Picture Poetry Book: Dictionary for a Better World by Irene Latham & Charles Waters

Poems, Quotes, and Anecdotes from A to Z

Illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini

2020, Carolrhoda Books

120 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.68 - 213 ratings

Goodreads blurb:  How can we make the world a better place? This resource for middle-grade readers is organized as a dictionary; each entry presents a word related to creating a better world, such as ally, empathy, or respect. For each word, there is a poem, a quote, a personal anecdote from the authors, and a "try it" prompt for an activity.

EMPATHY

Ears open

Mouth closed

Paying

Attention

To the other person

Helping them know

Yes, they matter.

                Charles Waters

                 an acrostic poem

COURAGE

Sometimes

courage can be

getting up to face life's

stormy world when you'd rather hide

in bed.

                  Charles Waters

                   a cinquain

KINDNESS

Kindness boards a bus.

Kindness stands

so you can sit.

Kindness unwraps

a sandwich

and gives you the bigger half.

                    Irene Latham

                    a cherita (a three-stanza poem that tells a story.  The first stanza has one line and sets the scene, the second stanza has two lines, and the third stanza has three lines.)

VOICE

a poem for two voices

I like to shout                I like to whisper

loud, proud,                   tender,

strong words                  remember-me words.

                 words have power

words can split a city     words can rain down,

with the speed                 bringing spring bouquets

of an earthquake              to a barren desert

Cinquains

 I have always loved cinquains, and I love teaching kids to write them.  "Invented" by Adelaide Crapsey, they follow a syllabication rule:  five lines, 2-4-6-8-2.

Here's one by Charles Waters from the book Dictionary for a Better World:

                Courage

               Sometimes

            courage can be

       getting up to face life's

stormy world when you'd rather hide

                    in bed.

And here are several more, written by Tristan Kilko:

Spiders

Spin webs of silk

Walk on eight long, thin legs

I see an arachnid and scream

CREEPY

Fortnite

Exciting game

Hanging out with buddies

Jaxson's my arena partner

Sniper.

Fortnite

Easy trick shots

V-bucks for cosmetics

Skins, back blings, gliders, pickaxes,

Fun game.

133. Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner

listened to library borrow on Libby
narrated by Richard Armitage
Unabridged audio (9:55)
2020
309 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished  10/10/2020
Goodreads rating: 3.80 - 16,129 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Post WWII Hampshire, England

First line/s: "He lay back on the low stone wall, knees pulled up, and stretched out his spine against the rock."

What I posted on Goodreads:  A lovely historical fiction set in a tiny village in Hampshire, England, in the winter of 1946, where eight people, all lovers of Jane Austen novels, come together to form a society to preserve the little village where she wrote her last three books.  Full of bittersweet joy and sadness, it was entertaining and delightful to follow the actions and thought of these eight people who had great insight into the mind of Jane Austen and her many characters.

Goodreads synopsis:  Just after the Second World War, in the small English village of Chawton, an unusual but like-minded group of people band together to attempt something remarkable.    
          One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists. Now it's home to a few distant relatives and their diminishing estate. With the last bit of Austen's legacy threatened, a group of disparate individuals come together to preserve both Jane Austen's home and her legacy. These people—a laborer, a young widow, the local doctor, and a movie star, among others—could not be more different and yet they are united in their love for the works and words of Austen. As each of them endures their own quiet struggle with loss and trauma, some from the recent war, others from more distant tragedies, they rally together to create the Jane Austen Society. 

What I've Got Waiting on Audible & Chirp - with Links to Goodreads

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi - Americanah (17:28) yg. Nigerian couple, 2013 (4.31)

Baldacci, David - Saving Faith (12:46) government-mystery, 1999 (3.89)

Boyd, Natasha - The Indigo Girl (10:32) 1739 SC plantation, 2017 (4.27) Chirp

Brown, Sandra - Mean Streak (11:51) myst/suspense, 2014 (4.06)

Burdick, Serena - The Girls with No Names (12:24) 1910 NYC Work house, 2020 (4.07) 

Carter, Scott William - Bury the Dead in Driftwood (10:16) #6 Garrison Gage, 2019 (4.44)

