Review: ZooBorns by Andrew Bleiman and Chris Eastland

by Carol8 Comments
The photos of all the little baby animals born in zoos around the world make ZooBorns the cutest book I've read in years. The critters are just adorable, from the Fennac Fox pictured on the cover above to the Tawny Frogmouths born in Sea World, show below. Several photos of each baby are included, all in full color filling the 6 inch square pages. They're detailed and just a delight. Each "Zoo Born's" name is given, along with their species, home, date of birth and status, whether or not the species is endangered. There's also a little blurb telling more about the animal, maybe how they would live in the wild or how they are being taken care of. Few books are truly for all ages, but I think this one is. The pictures are so adorable and little kids are just fascinated by animals that I can see them loving just looking at the photos and being told the animal's names....
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Teaser about a Girl Named September

by Carol13 Comments
The Leopard of Little Breezes yawned up and further off from the rooftops of Omaha, Nebraska, to which September did not even wave good-bye. One ought not to judge her. All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter to terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. (Tuesday Teaser from pg. 4 of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente - ARC)...
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Review: The 17-Day Diet by Dr. Mike Moreno

by Carol2 Comments
Like many people, I could stand to lose more than a pound or two, so when The 17-Day Diet came out, I thought I'd give it a try. The 17-Day Diet is set up in 4 cycles , each of which lasts 17 days. I'm still in the first cycle, Accelerate. It's designed to give you a quick start to losing weight. In theory, you can manage any plan for only 17 days, but I probably shouldn't have started it the week before Easter. It is a very easy to follow plan, but look at all those yummy Peeps and chocolate eggs and  cherry pie. Back to the book. Basically, it gives you a list at the beginning of each cycle of the foods you can eat. The first cycle is mostly poultry, fish, a bunch of vegetables and some fruits. He also want you to drink green tea and eat two probiotic servings a day. Now I hate yogurt and...
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Review: The Seven Songs of Merlin by T. A. Barron

by Carol2 Comments
(Middle school / Young adult) I read this out loud with Amber (11) over a week or two, and we finished it last night. This is the second in the series, but we read the first, The Lost Years of Merlin, about a year or so ago, so it wasn't fresh in my mind. I was able to catch back on pretty quickly, though. At the beginning of The Seven Songs of Merlin, Merlin is 13 and is given the task of traveling across the island of Fincayra, using a magical harp to rejuvenate the land which had been devastated in the first book. The problem is he's a teenager, thinks he knows best and abandons his job to bring his mother, Elen, through the mist to be with him.But within minutes of her arrival, Elen is poisoned by a deathshadow that the evil Rhita Gawr had meant for her son. Merlin spends the rest of the book, learning the discovering the...
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Review: The Shimmer by David Morrell

by Carol7 Comments
Mysterious lights out of Rostov Texas draw hundreds of spectators each night, including police officer Dan Page’s wife, Tori. When Page follows her to Rostov and the viewing platform, they become witnesses to a massacre. A gunman shoots dozens of bystanders, but that’s just the beginning of the bloodshed. The lights are also connected to a secret government research project. But no one realizes how powerful the lights can be. The Shimmer revolves around the lights, their effects on townspeople and tourists: some see them, some don’t, some believe the lights can heal, others are driven by them to kill. It’s an engrossing thriller, good escapism, but can be a little gory in parts. I listened to it on audio, and my one complaint was that the narrator never let up. Just his tone of voice kept insisting “tension.” It fit the story-line, which was constant action, but annoyed me after a while. I think I would have preferred to read the...
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