REVIEW: The Handy Answer Book for Kids (and parents) Second Edition

Reading level: Ages 9-12
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Visible Ink Press; Second edition edition (October 1, 2009)
Purchase The Handy Answer Book for Kids (and Parents)from Amazon
Source: Lisa Roe, Online Publicist
My Rating: 5 stars

Summary:

Kids ask the darndest things...and here are the answers---all in one helpful book!

Anyone who has ever been a kid, raised a kid, or spent any time with kids knows that asking questions is a critical part of growing up. Kids have curious minds and they come up with some very interesting questions. But the truth is adults don't always know the answers. The Handy Answer Book for Kids (and Parents) comes to the rescue. It addresses nearly 800 queries with enough depth and detail to both satisfy the curiosity of persistent young inquisitors and provide parents with a secure sense of a job well done.

Written with a child;'s imagination in mind, this easy-to-understand book permits kids to help themselves because it's organized by simple topical chapters: Outer Space; Planet Earth and Our Moon; Creatures Big and Small; Plant Life; People around the World; Politics and Government; How Things Work; Math, Measurement, and Time; All about My Body; and Daily Life. Each question posed is given a complete and satisfying answer, going beyond "because" and "it just is" and "I don't know."

My Thoughts:

Loved this book! I've had fun reading, and rereading different things in this book. Both to myself, and aloud to my kids. I like how this book is divided into chapters. There is also a handy index at the back to help direct you to the question and answers.

The book is made of high quality paper that can handle the abuse of a well read/thumbed book. It has incredible pictures that help tell the stories behind some of the answers as well. Here are a couple of questions from the book:

• Why do people speak different languages?


• Why do I cry?


• How can fish breathe underwater?


• Why do women in some countries wear veils?


• How did my life begin?


• How does my body know to wake up when morning comes?

I used to have a book similar to this as a kid. While the other book from my younger days was geared more toward 4-6 year olds, this is more for the older kids. Yet, it's not hard to understand, or explain to my 3 & 7 year olds. This book has more sophisticated questions, but questions that get asked by kids who are school age. I couldn't help but compare the two books while reading this one, and I love them both! I can't wait to use this book as a resource for some reports or homework that my little one's have someday. I hope to help them learn about looking things up and finding the answers via books instead of always using Google!

Overall, I can highly recommend this book. Both for parents and kids, this book is an easy to read and understand reference to odd questions that might be hard to find via other venues. Thanks, Lisa, for sending this my way!

5 stars

Check out another great review of this book at Find Your Next Book Here!

REVIEW: Risk by Colin Harrison

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Picador (September 29, 2009)
Purchase Risk: A Novelfrom Amazon.
Source: Library Thing Early Reviewer Program
My Rating: 2 stars

Summary:

An honest lawyer, a Czech hand model, and a box of mysterious Christmas ornaments, each play their part in Harrison's intricate mystery ...

George Young never thought of himself as a detective, but that's pretty much his vocation--an attorney for a top insurance firm, it’s his job to pin down suspicious claims. But Mrs. Corbett, the rich, eccentric wife of the firm's founder, has it in mind to put George’s skills to a peculiar assignment. With only a few months to live, her one desire is to know the true circumstance of her son Roger's violent death. George's investigation leads him to Roger's mistress, a cagy Czech hand model named Eliska, whose motives for latching on to Mrs. Corbett's son may have gotten him killed. Set against a brilliantly-drawn Manhattan, at once volatile and vivid, Risk is prime Colin Harrison.

My Thoughts:

I finished this book. It's a short book, but now what I would call quick. I wasn't interested in the book enough to be quick. It actually took me much longer than it should have to read.

It's not poorly written, doesn't involve blood, gore or other things that would immediatly turn a reader off, but I just wasn't into it. I wasn't connected to any of the characters. In fact, I can't remember the names of them without opening the book, or looking in the summary. The author really tries to create an image of a secondary character, the girl-friend of the dead guy, but she's not even a big part, yet I remember more about her than anyone else in the book!

The fact that this old woman contacts a young lawyer who worked for her late husband in order for him to do some investigavie work seems a bit out of place. Granted, the ending kind of tries to put that piece together, but I still think it was odd.

Basically it boils down to this: The lawyer figures out what happened the night that the son of the rich woman died. I knew he would solve it before I was half-way through the book. I couldn't predict the exact outcome, so a couple of points there. Otherwise, this book didn't make my top 100 list for the year! But, don't take my word for it! It might appeal to you!

2 stars

Help! I've fallen into a reading rut!

I'm in a rut. I know it and I still don't know what to do about it. I've got several books started, yet none of them are holding my attention or calling my name. I'm picking them up and reading a few pages only out of obligation or sheer stubbornness.

