It's Monday! What Are You Reading? and Mailbox Monday - Feb 5

Welcome to It's Monday! What Are You Reading? and Mailbox Monday.   

 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week. It's a great post to organize yourself. It's an opportunity to visit and comment, and er... add to that ever growing TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date.   

My, my, my, welcome back to Monday! How did we get back here so quickly? Hope you had a great week.

Lots going on in my world. I announced on social media that I have switched real estate brokerages. I am grateful for the 9.5 years spent with my Real Living/BHHS Realty Pros family. I'm also excited to see what the future holds at HB Real Estate. I've been moving into my new office and making plans. 

Bonus room clean up continues, and I've started meal planning on Sundays so I can be better prepared for the week's meals. This has allowed me to make a dessert once a week, like this flourless chocolate cake. I've gone back to time blocking--which I despise--and have added three days on the Peloton into my schedule. I enjoy being more organized, so hopefully the time blocking sticks. 

In my reading world, you will find my review of this children's picture book today at TC&TBC. 

My review of this book appeared here on Sunday. 

A review of this book appeared here on Friday. 

At Modern Prairie, our first book club choice is Little House in the Big Woods. I'm about halfway through it. I have a similar edition, but my copy was only $1.50 in the States and $1.70 in Canada. Yes, I'm that old. 

On Audible, I am listening to this one and loving it.

I need to read these next. 

Upcoming virtual book tours:

• When the Red Bird Flies by Courtney Reames Haydell - Feb 5 (review at TC&TBC)
• Civil Twilight by Anique Taylor - Feb 19 (guest post)
• Universally Adored and Other One Dollar Stories by Elizabeth Bruce - Mar 12 (interview)
• It Will Have Been So Beautiful by Amanda Shaw - Apr 25 (review)

At the Christmas Year Round blog last week

• Favorite Kitchen Appliances That Help Me Prep for the Holidays
  

 

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

The new brokerage has a Little Free Library, and people drop off books all the time. I grabbed these for now:

I enjoy history, even the tough parts. 

That's it from me this week. I hope to be checking in with your blogs early in the day. Hope you enjoy your week. 

Girlforce by Nikki Goldstein--Book Review

Young women who read CosmoGIRL, Teen Vogue, Seventeen and Girls' Life will feel right at home in between the pages of Nikki Goldstein's new book Girlforce: A Girl's Guide to the Body and Soul.

Basing her book upon India's ancient medical system, Ayurveda, which according to Goldstein offers a complete system of living, the author has modernized this ancient system and made it applicable to young women and the situations they are dealing with on a daily basis. Proving her knowledge of the age-group, Goldstein includes quizzes similar to those found in popular teen magazines, which allow the reader to figure out which Body Type she is, how much stress she is under, and where she is on the self-esteem meter.

The colorful front and back cover, color photographs, and appealing inside design will certainly attract teens to this book and encourage them to read more.

The basic advice found in Girlforce is all stuff we've heard before: be happy with who you are, eat right, exercise, and take care of yourself. It encourages yoga and meditation as ways to relax, which are parts of Ayruveda. What Goldstein, does however, is create Body Type specific applications for diet, exercise, stress management, fashion, and beauty techniques.

I have to admit, while I found most of the advice in this book to be helpful for young women, I did have a few challenges as I read it.

The first is that while it does tell the reader over and again how much she should appreciate who she is, most of the photos show girls who look more like professional models than average teens. In addition, Earth girls are said to be "curvaceous" and "...tend to put on weight around the hips and butt." None of the girls photographed for Girlforce look like that.

As with all general quizzes, you tend to find yourself not always able to locate the right answer for you, so you end up choosing the best answer of those available, even when none of them truly apply. This can skew the results. And for those who don't land completely in one Body Type, it can be challenging to know which Body Type specfic advice to follow because different Body Types, according to this book, should avoid certain things or use them moderately, whereas others should use them more liberally.

This reader would have liked to have seen a bit more information on how certain foods interact with specific Body Types and meditation, along with a few more examples of creative visualization.

Girlforce interested me enough that I wandered out to do a bit of additional research about Ayurveda. What I found at www.ayurveda.com is that this philosophy believes "...the entire cosmos is the interplay of the energies of the five great elements--Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth." Why the other two elements are not included in Girlforce, is not explained.

Overall, Girlforce by Nikki Goldstein will appeal to its target market. A healthy diet, regular exercise, and stress management are good for everyone, not just teens. By encouraging young women to get into this type of daily routine earlier in life, they will have an advantage over those who wait until they are much older to make such lifestyle changes.


Title: Girlforce: A Girls' Guide to the Body and Soul
Author: Nikki Goldstein
Publisher: Bloomsbury U.S.A.
ISBN-10: 1-59990-354-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-59990-354-5
SRP: $14.99 (U.S.)

Winners of the 2009 Children's Choice Book Awards

Pay a visit to the Children's Book Week website to find out the winners of this year's Children's Choice Book Awards.

You'll also find a history of Children's Book Week--which began in 1919, and special pages for kids, teens, teachers, librarians and booksellers, and publishers.

Dates for Children's Book Week:

2009: May 11 - 17
2010: May 10 - 16
2011: May 2 - 8
2012: May 7 - 13

What did you do to celebrate Children's Book Week?



[Photo of official 2009 Children's Book Week Poster from the Children's Book Week website.]