I received a review copy of this book in the mail recently and I was pretty excited when I opened it. I remember loving these sorts of books when I was a kid — the non-fiction volumes about strange facts, people and events… much like Guinness’s books of World Records.

This book is different in that it’s a huge, colorful book of the bizarre and unbelievable. It’s not limited to what’s happened this year, but pulls from history. This book is a perfect gift for young boys, but it’s also just as interesting to girls. And a certain 32 year old mom who spent a good part of an hour telling her 2 year old son to play with his toys because Mommy was flipping through it. I’m all for any books that get kids interested in reading, and I believe the Ripley’s publishers are a great resource for those reluctant readers.

From Ripley’s newsroom:

Enter If You Dare!

Each fantastic annual in the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! range contains completely new material. Every book is full of bizarre facts, incredible photographs, crazy stories, revealing interviews, and fun features – every one guaranteed to amaze.

Enter If You Dare also features icons throughout that direct you to live action clips on this very website, as well as a cool 8-page gatefold section showcasing sideshow performers from the past.

A mind-boggling array of incredible and bizarre facts, stories, interviews and features are all presented in a stunning new design. New highlights included “Ripley’s Revealed,” an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at such subjects as contortionism, fire-eating and sword-swallowing. Fascinating interviews with some of the planet’s most extraordinary people explore their motivations, while the popular “Ripley’s Research” boxes explain the science behind some of the most incredible takes in the book. Enter If You Dare also includes a dramatic double gatefold that throws light on the shady world of vampires, and two single gatefolds – a tribute to the Coney Island sideshows, and a lifesize portrait of tiny teenager Jyoti Amge who stands just 23 1/2 inches tall. With something strange to entertain and shock every member of the family, Enter If You Dare is sure to continue the massive success of the expanding Ripley’s book brand.

I received a promotional packet from Ripley’s Entertainment Inc which included book covers, the first book in the RBI series, and information about the books in the series. I was quite impressed by it. The packet informed me: “We have heard from many librarians and educators that Ripley’s should publish a series for younger children especially aimed to boys and reluctant readers. From this suggestion we are happy to present the RBI series.”

I really like the idea behind this series. Books for children and young adults that tells a story while at the same time incorporating some non-fiction into the mix as a group of teens from the RBI work to solve a mystery. Peppered throughout the pages are facts about aspects of the story in sidebar and plenty of illustrations to help kids imagine the action. I think this series is well-designed and thought out. It interests kids who like non-fiction and fiction, it appeals to young kids with the illustrations and older kids with the modern feel of technology and gadgets the teens in the RBI use which are pictured throughout the book. There are trading cards included in the book not just for characters, but for some of the facts (or fiction) found in the story. The characters are multicultural and a good mix of character types. And while the focus may have been boys and reluctant readers, I think this series will appeal to any kid in its age demographic.

The covers are slick and colorful — certainly eye-catching. The books aren’t too long so as to turn off reluctant readers by its size. And they’re affordable at $5.00 each. And I believe that books are some of the best gifts you can give. Especially when they’re interactive and fun like these.

My son will be 2 years old in a few months, but I think he’s starting to embrace the terrible 2′s with gusto already. Don’t get me wrong, he’s actually a great kid. He plays well with others, he hardly ever gets upset. He treats things well and listens most of the time. Most people tell me he’s so well-behaved and happy. And he is.

But he has this habit of smacking me. Or pulling my hair. Or pinching me. Usually this happens when he’s frustrated and can’t communicate himself well, and it almost always happens now when we’re in public places because I don’t allow him to go running off and I make him hold my hand if he won’t sit in his stroller or the shopping cart.

We introduced the idea of a naughty corner a while ago to mixed success. When he’s put in the corner, he stays there and he waits until the time is up. He’ll even take himself there when you tell him he has to go to the naughty corner. The part that doesn’t seem to be working is that he seems happy enough when he’s there; like he’s thinking, “That’s cool. I was gonna stand here anyway.” When his time is up, he dutifully gives a sorry hug and then he’s on his way. The problem is that he’s too young to understand that he’s supposed to be thinking about why he’s there and that it’s meant to be disciplining him and deterring him from repeating his naughty behavior. He just does it again and again. And we keep putting him in the corner again and again. Consistency and all that jazz.

So I was starting to think I needed some new tricks. Enter Supernanny. My husband and I don’t regularly watch her show, but we have caught it a few times when we’ve been channel surfing and it’s been on. We find that we like Supernanny’s methods because they’re quite similar to what we believe parenting should be like (discipline fairly, praise freely, maintain a routine, be consistent, etc.). So I thought I’d place a hold on her book and see if there’s anything I haven’t thought of yet.

There wasn’t. We pretty much do everything she discusses. We have the naughty corner. We use the involvement technique (as a way to deter naughty behavior). We put our son to sleep at night with similar methods. But just because I didn’t learn anything new from her book isn’t to say that it isn’t a good resource. I’d say it’s a fabulous resource for parents who are looking for structure and routine as a way of shaping and directing children towards good behavior.

