casey (aka The Trivia Guy).

I loved this book. I'm a fan of trivia, lists and world records, and this was right up my alley!

firsts is compelling reading for anyone on your Christmas list--and we have FIVE copies to give away to our lucky readers!

Entry method (required): Just leave a comment on this post with your favorite bit of trivia you've picked up in your years of wisdom. It can be anything, from how to measure with a dollar bill (they're each 6" long), to your State's official flower (Florida's is the orange blossom).

I am really looking forward to reading those comments!

For Additional Entries (optional):

• Tweet about this giveaway
• Subscribe to our feed (top sidebar)
  
• Put our NEW! Holiday Handbook button on your site and Facebook page (middle sidebar)
  
• Blog about this giveaway
• Saturday or later (it will take a while to go up live), vote up this giveaway on Prizey! just click the green prizey button on the sidebar to reach the giveaway.
  

That's five MORE chances to enter! And remember, we have FIVE copies to give away! Deadline for entries is December 15th.

Good luck!

The Book of Samuel

Erik Raschke's The Book of Samuel is a complex work, obviously painstakingly researched. It strikes me as a labor of love.

Set in the Reagan-era eighties, this is not a typical YA novel but a coming-of-age tale of a young boy caught between escalating cycles of prejudice and violence, trying to find his own path.

Samuel's father, once a respected professor, now spends his days camped outside the family home in a canvas tent, studying scripture. His mother, a survivor of childhood polio, works long hours to keep the family solvent with a twisted, aching back,while Samuel's grandmother, embittered by a life of duty and sacrifice, spends her afternoons in front of the TV, spewing vitriolic racial slurs.

Yet Samuel remains hopeful, even when his father leaves the family on a personal (and ultimately selfish) religious pilgrimage against "Evil" and Samuel is left to console his own Mother in her grief.

Samuel must also cope with escalating animosity between his friends and the Mexican immigrants in the neighborhood, an emotionally disturbed bully, and his half-black cousin, whose own parents have deserted him.

Though the cards seem stacked against him, Samuel remains optimistic and hopeful. In his journey of self-discovery, he gains strength through remembering the words of his father, his mother's consistent patience and forbearance, and even the company of his (surprisingly transformed) grandmother.

Viv's Take: Ultimately, The Book of Samuel is one of discovery and selfless sacrifice. It's a hard book to categorize, because although it is written from the viewpoint of teen boy, it takes place in the eighties, which will have Cool Moms reminiscing about their own childhoods when they read it. The writing is excellent, the story sometimes painful, the philosophy complex. It's a book that will keep you thinking long after you've read it.

I received an advance copy of The Book of Samuel to assist me in writing this review for today, its release date.

Night Runner Book Review (YA)

Max Turner's newest Young Adult book, Night Runner, has a lot to recommend it.

First, nobody sparkles.

And second? No vampire romance.

The trend for vampire-themed young adult books really caught on, of course, after the Twilight trilogy, and I've reviewed some of those books as well as the House of Night series here on the blog before.

But it's nice to find that, even in this wildly popular genre, there are a few surprises left.

As a boy living in a mental health facility, Zack, the protagonist, draws your interest right away.

He's lived in the Nicholls Ward for years, ever since his parents died, and though it sounds like a scary place to hang out, Zack hastens to assure us that it isn't all bad.

Still, life can get pretty lonely. Due to his many strange allergies, Zack can't go out in the sun, and all he can drink are strawberry smoothies made by his friend, nurse Olivia.

Well, of course we know there's more to the story than that, and the truth behind Zack's origins all begin to unravel one night when a stranger on a motorcycle crashes through the front doors and tells Zack to run.

As Zack takes off, we realize that the life he knew is full of secrets and lies.

Though really, we aren't surprised--it would be a pretty boring book if all was as it seemed, wouldn't it?

So, of course Zack's Dad wasn't just an archeologist who died when "ruins" fell on him--he was a famous Vampire Hunter. And Zack, as it happens, was once bitten by a vampire.

If you can't guess what the red stuff in those strawberry smoothies really is by now, you clearly haven't been paying attention.