I have an enormous stack of books that I really want to read, and I keep forcing myself to pick up the half finished ones! I know better than to waste my time on books that I'm not interested in, heck! life's too short for that, but I keep doing it! Take for instance Life Without Summer by Lynne Griffin. I've read some great reviews about this book, but it's just not capturing my attention. Should I put it aside and maybe go back to it? Or do I just post it on PBS and move it along? I'm so afraid that I'll miss a great book by giving up to soon, but where is the line? Fifty pages, a hundred?

Then, I have three books that I got last week from Elle magazine's March juror thing-a-ma-jig and I'm not the least bit interested in any of them. So, if anyone out there has read any of these three, please give me something! I am obligated to review these books, but I'm having trouble forcing them open. Don't know what I'm going to do!

Dear Strangers by Meg Mullins
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow
February by Lisa Moore

November Recap

Wow! It seems like November flew by! I didn't get much reading done this month and probably won't get much in December either! Oh well, it's all for pleasure, right?

Dawn in Eclipse Bay by Jayne Ann Krentz

Tempted by Megan Hart

Smash Cut by Sandra Brown

True Blue by David Baldacci

Drive Me Wild by P.J. Mellor

Risk by Colin Harrison

Bleachers by John Grisham

Reckless Abandon by Morgan Ashbury

REVIEW: Bleachers by John Grisham

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Delta (May 29, 2007)
Purchase Bleachersfrom Amazon.
Source: A friend
My Rating: 4 stars

Summary:

High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who molded the Spartans into an unbeatable football dynasty.

Now, as Coach Rake’s “boys” sit in the bleachers waiting for the dimming field lights to signal his passing, they replay the old games, relive the old glories, and try to decide once and for all whether they love Eddie Rake – or hate him. For Neely Crenshaw, a man who must finally forgive his coach –-- and himself – before he can get on with his life, the stakes are especially high.

My Thoughts:

Good book! I'm a football fanatic, so this book instantly appealed to me. I also live in a small town where the football program is highly anticipated and appreciated much like in this book, (though not to this extreme).

Neely comes back to the small town of Messina out of respect for his high school football coach who is on his death bed. Though Neely expresses and explains his love/hate relationship of the man, he hopes to get the shadow of the man out of his head without giving up all the life lessons that the man instilled in all of his players.

This book is about passion. The coach's passions for his players and his teams. The player's passion for the game of football and desire to impress Coach Rake. Grisham does an incredible job with drawing emotions from the reader.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book and am passing it on to my husband and brother-in-law who is a coach in this small football town.

4 stars

Tuesday Teaser

Risk ~~ Colin Harrison

Teaser Tuesday is sponsored by Miz B over at Should Be Reading. Here's the idea: Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page. Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page. Please be sure to avoid spoilers!

But how strange that his cell phone was still working, months after he died. Either the phone company had made a mistake or someone was paying the bill.

REVIEW: True Blue by David Baldacci

Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (October 27, 2009)
Purchase True Bluefrom Amazon.
Source: Online Library
My Rating: 4 stars

Summary:

Mason 'Mace' Perry was a maverick cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything - her career, her liberty - and spent two years in prison. Now back on the outside, Mace is trying to rebuild her life and track down the people who set her up. But even with her police chief sister at her side, she has to work in the shadows: there's a vindictive US attorney on her tail and she's just looking for a reason to send her back behind bars...Roy Kingman is a young lawyer, still getting used to his high-paid job at a law firm in Washington. When Roy discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm, his fate becomes entangled with Mace's, as the two team up to investigate. But as their enquiries gather pace, Roy and Mace soon find themselves in unexpected territory; drawn into both the private and public world of the nation's capital, as dark secrets begin to emerge. For what began as a fairly routine homicide investigation will quickly turn into something far more complex. And possibly lethal...

My Thoughts:

Another great story from Baldacci. It didn't take me long to get through this one since I was on the edge of my seat almost the whole time!

I loved Mace and Beth. They have a awesome relationship and cherish their bond as sisters. Always there for each other, but allowed to really tell it like it is. I think they were the reason that I really liked this book. They both have amazing attitudes and Mace's sense of humor often had me laughing out loud. I'd have liked a little more personal background or personal sidestories for Beth, but there was so much going on with Mace that it might not have worked well. I loved that the book was based on two tough females. Beth in a high ranking profession and Mace fighting her way back up from the bottom after a stint in prison.

Roy was an interesting character. At first, I really wasn't sure that I liked him. He seemed way to wimpy and passive. Yet, as the story went on, I decided that he was pretty cool. He stepped up when Mace needed him and stuck by her through this crazy investigation.

I was a little bummed with the ending. There were certain aspects that I'd have liked a little more info on. It's hard to mention which aspects without spoiling the story. Overall, I loved it. It's got the same political undercurrents and cop stuff as some of his other books. While sometimes a turn off for women readers, this one is awesome since the primary characters are women.

4 stars