Readable Rodents

I can't believe I'm going to admit this, but I recently attended an athletic event where all of the participants were rodents. In a weekend with two childrens' soccer games and another one's ice hockey game, we squeezed in the Hamster Ball Derby at Petco. That's right; I gave up precious hours of my Saturday afternoon watching Mario, our pet gerbil, put to shame on a plastic track by a bunch of hamsters in plastic balls. While my children cheered, cajoled, and commanded him to the finish line, Mario paused to groom himself and I thought it's not a far leap from Petco to the greyhound track or that whole mess Michael Vick got himself into. Trying to be more positive, later in the week we reflected upon other rodents who have impressed us with their adventures. By the way, they are all imaginary. Our list included Ralph S. Mouse, Lily of the purple plastic purse fame, that mouse who got the cookie, went to the movies and school, and of course, the Big Kahuna, Stuart Little. If we lined them in plastic hamster balls and yelled "Go!" who do you think would win? My money's on Ralph S. Mouse.

Look Out, Container Store; We're Talking Old School Storage Today

One hot, steamy day in August, my sister and I took my three kids on a field trip of sorts. We left New Jersey and took public transportation into Brooklyn. Once there, we visited my sister-in-law and her scrumptiously adorable new baby boy. We all went out to lunch together, and my kids whispered to me that we have to buy Mo Willems' Knufflebunny for the baby because his neighborhood looks just like the one in the book. Plus it's really funny. That's one blank filled on my Christmas shopping list. After lunch, we left my sister-in-law and her perfect boy and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was interesting, fun, and ridiculously hot. I believe I told the kids my underwear was so sweaty you could grow rice in it. Or something like that. Once we made it to midtown Manhattan, we stopped in every place we thought might be air conditioned. One of those places was an old fashioned tobacconist shop. It had a wooden Indian outside and everything. I don't smoke and never have, but oh, the smell of pipe tobacco is divine. Combine it with air conditioning on a hot humid day, and I could have moved in. While my sister and I inhaled as deeply as possible and perused the tobacco products and their accoutrements, my three kids asked the salesmen if they had any extra empty cigar boxes. A very nice tobacconist (talk about old school words) led them into a room sized humidor to make their selections.

I'm not glorifying cigar smoking. In fact, I think it's nasty. But cigar boxes are magical. They seem made for holding collections even more than for holding cigars. They are perfect for stamps, baseball cards, comic books, video games, rocks, shells, photographs, paperback novels, coins, even buttons. Yes, that's my daughter's button collection shown above. There is something timeless about wooden and cardboard boxes with hinged lids and gold seals, pictures of Spanish ladies and foreign writing. Who needs Ikea or WalMart for storage solutions? Cheap plastic boxes hold cheap stuff; cigar boxes house treasures.

Old School Week Spirals On

Did you Spirograph as a kid? That little construction right there, turning a noun into a verb, is pretty new school, so maybe I shouldn't have used it during Old School Week here, but actually, it's more about classic old books and products, not about writing in a retro style, so I'll repeat. Did you Spirograph as a kid? I did. I loved putting the little circle inside the big circle, sticking a ballpoint pen in the middle and making hippy dippy trancey spiral designs. As it turns out, all of those designs have definite mathematical formulas, but I never bothered with that aspect of the activity. I just liked decorating my notebooks, folders, and any piece of scrap paper I could find. The version I had back in the 1970s was put out by Hasbro and could keep me entertained for hours. A few years ago, my daughter received the "Hypotrochoid Art Set" pictured above as a birthday gift and fell in love with it. I hunted it down on the Internet (definitely not how my original set was purchased back in the day) and bought several to give as gifts at birthday parties. Patina Stores sells it for $7.95. By the way, Patina Stores has lots of other fun and sometimes retro gift items for the tweens and teenagers you occasionally shop for. Klutz books has The Spiral Draw Book which includes spiral wheels and pens but apparently it is not as easy to use and is more expensive than the Hypotrochoid Art Set. Therefore, I've only given you the link to Patina Stores. Have fun!