Night Runner's got a quirky sense of humor that I liked, and the pacing is fast and furious. If I had one complaint about the book it's that, not surprisingly, it's clearly intended as the first in a series, and so there's no real satisfying closure to the ending.

We know that Zack will be coming back again for more adventures.

Still, that's not a bad thing.

Viv's Take: Max Turner's Night Runner: A Novel
officially out today in paperback from St. Martin's Press, is a fun, fast-paced read with a new twist for fans of the Vampire genre, with more on the way.

Talking Up the Weight of Silence

Heather Gudenkauf's book, The Weight of Silence, is a difficult book to read.

First, the main storyline is every parent's nightmare. One sunny August morning, a small town awakens to find that two girls, best friends Calli and Petra, have gone missing in the night.

But the girls' disappearance, though chilling enough, is only the surface of an entire web of silence, deceit and old secrets that weave throughout the book, giving rise to more questions even as we solve the mystery of the two missing girls.

As you read The Weight of Silence and learn more about the girls--outgoing Petra, the joy of her over-protective parents, and best friend Calli, who hasn't spoken in over two years and still has "accidents" at the age of seven--you may find yourself, as I did, wanting to rail at the adults in the book, for even the most well-intentioned of them contribute to "the weight of silence" that overshadows Calli's world.

Antonia, Calli's mother, in particular, frustrated me to no end. As a mother, I found her behavior irresponsible and damaging, perhaps even more willfully so than that of Calli's father, Grif, who "likes his alcohol."

On the surface, Antonia seems like a devoted mother. Although she allows her children to roam the woods behind their home, Antonia has taught them all about nature and wildlife. She climbs trees along with them, takes them on picnics and shows them which berries are safe to eat.

But there is more to Antonia than meets the eye. In fact, Antonia's marriage, her past with the town's sheriff, the mystery behind Calli's refusal to talk--all of these secrets are linked to the disappearance of her own daughter that day in August.

And although, as a child, Antonia herself grew up in this same town, by these same woods, that once fearless daredevil of a girl is gone. The reckless tomboy who gave as good as she got has been replaced by a tired, secretive woman protecting the image of a happy family that hasn't existed in a long time. She has become resigned to a dysfunctional existence.

This, to me, is what is so exasperating--Antonia's complicit acceptance of her lot in life, not just for herself but for her children. We get the sense that Antonia feels that she has made her bed and so she must lie in it, that she knows she has made bad choices and yet is unwilling to take action to rectify that. As a Mom, I found her stubborn inability to walk away from her mistakes and make a better life for her children completely inexplicable.

The Weight of Silence delves into all the lives of a select group of very flawed people, trying to make the best of their lives, and it's that glimpse into the human psyche that makes the book at once so compelling and, for me as a mother, so difficult to read.

See a trailer for The Weight of Silence here.

Viv's take: A mesmerizing, perplexing and ultimately deeply thought-provoking detective's tale, Heather Gudenkauf's The Weight of Silence will keep you up at night turning the pages to discover the truth. This taut, well-written work is no light summer reading.

I wrote this book review as part of a Mothertalk blog tour for The Weight of Silence.

Beautiful Books Bedecked with Beats!

Can you tell that I am having an alliterative day today? ; )

I'm also all bouncy and happy, because I have some good news for you all, too!

I just have to share the absolutely luscious books I received from my friends over at Team Mom today, because not only are they gorgeously illustrated, but they come with a little added extra--CD's! These books come from The Secret Mountain, and each book is accompanied by an audio CD that complements the content of the book. So, for example (this is my favorite book title!) A Duck in New York City, a cute story for kids about a prairie duck with a dream to make it big on Broadway, comes with a CD of humorous kids' songs that go along with the funny theme, while Dream Songs, Night Songs: From Belgium to Brazil has an accompanying CD full of lullabies and dreamy songs, each in the native language of one of the countries from the book's title. What's great is that, with that last title, you get the song lyrics in the native language, and then there's the English translation right there on the CD in a downloadable pdf, so Ta DA! you have just learned a song in another language.