Child, Lee - A Wanted Man (14:12) #17 Jack Reacher, 2012 (4.02)

Child, Lee - Personal (12:55) #19 Jack Reacher, 2014 (3.95)

Erdrich, Louise - The Round House (12:39) 2012 (3.94)

Eugenides, Jeffrey - Middlesex (21:21) 2002 (4.01)

Frear, Caz - Sweet Little Lies (11:58)  Cat Kinsella #1  26 yo Det Const in London, 2018 (3.79)

French, Tana - In the Woods (20:24) #1 Dublin Murder Squad, 2007, 3.77

Gabaldon, Diana - Outlander (32:12) 1991 (4.23)

Grey, Iona - Letters to the Lost (16:56) 1942 London & present, 2015 (4.16)

Halls, Stacey - The Familiars (9:44) 1612 Gothic Mystery 2019 (3.89) Chirp

Harris, Charlaine - An Easy Death (9:48) female gunslinger in dyst. America, 2019 (3.84)

Healey, Jane - The Beantown Girls (11:13) 1944 US , 2019 (4.31)

Ibrahim, Laila - Paper Wife (9:47) 1923 China, 2018 (4.09)

Jiles, Paulette - News of the World (5:58) 1870 reconstruction TX, 2016 (4.07)

Johnson, Craig - The Cold Dish (13:17) #1 Walt Longmire, 2004 (4.13)

Kadish, Rachel - The Weight of Ink (23:19) 1660s & now, 2017 (4.09)

Kearsley, Susanna - A Desperate Fortune (15:42) "timeslip" romance," 2015 (4.00)

McDermid, Val - The Mermaids Singing (14:12) #1 Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, 2002 (3.96)

Mikulencak, Mandy - Forgiveness Road (10:19) 1970s Mississippi, 2019 (3.85) Chirp

Patchett, Ann - Bel Canto (11:20) 2001 (3.93)

Perry, Thomas - Strip (11:22) multi-characters on the seedy side of LA, 2010 (3.68)

Preston, Douglas & Lincoln Child - Blue Labyrinth (14:11) #14 Pendergast, 2014 (4.09)

Quinn, Kate - The Alice Network (15:07) 1947, got part way, 2017 (4.27)

Sandford, John - Shadow Prey (12:08) #2 Lucas Davenport 1990 (3.97)

Segovia, Sofia - The Murmur of Bees (14:20) 1918 Mexico, 2015 (4.27)

Shamsie, Kamila - Home Fire (7:54) 3-Brit/Pakistani siblings, father a terrorist 2017 (4.06) Chirp

Tucker, K. A. - Keep Her Safe (14:31) 2 ygish people mystery/suspense, 2018 (4.04)

Verdon, John - White River Burning (14:12) #6 Dave Gurney, 2018 (4.02)

YA

Bray, Libba - The Diviners (18:14) YA hist. fantasy: 1926 NYC, 2012 (3.95) Chirp

Brown, Pierce - Red Rising (16:12) YA dystopia, 2014 (4.25)

Clare, Cassandra - Clockwork Angel (14:36) YA dyst, 1878 London, 2010 (4.32)

Harper, Molly - Changeling (8:21) YA Magical Institute, 2018 (4.07)

Maas, Sarah J.  A Court of Thorns and Roses (16:07) YA Fantasy, 2015 (4.23)

Meyer, Marissa - Winter (23:30) #4 Lunar Chronicles,  2015 (4.45)

Nelson, Jandy - I'll Give You the Sun (12:57) YA, twin boys, 2 pov, 2014 (4.14)

Tanger, N. J. - Chimera (11:16) YA SciFi, 2015 (4.20) Chirp

Mid Grades

Gaiman, Neil - The Graveyard Book (8:24) 2008, (4.13)

Korman, Gordon - Restart (5:51) Mid Grades, 2017 (4.24)

Classics

Bradbury, Ray - Fahrenheit 451 (5:01) 1953 (3.99)

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - One Hundred Years of Solitude (14:04) Magical realism/Colombia, 1967 (4.08)

Mitchell, Stephen - Gilgamesh (4:04) 4000 yr old retelling, 2006 (3.69)

Woolf, Virginia - Mrs. Dalloway (7:05) 1925 (3.79) 

