Author 17: Susan Meddaugh w/ a talking dog!

Martha the dog eats alphabet soup and the letters go up to her brain instead of down into her stomach. She learns to talk and talk-even on the phone.

Granny Flo decides to take out 13 letters from Granny Elsie's Alphabet soup and Martha is no longer able to talk! She sets out to set Granny Flo straight thanks to the help of an employee at Granny's Soup Company.

Martha teaches Skits that you can still be special even if you're not a talking dog.


Susan Meddaugh's son came up with the idea during a lunch of alphabet soup. He wondered if the family dog, Martha (the inspiration for the books), would talk if they fed her some of the soup. The book version of Martha has gone on to star in her own show on PBS. For more information about the show, visit PBS.org. Susan Meddaugh is the author of about a dozen or so books and there's an interview at: http://www.patriciamnewman.com/meddaugh.html

Jesus Christ-Savior and Redeemer of the World

This post is to cover multiple authors along with the true meaning of Christmas and the two most important books we can read. At this time of year we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ-the Son of God who came to save us all.
Christ made it possible for all of us to be resurrected and provided us with the plan of salvation by which we can return to live with Him and Our Father in Heaven.
Jesus Christ by Carl Heinrich Bloch (detail from Christ with Boy)



Next I would submit that the two most important books we can read in a lifetime are The Book of Mormon and the Bible (but I would suggest reading more books in addition to these two such as The Pearl of Great Price, The Doctrine and Covenants and other great works both secular and religious). One can read the story of Jesus Christ in many books with some variations but for the holiday season I especially like the following four chapters:
Luke Ch. 1 and 2
Third Nephi Ch. 1 and 11

May everyone have a Merry Christmas and feel peace and joy in their hearts through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of His Love from our family to yours.

The Return of the Authors (for Christmas!)

(Come back next week for some sources that give us the true meaning of Christmas!)

Click on on this sentence for more on Marc Brown.
Christmas songs, snow, and Santa snacks.See more on Jan Brett by clicking on this sentence.
Make, Bake and Take some cookies to a friend or neighbor!

The Sandra Boynton post is just a click away! and....................


Click on this sentence to read about how candy canes are made by Spangler!

Click, clickety, click to see more on Caralyn Buehner.
To see some fantastic ice sculptures with pictures taken from start to finish, visit icealaska. Be sure and click on the "ice art photos by year" link on the left.

Pioneer Woman's Pecan Pie

Pie shell with pecans. (Pie shell made from Lion House recipe.)

Eggs, sugar, corn syrup and other ingredients whisked together and about to be poured onto the pecans.
Pour.
More pouring (this looks so much better on the Pioneer Woman's site.)

The pecans magically rise to the top within seconds.

The finished pie. We actually made two of these pies and the first one turned out a golden brown just like the one on Ree Drummond's site but the second one (in the picture above) got a little over toasty. It still tasted pretty good, but the first pie was better. Thank you, Pioneer Woman, for another great recipe!

Authors 14,15, & 16: Christmas Secular Classics

The book below was written by Alan Benjamin. But the original idea for Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer was written in verse by Robert L. May, a copywriter with the Montgomery Ward Company in 1939 (the store decided to develop and promote their own Christmas coloring booklet rather than buy the booklets from someone else as they had done in previous years). The song version was written by May's friend and brother-in-law, Johnny Marks and recorded by Gene Autry in 1949. Then came the television movie narrated by Burl Ives in 1964 and the classic lives on today.

"Twas the Night Before Christmas" is also called "A Visit From St.Nicholas" and was written in 1822 by Clement Clark Moore. A family friend sent the poem to the New York Sentinel where it was first published December 23, 1823. Moore did not claim ownership until it was included in a book of his poetry published in 1844. The poem is now considered a worldwide tradition.

What's your favorite version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas? How the Grinch Stole Christmas was written by Dr.Seuss (Theodor Geisel) in 1957. The animated tv special narrated by Boris Karloff came out in 1966 with the live action film starring Jim Carrey in 2000. The book was written in part as a political commentary on the commercialization of Christmas and those that profit thereby. For more information visit www.seussville.com and www.catinthehat.org

Author/Illustrator 13: A Berenstain Christmas

Jan and Stan Berenstain have so many books out on so many subjects over so many years.......
So....to narrow it down a bit, I've picked a few of their Christmas books.