I came away after reading this book to understand that I just have to keep up what I’m doing — be consistent until my son is old enough to understand a little better what the naughty corner means. He’s just too young to figure out yet that just because Mommy or Daddy said no to hitting them that one time doesn’t mean he can hit any other time either. I figure he’ll grow out of the phase once he can better communicate his frustrations and understand boundaries a little more. And until then, I’ll just leave him at home with Daddy when I need to go out in public ;)

And since this is a book review, I’ll end here by saying I think this is a great book. My only criticism is that I think I would have liked more “troubleshooting tips” for specific examples/scenarios (ie. what do you do with a nearly 2 year old son who is being naughty, but doesn’t understand what naughty means?), but that’s content for a whole other book. I wouldn’t buy it for anyone other than yourselves though, since I don’t think most parents would take kindly to someone gifting them a book on parenting, if you know what I mean ;)

Maeve Binchy is my favorite author ever, so when I discovered she had a book out all about writing, I had to get it. A while ago, The National College of Ireland held a writing class and called it “The Maeve Binchy Writers’ Club” because every week of the course, Maeve would send them an informative letter about some aspect of writing, from inspiration to publishing to writing in the various genres for the various markets. She also called on other writers like Marian Keyes, and publishers and editors in the industry to contribute a letter for the students about their fields of expertise. How lucky was that group of writers in that course? I would have LOVED to been there. Fortunately, the National College of Ireland decided to gather all the letters together and publish them in a book, along with a short story written by Maeve especially for the book called, fittingly enough, ‘The Writing Class’. So, in lieu of taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge this year (my 4 month old forbid it. He said, “Mommy, don’t be crazy. Hold me instead. ALL THE TIME.”), I would go to bed at night and read a letter in the book before going to sleep. It helped me feel like a writer.

The tips and advice in the book are good, though the contributers focus on Ireland quite a bit (ie. Irish writing competitions, the Irish publishing industry, the Irish radio market, etc.), but the main ideas still apply to anyone who wants to be a writer. As for the short story at the end, I’m sad to say it because I do love Maeve so, but it falls a little flat, being a bit too contrived and obvious. But overall, this is a good book to keep on your writers’ resource shelf to pull down and flip through when you need some inspiration to get your creative juices flowing.

Knocked Up is a novel based on journalist Rebecca Eckler’s real life pregnancy. On the night of her engagement party (which her friends will later jokingly refer to as The Conception Party), Eckler and her fiance get drunk, and go home to a night of unprotected sex. She wakes up the next morning absolutely positive she’s pregnant, and it turns out she’s right. What follows is an account of her pregnancy as she prepares herself for parenthood with her fiance.

This book is funny — very funny. I rarely laugh out loud when I’m reading, but I did numerous times with this novel. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a light, fun read.

In related news, there is some controversy brewing over Rebecca Eckler’s novel and the movie of the same name starring Katherine Heigl that was recently released. Eckler believes the movie is based on her book, and she should be credited for it. I haven’t seen the movie yet (I’m going to see it with my book club later this month when we gather to discuss this book), but if it IS true that the movie based itself heavily on Eckler’s book, then yes, she should be credited for it. Though, with the media attention given to this controversy, I’d think Eckler has already been (unofficially) credited and she’s gotten some great promotion for her book –enough to prompt at least one book club to read her novel and then go see the movie for comparison. So I’d say she came ahead in that respect. But as someone with aspirations to write a novel of my own one day, I can understand why she’d be unhappy about it and that the extra promotion her novel is getting isn’t really the point here. So despite my general dislike of Katherine Heigl, I’m looking forward to seeing the movie and looking for the similarities. I’ll update this post with my thoughts when I do.

Update (July 30, 2007): Saw the movie with my book club and the consensus was that the movie and the book share pretty much nothing in common but the title. Honestly, I don’t see how Eckler can claim that she should be credited. I think this article says everything I think about the matter (thanks to my friend Deb for the link).

By the way… the movie is hilarious. I laughed a lot, as did pretty much everyone else in the theatre. I’d watch it again.

The majority of the books I’ve had my nose in lately haven’t been fiction. Instead, I’ve been studying some non-fiction books about gardening, something I’ve really come to enjoy in the last few years since we bought our house and have been doing all the landscaping from scratch. Now that we’ve built the garage and put up the fences and laid down the pavers and put down some sod, I can turn my attention to the fun stuff… making it look really pretty :)

I have some big plans. Last year I only put in a few plants because a) I hadn’t researched what would work for the conditions in my yards, and b) we spent a lot of money on all that landscaping and building we did and I thought I might take it easy on the pocket book for a year. So this year, I’ve started drawing up plans for vegetables, herbs and annuals to plant in my tiered retaining wall gardens, perennials and annuals to plant in my flower beds, bushes and trees to plant in the yard, and (at least) 4 containers to fill with bright annuals. Oh, and I can’t forget the container water garden I’m putting together, complete with fountain, plants and fish. And I’m thinking about getting some hanging baskets and/or some planters to go on the railings on my front porch. Yep, I’ve got big plans. It could get a little expensive, but I’ve (luckily and happily) got a few transplants coming my way from family members, and I started up a bunch of plants from seed weeks ago that should be ready to plant out in another couple of weeks. Now, if only the weather would cooperate. The snow has only just melted away up here and it’s looking like we might (finally!) be done with the snow and rain storms.

