Put Me In A Book

Beloved Canadian Icon Robert Munsch has written another supercute, catchy book and despite the recent revelation of his drug addictions and the stroke he suffered over one year ago it is very entertaining. I picked this one up for my kids at Chapters Indigo about one month ago and we've been loving it every night since. Part of Munsch's charm is the extreme surreal humour and the repetition he uses to make children join in on the narrative. Put Me In A Book is about a girl and an author. The girl, Hailey, is out with her school visiting the park one day, when they
run into a well known author who "puts her in a book" literally. The story is classic Munsch and the classmate's attempts to help get Hailey out of the book are comical. The students try to photocopy her out, scratch her out and pull her out of the book. This metafictive tale is meant for children four and up through to about 10. Michael Martchenko lends his animated drawings to this story and the characters as usual are memorable and attractive. Some of the funniest books around have come from this pairing of author and illustrator. Munsch lives in Guelph and has written dozens of books, while Martchenko has illustrated more than 50.

Put Me In A Book, by Robert Munsch..illustrated by Michael Martchenko
Scholastic Canada Ltd. 2010 $7.99, 31 pages
rating $$$$ out of $$$$$
thriftymommastips does not get paid to review books.

Even The Dogs

If this book were a person it would be your rambling Uncle Reggie with all the skeletons in his closet, you know the relative with a genius level IQ and possibly undiagnosed schizophrenia, the guy that drank it all away and then showed up at Christmas to start a fight. Nobody really likes to be around Uncle Reggie, because he reminds them how fragile the balance of mental health and life, but in reality at the end of the day when you are quiet with just your thoughts, even you have got to admit that Uncle Reggie is far more interesting than all the rest of your relatives combined. At the start of Even The Dogs, is the death of a homeless man, Robert, a person found on a day between Christmas and New Year's inside an abandoned apartment building. The fictional story that arises out of this sad event is more real than most. What follows is a makeshift eulogy, a strange remembrance of the pitiful man who died, as told by his friends and acquaintances. The key here is the friends and acquaintances. They are each homeless addicts living on the fringes of society, drugged and searching for drugs, drying out and then checking into rehab and then relapsing again. Their remembrances are heartfelt to be sure, but also dreamy, nebulous, frantic, rushed, interrupted, disjointed, confused, urgent, pressured and half forgotten. "Had to find someone and tell them was all he could think. Had to find Laura and let her know, had to find Mike." We are told Robert had a daughter named Laura and her father's friends speculate where she might have gone, until the end of the novel when she is forced to reveal, at an inquest, that she abandoned her father to score drugs.

Even The Dogs is an odd novel at first to get into and slightly off-putting with strange use of punctuation and rambling sentences and the continuous use of the pronoun "we." And yet, if you stick with it and invest yourself fully, by the end of the book all of these stylistic devices truly make sense. In fact, not unlike a drug, when you let this novel fully wash over you, the brilliance of it hits and you are left in awe. Jon McGregor's latest tale appeared with much advance praise and buzz about the Booker prize and yet it is a difficult read. It is one of the more deceptive reads I've been given lately for review here at brainfood. The style is very evocative of the Virginia Woolf school of stream-of-consciousness and this reminded me a great deal of some of the duty reads from university English literature classes of years gone by.  At first it left me cold and then I realized that was partly the point. You are supposed to feel hot and cold about the topic matter at hand and the death of a homeless drunk is really not poetry to most. He will be given a pauper's funeral and his friends wonder at the sadness and hopelessness at the end of this lifeMcGregor is a stylist of the highest calibre and  a writer's writer for sure. Here we will find sentences paused mid-thought, punctuation dropped or forgotten, mishmashed grammar and rambling odd rants about life on the street. McGregor's characters have strong voices and his talent for dialect is nothing, if not realistic. McGregor has also written If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and So Many Ways To Begin. He has won the Somerset Maugham Award and The Betty Trask Prize. He was born in Bermuda and now lives in England.

thriftymommastips rating $$$$ out of $$$$$
Not for everyone, but realistic, highly intelligent and brave writing.
Bloomsbury USA New York, 2010, $17.50 Canada. $14 US.

Melvin The Magnificent Molar

Melvin the Magnificent Molar is a cute and functional children's book I received last week from TwitterMoms. My children have given it a resounding two thumbs up and loved the cute story about a tooth named Melvin. "Mommy, I am brushing my Melvin," they holler every morning now. See Melvin is a molar and as such he is often covered in a sleep scummies and gook and generally neglected because he is at the back of the mouth and just gets missed. The sweet little paperback picture book about hygiene was written by Julia Cook and Laura Jana, MD. The illustrations are lovely by Allison Valentine. The story is full of cute rhymes and sing song tunes that get children involved in the book. "Brush us and floss us and help us to shine so we can be ready and look mighty fine." Cook and Jana use Melvin to take a bit of the mystery out of dentists and the tooth fairy and baby teeth.

