Cakes, breads, cheesecakes, cookies, scones, pizzas and many other decadent eats from around the world fill this book beginning to end. A must-have cookbook, especially if you’ve enjoyed watching The Great British Baking Show! Clear, concise instructions pair with beautiful photographs to tempt bakers everywhere, 5 stars!
How To Money is a must-have guide for every parent who wants to teach their children about money and for teens who want to learn about money on their own.
This book teaches:
creating a budget and sticking to it
Scoring that first job and what the paychecks mean
Navigating student loans and avoiding student debt
Getting that first credit card and what credit is
Investing like a pro and why it’s important
All so you can earn more, save smart, invest wisely, borrow only when you have to, and enjoy everything you’ve got!
Wonderful advice from an interview with Ilhan Omar, a US Congressional Representative for Minnesota: “refuse to give oxygen to people who don’t have your best interests at heart”.
This piece of advice doesn’t have anything to do with the subject of money but of self-care, which I struggle with. I’ve always found it difficult to put myself first, so it’s great that teens reading this book will hear the advice early on in their lives.
A must have money information guide that covers everything from how to correctly fill out a check and deposit slip to saving for retirement and the important reminder to take care of yourself and your health. I will be purchasing this book for the high school library, 5 stars!
Contents include foot anatomy and other foot basics, stretching and strengthening, foot massage, foot reflexology and common problems and uncommon remedies.
I love the fact that the author included recipes for helping a variety of foot ailments and for just some great self-care foot rubs. The exercises feel wonderful and stretch parts of my feet that I didn’t even realize needed attention. A must-have and concise guide for complete foot care, 5 stars!
An all-encompassing social emotional learning and self-help book! Includes personal stories from the author, other individuals and celebrities about their struggles and experiences with anxiety and social issues and how they cope and overcome the problems they’re personally dealing with. Calming activities are found throughout the book, such as a mandala to stop and color. Several techniques are offered to control reactions and explained in a concise way, such as Vipassana, an ancient meditation technique with roots back to 500 BC. I love this book full of self-help and self-care techniques written by an author who is understanding, compassionate and wants readers to succeed by sharing what has helped her and others. 5 stars!
True help for the healing process!
The author bravely shares what happened to her. She then details her healing journey.
I appreciate the honesty of her past therapy experiences. It’s good to have permission to find a therapist that you’re personally comfortable with. The definition of incest from SIA (Survivors of Incest Group) was an eye-opener because it includes more than just blood relatives. It’s anyone who betrays the child’s innocence or trust. When she mentions that it was difficult for her to understand other kids growing up and how they felt and lived emotionally, that rang a bell with me. I remember thinking that what I was going through must be normal until my friends were complaining about their lives and I realized that I couldn’t relate to their experiences at all.
This book is chock-full of helpful resources, from meditation to art therapy. The explanation of forgiveness states to forgive yourself for any misplaced beliefs that you are to blame for any abuse that has happened to you. I appreciate this explanation which clarifies that you’re not forgiving the abuser. The resources shared in the book are listed at the end and include even more! True help for the healing! You don’t have to deal with it on your own. 5 stars!
This all-encompassing cleaning book guides cleaners through home, yard, and vehicle cleaning how-to’s, recipes and tips! Ways to rid your space of pesky insects are also included. A truly essential cleaning guide, 5 stars!
Great reasons to keep laughing!
Thanks to NetGalley And Penguin Books for the opportunity to read and review Laughter Yoga: Daily Practices for Health and Happiness by Madan Kataria, M.D.!
