Book Lists

Celebrating National Pi Day with books about PIE!

By on March 13, 2017   /   Book Lists  

Unless you live on another planet, you probably know that tomorrow, March 14 — 3/14 — is National Pi Day. The Greek letter Pi is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159.

Since I don’t understand that very well, I choose to celebrate National Pi Day by eating pie and reading books about pie. What a delicious way to spend the day!

The first book that comes to mind is Pie by Sarah Weeks. When Alice’s Aunt Polly passes away, she takes with her the secret to her world famous pie crust recipe. Except in her will, Polly leaves the recipe to her fat, disagreeable cat, Lardo, and then leaves Lardo in the care of Alice. It’s up to Alice and her friend Charlie to put the pieces together and discover the not-so-secret recipe for happiness — friendship, family, and doing something for the right reason. A delightfully scrumptious book!

Another yummy pie book on my list is a just-published novel by Kat Yeh, The Truth About Twinkie Pie. Two opposite sisters, a million dollars in prize money from a national cooking contest, and a move from the trailer parks of South Carolina to Long Island, NY — that’s the recipe for this novel about family and friendship. Sprinkled with recipes and down-home commentary, the characters are endearing and true to life.

Pi in the Sky by Wendy Mass has to do with a boy who is bored with his job of delivering pies. The plot is a little confusing, since it takes place in The Realms, located inside dark matter. When something goes terribly wrong, main character Joss is bored no more and has the monumental task of rebuilding Earth. Lots of interesting facts about physics and the universe.

Next on my list is Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick. A favorite among teachers and young readers, this is the story of Steven, who plays drums in a band, has a huge crush on a hot girl, and is constantly annoyed by his younger brother Jeffrey. When Jeffrey gets sick, Steven’s world is turned upside down. You’ll have to read the book to find out what Dangerous Pie is!

Pies & Prejudice (how clever is that?) is part of the Mother-Daughter Book Club series by Heather Vogel Frederick. The club reads Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and in their continuing adventures, the girls hold a bake sale then suddenly have a thriving business to contend with.

And while we’re discussing pies, we can’t forget kids’ cookbooks! Two of my favorites are Baking With Kids by Leah Brooks and American Girl Baking, published in conjunction with Williams-Sonoma. Both cookbooks have colorful photos, step-by-step easy to follow instructions, and have recipes for not only pies and pie crusts, but also cookies, cakes, muffins, scones, and other treats.

Enjoy your Pi and Pie Day!

Michele Weber Hurwitz is the author of the upcoming novel, Ethan Marcus Stands Up (Simon & Schuster/Aladdin, August 2017), as well as The Summer I Saved the World in 65 Days and Calli Be Gold (both Penguin Random House). Visit her at micheleweberhurwitz.com.

 

 

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How to Pay Tribute to Your Favorite Authors When They Pass Away

By on March 8, 2017   /   Book Lists, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers  

Over the past year, my husband, Matt, a music lover, has been hit hard by the death of some of his favorite rockers. From David Bowie to Prince, I have watched him glued to the computer screen, watching these departed talented musicians. Seeing them play live brings them back for him. He relives and remembers the moments when he was first touched by their music. Our middle son, Ari, is a musician and the singer in the alt rock band Secure the Sun. I can’t tell you how many times my husband has asked my son to play a cover song of a recently departed singer. Ari, when he performs solo somewhere, will often accommodate my husband’s request, such as when he sang Purple Rain last April. Unfortunately, this is a harder task for his band as they play almost exclusively originals.

This past week, the multi-talented Paula Fox passed away. Fox, the author of over a dozen novels for children, won the Newbery medal for The Slave Dancer. Her other children’s books garnered the National Book award, the Newbery honor and the Hans Christian Andersen medal. Fox wrote about difficult subjects, including homelessness, disease and slavery. Her books were often controversial and sometimes removed from school libraries. She brought topics into the discourse that many thought had been inappropriate for children.

Additionally, over the past year, in the children’s lit world, we’ve seen the deaths of Richard Adams, the author of Watership Down (one of those books that’s hard to place in terms of category), Lois Duncan, author of beloved suspenseful YA novels, and Anna Dewdney, the best-selling author of the Llama Llama picture books. I’m sure I’ve left out many dearly departed children’s authors (and please comment and let me know who they are). The question becomes how to honor these authors?

Well, we can read them. We can recommend their books. However, unlike musicians, authors can’t perform a Llama Llama cover son–although there is certainly the fan fic option. And for readers and fans, we can still talk about their books. As authors we can also take some of the qualities that we loved in a beloved author and try to weave some of their spirit and passion into our own texts.

How do you honor beloved your favorite beloved authors who have passed?

Hillary Homzie is the author of the Queen of Likes (Simon & Schuster MIX 2016), The Hot List (Simon & Schuster MIX 2011) and Things Are Gonna Be Ugly (Simon & Schuster, 2009). She can be found at hillaryhomzie.com and on her Facebook page.

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Girls Playing Sports!

By on March 6, 2017   /   Book Lists  

Hello Mixed-Up Filers!

Hope all of you are well since my last post sometime last year! Missed all of you! But, I’m sure you had a great time with all of the wonderful new contributors we have. It’s fun to have new blood. What’s even better is, getting to haze them all with new and improved rituals. What’s even better than that is, with all of the members we have now, it relieves the stress of having to post every two months and spaces it out some more. I think my next post is scheduled for sometime in November of 2027! Please mark it on your calendars!

Anyway, let’s get back to me!

As the three of you, who regularly read my columns can attest to, I usually have a lot of trouble deciding what to come up with for my posts. This month is no exception.

Well, what I decided to do, is since my daughter plays travel softball, and this is the time of year when she’s just starting to get into the new season, I decided to list a few of the books we like, which feature girls playing sports! So, since Dorian Cirrone says I need to take up as little space as possible, just in case someone wants to post recipes or something, I’d better get to it!

First up on my list is, You Throw Like a Girl, by Rachele Alpine. The book is about twelve-year old, Gabby, who promises her dad she’ll play softball and promises her mom that she’ll be in the beauty pageant. So . . . she winds up having to do both! First lesson to remember, though, is to remember to NEVER pick anything over softball! Even though, Gabby has to play baseball, since there is no girls’ softball team that year. It’s a fun book, and anything which has girls playing baseball and softball is good with me.

The next book in our girls’ sports list is, The Kid from Diamond Street: The Extraordinary Story of Baseball Legend Edith Houghton, by Audrey Vernick. This is a true story about Edith Houghton, a young girl who played baseball in the 1920’s. My daughter enjoys reading anything about girls in sports, and she loves it even more if the stories are real. This was a fascinating book and we enjoyed it quite a bit. The only knock on it is, the author is a big Yankee fan, which is a HUGE social faux pas and never to be allowed under ANY circumstances. Still, we’ll forgive her, since we enjoyed the book.

Finally, we have The Kicks books by Alex Morgan. You can honestly jump into any of The Kicks books and enjoy them. They’re all about a twelve-year old girl named, Devin, and her experiences playing soccer and making friends. All my kids played and loved soccer, so this is a fun series for them to read. This is for when you want a short break from softball or baseball books, I’ll allow you to jump into soccer.

What are some of your favorite books about girls playing sports? Let me know in the comments section, since I’m always looking for new titles!

And by the way, if three or more people comment, Dorian promised that next time, I can actually sit with the rest of the Mixed-Up Files staff at our monthly meeting. Well, sit with isn’t exactly right, but I don’t have to leave the room this time.

Until next time!

Jonathan

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