Review of How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk, by John Van Epp, PhD

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Readalouds, Starred Review 0

how_to_avoid_falling_in_love_with_a_jerk_largeHow to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk

The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind

by John Van Epp, PhD

McGraw Hill, New York, 2007. 326 pages.
Original title: How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk.
Starred Review

Nine years after my husband left me, I’ve finally started dating again. And I’m finding it’s not for the faint of heart! I’m also finding that I’m so starved for male affection, it’s easy to let my feelings run away with me.

My sister is a Marriage and Family Counselor. For my 50th birthday, to celebrate that I’ve joined some online dating sites, she gave me a copy of this book, which she recommends to clients. Mind you, I haven’t had a date since I read the book, but the ideas make a lot of sense to me, and I’m hoping to get chances to put them into practice.

His promise is that he can help you keep your head when following your heart. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? The basic tool he teaches people to use is the Relationship Attachment Model. Here’s where he describes it (with a helpful diagram):

The five fundamental dynamics are the depth to which you know, trust, rely on, have a commitment to, and have sexual involvement with another person….

Picture a sound system’s equalizer with five up-and-down sliders evenly placed across the face of the board. The slider on the far left represents the extent to which you really know a person. As you move the bar on this slider up over time, you signify a richer, fuller, and more personal knowledge of the other. The next slider represents the range of trust you have for that person. This bar rises to denote a deeper, more positive, confident trust in your partner. The third slider represents the extent to which you rely on this person. Moving this bar up indicates the greater ways you depend on this person to meet your most significant needs. The fourth slider represents the range of commitment you have established with this person. The slider for this dynamic rises to signify greater levels of commitment expressed within your relationship. The final slider, on the far right, represents the degree of sexual touch and chemistry that exists between you and your partner. Elevating this slider signifies increases in the passionate chemistry and sexual contact with your partner….

Not only do these dynamics stand on their own as channels of bonding in your relationships, but they also interact with each other to produce a mix of the overall attachment in a relationship. As soon as you imagine some of the sliders up and some down, you immediately gain a sense of the mixed nature of love and attachment. In the same way that the controls on your equalizer affect the different tones of the overall sound of your music, the blend of the different levels of these five bonding relationship dynamics produces the “sound” of your attachment.

When all five are at the top level, the feelings of attachment are strongest. But when even one is low, attachment is weakened and your feelings of closeness become mixed. You are easily confused, hurt, and doubtful. The balance of all five bonding dynamics determines the healthiness of your relationship and the clarity of your perspective on your partner.

Here lies one of the most important keys to building a healthy relationship: keep a balance among the five relationship dynamics. Whenever the relationship dynamics shift out of balance with each other, you will feel unsafe, experiencing feelings of hurt, betrayal, confusion, mistrust, unfairness, anger, loneliness, or any combination of these. But when you keep these five dynamics in balance with each other so that you are not moving further ahead in one area than in any of the others, then you are securely planted in the safe zone.

There is one basic rule for guarding the safe zone: never go further in one bonding area than you have gone in the previous. This rule is based on the view that the five bonding dynamics have a specific order and logic to them: what you know about a person determines the degree you should trust him or her; this trust directs you in choosing what personal needs you can rely on him or her to meet; you should become committed only to the extent that you know, trust, and depend on that person; and finally, any degree of sexual involvement is safest when it matches the context of the overall intimacy reflected in the levels of the other four dynamics.

Slipping out of the safe zone explains the most common mistake people make in relationships: when the levels of the five dynamics are out of balance, then the emotional bond becomes unhealthy, and you tend to overlook crucial characteristics of the other person that should be exposed and explored. Thus, your love becomes truly blind. Or without knowing why, you wind up rationalizing characteristics and experiences that create a vague sense of unease.

This is by no means all that’s in the book. In fact, there’s almost too much detail. I felt like the author went on and on about what you need to know. But he continued with each of the relationship dynamics, explaining ways to strengthen that area, and providing plenty of examples and counterexamples. And the nice thing is that the big picture message is clear and easy to visualize.

And lest you think this model won’t work or is impossible to carry out, the author refers to multiple studies that back up his views on how to build a healthy and happy relationship.

Definitely food for thought. I hope I will get to try it out!

johnvanepp.com
mhprofessional.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy given to me by my sister on my 50th birthday.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Eye to Eye, by Steve Jenkins

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

eye_to_eye_largeEye to Eye

How Animals See the World

by Steve Jenkins

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2014. 36 pages.
Starred Review

Steve Jenkins does it again! He’s the one who can make incredibly detailed animal art using cut paper collage. His art looks like photographs and has amazing levels of detail. When coupled with fascinating facts about animals, his books are exceptional.