Lee, Stacey - The Downstairs Girl

Bowling, Dusti - Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus (5:27)

Austen, Jane - Northanger Abbey

Cahalan, Susannah - Brain on Fire

Russell, Nick - Stillborn Armadillos

Hoffman, Alice - The Dovekeepers

Wells, Martha - All Systems Red

May, Julian - The Many-Colored Land

Kiernan, Stephen P. - The Curiosity

Hogarth, M. C. A. - An Heir to Thorns and Steel

Chambers, BEcky - A Closed and Common Orbit

Eskens, Allen - The Life We Bury

Mamatas, Nick - Sabbath (73% finished)

King, Lily - Euphoria (18% finished)

Cauliflower Soup

1 med. cauliflower, broken into florets
1 medium carrot, shredded

1/4 cup chopped celery

2 1/2 cups chicken broth

3 T. butter

3 T. flour

3/4 t. salt

1/8 t. pepper

2 cups 2% milk

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Combine the veggies and broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover, ans simmer for 12 - 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Do not drain.

In a large saucepan, melt butter.  Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper until smooth.  Gradually add milk.  Bring to a boil over medium heat.  Cook and stir for two minutes or until thickened.

Reduce heat.  Stir in the cheese until melted.  Add the cauliflower mixture.

1 cup: 159 calories, 11 g. fat, 35 mg. cholesterol, 10 g. carbs, 7 g. protein

132. One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow by Olivia Hawker

listened on Audible
narrated by Jackie Zebrowski
Unabridged audio (19:12)
2019
493 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 10/2/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.26 - 16,304 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: 1876 Wyoming prairie

First line/s:  "I was leading the cows to the milking shed when my pa shot Mr. Webber."

What I posted on Goodreads:  3.5 Yes, beautiful, descriptive writing, but too much of it.  The story could have been told without 18 hours of listening to much of the same thing over and over.  Good story all in all, but I couldn't WAIT to finally get to then end....

Goodreads synopsis:  From the bestselling author of The Ragged Edge of Night comes a powerful and poetic novel of survival and sacrifice on the American frontier.

Wyoming, 1876. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesn’t think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage and remorse.

Losing her husband to Cora’s indiscretion is another hardship for stoic Nettie Mae. But as a brutal Wyoming winter bears down, Cora and Nettie Mae have no choice but to come together as one family - to share the duties of working the land and raising their children. There’s Nettie Mae’s son, Clyde - no longer a boy, but not yet a man - who must navigate the road to adulthood without a father to guide him, and Cora’s daughter, Beulah, who is as wild and untamable as her prairie home.

Bound by the uncommon threads in their lives and the challenges that lie ahead, Cora and Nettie Mae begin to forge an unexpected sisterhood. But when a love blossoms between Clyde and Beulah, bonds are once again tested, and these two resilient women must finally decide whether they can learn to trust each other - or else risk losing everything they hold dear.

131. The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

listened on Libby, borrowed from the library
narrated by Caroline Lee 
Unabridged audio (10:17)
2020
370 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 9/29/20
Goodreads rating: 4.23 - 3284 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: 1840s Britain, on ship from Britain to Tasmania, and Tasmania

First line/s: "By the time the rains came, Mathinna had been hiding in the bush for nearly two days."

What I posted on Goodreads:  4.5 A wonderful, though bleak, historical fiction about three women in the 1840s British penal colony which is now Tasmania in Australia. 

(I felt that the nondisclosure of ending for one of the major characters was a bit disconcerting, thus the erasure of half a point from a full-fledged five.)

Goodreads synopsis:  The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel that captures the hardship, oppression, opportunity and hope of a trio of women’s lives in nineteenth-century Australia.
          Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
          During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel -- a skilled midwife and herbalist – is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
          Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
          In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom.           Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.