The book takes readers through the origins or beginnings of Laughter Yoga and what this practice actually is and onto the process and how it works. Then it teaches how to laugh more alone and within a group, the shared benefits, and gives ideas for using Laughter Yoga. A Laughter Quotient Quiz opens the book and allows readers to rate the amount of laughter in their lives. I have a laughter quotient of 78 which falls in the category of “you are good at laughing, but you can do better”. Laughter Yoga practice starts with stretching, clapping and chanting which can lead to a playful attitude and onto laughter, especially in a group setting. Deep breathing exercises prepare us for belly laughing which is a healing laughter. A regular session has fifteen steps and lasts about twenty minutes but alternative options are shared to vary the session experiences. Yoga nidra is explained also. This is putting your body to sleep while your mind stays awake. This practice helps rejuvenate a person and thirty minutes of yoga nidra equals two hours of regular sleep. Fascinating practice that I tried and I agree with the helpful results. Three key tips for laughter yoga are to know laughter, do laughter and be laughter. Wonderful reasons for making laughter a part of daily life, 5 stars!
Guide to making and keeping better habits!
Thanks to NetGalley And The Experiment for the opportunity to read and review Kaizen- The Japanese Secret to Lasting Change by Sarah Harvey!
The book’s contents include how to start Kaizen, health, work, money, home, relationships, habits and challenges, stumbling blocks, and change for good. “Kaizen isn’t about change for change’s sake, but about identifying particular goals-both short-term and long-term-and then making small, manageable steps to achieve those goals.” Taking small steps in making changes is the absolute key. Kaizen is meant to be tweaked to your individual needs and goals. Continuous improvement is the philosophy of Kaizen. This informative book is filled with helpful tips for every aspect of our lives that break everything into manageable pieces to make improvements easier! Educational, instructional, enlightening and inspiring! 5 stars!
Necessary and beneficial guide!
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Overcoming Opioid Addiction by Adam Bisaga, MD.
I wanted to read this book because, as a librarian, I was hopeful that it could be a helpful guide and voice of wisdom and information to those who may need it most, whether for personal, family or friend use. Overcoming Opioid Addiction was written to give general knowledge of Opioids, the epidemic and addiction, for health-care professionals, family members and for addicted individuals. The book is sectioned into four parts, each concentrating on one of these areas. This fascinating but informative and helpful book opened my eyes to Opioids and helped me to better understand how addiction became an epidemic and how patients can be treated and overcome addiction. 5 stars for this necessary and beneficial guide to Opioid Use Disorder!
Spread the joy of reading!
Thanks to NetGalley and Workman Publishing for the opportunity to read and review How to Raise a Reader by Pamela Paul and Maria Russo!
The book opens with explanations of reading’s importance and the reading experiences of both authors. I appreciate this statement from this section of the book: “School is where children learn that they have to read. Home is where kids learn to read because they want to.” That quote sums it all up perfectly! As a parent and a teacher, I have personally experienced both school and home influences on reading. The book is broken up into parts. Part One: Born to Read includes book suggestions to the years of babyhood through toddlerhood and breaks down what babies can handle by stages and ages. Developing rituals around reading is a great way to guarantee reading takes place every day, like reading at bedtime. It’s a wonderful step when a toddler becomes a reader as he or she looks through books independently and starts telling the story on their own. A reminder of what libraries are great for for when our kids are little and not so little. Here’s an eye-opening statement that will be important to remember: …the statistic most highly correlated to literacy is the number of books present in the home. Part Two: Growing a Reader discusses the emerging reader and independent reader. Part Three: Your Middle-Grade Reader discusses “novels for children”. The following statement is a reminder of why we read, “…to escape, to uncover, to challenge ourselves, to be swept away by a compelling voice, to find companionship with characters we connect with, to travel the world from the safe distance of a living room armchair.” Thanks to J. K. Rowling for ushering us into communal reading by building excitement, anticipation and all the aspects of her Harry Potter stories that give readers topics of discussion. Part Four: A Reader for Life: Teenagers states the fact that young adult literature is a category that didn’t even exist a few decades ago. When I was a teenager, reading choices were much more limited than they are now. Reading options can be overwhelming now because we have so much choice and variety in genres. Part Five: More Books to Love by theme and reading level explores books that are humorous, tear inducing, heartwarming, family stories, full of courage, kind and empathetic, good for identifying and accepting yourself, have awesome male characters and great female characters, are historical and biographical, dealing with science and nature, and historical fiction. Fantastic book for adults wanting to foster a love of reading in their younger counterparts, 5 stars!
The Thought Spot 