Eye to Eye looks at four kinds of animal eyes: eyespots, a simple cluster of light-sensitive cells; pinhole eyes, which can form dim but detailed images; compound eyes with hundreds or thousands of individual facets; and camera eyes, found in all birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals, emplying a lens to focus light on the sensitive surface of a retina.

Then he’s got examples of the different types of eyes and all sorts of strange and unusual eyes. We’ve got the biggest eyes in the world (on a colossal squid), eyes bigger than the animal’s brain (on a tarsier), the most highly developed eyes (on a mantis shrimp), eyes that look in two directions (on the brownsnout spookfish), an animal with a third eye on the top of its head (the tuatara), and a creature with as many as 111 eyeballs (the Atlantic bay scallop), among others.

I found some of the creatures a bit disgusting, but I’m guessing that will make certain kids enjoy the book all the more. I learned a lot about eyes reading this book. Another treasure trove of information paired with mind-boggling artwork from Steve Jenkins.

hmhbooks.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Inimitable Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous, Starred Review 0

inimitable_jeeves_largeThe Inimitable Jeeves

by P. G. Wodehouse

narrated by Jonathan Cecil

AudioGO, 2009. First published in 1923. 6 hours, 18 minutes on 6 compact discs.
Starred Review

Since I was having such fun listening to Jeeves and Wooster stories, and since the library seems to have new copies of several of the books, I decided to try to listen to them more or less in order. NoveList tells me that The Inimitable Jeeves is the third book, coming after The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories, which only has one Jeeves and Wooster story, and My Man Jeeves, which the library only has in a print edition.

I do know I’ve read The Inimitable Jeeves before, sometime or other, and the events related here were also reproduced in the brilliant BBC miniseries which I have on DVD. But that didn’t keep me from enjoying Jonathan Cecil’s performance tremendously. And I enjoyed the characters and situations all the more, because I know how they will continue to haunt Bertie’s life.

Indeed, this is the volume where Bertie first gets engaged to Honoria Glossop. It happens because, while having a disagreement with Jeeves, Bertie thought he could get his pal Bingo Little (who was then in love with Honoria) out of a scrape using his own brain power. How foolish, Bertie! I found myself trying to warn him the whole time, and shaking my head with great delight as his scheme went wrong.

Of course, Jonathan Cecil adds so much. This one involves several romantic trials which only Jeeves can solve, including one involving Jeeves himself (which I hadn’t remembered). I listened to this while driving my son back to Williamsburg after Spring Break, and there’s nothing better at making the road seem short than hearty laughter, don’t you know.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Sawdust in His Shoes, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

sawdust_in_his_shoes_largeSawdust in His Shoes

by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Coward-McCann, New York, 1950. 246 pages.
Starred Review

I’m on a roll getting Interlibrary loans of books I loved in childhood which are no longer in print. And what a shame this one is not in print! Some other books by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (which I have never read) are in print, but not this one that I checked out over and over again and loved so much!

I actually was reminded of this book about a year ago when I was looking at a site that had craft projects (I think purses) made out of old books. I was scandalized when I saw that this wonderful book had been used in such a way! I looked for it on Amazon, but the only availability was hugely expensive. So then when we were asked to try out the new Interlibrary loan system at our library, I realized this was my opportunity to revisit this childhood favorite.

And I’m happy to report that Sawdust in his Shoes is every bit as wonderful as I remember it being! Yes, there are some old-fashioned bits – most of the families are farmers, and they have a party phone line – but the core of the story about a boy who’s lost everyone he loves and then finds a home, learns about acceptance, learns to trust, and achieves excellence – that story will touch hearts forever.

Joe Lang was born in a circus wagon. His father’s a lion tamer and his mother was a tightrope artist. But after his mother’s death, his father remarried a gillie, a non-circus person, and Joe and his stepmother never did get along. For years, Joe has lived in the wagon of his best friend, Mo Shapely, a clown who trained Joe as an equestrian trick rider.

Joe is on the verge of starring in his own act when tragedy occurs. Mo tries to convince the court that he’s an appropriate guardian for a fifteen-year-old boy, but the wheels of justice turn slowly. Joe is sent to the Pineville Industrial School for Boys. It’s a horrible place, and no one has ever escaped. But Joe tries to reach the circus before they head out to the other side of the country. He ends up injuring himself when trying to jump over a barbed wire fence.