Just to give you a rough idea, their website lists over 80 First Time Storybooks alone (those are the thin paperback ones like The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV and The Berenstain Bears and the Truth and the one above on the right of The Berenstain Bears Meet Santa Bear). They have dozens more including hardcover books and classic beginning readers.

Jan and Stan met in an art class in 1941. While Stan served in the Army during WWII, Jan served as a civilian doing engineering drawing and working as a riveter in an aircraft factory. They later married and had two sons. Their first book was published in 1962 and they continued to write many, many more books dealing with the challenges of family life. Stan passed away in 2005 at the age of 82 but Jan and their son Mike continue to write stories featuring Mama, Papa, Brother and Sister Bear. For more information about the Berenstain Bears, visit the official website at www.berenstainbears.com.

Author 12: Caralyn Buehner, Utahn, teaches Life Lessons

Manners-"Father, Mother, Daughter, Son, Manners are for Everyone!" (from the book)
Good deeds are eventually rewarded.
Have some fun in life!
Everyone is capable of doing good deeds if you have the heart of a hero.
Caralyn Buehner writes marvelous books that are illustrated by her husband, Mark Buehner. They are the parents of nine children and Utah residents. We really enjoy all of her books. A few of our other favorites are Fanny's Dream and Escape of Marvin the Ape. For an interview with Carlalyn Buehner please visit: http://www.ucwi.org/interviewcaralynb.htm

Food Co-op November

For more information about the food co-op, visit www.foodco-op.net. Orders for the Saturday, December 19th pick-up are due on Friday December 4th.

Harvest share $14 (Shown below)

• 1 loaf Stoneground artisan wheat bread
• 16 oz. rice

• 7 oranges
• 8 pears
• 6 apples (Utah-grown)
• 1 broccoli
• 3 red bell peppers
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 8oz. mushrooms
• 1 5lb. bag russet potatoes
• 1 bunch asparagus

Standard share $23

• 1 lb. lean ground beef (85/15)
• 2 lbs. chicken drumsticks
• 2 lbs. beef chuck roast
• 1 lb. diced pork cubes

• 1 loaf Stoneground artisan wheat bread
• 16 oz. rice

• 6 oranges
• 5 pears
• 4 apples (Utah-grown)
• 1 broccoli
• 3 red bell peppers
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 8oz. mushrooms
• 1 5lb. bag russet potatoes

Half share $14

• 1 lb. lean ground beef (85/15)
• 2 lbs. chicken drumsticks

• 1 loaf Stoneground artisan wheat bread
• 16 oz. rice

• 5 oranges
• 5 pears
• 4 apples (Utah grown)
• 1 broccoli
• 2 red bell peppers
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 8oz. mushrooms

In other news, we've recently enjoyed sweet and sour meatballs.And tapioca pudding.

Author/Illustrator 11: Jan Brett: Outstanding Animal Art

Beautiful pictures in beautiful surroundings. Jan Brett travels the world, ensuring that her locations, creations, animals and people are accurate in her books. She has written and illustrated a couple of dozen books along with illustrating another half dozen or so other books. Her books range from retold tales such as Beauty and the Beast and On Noah's Ark along with other imaginative books such as Fritz and the Beautiful Horses along with Hedgie's Surprise and Daisy Comes Home. She bought chicks to enable her to accurately draw chickens for Hedgie's Surprise and they now own five beautiful hens that love to pose for Jan. Ms.Brett has been drawing horses since she was little and Fritz was based upon a real pony who had fluffy fur and was named John.

Ms.Brett grew up in Massachusetts during the 50's and 60's. "From cave paintings to Norwegian sleighs, to Japanese gardens, I study the traditions of the many countries I visit and use them as a starting point for my children's books." Her book about Noah's ark has about 400 animals in it! She prefers illustrating over writing and her husband often does the keyboarding for her stories after she has written out the story. For more on Jan Brett, visit her website at: www.janbrett.com

Author/Illustrator 10: Marc Brown and his Aardvark

I certainly would have never guessed that an eight-year old aardvark could become a PBS star on the show Arthur and that his fame would lead to the stardom of his rabbit friend Buster in Postcards from Buster. It all started with the writing and drawings of Marc Brown.

Marc Brown started the stories by telling them to his son. Mr. Brown had grown up listening to stories in Erie, Pennsylvania from his Grandmother Thora. He was born in 1946 and started writing after attempts at being a truck driver (he got lost) and a short order cook and a tv art director.

