Book Review and Tour: How Do You Tuck In a Superhero? by Rachel Balducci

 

How Do You Tuck in a Superhero? And Other Delightful Mysteries of Raising Boys by Rachel Balducci

Publisher: Revell

Publish Date: April 1, 2010

Paperback,

My Review:
When I first received the offer to review this book I was intrigued.  I am a mom to two boys so this sounded like just the book for me.  And my first impression was right on the money.  How Do You Tuck in a Superhero is filled with quick little stories to read about what life is truly like in a houseful of boys.  Now Rachel Balducci has me beat - she actually has 5 sons (and I thought 2 was enough).  I think any  mom of boys can relate to the stories in this book.  I know they had me laughing out loud and sighing right along with the author.

It's a quick and easy read and very enjoyable - it's also a great pick-me-up for the end of a long day.  Just read one of the stories and you are bound to relate to it, and then either feel better or end up dying laughing.

I'm off to check out her blog now as it sounds like it is right up my alley as well.
About the Book:

When Rachel Balducci looks for material for her writing, she doesn't have to look far. Her subject matter can be found climbing through the window, hanging on to the edge of the roof, and always at the refrigerator. Here she chronicles the exuberant, awesome life of boys through conversations overheard, rules she's been forced to make, and the many episodes of boy behavior that continue to mystify mothers worldwide. From the care and feeding of her team, to travels out in public, to their wide-eyed adoration of Walker, Texas Ranger, this laugh-out-loud celebration joyfully explores the sweet and wild side of boyhood.

About the Author:
Rachel Balducci is a writer and the mother of five lively boys. Her website, www.testosterhome.net, has been nominated for several awards. Rachel is a former staff writer for the Augusta Chronicle and has been published in numerous magazines, including Good Housekeeping, Faith and Family, and The Word Among Us.

 

Available April 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Thank you to Donna Hausler at Revell for sending me this book for review. 

Pump Up Your Book Promotion Tour and Review: World War II Heroes of Southern Delaware by James Diehl

Join James Diehl, author of the historical nonfiction book, World War II Heroes of Southern Delaware (The DNB Group, November ‘09), as he virtually tours the blogosphere in November and December on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion!

Thank you to the author and Pump Up Your Book Promotion for my copy  of World War II Heroes of Southern Delaware for reading and review.

My Review:
Both of my Grandfathers served in WWII along with many great-uncles and others in the family.  I recently became fascinated with this period of time.  I thankfully did get to talk some with my maternal grandfather some about his service in the Pacific before his passing 3 years ago.  I never got to talk with my other grandfather as he passed long before I was born.  As the author mentions in the beginning of this book, we are reaching a time where these stories are starting to disappear and I agree that is vital that these stories are told.  This was a very important time in history and these men (and women) who sacrificed for their country are heroes, even if they don't consider themselves heroes.

James Diehl does a wonderful job telling the stories of 48 men and 2 women who served this country during WWII.  I hope there are more projects like this one in the future for other states.  It was fascinating reading - a first hand look from those that were there.  I'm not a huge history buff, but I loved this book.  My husband will be reading it next as he is a huge history buff.

Each story is just a few pages long, but give you a good look at each person.  I wanted to know more, but each story was very self-contained and interesting.  I loved reading each one and felt I got to know a little bit about each person and got their very personal insight into WWII.

It's wonderfully written for history buffs and for people just interested in the human side of the war.  I think everyone would really enjoy this book, and take something away from it.

About James Diehl

James Diehl is an award-winning journalist who has covered Sussex County, Delaware for various media outlets since 1998. Since 2007, he has owned and operated a freelance writing company based in Seaford, Delaware and is also a partner in a Lewes, Delaware-based public relations and marketing firm. He is the author of one other work of non-fiction – “Remembering Sussex County, from Zwaanendael to King Chicken,” published in 2009 by The History Press. James lives in Seaford, Delaware, with his wife and two daughters. You can visit his website at www.ww2-heroes.com.