But that injury lands him in the home of a farm family unlike any people he’s ever met before. Joe won’t tell them his last name, since he doesn’t want to get sent back to Pineville, but Pop Dawson takes him on as a farm hand.

The story from there is delightful. All the family members are well-drawn. A lot of the action is shown through the perspective of Henry, three years younger than Joe and lacking in self-confidence. Henry’s sister Ann is talkative and enthusiastic and confident. And then Shelley, the little one, wins Joe’s heart by simply trusting him.

There are some old-fashioned parts of this book. Besides the party line, Pop Dawson smokes a pipe even after heart trouble. Joe gets in a fist fight in Henry’s defense, and all the men of the community cheer him on. For that matter, I’m sure there aren’t so many family farms in Oregon these days.

But the core of the book is timeless. Joe finds a family and learns to trust, but also works to rise to his proper place in the world, doing what he was born to do.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an interlibrary loan borrowed via Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Pigeon Needs a Bath, by Mo Willems

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

pigeon_needs_a_bath_largeThe Pigeon Needs a Bath!

by Mo Willems

Hyperion Books for Children, New York, 2014. 36 pages.
Starred Review

Another pigeon book! Hooray!

This one follows the pattern of the other books, with its own little twists. Once again, the child reader gets a taste of parental responsibility.

The book starts where the bus driver, dressed in a robe and hairnet, and with a towel over his arm, says, “Hi! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Pigeon is filthy. So, I could use your help, because: The Pigeon Needs a Bath!”

The pigeon is indeed filthy, as any child will readily agree. But he has plenty of arguments as to why he really doesn’t need a bath. And when even the flies think he smells too bad to be near, he has lots of complaints about water temperature and depth and amount of toys.

When he finally splashes into the tub, oh the joy! The final spread has a full page with TEN HOURS LATER, and then the Pigeon saying, “Can I stay in the tub forever?”

Yes, Mo Willems knows kids!

I had the privilege of reading this book to a 5-year-old girl who has Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! memorized. She was delighted. Another hit from Mo.

pigeonpresents.com
hyperionbooksforchildren.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Dare the Wind, by Tracey Fern

Adventure, Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

dare_the_wind_largeDare the Wind

The Record-Breaking Voyage of Eleanor Prentiss and the Flying Cloud

by Tracey Fern
pictures by Emily Arnold McCully

Margaret Ferguson Books, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2014. 36 pages.
Starred Review

How wonderful! A nineteenth century young woman navigated clipper ships for her sea captain husband and actually broke speed records because of her daring and mathematical prowess! Who knew? Now this is a true story I’m eager for little girls to know about!

The book starts with Ellen Prentiss as a child, loving the sea. Her father teaches her how to navigate. The illustration shows her using a sextant outside their house, by the sea, under her father’s observation. “Ellen worked for hours by the kitchen fire, learning the complicated calculations needed to navigate a ship.”

Ellen eventually marries a sea captain, Perkins Creesy. He becomes captain of a new clipper ship, built for speed.

If Ellen and Perkins could make the trip faster than any ship ever had, they would receive a bonus – and bragging rights as the best sailors in the world. It was the adventure Ellen had always dreamed of catching!

The author goes on to dramatize Ellen and Perkins’ record-breaking journey, using information from the log. There was plenty of adventure on the voyage, including a broken mast, and time spent in the Doldrums, with Ellen taking a daring new route to escape them.

In the end, on August 31, 1851, they reached their destination and brought passengers and cargo to the California Gold Rush faster than any other ship ever had.

An Author’s Note at the back gives more details of the journey, along with sources of more information for the curious reader.

This is a wonderful picture book about a woman who used her brains to become the best in the world!

traceyfern.com
emilyarnoldmccully.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/dare_the_wind.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Chestnut Street, by Maeve Binchy

Contemporary, Fiction Review, General, Literary, Short Stories, Starred Review 0

chestnut_street_largeChestnut Street

by Maeve Binchy

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2014. 368 pages.
Starred Review

Maeve Binchy died in July 2012, so this is a posthumous publication. Her husband, Gordon Snell, explains at the front:

Maeve wrote the stories over several decades, reflecting the city and people of the moment – always with the idea of one day making them into a collection with Chestnut Street as its center. I am very pleased with the way her editors have now gathered them together as she intended, to make this delightful new Maeve Binchy book, Chestnut Street.