Baked Crab Rangoons

 

8 oz. cream cheese (low-fat)

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 green onions, sliced

1/2 T Paprika

1 t. garlic powder

1 t. soy sauce

8 oz. crabmeat

36 - 40 wonton wrappers

• Beat cream cheese and mayo, then add remaining ingredients, folding in the crabmeat.  
• Spoon 2 teaspoons filling into the center of a wonton wrapper.  Cover remaining wrappers with a damp paper towel until ready to use.  
• Moisten wrapper edges with water.  
• Fold opposite sides over filling, pressing centers together to seal.  Repeat with remaining sides, making a four-pointed star.  
• Place on an ungreased baking sheet.  
• Bake at 350 degrees for 15 - 18 min.

Crockpot Beef Stew

1 lb. stew beef cubes

4 carrots, sliced up or baby carrots, your choice

4 potatoes, chunked up

1 pkg. dry onion soup mix

2 cans Cream of Mushroom soup

1 8-oz. can tomato sauce

1 bag frozen peas (I use green beans instead, hate peas)

I like to add onions, too....

Spray bottom of crockpot with cooking spray.  Layer the beef, carrots, potatoes.  Mix remaining ingredients and pour over top.  Spread evenly.

Cook for 7 - 10 hours.  

Serve with bread.

From Six Sisters.

Crockpot Dump Cake Apple Cobbler

1 20-oz. can apple pie filling (or even another flavor!

1 box yellow cake mix

6 T. melted butter

Dump apple pie filling into the bottom of the slow cooker.  Dump the cake mix, evenly, over the apples. Spoon the butter over the cake mix.  Don't mix!!

Cook on high for 4 hours.

Have the vanilla ice cream ready so that as soon as you spoon it out of the slow cooker the ice cream will melt and you'll have lusciousness ready to fill your taste buds.

From Six Sisters.

8-Can Taco Soup

 

Serves 6

1 15-oz can black beans (drained & rinsed)

1 15-oz can pinto beans (drained & rinsed)

1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes

1 15-oz. can corn (drained)

1 12.5 oz. can chicken breast (drained)

1 10.75 oz. can cream of chicken soup

1 10-oz. can green enchilada sauce

1 14-oz. can chicken broth

1 1-oz pkg. taco seasoning

Spray slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray.

Pour in all ingredients and stir together

Cook on low heat for 2-3 hours.

Serve with sprinkled-on cheese and taco chips.

Notes

To make this a quick and easy freezer meal, pour all ingredients into a resealable gallon-sized freezer bag. Lay bag flat in the freezer. When ready to use, remove bag from the freezer and place in the fridge and let it thaw for 24 hours. Spray slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray. Dump all the ingredients from the bag into slow cooker and stir together. Cook on low heat for 2-3 hours. Serve with shredded cheese and tortilla chips. Makes 6 servings.

This comes from the Six Sisters site.

127. Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

listened on Audible

2015
352 pgs.
Adult Chick Lit/RomCom
Finished 8/31/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.09
My rating:  4.5
Setting: Contemporary Wyoming mountain wilderness

My comments: Didn't want this one to end a charming, fun story that you knew would end wonderfully and couldn't wait to see how you got there.  The two protagonists were incredibly lovable and believable and their survival/hiking part of the story was great to listen to.  I've got to read another by this author. A totally feel-good story, not without some sadness, but worth.  Great narrator, she nailed the different voices beautifully.

Goodreads synopsis:   A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying, ten years younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It's supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother's even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can't imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen's well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming where she will survive mosquito infestations, a surprise summer blizzard, and a group of sorority girls.

Yet, despite everything, the vast wilderness has a way of making Helen's own little life seem bigger, too. And, somehow the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for herself. And how being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just have to get really, really lost before you can even have a hope of being found.

Samuel S. Lewis State Park

Friday Field Trip Number One
East York, PA
York County

One letterbox:  "Hooty Hoot" (Una Marlee Sue) found in the state park

85 acres
9-hole frisbee golf course
huge mown field for kite-flying
lots of picnic tables

great view of the Susquenna River between Wrightsville and Columbia, PA

lots of big rocks for the kids to climb

less than an hour from home

114. The Fifth to Die by J. K. Barker

#2 MLK Murders
listened on Audible
narrated by Eduardo Ballerini and Graham Winton
Unabridged audio (15:07)
2018
416 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 8/6/2020
Goodreads rating:  432 - 5744 ratings
My rating:  5
Setting:  Contemporary Chicago, with forays to New Orleans and Sourth Carolina

First line/s:  "Darkness.  It swirled around him deep and thick, eating the light and leaving nothing behind but an inky void."