Here Comes Fall

It's T minus four days until my kids go back to school. Fortunately we've had a bit of a cool snap here in northern New Jersey which makes the idea of school seem logical rather than horrible. We've had a week of weather that makes you grab a sweater and think about apple picking and high school football games. The cool days inspired a bit of organization. Don't worry- it didn't result in full on fall cleaning. We straightened up a bit and returned all of the library books, audio books, and DVDs we've amassed this summer. So long, Artemis Fowl. Fare thee well, Geronimo Stilton. Now I need to dust around the book bench, dagnabbit! The kids and I also made our annual school supply shopping trip armed with lists mailed to us by their teachers. I could get on my high horse about suburban teachers requiring expensive and hard to find items like twistable colored pencils, but frankly that high horse is exhausted. Fortunately, the whole $5.49 twistable colored pencil thing didn't kill the joy I get from sniffing new notebooks and organizing folders and loose leaf paper.


One other side effect of this autumnal weather is that it has inspired a whole rash of play dates. My kids have been hanging out with friends like crazy before homework and soccer practice get in the way. A few days ago, I had three boys building a fort in my yard and three girls playing "Adoption Center" with baby dolls in the house. And while I know it would have made Gloria Steinem wince, I let everyone stay in their little gender role boxes. In fact, I eavesdropped a bit on the adoption center, and it was more compelling than any soap opera I have ever seen! After that, I provided conditioner for a Barbie makeover. Yesterday, it was girls baking cupcakes in the kitchen while little boys ran through the room with paper towel tube light sabers. I tried to mix it up some by having the boys help decorate the cupcakes. They did so while saying, "Sayonara, sucker!" to every sprinkle they ate and by coming up with synonyms for "constipation" and "diarrhea." Won't their language arts teachers be pleased with their verbal skills next week?


Here's hoping that the weather stays cool enough that they don't resent climbing aboard the big yellow bus next week, but not so cool that it ruins recess, because everyone knows that recess is the best part of the day!

Ethan Allen, Eat Your Heart Out

Earlier this summer my husband built bookshelves for my daughter's bedroom. She had fun planning them and helping him build and paint them. I'm having fun watching her organize her books and treasures on them. It reminds me of that wonderful quote by Anna Quindlen: "I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."

Foodie Friday Tidbits

A number of blogs I read run a Random Thoughts Tuesday feature. Today's post here could be called Random Friday Foodie Book Stuff. First, we got a hold of Eric A. Kimmel's fun new picture book, The Three Little Tamales, that I wrote about here several Fridays ago. It is a retelling of the three little pigs story featuring adorable tamales. My older kids have read it aloud several times to my six year old son. It begs to be read with accents and silly voices.

We've also recently read Wiggens Learns His Manners at the Four Seasons Restaurant about a cute little puppy who learns some etiquette lessons. It would probably be best for a preschooler or kindergartner read together with an adult.

My last bit of Foodie Friday randomness (besides mentioning that I need to get to the grocery store pronto) is that I flipped through Roy Finamore's new cookbook, Tasty, just before bed last night. It is filled with scrumptious sounding recipes that seem relatively simple and don't call for too many ingredients. I had several food dreams last night, including one about sundried tomatoes and crusty French bread which made me drool all over the pillowcase. Sadly, when I woke up this morning, Cornflakes and frozen waffles were my only breakfast options. As I said, I must get to the food store.

Have a great weekend!