Anyway… what I’m getting at is that I’ve put the fiction aside for now in favor of these books:

All of these books are published by a local publisher called Lone Pine Publishing. They’re all excellent. In addition to these local gardening books, they also publish gardening books for many other regions, including those in the USA, as well as many non-gardening books. I own most of these books, which just goes to show how much I like and use them as reference materials, as I rarely buy books anymore and get everything from the library.

I love myths, in fact, the mythology course at University was probably my favorite course of all time. I loved learning about the Greek and Roman myths; something about them just intrigues me. So it’s not a stretch for me to like the stories behind the superheroes of comic books too.

This book crossed my path at the library and once I started flipping through the pages, I got sucked right into it. It’s not so much the text that appealed to me, but the pictures. This isn’t a book about the mythology of the superheroes; it’s a biography of the artist Alex Ross and how he got into the comic book business, as well as an anthology of some of the work he’s done. I didn’t end up paying much attention to the words so much as I looked at the pictures, which are great. Though I will say that Alex Ross was pretty talented as a kid, so it’s not surprising he grew up to be an artist. All you with young children out there that love drawing should nurture that creativity; you never know what they’ll grow up to become.

Chris Baty is the founder of National Novel Writing Month. He’s also an extremely funny person. This book is full of humorous tidbits and information designed to motivate you during the craziness that is NaNoWriMo.

What I like about this book is that it’s not actually meant to be a how-to. All this book is meant to be is a challenge. It urges you to approach your novel in a way that the typical author would never think of doing: start and finish it in 30 days. Mind you, it doesn’t say you need to start and finish a novel that’s ready to be published in 30 days. Just start and finish the first draft of your novel in 30 days. And that’s what makes it so smart. If a person sets a goal to just write a novel sometime in his or her lifetime, chances are that person won’t accomplish the goal. But if that person is given a deadline? That makes it a challenge, and a challenge makes you more accountable. (more…)

Mixtionary: Mixed-up modern words for the mixed-up modern world is a “dictionary” of words created by the melding together of two or more words. When I heard about this book, I thought it would be a fun read. My husband and I have mixed-up words we use in our own conversations that belong to just us (for example, “Perfused” — being perplexed and confused). So when I was contacted by a publicist for this book to read and review here, I agreed because I thought it would be fun to discover more mixed-up words. (more…)

I’ve had a dream about being a freelance writer for a long time. When I was teaching and I hated all the marking and the late nights and early mornings, not to mention dealing with some ill-behaved kids and (equally ill-behaved) administrators and parents, I would dream about freelancing. Being my own boss. Working when I wanted to, whether it was at 2:00 AM (I’m a night owl, plus some of my best writing happens in the middle of the night) or 4:00 in the afternoon. Having an outlet for creativity, writing something people would read. Yep, very appealing.

So I figure one day when I have kids and want to be at home until they’re in school full days, I’ll try freelancing to make a little extra money. But I didn’t really know how I’d go about doing it. So when I saw this book sitting on the new books shelf at the library, I grabbed it, hoping to find lots of tips and how-to information. There are plenty in this book, but really… the majority of what I found in this book was just a lot of common sense. (more…)

So my house is only a few years old, and the backyard is a blank slate. My husband and I are coming up on two years in this house in August. Last summer, we built the garage and two big retaining wall gardens. This year, we’re putting up the fences, laying down pavers, laying sod, and planting the garden, shrubs and trees. It’s the planting that I’m really interested in. I am developing a serious interest in gardening. Well, the planning of gardens, not so much the actual grunt work of gardening. But alas… it comes with the territory.

So I have a few books I’ve had my nose in pretty much every couple of days or so for the last few weeks. The first two, Lois Hole’s Favorite Trees & Shrubs and Lois Hole’s Perennial Favorites, are basically my gardening bibles. These were a housewarming gift from some friends of ours, and they’re really good gifts. The Hole family, and the recently deceased Lois in particular, are basically the gardening gurus in my province. These books detail what grows best in our gardening zone and how to take care of them throughout the year. I’ve been toting these books around with me to greenhouses and home and garden stores so I can look up the plants that are being sold and what location they’d fit into best in my backyard. Not to mention to see pictures of what they’ll grow into (some shrubs are just ugly. Or too big forthe area I want to put them in, etc.). These are great books, especially for those of you living in the Wild Rose Country.

The third book, Gardening Month by Month in Alberta by Alison Beck, appealed to the newbie in me, since this is the first year I actually have to take care of my yard and gardens. I have no idea when to prune things, when to plant, when to transplant, etc. So when I saw this book, I snapped it up. It’s fairly thick considering the amount of information in it; it’s a little short on the info and long on the pictures. Which is okay, I just think it could be laid out better and the book could have been shorter and, well, cheaper.