An interesting note is that all his books (except his first book, Arthur's Nose) contain the names of his children (Tolon, Tucker and Eliza) tucked into the artwork along with other people and place names that he hides in the pages. He stumbled on this idea on a day when his sons were fighting in his studio. He hid their names in the illustration and it took them an hour to find their names-and thus the tradition was born. For a wonderful interview with Marc Brown, visit this site: http://www.hipark.austin.isd.tenet.edu/grade2/pappert/marc_brown_interview.htm

Thank you Mr.Brown for so many wonderful books and some wonderful tv shows! (I have to add that I really like that Arthur's dad is a professional caterer and the recipes that Mr.Brown concocts for him to make are truly interesting.) For more information about Marc Brown visit the official site at: http://marcbrownstudios.com/

Author/Illustrator 9: Sandra Boynton with wit

JUST PLAIN FUNNY!
















































For more info on Sandra Boynton, visit her website at: http://www.sandraboynton.com

Author 8: Brenda Haugen celebrates Halloween

Brenda Haugen has written dozens of books for Compass Point Books-many of which are biographies. She has a few books written in the series "Holidays and Celebrations" of which Halloween is one of the titles. The book focuses on the origins of Halloween in Ireland and England and mentions some traditions such as that of Christians going house to house for pieces of soul cakes and they would in turn promise to say prayers for the families that fed them. She mentions that bonfires were lit to scare away bad spirits and they did make lanterns out of carved vegetables. We will celebrate Halloween in a couple of days!

To find more books by Brenda Haugen visit compass point books.

October Food co-op

Half share for $14: 1 lb. lean ground beef, 4 4oz. cubed steaks, 1 loaf wheat bread, 16 oz. lentils, 2 avocados, 5 Golden Delicious apples (Utah-grown), 5 pears, 4 bananas, 1 head cabbage, 2 lbs. carrots, 1 eggplant

Farmer's Market Share: Assorted winter squash, onions, potatoes and basil. This is the last of the Farmer's Market share for the season. It's nice to buy local and nice that it's organic. We love squash so this assortment will be enjoyed in the winter months to come.

We could have also gotten a standard or harvest share.

Standard Share for $23:
2 lb. boneless, center-cut pork loin roast, 2 lb. split chicken breast (boneless, skinless), 1 lb. lean ground beef, 4 4oz. cubed steaks, 1 loaf wheat bread, 16 oz. lentils, 2 avocados, 6 Golden Delicious apples (Utah-grown), 6 pears, 5 bananas, 1 head cabbage, 2 lbs. carrots, 1 eggplant, 3 lbs. yellow onions (Utah-grown)

Harvest Share for $14:
1 loaf wheat bread, 16 oz. lentils, 4 avocados, 10 Golden Delicious apples(Utah-grown), 9 pears, 8 bananas, 1 head cabbage, 2 lbs. carrots, 2 eggplants, 3 lbs. yellow onions (Utah-grown), 2 spaghetti squash (Utah-grown)

For more information visit the foodco-op site. The order for November is due Friday, Nov. 6 with food pick-up on Saturday, November 21st.

Author 7: Jeff Brumbeau writing about quilts

These two are among our favorites! We check these books out of the library over and over again. First is The Quiltmaker's Gift followed by The Quiltmaker's Journey which is a prequel. Fabulous illustrations, beautiful stories-what's not to appreciate, learn from, and love?
In the first book we meet a selfish king who wants a quilt-but he's asked to earn the quilt despite his attempts to just take a quilt.

The quiltmaker wasn't always the woman making quilts on the mountain. Once she was a girl with everything living in a sheltered town that did not know poverty or want in anyway other than the unhappiness that she felt of having everything and not helping those less fortunate. She leaves the town through a hidden passageway out to the world beyond. When she returns to the town she tells them of her discoveries at which they scoff and she chooses to leave. But, she must leave with nothing except her clothes she is wearing and her mother's ring. She wants to help but finds she can't help some people because she does not know how. At last she finds a mother and child sleeping out in the cold and she knows what she can do. Thus starts her work of making quilts.

Author Jeff Brumbeau and the illustrator Gail de Marcken have a website at http://www.quiltmakersgift.com At their site you can find more books about quilting along with stories inspired by the books.