The Artistic Spirit Is Willing But The Flesh Is Another Story

I had the best of intentions at the outset of summer vacation. The kids and I were going to get ourselves some culture. We were going to drink in art museums and classical music, maybe even some historical sights. Well, we have gone swimming frequently and eaten a lot of ice cream. Does that count as culture? Luckily, I found two great books at our library that don't quite serve as a substitute for a trip to an art museum but have engaged all three of my kids. Katy Friedland and Marla K. Shoemaker's A is for Art Museum is terrific. It is, as the title suggests, an alphabet book, and it presents dozens of pieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A question is posed of each piece as well, helping readers/viewers/art appreciators think about the art. For example Modigliani's Portrait of a Polish Woman faces a page that reads, "N is for neck. Here is a lady with a very long neck. Can you stretch your neck like this?" Van Gogh's Sunflowers is used for the letter S. "S is for sunflowers. Vincent van Gogh loved to paint sunflowers. Can you see where he signed his name?" In addition to the question given for each piece in the book, the authors give suggestions to enhance the readers' next museum visit. If we can organize ourselves to go this summer, I've got some great ideas to try with the kids.

My other fun art book discovery is the Touch the Art series of board books featuring famous works of art. We especially loved Pop Warhol's Top. My six year old son Ethan learned about Keith Haring in art class during the school year and made an exuberant picture inspired by his work so it is not surprising that he enjoyed the Keith Haring pages in this book. It makes 20th century art approachable with fuzzy pages and pop up book type action as well as a bit of background information on each piece. Other titles in the Touch the Art series are Brush Mona Lisa's Hair and Make Van Gogh's Bed.

Foodie Friday: Lemonade

School is about to let out for the year here in New Jersey so we visited the library yesterday to stock up on summer reading material. When my kids are on summer vacation they like to read about other kids on summer vacation. That makes sense, but unfortunately it led me to allow a book to come home which promises to be like inviting a migraine headache for a visit. It is Jacqueline Davies' The Lemonade War. It is about a brother and sister who engage in an all-out lemonade stand war. Apparently we will also learn a bit about the multiple intelligences as the brother Evan is "people-smart" and his sister Jessie is "math-smart," according to the back cover. I think some math, advertising, and economics get thrown in as well. Each chapter of this book written for third through fifth grade readers opens with the definition of a marketing term such as "joint venture" and "underselling." All in all, it sounds like a good summer read for my kids. Here's the rub: they are going to start begging me to help them to set up a lemonade stand. I don't know what it is about my children, but the idea of selling food to people fascinates them. My daughter is not and never was a Girl Scout. She has no interest in badges, campfires, and sit upons. But once a year when her friends show up with their cookie order forms she turns green with envy. And every summer all three kids campaign for a lemonade stand. We live on a busy road with no sidewalk and hardly any shoulder. It would be one dangerous and probably unprofitable business venture. Besides, I want to spend my summer lazily sipping Arnold Palmers (equal parts lemonade and iced tea) not mixing them up for strangers. Hopefully they can live their entrepreneurial dreams vicariously through Evan and Jessie as they read The Lemonade War. There is also a website at www.lemonadewar.com for kids and teachers with recipes and ideas that might be worth visiting if they enjoy it.

Foodie Friday: Feed Me with Stories

What makes a great cookbook? Easy to follow instructions, obtainable ingredients, lots of photographs, and a large font are all important. I suppose tasty recipes help too, but my favorite part of a cookbook is its stories. I love the history of a recipe. What inspired it? Where did the author first eat or create it? Did she us artichokes because that was all she had in her pantry? Did his grandmother make this particular chicken soup when he was sick as a child? Did her Indian nanny have these nuts as an after school snack? It's the back story that sells me on trying a recipe. Many of the cookbooks I read come from the new nonfiction shelf at my town's public library. When a new one comes in, I will flip through the pages. The longer the paragraph after the title and before the list of ingredients for each recipe, the more likely I am to check out the book.

