The Homegrown Preschooler by Kathy H. Lee and Leslie Richards

Genre: Child Development
Rating: 5/5
I stumbled across the Facebook page for "The Homegrown Preschooler" and thought it looked like a great book. I discovered that they have a year-long curriculum called "A Year of Playing Skillfully." I checked out "The Homegrown Preschooler" to examine the philosophy before investing in the curriculum, and I am so glad I did! Not only will I be buying myself a copy of "The Homegrown Preschooler," I will be getting the full curriculum plus the summer curriculum.
This educational philosophy reminds me of John Holt's books -- his main message is that little children are simply little people. (Seems stupidly obvious, but somehow as parents we tend to focus on what our children CAN'T do.) They want to be involved in everyday aspects of life. While playing, making messes, and even acting out they are learning how to live in this big, wide world. The authors of this book provide tons of examples of ways to include children in everyday activities (for example: allow them to help scoop coffee grounds for your morning coffee or give them their very own spray bottle and rag to help clean around the house). They also explain areas where your children need to develop every day: fine motor, gross motor, language, social skills, etc. There are TONS and TONS of activities listed in the book along with explanations of the areas they will help develop in a preschooler. There are also recipes for play materials and food and instructions on how to build things like a plexiglass easel and a sensory table.

I would recommend this book to ANYONE with a preschooler or anyone who has a baby (who will someday be a preschooler!) Even if you do not intend to homeschool, these ideas can help you understand how to prepare your child for school and life. AWESOME book!

The Great Passage by Shion Miura

Genre: Japanese Literary Fiction/Humor
Rating: 4.5/5

The Dictionary Editorial Department of Gembu Publishing is working on a brand new dictionary, a project that will end up taking them fifteen years to complete. At the beginning of the book, the heads of the project, Professor Matsumoto and Araki, are looking for a young person to take over the project since they will only be working part time as supervisors. One of the employees of the department, Nishioka, suggests a young man named Majime, a true oddball who works in sales but seems like he might have a knack for dictionary editorial work. Majime is soon hired, and they all get busy working on the dictionary, getting sidetracked by other projects as the company seems not to value the new dictionary as much as the people working in the department. Nishioka soon leaves to work in another department, and a young woman comes to work in his place. Over the course of fifteen years, relationships are forged, and the commitment and devotion of the people working in the department is poured out into the pages of The Great Passage.

This book is quite unlike anything I have ever read. It has been translated from Japanese (very beautifully I might add -- I actually couldn't tell.) The Japanese culture is strikingly different than the American culture in a lot of ways. For example: the character Nishioka is presented as a goofball who isn't serious about much, but he seems like the most "normal" character in the whole book. The other characters are intensely serious people who work on the dictionary with such a passion that it almost makes me feel like a slacker--no, it does make me feel like a slacker. I won't lie and say that this book made me fascinated by the dictionary-making process. I can admit that it is important work, but they seem so obsessive about it, it is hard to understand why they love it so much. I am so used looking up words online that I forget there are actually physical dictionaries anymore. That being said, I became drawn in by their extreme passion. I think anyone would be lucky to discover something to be this passionate about, and that is what makes this book beautiful. The characters are all a little strange, but they are fascinating to read about.

The main drawback to this book is that it is a little dull. As in, it's not conventionally "exciting." The pace is slow, and there isn't anything really mind-blowingly amazing that happens. (There is also some very odd social commentary that seems out of place.) This book is simply a snapshot of a group of people who come together and do what they love. It's not about the technicalities of making a dictionary. And while there are some minor discussions about how words can mean all sorts of different things, that's not this book's aim either. This book resonates with me because of the total devotion, love, passion, and commitment these people have for what they do. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a light read and loves books and words. This book is calm and peaceful, poignant, and charming in its own way.

One for the Money by Janet Evanovitch

Genre: Mystery/Humorous
Rating: 5/5

I remember seeing the movie "One For the Money" come out a few years ago and then seeing that it was based off a rather popular book series. At the time I was a busy college student, so I never looked into it. For the last few years, I have seen the books at thrift stores and library sales. I was finally convinced to give the series a try after three separate people told me the series was "so funny/hilarious." Truly humorous books are difficult to find, it seems. I rarely laugh at anything. Maybe I'm just reading the wrong books. This series seems so odd at first glance. A young skip-tracing woman in the ghetto of New Jersey? It seemed at first like it might be a bit trashy or something. I went ahead and started out with the audiobook version. I am glad I gave this series a chance! It was delightfully wonderful! I may try to read the second one to see if the books come across the same without the wonderful narration by C.J. Critt.