What I posted on GoodReads:  Flipping back and forth between many pov's, the interesting, though gritty, mystery continues.

My comments:  Talk about ending on a cliffhanger!  I'm so glad I have the next book, the final book, in the trilogy ready and waiting.   Flipping back and forth between three Chicago cops, different girls who have been abducted, an FBI agent, and the diary of Bishop, the story comes at you from all angles.  Anson Bishop, an incredibly smart serial murderer - and a particularly gruesome one at that - is still at it, this time having an accomplice.

Goodreads synopsis:  In the thrilling sequel to The Fourth Monkey, a new serial killer stalks the streets of Chicago, while Detective Porter delves deeper into the dark past of the Four Monkey Killer.
          Detective Porter and the team have been pulled from the hunt for Anson Bishop, the Four Monkey Killer, by the feds. When the body of a young girl is found beneath the frozen waters of Jackson Park Lagoon, she is quickly identified as Ella Reynolds, missing three weeks. But how did she get there? The lagoon froze months earlier. More baffling? She’s found wearing the clothes of another girl, missing less than two days. While the detectives of Chicago Metro try to make sense of the quickly developing case, Porter secretly continues his pursuit of 4MK, knowing the best way to find Bishop is to track down his mother. When the captain finds out about Porter’s activities, he’s suspended, leaving his partners Clair and Nash to continue the search for the new killer alone.
          Obsessed with catching Bishop, Porter follows a single grainy photograph from Chicago to the streets of New Orleans and stumbles into a world darker than he could have possibly imagined, where he quickly realizes that the only place more frightening than the mind of a serial killer is the mind of the mother from which he came.

112. A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths

#4 Ruth Galloway  - British Forensic Archeologist
listened to audio on Audible
narrated by Jane McDowell
Unabridged audio (9:44)
2012
352 pgs.
Adult Mystery - Police Procedural
Finished 8/2/2020
Goodreads rating:  3.91 - 14,325 ratings
My rating: 4

First line/s:  "The coffin is definitely a health and safety hazard."

What I posted on Goodreads:  Another interesting mystery including a family museum, a horse farm, a 14th century bishop that turns out to be a female (!) and all sorts of ups and downs with parenting...including by Kate's father and Kate's father's wife, Michelle.....

My comments:  The mystery is about the Smith family, their horse farm, drug dealing, aboriginal bones. and a 14th century bishop(who turns out to be female) in the Smith Museum.  It's also about Harry Nelson getting sick and his wife, Michelle, coming to terms witht he fact that he is Kate's father and needs to be involved in her life (very good of Michelle, i think).  At the end of the book, Ruth and Max are becoming a couple.  Upcoming things to contemplate:  Nelson's sidekick is pregnatn, and although she is married, she has had a fling with Casbad.  A good story, though I wish Griffiths didn't use quite as many poinst-ov fivew as she did.  It all come together well, and was quite interesting to listen to.

Goodreads synopsis:  Combine a splash of Alan Bradley with a pinch of Kathy Reichs and you have a gripping new Ruth Galloway Mystery -- a good-hearted mystery series with a dark edge.
           Set in Norfolk, England, A Room Full of Bones embroils, once again, our brainy heroine in a crime tinged by occult forces. On Halloween night, the Smith Museum in King's Lynn is preparing for an unusual event -- the opening of a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop. But when forensic archaelogist Ruth Galloway arrives to supervise, she finds the curator, Neil Topham, dead beside the coffin. Topham's death seems to be related to other uncanny incidents, including the arcane and suspect methods of a group called the Elginists, which aims to repatriate the museum's extensive collection of Aborigine skulls; the untimely demise of the museum's owner, Lord Smith; and the sudden illness of DCI Harry Nelson, who Ruth's friend Cathbad believes is lost in The Dreaming -- a hallucinogenic state central to some Indigenous Australian beliefs. Tensions build as Nelson's life hangs in the balance. Something must be done to set matters right and lift Nelson out of the clutches of death, but will Ruth be able to muster herself out of a state of guilt and foreboding in order to do what she does best?