I looked through the cookbooks on my home bookshelves to share a favorite this Foodie Friday and I found one with lots of good stories and tidbits. It is River Run Cookbook by Jimmy and Maya Kennedy and Marialisa Calta with a forward by David Mamet. Yes, that David Mamet. River Run is a tiny restaurant in rural Vermont with some very loyal local patrons, including Mamet. The menu of the restaurant and the contents of this book are largely Southern comfort favorites with Northern touches. There's Fried Catfish, Grits, Pulled Pork, Coca Cola Cake, and a number of items featuring black-eyed peas to name a few. I'm not a fan of black-eyed peas, but I'm still a big fan of this book. It gives the reader a sense of the small town community from whence it came. Where the recipes originated and/or which customers and employees favor them are revealed along with lots of black and white pictures.

Flipping through River Run Cookbook, I spotted a recipe for "Really Big Buttermilk Biscuits" that I've never tried. As I have a few cups of buttermilk in the fridge, purchased to make some lovely lemon raspberry muffins on Mother's Day, I think I'll give it a go. I do love me some biscuits! I'll let you know how they turn out. Hopefully that'll be a story with a happy ending.

In Praise of Standardized Testing

No, I'm just kidding with that title. I'm not going to sing the praises of standardized testing. I've studied all the arguments including, but not limited to, distortion of the curriculum and teaching to the test, stress, cultural bias, and impeding critical thinking. I believe Oprah recently had a guest on her show who connects standardized testing with bullying in schools. That said, there was something wonderful about last week, the week when my third and fourth graders took the NJASK (New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge) test. Do you know why? Because the teachers sent home no homework. Oprah's expert could have come to my house to observe the drop in bullying or at least the drop in stress in my kitchen every day last week. My ten year old son frequently spends ninety minutes on homework, but not those five days of testing. Instead, he played with his brother and friends outside, he built Lego masterpieces, rode his bike, and read Kate DiCamillo's beautiful book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. One day during testing when he was finished, his teacher helped him select it from the classroom library. He enjoyed it so much that he read his sister's copy at home in the evenings. He never would have done that after more than an hour of homework. He went with Edward from Egypt Street to the bottom of the ocean to a garbage heap to learning to love others. I'm not really singing the praises of testing but rather the benefits of less homework. It was a great week of pleasant afternoons. By the way, my daughter used the free time to read The Penderwicks, More About Paddington, and The Secret of Platform 13. She didn't create any Lego wonders, but she didn't mind. Her discovery of the Penderwick sisters will probably inspire her to compose her own ode to testing week.

Greetings and Readings from the Garden State

Perhaps I've mentioned that my family likes to spot license plates when we are on car trips. On our recent drive from New Jersey to Washington DC to West Virginia and back home, we listed over thirty different state plates we saw. As my kids have been doing this for years you would think we know all about the fifty nifty United States by now. However, there's always more trivia to learn. For his recent tenth birthday, my mom gave my son a great source of more state facts, Greetings from the 50 States:How They Got Their Names written by Sheila Keenan and illustrated by Selina Alko. It is colorful, interesting, and devotes one map and one page of text to each state. The book provides just enough information to entertain without overwhelming. I like that it includes how each state got its name and nickname(s). I've always known that Ohio is the Buckeye state and Oklahoma the Sooner state, but now I know why. Greetings from the 50 States is terrific for the middle grade reader interested in nonfiction, geography, or headed out on a road trip soon.

Garden Plans

Michelle Obama's got nothing on me. Oh, okay, there are those degrees from Princeton and Harvard as well as her wonderfully toned upper arms. Oh, and one more thing. She's got 1,100 square feet just lying around the yard, unharrassed by deer and waiting to be planted with vegetables. I actually think the newly planted White House vegetable garden is a brilliant idea. I hope it does serve to showcase seasonal vegetables and healthy eating. I love that some of the bounty will be shared with DC soup kitchens. My mom recently told me about a New Jersey elementary school near us that had students bring in apples to donate to a local soup kitchen and food pantry to honor Johnny Appleseed Day. That story made me feel good all day as did the one about the new White House vegetable garden.