This book reminds me more of Maeve Binchy’s earlier books than the later ones – it is composed of many short stories, all including someone who lives on Chestnut Street. Her later novels are similar, but have longer stories, with more of the threads intertwined between stories. A few of the characters do appear in passing in additional stories, besides the ones where they are featured, though there’s definitely not the unity of theme found in her later books.

That said, these are some truly delightful stories. Maeve Binchy knows human nature. So many of these stories, short as they are, leave you with a smile or an insight or just a good feeling that someone made a great choice. I liked that they are short, since that way there are more of them, though it did make it take longer to read – because after a few stories, I found myself wanting to give an appreciative pause rather than barrel on to the end, as I will with a good novel.

A wonderful chance to treat yourself to Maeve Binchy’s characters one more time.

maevebinchy.com
aaknopf.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, by Robert Arthur

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Mystery, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

stuttering_parrot_largeAlfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators in

The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot

by Robert Arthur

Random House, New York, 1964. 179 pages.
Starred Review

This is the second book in The Three Investigators series, but the fourth I’ve read in my current rereading spree. I remembered this as being my favorite, and on rereading it, I have to say that’s still true. The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, more than most of the others, is a puzzle-mystery. There are seven cryptic clues leading step-by-step to treasure. The scenario may not be completely realistic, but it is definitely a lot of fun.

They’re also working out some of the themes of The Three Investigators. This is the book that introduces the Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup. They also discover a down side to traveling in a gold-plated Rolls Royce. It’s highly noticeable and easy to follow.

As in the other books, there’s physical danger to the boys. It seems there’s always at least one person who carries an ethnic stereotype. Maybe they were trying to include a wide variety of cultures in the books? The bully Skinny Norris makes a mercifully brief appearance.

Mostly, this is a chance for Jupiter Jones to display his powers of deduction as the reader puzzles along with the group all that follows when the boys try to find a missing parrot – that stutters.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an interlibrary loan borrowed via Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Randolph Caldecott: The Man Who Could Not Stop Drawing, by Leonard Marcus

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

randolph_caldecott_largeRandolph Caldecott

The Man Who Could Not Stop Drawing

by Leonard Marcus

Frances Foster Books (Farrar Straus Giroux), 2013. 64 pages.
Starred Review

I got to hear Leonard Marcus speak about this material at the 75th Anniversary Caldecott Preconference last June in Chicago. There and in this book, he tells why Randolph Caldecott completely changed children’s books, and why his name is a fitting title for the award for the most distinguished picture book each year.

The book is filled with art work done by Caldecott and related images such as pictures of the places he lived or contemporary art work shown for contrast. Every double-page spread has at least two images, usually more. The format is large, like a picture book, but the text is detailed, like a chapter book.

The material is varied as well, with sketches interspersed with watercolors and photographs. The story told is the story of someone who started out as a bank clerk but eventually doodled his way to a distinguished career as an artist who will never be forgotten and who made books for children all the more accessible.

leonardmarcus.com
mackids.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Interrupted Tale, by Maryrose Wood

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Historical, Humorous, Starred Review 0

interrupted_tale_largeThe Interrupted Tale

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Book 4

by Maryrose Wood
read by Katherine Kellgren

Listening Library, 2013. 8 hours, 19 minutes on 7 compact discs.
Starred Review

Brava! Another installment in the incredible series about The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place. This series makes fabulous listening. I laughed and laughed during my commute, my only regret being that in my own car I had no one to share the joke with, and since I listened to it, I can’t quote hilarious bits in this review.

The plot is outrageous, but told in all seriousness. Katherine Kellgren’s proper British accent strikes exactly the right note.

In this fourth book, mysteries that have followed the Incorrigibles through the entire series are beginning to be uncovered. For the bulk of this book their governess, Penelope Lumley, is invited back to her former home, the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, just in time to learn of an insidious plot to change it into the Quinzey School for Miserable Girls.

Meanwhile, the charming Simon Harley-Dickinson, he of the spark of genius, has been silent, captured by pirates, and the cannibal book from Lord Ashton’s library gains weighty importance.

The plot is wild and unlikely – and oh, so much fun! The style reminds me of Lemony Snicket’s, only far more hopeful and uplifting. This is a series I highly recommend listening to, because you will appreciate its brilliance even more than if reading it on your own.

maryrosewood.com
booksontape.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!