New Year’s Resolutions: How Are You Doing?

new yearsWe’re three months into the New Year and those resolutions are looking a little old and tired.  Need some help to get back on track?  The Cheshire Library has a great selection of books on health and fitness.  Here are a few titles to get you motivated.

The Spark: The revolutionary 3-week fitness plan that changes everything you know about exercise by Glenn Gaesser

Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It by Gary Taubes

Eat Move Sleep:  How small choices lead to big changes by Tom Rath

Making habits, breaking habits: why we do things, why we don’t, and how to make any change stick by Jeremy Dean

Perfect Health Diet: regain health and lose weight by eating the way you were meant to by Paul Jaminet

Culinary Intelligence: the art of eating healthy by Peter Kaminsky

7 Years Younger: the revolutionary 7 week anti-aging plan 

Thinner This Year:  a younger next year book 

The 4-hour body: An uncommon guide to rapid fat-loss, incredible sex and becoming superhuman by Timothy Ferriss

20 Years Younger by Bob Greene

The 12 second sequence: shrink your waist in 2 weeks by Jorge Cruise

Core Performance Essentials by Mark Verstegen

Come visit the library and peruse our collection of health, fitness, exercise and diet books.

Recommended Wordless Picturebooks

A great picturebook does not always need words to make it worth sharing. Wordless picture books can still help a young child learn to love books and set them on the path to being a great reader. Enjoying a well-done picturebook with no words can help a child build their comprehension skills, predict what will happen next, and enhance their ability to take words and meaning from pictures. These are important tools to have as reading skills develop and grow.
Most importantly, they can show even the youngest and most challenged readers the beauty of being drawn into a new world through the pages of a book.

Chalk by Bill Thomson
A wordless picture book about three children who go to a park on a rainy day, find some chalk, and draw pictures that come to life.

Shadow by Suzy Lee
A little girl uses her imagination and a light bulb to go on an adventure in a dark attic.

The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
In this wordless retelling of an Aesop fable, an adventuresome mouse proves that even small creatures are capable of great deeds when he rescues the King of the Jungle.

Journey by Aaron Becker
Using a red marker, a young girl draws a door on her bedroom wall and through it enters another world where she experiences many adventures, including being captured by an evil emperor.

Robot Dreams by Sara Varon
The enduring friendship between a dog and a robot is portrayed in this wordless graphic novel.

Where’s Walrus? by Stephen Savage
In this wordless picture book, follow Walrus on a happy-go-lucky spree through the big city, as he tries on different hats to disguise himself from the chasing zookeeper.

Tuesday by David Wiesner
Frogs rise on their lily pads, float through the air, and explore the nearby houses while their inhabitants sleep.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan
In this wordless graphic novel, a man leaves his homeland and sets off for a new country, where he must build a new life for himself and his family.

If you are still looking for more you might also want to check out; Unspoken: A Story From the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole, Inside Outside by Lizi Boyd,  Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola, Daisy Gets Lost by Chris Raschka, The Line by Paula Bossio, The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, Bluebird by Bob Staake,  The Adventures of Polo by Regis Faller, Home by Jeannie Baker,  Rainstorm by Barbara Lehman, Time Flies by Eric Rohmann, Wonder Bear by Tao Nyeu, The Red Book by Barbara Lehman, The Secret Box by Barbara Lehman, Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle, Free Fall by David Wiesner, or  Flotsam by David Wiesner.

On Our Shelves: New Cozy Mysteries

Winter’s the perfect  time to curl up with a cozy mystery. Here are some of the newest additions to our collection:

Books, Cooks, and Crooks (A Novel Idea Mystery) by Lucy Arlington

A Fatal Slip (A Sweet Nothings Lingerie Mystery) by Meg London

Throw In The Trowel (A Flower Shop Mystery) by Kate Collins

Town In A Strawberry Swirl (A Candy Holliday Murder Mystery) by B.B. Haywood

Days of Wine and Roquefort (A Cheese Shop Mystery) by Avery Aames

Scandal In Skibbereen (A County Cork Mystery) by Sheila Connolly

Murder With Ganache (A Key West Food Critic Mystery) by Lucy Burdette

A Tale of Two Biddies (A League of Literary Ladies Mystery) by Kylie Logan

Beewitched (A Queen Bee Mystery) by Hannah Reed

A Tough Nut to Kill (A Nut House Mystery) by Elizabeth Lee

Poison at the PTA by Laura Alden

The “I Survived” Series and Related Book Suggestions

Is historical fiction or survival fiction something that intrigues you or your child? Then you have probably heard of the I Survived series of children’s chapter books by Lauren Tarshis:

This series consists of historical fiction that is plot driven and faced paced. It grabs the attention of most willing readers with stories about courage and survival. According to Scholastic the books are best suited to those reading and a second grade reading level and up, with Lexile ratings around 600 and higher. For more information on the I Survived series check out the Scholastic’s webpage dedicated to the series. The series includes:

1. The Sinking of the Titanic, 1912
2. The Shark Attacks of 1916
3. Hurricane Katrina, 2005
4. The Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941
5. The San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
6. The Attacks of September 11, 2001
7. The Battle of Gettysburg, 1863
8. The Japanese Tsunami, 2011
9. I Survived the Nazi Invasion,1944 will be released in late February but you can place a hold on it now!

If you have read all of the books currently available in this series or are looking for more books about courage, hope, and survival for children then I would recommend also checking out: Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko and its two sequels, Pirate Hannah Pritchard: Pirate of the Revolution! by Bonnie Pryor and its sequels, Will at the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863 by Laurie Calkhoven and the entire Boys of War series, Survival in the Storm: the Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards by Katelan Janke (part of the Dear America series), The Winter of Red Snow: the Revolutionary War Diary of Abigail Jane Stewart by Kristiana Gregory (part of the Dear America series), Rex Zero by Tim Wynne-Jones and its sequels, The Journal of Jesse Smoke: a Cherokee Boy by Joseph Bruchac (part of the My Name is America series), Sophia’s War: a Tale of the Revolution by Avi, and Waiting for Anya by Michael Morpurgo.

I know that I have barely touched the surface of historical fiction that deals with children facing times of war, environmental catastrophe, and other situations with include a struggle to survive. Do you have a favorite, series or stand alone, that you would recommend?

Book Club Picks – Humor

smileIs your book club looking for some titles to cheer them up during the dreary winter season?  Here are a few titles they might enjoy reading.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion – Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. And so, in the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.

Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple – Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Little Bitty Lies by Mary Kay Andrews –  A tantalizing tale about an abandoned Atlanta housewife and mother who tells one tiny white lie that sets her world spiraling outrageously out of control.

Very Valentineby Adriana Trigiani – The adventures of an extraordinary and unforgettable woman as she attempts to rescue her family’s struggling shoe business and find love at the same time.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boyby Helen Fielding –  Bridget Jones stumbles through the challenges of loss, single motherhood, tweeting, texting, technology, and rediscovering her sexuality in—Warning! Bad, outdated phrase approaching!—middle age.

The Good House by Ann Leary – Hildy Good is a lifelong resident of a small community on the rocky coast of Boston’s North Shore, she knows pretty much everything about everyone.  A successful real-estate broker, mother, and grandmother, her days are full. But her nights have become lonely ever since her daughters, convinced their mother was drinking too much, sent her off to rehab.  Now she’s in recovery—more or less.

Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen – A tale at once fiercely pointed and wickedly funny in which the greedy, the corrupt, and the degraders of what’s left of pristine Florida—now, of the Bahamas as well—get their comeuppance in mordantly ingenious, diabolically entertaining fashion.

Truth In Advertising by John Kennedy – Finbar Dolan is lost and lonely. Except he doesn’t know it. Despite escaping his blue-collar Boston upbringing to carve out a mildly successful career at a Madison Avenue ad agency, he’s a bit of a mess and closing in on forty. He’s recently called off his wedding. Now, a few days before Christmas, he’s forced to cancel a long-postponed vacation in order to write, produce, and edit a Superbowl commercial for his diaper account in record time.

Kind of Kin by Rilla Askew – A funny and poignant novel that explores what happens when upstanding people are pushed too far—and how an ad-hoc family, and ultimately, an entire town, will unite to protect its own.

This Is When I Leave You by Jonathon Tropper – A riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind-whether we like it or not.