Unfortunately, I pretty much have two brown thumbs, a mostly shaded yard, and sometimes as many as a dozen deer at a time walking through that shade eating everything green in their paths. These factors are working against a successful garden here on the grounds of The Book Bench estate. My husband and kids have worked some agricultural magic in the past, but it's a struggle as the little patch has to be surrounded by four feet of chicken coop type fencing. That does detract from the aesthetics a bit. I've got the answer this year: the kitchen windowsill! We'll be planting lamb's ear, polka dot plant, sensitive plant, spearmint, lemon balm, and cinnamon basil thanks to "Sprout Your Own Leafy Wonders" and "Sprout Your Own Sweet Scents." Put out by Chronicle Books, each set comes with planting trays, peat pellets, seed packets, and well written booklets. The booklets provide instructions on planting and later repotting (very ambitious), information about the plants in particular and growing things in general, and growth logs. As an added bonus, it's all environmentally friendly, using biodegradable planters and 100% recyclable packaging. Take that, Mrs. Obama! Actually, I'm wishing success to all of this year's gardeners and recommending these little kits as great birthday presents for kids who may have an interest in growing things but less available lawn space than Sasha and Malia.

Pizza Friday!

It makes perfect sense that I would choose pizza as the focus of this Foodie Friday. It's in fact surprising I haven't used it on any past Fridays considering how many Friday nights I order it for dinner. By the end of a week of school, homework, sports, and activities, my mind and energy are often too fried to come up with a great dinner idea. Pizza and a salad makes a terrific default dinner. Pizza is the ideal food to serve kids. It's tasty, it includes three major food groups, it can be eaten without utensils, and let's hand it to God and the Italians for creating an entree that is so helpful in teaching fractions. Moreover, if you do like my dad did when I was a kid and tear the delivery box into plate sized pieces, you've got no dishes to clean. It's no wonder there are so many kids' books on the topic. For this Foodie Friday, I'm going to share a beloved old family favorite and a fun new find. We've had Pizza Pat on our bookshelves since my eight and ten year olds were toddlers. It has been joyfully read so many times it is now held together with Scotch tape and hope. This easy reader by Rita Golden Gelman and illustrated by Will Terry tells the story of a pizza baked by chef Pat and stolen by a bunch of rats in the style of a cumulative poem such as "The House That Jack Built." It is addictively fun to read such lines as "This is the oven 800 degrees, that cooked the pizza and melted the cheese that topped the sausages, spicy and choppy, that sat on the sauce, all gooey and gloppy, that covered the dough, all stretchy and floppy, that lay in the tray that Pat bought." Pat and his pizza helped all three of my kids learn to read, making it as beloved and utilized as the phone number to our local pizzeria that delivers.

Our new literary pizza find is Tony and the Pizza Champions, a picture book energetically illustrated by Matthew Trueman and written by Tony Gemignani. Tony is, according to the dust jacket, "a world renowned pizza acrobat and chef." Tony and the Pizza Champions tells the story of the team he assembled to go to the World Pizza Championshp. Readers get a little geography as he criss crosses the USA to collect Mighty Mike and Strong Sean from Ohio, Silly Siler, a unicycling pizza chef from South Carolina, and Famous Joe, a sky high pizza tosser from New York City. Like any good team, the guys have to practice, and then they fly to Italy for the big competition. Gemignani the author uses this opportunity to show some of the many ways people eat pizza around the world, such as the Brazilians who like ketchup on their pies and the Swedes who enjoy them with coleslaw on the side. This is one of several features of the book that would make it a fun elementary school classroom read. Happily, the book ends with Tony and his team winning the world championship, and it includes recipes and illustrated instructions for tossing pizza dough. The process is pretty nicely explained in the book, but you can also check Tony out on YouTube.

Buon appetito!

Duck! Rabbit!