Melvin the Molar is published by the National Centre For Youth Issues.
For a copy contact http://www.ncyi.org/
Tennessee, USA, 2010
thriftymommastips rating $$$$ out of $$$$$.
thriftymomma does not get paid to review books instead she receives a free copy to read

Friendship For Grownups: a giveaway

Many will recall Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel from the truly popular hit show of the 80s. They might have even watched the cast reunion show, but lesser known to many is the fact that she is a Christian author with many publications to her credit. I was asked to review Friendship For Grownups: What I Missed and Learned Along The Way and was pleasantly surprised by the writing and the author herself . Whelchel speaks candidly of being a child star, moving from her native Texas at the age of 12 to Hollywood where she grew up fast and went on to superstardom as Blair in The Facts of Life. Her first appearance on The New Mickey Mouse Club launched her early childhood career, a career that actually began as an outlet for an overly shy bookish, introverted, child. Not so surprisingly Whelchel missed some key developmental stages in her life as a result of diving headlong into acting so early. This she examines in a calm and matter of fact way to indicate why she headed down this path that led her to write this book. It is a tone that remains constant throughout the book, never maudlin or self-pitying, just a simple fact of her life. This is an admirable quality. When Whelchel was young, she moved to Hollywood and life was essentially suspended while she acted. When The Facts of Life ended, Whelchel's career came to a halt. Years later, as a homeschooling mother and a pastor's wife, she realized she had few true friends as a grownup, a glossy superficial veneer preventing her from attaching too deeply to anyone. This book is a really insightful look at the process of working through that veneer allowing vulnerability and growth into your life. Whelchel smartly touches on several key issues with women's friendships that often prevent women from being genuine in friendships. This is an enjoyable and telling portrait of life in Hollywood from a young age and how Whelchel grew up, learning from her mistakes. There are some truly delicious bits here that all women will relate to, including the gossipy nature of women's friendships that keep us from working in a truly supportive and collaborative way with each other. She notes her longtime friendship with Nancy McKeon, who played Joe on the hit show, as one of her greatest takeaways from her time acting. She also delves into some of the darker sides of fame that she personally experienced. For instance at an age when puberty began to make the child star gain weight, she was forced daily to endure the humiliation of a weigh in prior to each day of shooting. Others might call that abuse, but Whelchel simply refers to it as something she felt at the time that she deserved. With therapy and the help of friends, she comes to realize how all of these prior experiences led her to create a wall around her that prevented her from being in a true friendship. Friendship For Grownups is a nice read and a smart look at vulnerabilities in female friendships.

Friendship For Grownups, Lisa Whelchel
Thomas Nelson publsihers, 2010, USA, $21.99 US.
Thriftymommas rating $$$$ out of a possible $$$$$$ or 4 out of 5.
Insightful and heartfelt.

Thriftymommastips does not get paid to review books, but receives a free copy of the book from the publisher.

To enter this giveaway you need to do three things:
1. Leave a comment here with your email address stating that you want to win Friendship For Grownups.
2. Follow this blog. See sidebar.
3. Follow @inkscrblr on twitter. Or let me know if you already follow me.

Good Luck. I will draw for this with the help of random.org on May 28th.

Sean Aiken, the One-Week Job Guru

He found true love, tried out 52 different jobs and, along the way took the temperature of an entire generation, kickstarting a one-week job empire. Sean Aiken, author of The One-Week Job Project spoke with thriftymomma last week about the U.S. release of his book this coming week and a summer job project like no other. From firefighter to yoga instructor. From cowboy to fundraiser, Sean Aiken has tried it all. Aiken is author of The One-Week Job Project and a media sensation. In one year Aiken, a recent college graduate from Port Moody, B.C. tried on as many hats as possible in search of a career that sparked his passion. His idea attracted attention from around North America. "When I first started this project I thought I was alone in this search," Aiken told thriftymomma. But Aiken quickly learned the topic hit a nerve and legions of fans understood the universal search for a career they were passionate about. This week Random House publishes his book in the United States. This month I had the pleasure of reading the story, a fun, light and, at times, philosophical look at life and the relationship we have with our career and our colleagues. The year he spent examining himself and his own passions led him to employers who were self obsessed and those who were selfless, those who tirelessly worked for non profits raising funds to help cure cancer and those who promoted films pompously self inflated and egomaniacal. There are numerous excellent glimpses into really interesting career paths. Aiken recalls some of his favourites: "My answer changes. I really enjoyed being a park ranger in Hawaii and a real estate agent." In the book, his fondness for Steam Whistle Brewing, a microbrewery, in Toronto makes this one of the highlights. Clearly this employer has a knack for treating employees right and a reputation for knocking off work at 5:30 and rounding up the crew for a trip through downtown Toronto on the Steam Whistle party bus. Throughout the book the media attention Aiken attracted first shocked him and then became a little too familiar. He chronicles the trials of keeping up with the media requests and the dangers of falling into a trap where you begin to believe all of the hype created by the image machine. Early in his travels Aiken attracted a sponsor and was fortunate to be able to have this unique quest funded in part by NiceJob. Along the way he met a girl named Danna, from Toronto, who endures the lengthy separations and ups and downs of the bizarre year. Thriftymomma wanted to know if Danna and Sean were still together and readers will be glad to know they are happily living in B. C. Later on in the book Sean's mother is diagnosed with cancer causing him to question whether he can finish the journey or not. But Aiken clarifies his mother is well now. "I could definitely see myself teaching at some point," says Aiken. "For now I am really enjoying giving the talks. It has been so rewarding to have so many students come up to me afterwards and say how much the book resonated with them."

This book, blog and web site, http://www.oneweekjob.com/ are all very entertaining.The book is excellent for anyone contemplating a job change or searching for a career. It would be a lovely graduation gift for a high school or university student. On the One-Week Job site a new project, which is a mini version of the book, has been spun off into a contest starting this summer. The winners net $3,000 to try out 8 different jobs, hopefully finding their passion in the process. Entrants must be 18 years of age. Each individual will sculpt their own path and line up their own series of jobs to try out. Interest has been very good so far, he notes.

Sean Aiken
The One-Week Job Project, Penguin Canada, 2010, 288 pages, $19.
To be released in the U.S. next week Random House.
Thriftymommastips rating $$$$$ out of $$$$$. Highly entertaining and informative. Enjoyable and insightful. Thriftymomma doesn't receive compensation for her reviews, instead publishers send one free copy for review.