About World War II Heroes of Southern Delaware

World War II Heroes of Southern Delaware is a book unlike any other ever written. In its pages are profiles of 50 ordinary Americans who did extraordinary things during a time unlike any other in American history.
These are men and women who today call southern Delaware home. In the 1940s, these brave Americans put their lives on hold to fight for freedom and democracy against the horrific threat imposed on the world by Emperor Hirohito of Japan and German Fuhrer Adolph Hitler.
When Imperial Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, the world changed forever. These men and women were a big part of that change; they fought to protect our freedom and our way of life.
Among the amazing stories you’ll read in “World War II Heroes of Southern Delaware” are:

• A United States Marine who was a part of the 1945 attack on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. He was one of 17 members of his company who survived, a company that numbered more than 300 at the beginning of the attack.
• An Army soldier who was responsible for uncovering Adolph Hitler’s enormous, and illegally gained, fortune toward the end of World War II.
• An Army navigator who led a group of 500 B-29s over Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945, the day the Japanese surrendered to the United States.
• A United States Navy machinist’s mate who narrowly survived a Japanese kamikaze attack.
• A United States Marine who witnessed the horrific attack on Pearl Harbor from the deck of a nearby ship.
• Men who survived German prisoner of war camps.
• First–hand accounts from the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day invasion.
• Two black soldiers who served their country with pride during World War II.
• Men who liberated German concentration camps.
• A woman who served her country by becoming a part of the “Rosie the Riveter” movement.
• And much, much more.

Readers of World War II Heroes of Southern Delaware will also receive a bonus section on Fort Miles, the immense, heavily fortified military facility built to protect the mouth of the Delaware Bay and the city of Philadelphia from an attack by the German navy. Today, the fort is being renovated and will soon become one of the largest World War II museums in the country.

Read the Excerpt!

Ed Roberts will never forget the day American tanks rolled into Moosburg, Germany – more specifically into “the hole” the Germans called Stalag 7-A, a prisoner of war camp where the Pennsylvania native spent nine months as a guest of the German government during World War II. It was, as a fellow prisoner later penned in his memoirs, a day when he saw 10,000 men cry. “You just can’t imagine the joy we felt after almost a year of making do under all kinds of situations,” Roberts says.
When American tanks rolled into the compound and started distributing K-rations, Roberts – who at the time was down to a mere 135 pounds – and his fellow prisoners started gobbling them down like they were candy.
“But after all that time, nothing tasted good,” he remembers.
As a prisoner of war in Germany, Roberts and his fellow captives called themselves kriegies – short for the German word kriegsgefangenan, which appropriately translates to “prisoner of war.”
As a kriegie, Roberts essentially had no rights. But when the American flag was raised over Moosburg in April, 1945, he realized his time in “German hell” was over.
Decades ago, former kriegies started the “Kriegie Klarion,” a monthly newsletter for those who suffered in German prisoner of war camps during World War II. Vernon L. Burda, who was in Stalag 7-A with Roberts, penned the following passage after the camp was liberated by American soldiers on April 29, 1945.
It still rings true to Roberts today.
“…for no apparent reason, a hush fell over the compound and all eyes turned toward the town in which stood two high church steeples. [More than] 20,000 eyes saw machine gun bullets splatter against the steeples – a period of quiet – and then it occurred. [It was] a scene, the happening of which brought tears streaming down the face of every single American prisoner of war there, and a sob from every throat.”
The passage continues: “We saw the greatest sight – the most emotional minute that we would probably ever witness. Raised before our eyes and flying defiantly above one of the church steeples was the symbol of our beloved land. The American flag!”
It was an emotional end to a fantastic journey that saw Roberts leave Pennsylvania State University and transverse the American landscape while training to become a fighter pilot. Joining the U.S. Army Air Corps on Nov. 11, 1942, all he ever wanted to do was fly.
“That was always my interest,” he says simply. “I took all kinds of physical and mental tests and, after that period, people in charge would say if you should be a pilot or a bombardier, or whatever. My classification was a fighter pilot.”
Roberts spent time training across the South, including stops at military facilities in Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Virginia and Florida. He even spent about a month flying P-47 Thunderbolts at Dover Army Airfield, now Dover Air Force Base. Finally, in the summer of 1944, he was sent to England and assigned to the 412th Squadron of the 373rd Fighter Group.
His unit was based on the beaches of Normandy following the D-Day invasion – Roberts says he’ll never forget the first time he flew over the famed beachhead.
“After the invasion, the Americans stayed in one place and they brought in all kinds of supplies,” says Roberts, who missed participating in the D-Day invasion by just two weeks. “Every free space on that beach was loaded down with supplies. It’s hard for people to understand the enormity of the whole thing. All we could see when flying over was hundreds of ships in the water and lots of supplies on the beaches.”
Taking off from Normandy to the south, Roberts says he would only be in the air for 400 to 500 yards before he was over enemy lines and, thus, taking enemy fire. He flew four missions before being shot down and taken prisoner – he still remembers it as if it was yesterday.