I have tried on my shopping list/teacher note/scrap paper book above to recreate for you some of the doodlings of my youth. Back when I was in elementary and middle school, all of my textbooks had to be covered. There were no Book Socks then. We used brown paper shopping bags- the perfect canvas for doodles and scribblings. If only Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenfeld's fun and clever Duck! Rabbit! had been around in my youth, you can bet your Sharpie markers my notebooks and grocery bag sheathed textbooks would have been covered in duck/rabbit doodles. Apparently, the is it a duck or is it a rabbit visual puzzle has been around for years, but it's new to me and my family. This delightful picture book presents two disembodied voices, one on the left side and one on the right, arguing whether the animal in the center is a duck or a rabbit. It begs to be read aloud to a group. It also tempts readers to draw their own duck/rabbits. This book is a big hit with my kids and their friends who have come by the house and picked it up off our book bench. Some of these kids say it's a duck, others say it's a rabbit, and all agree that the bar code turned into a zebra on the back cover is an excellent final note! How cute would this one be stuffed in an Easter basket?!

Foodie Friday: Spud Lover's Delight

Several weeks ago, I included Tomie dePaola's Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato on a Foodie Friday. It bears mentioning again with St. Patty's Day just around the corner, and it set me to thinking about other potato based books I know. Here are a few:
Potatoes, Potatoes is a great little antiwar picture book for preschool through third grade by Anita Lobel

The Greatest Potatoes is a fun historical fiction picture book written by Penelope Stowell and illustrated by Sharon Watts for that same age group.

For eight to twelve year olds, I highly recommend Patricia Reilly Giff's Nory Ryan's Song which deals with the potato famine in Ireland in the mid 1800's.

I'm no Martha Stewart, and certainly no one should be taking cooking lessons from me, but I recently tried a new (to me), easy and scrumptious way to make potatoes. I combined two recipes, one from a cooking show and one from a magazine, for Hasselback Potatoes. The result? Garlicky, buttery heaven on a fork. Jamie O'Rourke's neighbors might not have gotten tired of potatoes so soon had they tried these:

Christine's Hasselback Potatoes

14 small red waxy skinned potatoes

2 cloves garlic, sliced paper thin

1/4 cup butter melted with 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Clean potatoes.

2. Place one potato in the bowl of a large wooden spoon. Start at one end and make slices two thirds of the way through potato. Continue to end of potato. Stick two or three garlic slices in the potato slits. Repeat with all potatoes.

3. Place potatoes on a rimmed baking sheet. Pour melted butter/oil combo on top. Roll potatoes around to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for one hour.

4. For total decadence, serve with sour cream.

5. Enjoy!

My Favorite Genre

As you know, the t-shirt is probably my favorite literary genre. So much has to be said in so little space, unless of course you are wearing an XXXL. And if you do wear an XXXL, people won't read your shirt for fear you will think they are staring. I realize that haiku and tweets share some of the appeal of the t-shirt in that they are condensed, but t-shirts have color and wit and they're literature that's walking around, and I just love all of that. To celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday and Read Across America month, my kids' elementary school has a whole calendar of great reading activities planned for March. Tomorrow is "Read Me Day" where everyone can wear readable clothing. I imagine this will be relatively tame and appropriate considering their age group. I'll never forget asking a fifteen year old boy in a sophomore lit class I taught years ago to turn his t-shirt inside out or put a jacket over it as it had a pretty vulgar joke about oral sex on the front. He good naturedly agreed to cover it up, and I couldn't help but ask him who does the laundry in his house. After he informed me that his mom does, I asked if the shirt bothered her. He though about it and replied that his father who was divorced from his mom gave him the shirt probably to "piss her off" but it backfired because she thought it was funny. Anyway, back to "Read Me Day." I am determined not to let it be like Pajama Day where my kindergartner was the only kid in his class wearing street clothes and he got off the bus and burst into tears at the end of the day. The guilt of motherhood is crippling sometimes! So the big kids have already selected their shirts for tomorrow:



I especially love Aaron's selection. Aren't rebus puzzles great? Remember the old VA DERS and
N
I
A
G
A
R
A ? (Space Invaders and Niagara Falls) When we went to Maine on vacation as kids my dad used to drink a New England beer, Narragansetts (referred to as "Gansetts" by the locals, I believe) that had rebus puzzles printed under the bottle caps. Oh how I loved those! The caps, not the beers.