I love that The Secret Mountain music goes along with each book's story, and you can actually buy just the CD's by themselves, but then you would be missing out on the illustrations, some of which are over-the-top gorgeous! For example, the picture at the left is from their book entitled Down at the Sea Hotel.

And here's yet another plus: some of the songs from Down at the Sea Hotel are by famous artists you just might be familiar with: ever hear of a guy named Billy Joel? How about Don Henley, Neil Young, or Mary Chapin Carpenter?

I'm so thrilled about these books from the Secret Mountain, and I know you will love them so much, that I am GIVING ONE AWAY! Yes, that's right, another one!

Can anyone stop this mad woman and her giveaways?!

Nope, she's on a roll, folks.

Here's what to do to WIN the fabulously funny book I mentioned above, a Parent's Choice Gold Award Winner, A Duck in New York City:

Head on over to The Secret Mountain, and check out all the offerings from the English Catalogue. Listen to a couple of the song excerpts. Then come back here, and leave a comment with your favorite song on the site. Remember, I want the name of a SONG, not a book, okay? That's all it takes!

For extra entries, you can:

Go to the RESPECT site, and put down Cool Moms Rule! as your source (it's for a good cause!),
Add my badge to your sidebar,
Blog about this post, or Tweet about it if you don't have a blog, or
Subscribe to the Cool Moms Rule! feed.

That's all there is to it! Remember, for each additional entry method you choose, come back here and leave an additional comment, so I can verify and give you your extra entry in the giveaway.

I think this book would make a great Christmas present for someone, too, so I'm going to make sure you get it early enough to wrap, and since I'm sending it media mail, that means we need to make the deadline a bit sooner. So...let's say Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, at midnight, all entries are due. I'll pick a winner over the long weekend.

Good luck, and enjoy The Secret Mountain!

Our First Book Review: Twilight

Title: Twilight (1st Book in The Twilight Saga)
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Age Range: Young Adult/Teen Readers

When Bella Swan starts high school in the perpetually rainy town of Forks, she misses her sunny former life with her newly-remarried Mom. Bella, attempting to forge a closer relationship with her Dad, Charlie, is anxious, fearing that her native klutziness will keep her from fitting in.

Instead, Bella finds that as a newcomer and novelty, she is surprisingly popular.

Everyone seems to like her.

Except her lab partner, Edward.

Smart, charismatic and charming, Edward is surely the golden boy of Forks. So why does no one befriend him? And why does he find the mere presence of Bella in the same classroom so disturbing that he tries to switch classes just to get way from her?

Confused by his behavior and seeking a solution, Bella instead discovers the clues to a much darker secret Edward is trying desperately to hide. As the clues come together, Bella begins to decipher the puzzle that is Edward, and discovers why he may be both the most intriguing--and the most dangerous--person she has ever met.

Such begins the Twilight saga, a series of three books (so far) for young adults. The author, Stephanie Meyer, would tell you herself that she never intended to write a young adult series. Her works are strongly character driven, and the Twilight series started out as, of all things, a dream about two teenagers engaged in a serious conversation about their future--the characters that became Isabella and Edward.

What sets this series apart from others is that one of these characters, Edward, is much more than just another high school student. I won't give his secrets away, but suffice it to say that teenage girls will identify with Bella and fall in love with Edward.

The saga continues with New Moon and Eclipse, each book as good as the first.

Notes to Parents: This series, ultimately, is about the triumph of true love over all else. The books contain little profanity and no sexual content, though the relationship between Bella and Edward is an intensely emotional one. The books deal with supernatural themes, but there is no reference to witchcraft, satanism or the occult, other than the legends of the native American tribes living in the Forks area. Good and evil are clearly defined. The heroine serves as a moral compass to young adults, making choices and learning from her mistakes and triumphs. Bella is a "good" character in every sense of the word.

The Twilight Saga is: Highly Recommended

UPDATE: MARSHWINS is brilliant! Marsh, you are the winner of the first book in the Twilight saga! Thanks for paying such close attention to ALL the posts in the 7 Days of Giveaways...you knew the book was our last giveaway! I do need your email, though! Make sure you send that over to me, ASAP, so I can get your prize out! ~Viv

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