Sunday, January 20, 2013

Butter in the Morning


Butter in the Morning by Georgia Green Stamper

  • Paperback: 270 pages
  • Publisher: Wind Publications (December 1, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1936138549
  • ISBN-13: 978-1936138548
This collection of essays is at once heartwarming and nostalgic. Georgia Green Stamper is able to capture that down-home country feeling of her childhood and life and pass it on to the reader. The section ‘Where I’m From’ gives a snippet of country life with the stories ‘The Past is Never Dead’ where she talks about her MawMaw and PawPaw Green, to ‘My Hat’ where the topic is the wide-brim felt hat she wore to her Freshman Tea.

‘You Might As Well Laugh Mother Always Said’ is a collection of humorous essays with topics like ‘Rhubarb,’ ‘Causal Dress,’ and ‘Demi Moore Stew.’ ‘To Everything There Is A Season’ takes the reader from ‘The Garbage Collectors’ to ‘Memorial Day’ to ‘The Thanksgiving Blizzard of 1950.’
But my favorite section of the book is the book titled, ‘Butter in the Morning.’ ‘Mother’ is a touching story of her mother and the rock-hard maple dresser.  ‘Go Big Blue’ is a Kentuckians dream talking about Big Blue Madness. And my favorite essay of the book is ‘A Tale of Two Autumns’ when she describes the autumn of 1976, one of the most memorable autumns in my own life.

This is the perfect book to curl up with on a cold winter’s day, or to take with you when you only have a few minutes to read. The short chapters make it easy reading and you can skip around from story to story because they are in no particular order.  This book is good enough to enjoy every day and is one to treasure.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Hannah the Hedgehog Goes To Heaven





  • Perfect Paperback: 28 pages
  • Publisher: Tate Publishing (March 20, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 161862332X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1618623324


Hannah the Hedgehog is Lily's best friend. But Hannah hasn't been feeling well lately. Lily learns that it may be time for her pet to die, but she's grateful for the time she got to spend with Hannah.  This was a heart-warming book about coping with the sadness of death and moving on.  The loss of a pet can often be a child's first real experience with death. It's hard to know how to cope and as a parent, it can be hard to know what to say or how to explain what's going on to a child. On the other side, Hannah was sad to leave her friend, but looking down from heaven, she knows Lily will be okay too!

Moore's new book "Hannah the Hedgehog Goes to Heaven/Lily Loses her Best Friend" is designed to help. It's a flip book! One side is Lily's story and the other side of the book tells the same story from Hannah the Hedgehog's point-of-view, showing how she understands her situation and how much she cares for Lily.  This is a beautiful little book that is full of color and descriptions of the friendship between a little girl and her pet Hedgehog. When Hannah the Hedgehog gets sick and eventually dies, the little girl Lily is trying to understand what is happening and why.