In honor of "Read Me Day," here are a few pieces of t-shirterature I get a kick out of:

Random Food and Book Thoughts on Foodie Friday

On Fridays I like to feature a food related book here at The Book Bench, but this Friday I've just got a bunch of random food and book thoughts I need to clean out of my mental closet. Heaven knows that's the only really spring cleaning I care to do.

1. My daughter has been enjoying The Everything Kids' Cookbook by Sandra Nissenberg this week. It has kept her busy in the car, at the school bus stop, and in the waiting room at the dentist's office because it has word searches and scrambles, puzzles, and games as well as recipes and cooking tips for kids.

2. Peeps are back in the stores! Sure, there were Peep pumpkins in October and Peep snowmen and Christmas trees in December, but we all know the old school bunnies and chicks are the best. Have you ever put one in the microwave and watched it puff up? Good times. Speaking of Peeps fun, my kids learned the meaning of the idiomatic expression "gilding the lily" a few years back when we dipped the bottoms of Peep chicks in melted chocolate and then sprinkles. They were fun to make, really cute, and disgustingly sweet. Http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/ is worth a visit with kids if you love those little marshmallows the way we do in my household. They are a fat and gluten free food by the way.



3. I think I mentioned that I have begun my third read aloud of Harry Potter, this time to my youngest. Somehow it got all three kids talking about the Harry Potter books and their favorite characters, settings, and plot points. We all agreed that we love Honeydukes Sweet Shop purveyors of chocolate frogs, pumpkin pasties, Bertie Botts' every flavor beans, and more. Interestingly, they noted that although it is a wonderful reading experience that Honeydukes sells enchanted treats, candy stores in and of themselves are magical places.

4. There is no easy segue from magical candy stores to Cormac McCarthy's bleak and gripping The Road. My husband is finally reading it and finding himself pulled into the store. As we were discussing it this week, I told him that every single time I have opened a can of food (soup, sauerkraut, stewed tomatoes) since reading The Road more than a year ago, I have thought of the man and the boy.

5. Speaking of me and cooking, here's an effect of the current economic nightmare: every night as I put dinner on the table, I find myself mentally calculating how much it cost to prepare per person. For example, Tuesday's Mexican lasagna night cost about $2.80 a person, but last night's grilled cheese sandwiches and fruit cost about a buck a person. I never really did these calculations on a regular basis before, but lately I can't help myself.

Those are my random Foodie Friday thoughts. Anything new with you and food?

Ha! Ha! This Old Dog Has Learned A New Trick

Do you see that colorful little yarn pom pom ball? I made it! That's right; I made it! And sadly, I felt compelled to do a little end zone dance in my dining room upon the pom pom's completion. You see, I'm not very skilled at handicrafts, and I'm even less skilled at following how-to instructions. My eight year old daughter Hayden, on the other hand, is a genius at following written instructions. She is our family's go-to person for assembling new toys and troubleshooting Lego model constructions. That's why her hands are pictured knitting below and not mine. I just can't get the hang of it.

Clearly she inherited this ability to follow directions from her father, who built a gorgeous fourteen foot wooden sailboat from blueprints or from my grandfather who taught himself how to play the piano (well) from a series of articles in the New Yorker magazine. I'm lucky I can follow a recipe. Twice a year there's mild profanity to be heard in my driveway when I have to pull out the minivan owner's manual to set the clocks back and forth. I don't want my children to suffer as I do so I try to give them many experiences with maps and plans and recipes. Much as I hate to do it, I also try to model good direction following habits. So yesterday when Hayden wanted to make yarn pom poms to embellish some of her creations, I breezily suggested she consult her small (two volume) library of knitting books. She came up empty, so of course we turned to the computer and found a great crafting blog, Bella Dia, and followed its "Pom Pom Tutorial." The tutorial was easy to follow with pictures! I created that lovely little pom pom above and never broke a sweat. Of course I'm not showing you Hayden's pom pom or the example from Bella Dia or you would leave this blog post declaring mine the lamest little knot of yarn you'd ever seen.