First of all, this book was just FUN! It is one of the most  entertaining books I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. I will admit that I didn't belly laugh as often as I wished, but the situations were truly amusing and entertaining. The main character, like Harry Dresden in the Dresden Files series, is a hot mess--totally broke, witty and sarcastic, unfiltered, kind of hotheaded at times, and really fun to follow along. She tries her hand at skip tracing out of desperation, attracted by the possibility of earning $10,000. It's such an absurd idea, since she is going after a man accused of murder, but she's a native of the area, so I suppose she is used to the culture and the danger, etc. The situations she finds herself in are pretty funny, and the narration makes the story bright and lighthearted even though there is a lot of violence and sleaze in the book. There's a ton of language and talk of sex (though there are no actual sex scenes). I have no idea why I love this book so much. The writing makes it fun, and the narration made it irresistible!
I love the Joe Morelli character, and I also love Ranger. Heck, I loved all the characters! I will definitely be reading the rest of the books in this series! :-)

The Librarian by Christy Sloat

Genre: Contemporary Fantasy
Rating: 3.5/5

Emmeline Bailey is a nineteen-year-old college student living in California with big plans to move to England and teach. She's never been one for commitment in relationships--wanting nothing to tie her down. When her grandmother falls seriously ill, Emme must return to her hometown in Maine. Her grandmother dies, leaving a library to Emme...and a secret. Emmeline is part of a line of women who can travel in books as a preserver of history. She does so accidentally one day and meets a handsome man named Jack. She quickly develops a strong attachment to him and wonders if she could leave everything behind to stay with him...

This book was heavily advertised on my Facebook feed for a while, and I finally gave in and bought it because it sounded totally amazing (I LOVE time travel in general) and the cover is phenomenally beautiful. The concept is sort of mind-blowing and has endless possibilities. Who wouldn't want to travel inside books or travel through time? However, the execution of the story was ultimately poor.
First of all, the main character is shallow. While she has "big dreams" to move to another country, her behavior is irritating and childish. She was constantly talking about how, before the events of this book, she only wanted to make out and hook up with guys. She and her friends casually go drinking at a bar with fake IDs, not batting an eye. She had only one close friendship and was willing to throw that away after one fight. She would fly off the handle about things emotionally and then become alarmed when others did the same. She fell in love instantly with the man in the book and then took things way too far, causing lots of trouble and heartache. And this plot relies heavily on her not being told anything about the book/time travel process, which does create conflict, but it's a super lazy way of doing so. The ending was also patched up quickly and unrealistically.
I also found the book predictable, especially the part about JR Builders.
The other reason this book was difficult for me to get through was the writing--mainly the misuse of tenses. I don't think this author or her editor (if there was one) knows anything about the past perfect tense, which made the book quite confusing in many areas.

There are a few areas that gave this book a glimmer of hope. The overall concept, of course, is totally fascinating. Some of the explanations and discussions about the actual process were interesting. The love story, while at first irritating and unbelievable, did sort of start to grow on me after a while. I did feel sad for her when things fell apart and for what she had to do to fix it at the end.

Overall, this book held promise, but I ultimately wouldn't recommend it.

Spark by John J Ratney

Genre: Cognitive Psychology/Physical Fitness
Rating: 4.5/5
Audio Version review

I have exercised intermittently throughout my life, but I have had a lot of difficulty in recent years sticking to anything because I have attended college and had several children. When I found myself at my heaviest ever last year, I decided to get serious about weight loss. I chose this book to listen to because I was hoping it would inspire me to exercise, and not only for the weight loss potential. It was an excellent choice! The book's focus is, in fact, not on weight loss at all. This book focuses on the myriad of ways cardio exercise helps the brain and therefore the whole body. This book has definitely succeeded in helping inspire me to remain active. Even a little bit of exercise has tremendous effects on the brain and body.

The book starts out talking in-depth about a case study of a school in Illinois - Naperville. They instituted a new exercise program and managed to get some surprising results. Only three percent of their student body is overweight, AND they were at one point number one in the entire world on the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). They even had students wanting to work out before taking important exams like the SATs. The book goes on to discuss exercise's effect on certain conditions such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, addiction, aging, and hormonal changes. This was all fascinating information, of course. It was particularly interesting to me how these conditions are connected though levels of certain hormones and proteins in the brain (dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, GABA, BDNF, and others.) There were some shocking things too -- like how brain damage caused by drinking, the negative effects of depression, and general brain shrinkage can be fixed by cardiovascular exercise (like, at a certain point it levels out to where you might not be able to tell there was damage at all. It's apparently a myth that you can't grow new brain cells.) I was honestly blown away by how many ways the brain is able to compensate and fix itself with just a little exercise.

This author comes at this from an evolutionary standpoint. That is, he explains the way the brain works in terms of how we "evolved" to hunt and gather, and how our fight-or-flight responses, stress responses, and "state of emergency" comes into play in a modern society. This helps the information make more sense. Even if you believe humans were created rather than evolved, this STILL makes sense. Our bodies were designed to work in a certain way, and moving is an essential part of that!

Yes, this book does come across as repetitive. For me, however, that was a good thing. There are a lot of jargon (scientific) terms used, but I was actually reasonably familiar with all of them. It took a few times hearing them for it to really sink in what they were/what they meant in the context of this book. And since I was listening to the audio version, it was helpful for him to keep repeating and emphasizing what each of the hormones of proteins does in the body and the brain. I know I will remember them better because of the way this book was written. So (unlike a lot of other reviewers) I actually thought the repetitive nature of this book was helpful.

Purchase here!