Crimson Frost by Jennifer Estep

 
 
 

Reading Level: (Young Adult)
(4 out of 5)

I was so excited to find out that the library finally purchased this awesome series by Jennifer Estep.  The Mythos Academy series is full of Greek myth, romance, danger, action and humor.  Book one is Touch of Frost, book two is Kiss of Frost, book three is Dark Frost, and book four is Crimson Frost.  Book five Midnight Frost will be out in August.  I can't wait.  Just so you know all four books are only available at LCPL through e-book.  If you are a die hard print fan put in a purchase request!

Gwen Frost is a gypsy and she has the gift of being able to touch an object or a person and feel their emotions and see things.  After her mother dies she is enrolled in Mythos Academy a school of myths, magic and warrior whiz kids, where even the lowliest geek knows how to chop off somebody's head with a sword and Logan Quinn, the hottest Spartan guy in school, also happens to be the deadliest. 

By book four Gwen has been in many battles, made many friends (Daphne, Carson, Kenzie, Oliver), and has finally snagged Logan the hottie Spartan.  I don't want to talk much about what happens because it will give away a lot of what goes on in the previous books and I want you to read them.  I think these books are great and I think you will too.  So check them out today!

Eat More of What you Love by Marlene Koch

Don't you wish you could just pull the food right off the page?  Some of this stuff just looks so good!  What makes this cookbook a plus is that all Ms. Koch's recipes are healthy.  She has trimmed off the calories and the fat on all our favorite recipes without sacrificing the taste.  How great is that? 

I can't wait to try: Strawberry Cheesecake Pancake Stacks (pg. 90), coconut coconut shrimp (pg. 107), Knife & Fork Chicken Caesar "Salad" Sandwich (pg. 133), Chicken Enchilada Bake (pg. 254), and Impossible Cheesecake Pie (pg. 289).

What will you try first?

Ten Dollar Dinners by Melissa d'Arabian

I'm not sure if I have an unhealthy obsession with cookbooks or a healthy one!  I love cookbooks.  I probably have over 100 at home.  In order to curb my obsession and be nice to be wallet I try and preview the cookbooks first by checking them out at the library. 

I didn't watch the season that Ms. d'Abrian was on The Next Food Network star but I can see why she won.  Her food all looks really yummy and it isn't that complicated to make.  I hate when a recipe sounds really good and then you have have 20 ingrediants to buy and you don't know what half of them are.

I tried her chicken meatball recipe (pg. 161) and they were really good.  I can't wait to try her creamy any veggie soup (pg. 74) and chicken taquitos (pg.165), and shrimp pad Thai (pg. 118).  Let's not forget about dessert!  Her buttery shortbread (pg. 309) and the double chocolate pound cake (pg. 304) are calling my name.  This is one cookbook I may just have to add to my personal collection!

Learn to Knit Cables on Looms

Knitting has always been a craft that I was not good at.  For some reason my hands and brain would never connect to make the stitch correctly and I always have to count and count and count to make sure I wasn't skipping a stitch.  About a month ago I discovered knitting looms which makes knitting so easy!

Learn to Knit Cables and Looms by Isela Phelps contains 9 patterns that can be made on a knitting loom.  Patterns range from a baby sweater to a backpack and a throw.  My two favorite are the slipper socks and the hand warmers.

Each pattern comes with a color picture and easy to follow instructions.  There is also a skill level gauge for each pattern, although each pattern seemed to be at a more advanced level.  If you are just a beginner other books might be able to help you more. I also watched videos on YouTube which was helpful.

If you are curious about knitting but don't know where to start check out the loom knitting books at the library.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Four minutes does not seem like much time-but it was just four minutes that changed Hadley Sullivan's life.

In the book The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith Hadley is four minutes late for her plane.  A plane she wasn't to excited to get on in first place since it is taking her to London to her dad's wedding to the woman he left  her mother for. 