Hockey Tournament Weekend

We were away this past weekend at an ice hockey tournament for my ten year old son. His team won the tournament so he was thrilled. The other guys on his team had siblings there and the hotel had a pool so my other kids were happy as well. I had vague ideas of doing a "Hockey Tournament by the Numbers" post this morning. Something a little like:

90= the number of consecutive minutes our six year old spent in the pool Friday night.

82= the number of pages I read aloud of The Mysterious Benedict Society on our road trip.

6 =number of pages I got to read in my own book, Elizabeth George's Careless in Red. Back when I was pregnant, I craved her mysteries the way some women crave pickles and ice cream. Don't worry; I'm just reading this one because I saw it on the new fiction shelf at the library.

6= also equals the number of rows my daughter knitted on the scarf she's making. It annoys me no end that she can knit and I cannot.

3= number of boys from our team in the penalty box at one time during a game!

Okay, you get an idea of what I considered writing. It probably would have been much more interesting and well written than all of that. But the last few minutes we spent in the ice hockey rink before heading home overshadowed everything else that came before, and I would rather write about those minutes. As my son's team was celebrating and packing up in the locker room, I noticed a number of tweens and teenagers in wheelchairs and walking with braces and crutches arrive at the rink. They were there to play a game of sled hockey. I had never seen sled hockey before, but I've become a fan. It pretty much follows the rules of standard ice hockey, but players with mobility limitations sit in specially designed sleds. There are two blades on the bottom of the sled and the players propel themselves on the ice with ice picks that look like small ice hockey sticks and can be used to hit the puck. My ten year old son had a lot of questions about how the players would get off the bench (they don't; they line up on the sides), how they would hit the puck (quite hard), and other aspects of the game. Just a few minutes of watching answered all of his questions and impressed him. It was fascinating and inspiring. Clearly those players love the game of ice hockey and weren't going to be kept off the ice by their physical challenges. It was very inspirational to me as a parent. I've got to grumble less about driving carpools and lugging equipment around for my kids' sports and activities and spend more time appreciating how fortunate we are. It was a great weekend from start to finish.

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, My Home is Littered with Doilies and Glue

My house was overrun by Valentine's Day preparations this weekend. Each of my three children had to construct their valentines boxes, the boxes placed on their desk during the class party to collect valentines from their classmates. The kindergartner's was easy. Cover a shoebox with red paper and stickers and call it a day. My eight year old daughter spent a fair amount of time joyfully creating a pink and red, doily covered, ribbon bedecked, glitter encrusted confection. While it screams "Valentine's Day" (and that its creator has two X chromosomes), something similar won't cut it for my nine year old son. It's a real balancing act, constructing a manly valentines box. Luckily, he likes to build and has a great imagination and ended up making this ice hockey rink out of an old shoebox with some help from his dad. Note the slots in the goals so his friends can shout "Score!" if they are so inclined while depositing cards in the box.

Speaking of boys with good imaginations who like to build, have you met Iggy Peck Architect? My son in kindergarten chose to share Iggy Peck Architect for the following homework assignment. He says he loves it because "it is funny and has good words and pictures." I couldn't agree more.

Andrea Beaty has written a great book about a boy who loves to build using found objects (shoes, food, diapers). His Great Sphinx and St. Louis Arch are impressive, but it is a suspension bridge he builds that saves the day and convinces his second grade teacher that architecture is worthy of study in school. David Roberts' illustrations are fantastic, and they need to be to convince the reader of the beauty of buildings. And while this might be lost on young readers, I would kill for the gorgeous retro outfits Iggy Peck's mother and teacher wear in this fun picture book!