World War II Heroes of Southern Delaware Tour Schedule

Monday, Nov. 2
Interviewed at Talking Virtual Book Tours
Tuesday, Nov. 3
Book Spotlight at Examiner
Wednesday, Nov. 4
Interviewed at Beyond the Books
Thursday, Nov. 5
Interviewed at American Chronicle
Friday, Nov. 6
Interviewed on Kim Smith’s Introducing Writers Radio Show (8:30 eastern; adjust to your time zone)
Monday, Nov. 9
Interviewed at Pump Up Your Book!
Tuesday, Nov. 10
Guest Blogging at Beth’s Book Review Blog
Wednesday, Nov. 11
Guest Blogging at Market My Novel
Thursday, Nov. 12
Book Spotlight at The Writer’s Life
Friday, Nov. 13
Interviewed at The Writer’s Life
Monday, Nov. 16
Interviewed at Blogcritics
Tuesday, Nov. 17
Interviewed at Broowaha
Wednesday, Nov. 18
Interviewed at In My Youth
Thursday, Nov. 19
Book Spotlight at As the Pages Turn
Friday, Nov. 20
Interviewed at As the Pages Turn
Monday, Nov. 23
Interviewed at Divine Caroline
Tuesday, Nov. 24
Book Review at Reading to Know
Wednesday, Nov. 25
Interviewed at Review From Here
Friday, Nov. 27
Guest Blogging at Blogging Authors
Tuesday, Dec. 1
Book reviewed at 4 the Love of Books
Book spotlighted at Between the Covers

James Diehl’s WORLD WAR II HEROES OF SOUTHERN DELAWARE VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR ‘09 will officially begin on Nov. 2 and end on Dec. 16. You can visit James’ blog stops at www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com during the month of November and December to find out more about this great book and its talented author. If you would like to host James’, contact Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife@yahoo.com before Oct. 31. Thank you!

Review and Giveaway - The Sugarless Plum by Zippora Karz

The Sugarless Plum by Zippora Karz

My rating: 4.75/5.0

Publisher: Harlequin
Binding: Hardcover
Release Date: November 1, 2009
Pages: 288

I received this book from Caitlin Price with FSB Media for review.

I am really starting to enjoy memoirs - I have gone from being a straight fiction reader, to reading non-fiction and enjoying it. This is just one of the things that reviewing books has done for me.

My Review:

The Sugarless Plum was a very enjoyable memoir of the life of Zippora Karz while she was growing up and in the New York City Ballet dealing with Type-1 Diabetes. It was a fascinating look inside the life of a ballerina. I had no idea what all they go through during the day and how many performances they do. I have never been to a ballet myself since I live in a small town, so I really didn't know much about it. This book has shed light on the ballet world and has made me very interested in it.

This look at Zippy's life is amazing and inspiring. How she plows through it all while dealing with a life-altering illness is amazing. The book is very uplifting and honest. It read like a fiction novel in that it never lost pace and kept me wanting to know more and more about Zippy page after page.

Entertaining, enlightening and very inspiring, this is a wonderful book that almost anyone would enjoy.

About the Book:

For dancer Zippora Karz, a rising young star with the famed New York City Ballet, being diagnosed with diabetes could easily have ended all her dreams. She was just twenty-one when she was plucked from the corps de ballet to dance solo roles like the Sugarplum Fairy in The Nutcracker. It was near the end of a grueling season when she became exhausted, dizzy, and excessively thirsty. Heavy pancake makeup covered the sores under her arms that would not heal, but still Karz neglected to return her doctor s urgent calls. When she finally went to the doctor, she learned that her blood sugar was excessively high. If she continued to ignore her symptoms, Karz risked heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, and amputation of toes, feet, and legs. Because she was over twenty, doctors misdiagnosed her with Type 2 diabetes, when in fact she had juvenile (or Type 1) diabetes. Her weight dropped and she became dangerously ill as a result of being prescribed the wrong treatment. Once correctly diagnosed and placed on an insulin regimen, she would inject herself with unsafe doses before going on stage in ill-judged attempts to obtain peak performance. The potentially fatal result of Karz s self-experimentation became all too real when she nearly put herself into a coma.