As she waits for the next flight she meets Oliver, whose British and perfect of course.  They connect instantly after a long night on the plane next to each other.  After loosing each other at arrival will there be a chance for them to meet again?

This is a great teen read.  Although it just seems like a harmless romance, Hadley has to deal with her feeling toward her dad who she hasn't seen in over a year.  The scenes with Hadley and her father are heartbreaking and I think he is really selfish man.  On the other hand her and Oliver definitely have some swoon-worthy scenes. 

Definitely check out The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight if you are a fan of teen romances.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

This book was given to my son by my friend Steve (my age), who said it was one of the best books he had ever read. Now I consider that friend a pretty clever fellow, but even with a buildup like that, it still took me a few years to pull this book off the shelf and read it. But now that I have, I'm glad I have, although it hasn't been a life changer. 

The book involves a young fellow named Milo, who has a bad case of ennui. He is bored by practically everything he does in his normal life. But then he gets a mysterious package with the phantom tollbooth in it; he puts it together before using his toy car to drive through it. That's when his adventures start. On the order of Tolkein's map of Middle Earth, this book contains a map with the strange new places Milo discovers. It includes a city called Wisdom, a place where words are very important called Dictionopolis, and a place where numbers are king, called Digitopolis. The latter two places are run by feuding brothers, who can 
agree on nothing except that they disagree with everything the other says. 

Milo meets a new friend, a watchdog built from a clock, named T ock (even 
though he goes "tick"), a bee who literally spells, and Humbug, a very 
disagreeable fellow who nonetheless joins Milo and the dog on an impossible 
mission to rescue the lovely princesses Rhyme and Reason, who have been 
exiled to the Castle in the Air. During their journey, they meet other allegorical characters like the Mathemagician, Chroma the Great, the Soundkeeper and the Senses Taker, all of whom have very specific and humorous jobs in the story. I can see now why it was compared by early critics to Bunyan's "Pilgrim's 
Progress"! 

It was published as a children's book in the 1960s, and is filled with what Maurice Sendak calls "linguistic acrobatics". He considers "The Phantom Tollbooth" to be pure gold, so that recommendation from the famous children's author is certainly better and stronger than this one. I'm not big on allegory, so when I started reading the book, I didn't like it as much as Sendak, my friend or my son did. 

However, the cleverness and the puns did end up charming me. It was a quick 
and easy read - I probably finished it in about 3 hours, and got severai good 
chuckles and some interesting life lessons out of it. 

Still, I wish that my library had a copy of the libretto and musical adaptation of this book, so the drama teacher could put it on at my kid's school. I am curious how it would go. but omehow I have the feeling it would have all the charm of John Adams modern opera, "Doctor Atomic." 

Submitted by Gerti 

Ilium by Dan Simmons

Ilium is a fantastic exploration into a Wide range of topics, and a fresh new writing style that makes you want to finish the book from the first moment you start. Combining science fiction with so much more, it amazed me and instantly became one of my favorite books. However: be warned, the story is very complicated, and at times you struggle to comprehend the brilliance of it all. 

You might be wondering, what makes this story so great? Well, first of all, it's a story about a professor who was resurrected by the "Greek Gods" to study a real version of th'e Iliad, being acted out on the plains of a not-so-real Troy. Now, the gods are not really the "gods" of ancient times. They are nano-tech wielding "post-humans" which have long since left Earth behind. Meanwhile, on Earth, the real "old­ style" humans are happy in their ignorance; all their work is done by robotic "servitors" and they "fax" (instantaneously teleport) from city to City, unaware of the universe of events which are about to unfold. 

Now the gods are causing quite a problem. You see, when they "quantum teleport" between Mount Olympus (actually the one on Mars, which is terraformed) and the ancient reality of Ilium, they essentially rip holes through the universe. The moravecs (intelligent bio-robots) that live on the moons of Jupiter pick up this activity and decide to send a mission to Mars to find the source of the ruckus. I don't want to spoil the book, because just when you think you know the whole story, Simmons blows it up in your face. Enjoy! 

Submitted by Max