Quiche and Caramel Apples

Sarah's lovely quiche with homemade crust. Filled with cheddar cheese and a bit of Parmesan, it was a lovely light dish for Sunday supper. Find the recipes at recipezaar. Thanks for the quiche recipe #86516 and the quiche crust recipe #18185 (we found we needed to add more flour and next time we might cut down the oil just a little).

Another recent endeavor was the making of caramel apples-an appropriate activity to discuss for the month of October. D1 chose to put chocolate sprinkles on her apple, D2 just wanted plain caramel and DM just wanted to eat the caramel plain with not an apple in view.

Author/Illustrator 6: Simms Taback makes something from nothing

An oldie but a goodie-Joseph Had a Little Overcoat was first published in 1977 and redone in 1999. An overcoat goes through many different transformations to eventually become a story. We've read this one many times along with other books written by and/or illustrated by Mr.Taback (pronounced tay-back) including his other Caldecott winning book: There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.



The three r's of recycling consist of reduce, reuse and recycle. There's a good government website with ideas for each of the r's at http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/recycle.htm Some of the ideas for reduce include using cloth bags at the grocery store and trying to buy at least some items in bulk. Under reuse one can both donate and buy from charitable institutions such as goodwill or DI (Deseret Industries is a nonprofit, vocational rehabilitation facility thrift store sponsored by the LDS Church with 46 stores in Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.) The final "r" of recycle includes a list of things that should be recycled. A few of these include: newspapers, batteries, aluminum cans and yard waste.



Find the official website of Simms Taback at www.simmstaback.com. Simms Taback was born in New York in 1932. He was a founding president of the Illustrators Guild which merged with the New York Graphic Artists Guild where he was a founding member and president. For 28 years he worked with Mr.Reynold Ruffins who was a founding member of the Push Pins Studios. Mr.Reynold Ruffins says that Simms Taback "is genetically programmed to be generous." Mr.Taback worked for many years to organize illustrators to help them get in touch with one another and current business practices to help "raise the standards and protect the interests of the freelancer, and in fact, of all art professionals." He mentions that Mr.Taback does have a consuming interest (he jokingly claims addiction!) in the consumption of chocolate. Mr.Taback has also created a number of wonderful posters that can be viewed and even purchased on his website. There's even a poster for pumpkin cookies!

Matzo Ball Soup-Jewish penicillin

For a homemade recipe of Matzo Ball Soup, please go to http://www.jewfaq.org/food.htm which also has more information on Jewish cooking and other aspects of Judaism. Matzo balls are often of two varieties: floaters or sinkers. The causes of sinkers v. floaters are actually the results of the amount of oil, the cooking temperature, the cooking time, and whether or not the lid is lifted off the pan during cooking.


We like Matzo ball soup from the mix. I admit we haven't compared the two brands-we just mix them together to make a big pot of soup.


It's really easy to make-just combine the mix with oil and eggs and let sit for fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, make the broth with the other packet and bring to a boil. Form the balls into walnut sized portions and drop into boiling broth. Cover and cook on a simmer for about a half hour and you've got a comforting and easy chilly day dish.

Author 5: Lynn Plourde with school days

Do you have book fairs at your school? Dewey Booker can hardly wait for his class to go to the book fair but they are the last class in the school to go! Will there be any books left? What about the new Amazing Explorers Atlas? Or mysteries and histories? Will he have enough money in his bookworm bank?



We've read Lynn Plourde's book before such as School Picture Day and Wild Child. Mrs. Plourde writes a varied selection of books from simple verse to more complex stories for older children. I like the quote on her homepage: "...a better job title for me might be 'word player. I love playing with words....I just spill them onto paper, stack them up, move them around, and see what I can create.'"



Mrs. Plourde has over a dozen wonderful pictures books out in print with a number addressing issues with Mrs. Shepherd's class. She is a wonderful example of never-giving up. It took 13 years before her first book was accepted and that was after hundreds and hundreds of rejection letters. She emphasizes that it is better to write well than to write long. For more information, visit Lynn's website at www.lynnplourde.com

Potato Salad-mmmm.....po-ta-toes: boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew

We recently made potato salad.



Some ingredients are diced pickles, diced celery, and diced sweet onion.















Then there's cubed, cooked potatoes and hard boiled eggs.

















Combine with dressing and seasonings to get potato salad!

















Only one small flaw.......the potatoes were still a bit hard. Thank you dad, for still liking my slightly crunchy potato salad!

Update: After microwaving a little portion, the potatoes softened up and the salad improved greatly in texture!