Balancing ballet and her blood sugar would be a long and difficult struggle for Karz, but eventually she learned to value her body and work with it, rather than rage at its limitations. In The Sugarless Plum, Karz shares her journey from denial, shame and mis-education about her illness to how she lead an active, balanced, and satisfying life as an insulin-dependent diabetic and ballet star. Through her fascinating story, those struggling with diabetes and other serious illnesses can find encouragement and inspiration as well as practical advice on achieving physical and emotional wellness.

After sixteen years with the New York City Ballet, Karz retired and took her passion and skills into a whole new arena as a diabetes educator and advocate, where today she inspires people to not just manage their illness, but to thrive and fulfill their passions. The Sugarless Plum takes readers deep into the heart and soul of a young dancer, and is a remarkable testament to determination and perseverance.

Giveaway:

I would like to giveaway my copy of this book - it's hardcover, and it gently used shape.  It's a wonderful book and I would love to share it.  To enter simply leave a comment with your email address.  Giveaway open Internationally this time.  Giveaway will end on 11/10.

For additional entries (you can put these all in one post - I'll count them up):

• Follow me on blogger, rss feed, email, twitter (+3 for each you do)
• Tweet about this giveaway (put @cfulcher so I'll see it) (+3 per day)
• Blog about this giveaway (sidebar is fine) (+5)
• Tell me a memoir you have read that you really enjoyed (+5)
  

Challenges:
100+ Book Challenge
Fall Into Reading Challenge 2009

Review: Pre: The Story of America's Greatest Running Legend, Steve Prefontaine by Tom Jordan

Pre: The Story of America's Greatest Running Legend, Steve Prefontaine by Tom Jordan





rating: 4.5/5.0






Book Description:

The story of America's greatest running legend.

For five years, no American runner could beat him at any distance over a mile. But at the age of 24, with his best years still ahead, long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine finally lost. Driving alone at night after a party, Prefontaine crashed his sports car, putting a tragic, shocking end to the life and career of one of the most influential, accomplished runners of our time.

More than 20 years later, Pre continues to influence the running world.

From his humble origins in Coos Bay, Oregon, Pre became the first person to win four NCAA titles in one event. Year after year, he was virtually unbeatable. Instead of becoming one of the new breed of professional track athletes, Pre chose to stay amateur and fight for the adequate funding he felt American amateur athletes deserved.

A man of incredible desire and energy, Pre trained relentlessly. In his drive to be the best, he spurred others to do their best. As one racer said, "He ran every race as if it were his last."

But Pre not only touched runners; his exciting technique as well as his maverick lifestyle made him a favorite of the fans. A race with Prefontaine in it was automatically an event.

His brief but brilliant life is the tale of a true American hero.

This is his story.

"Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative."--Steve Prefontaine

This was an amazing book. Since I have started running I have heard of "Pre" but didn't really know anything about him. So I picked up this book. I learned so much about track and field and also about this man whose life was cut much too short.

It's a very inspiring book and it made me want to go out and run immediately after I finished it. And Pre's story will always be in the back of my mind and I have a huge respect for all people involved in track and field on the national and international level. It takes a great deal of dedication to do what they do and what Pre did and I really admire that.

If you enjoy inspiring stories or running I suggest picking this up. The author doesn't pull any punches, he knows at times Pre wasn't loved by everyone, but he attempts to find what made Pre really tick and I think he does.
Binding: Paperback
On-sale Date: 3/15/1997
Publisher: Rodale Books
Pages: 176

Against Medical Advice by James Patterson and Hal Friedman

A nonfiction work about what it was like growing up with Tourette's Syndrome. The book was co-written by James Patterson and Hal Friedman. Hal is the father of Cory who the book is about. This book chronicles Cory's journey of 13 years from being diagnosed at 5 years old to high school. It goes through his treatments and he he felt and how he and his family dealt with all the changes he was going through.

While very sad at times, this book was very uplifting too. Cory has gone through just about everything, but you feel his strength and it reminds you that there are very strong people out there. It also reminds you to be kind to all, that you just don't know what they are going through.

I'm not a big reader of non-fiction, but I checked this out on audio from my local library. I'm not sorry at all that I did. It's a wonderful book, it held my interest and I kept wanting to learn more about Cory. Some moments I was in tears (I am a mother to two boys), and other moments I was laughing. Cory's story will stay in my mind for quite awhile to come.

On Sale Date: October 1, 2008
Date Started: 03-13-09
Date Finished: 03-20-09
From: Library/Audiobook
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 304