A Good American Review

A Good American, by Alex George, is a (fictional) memoir by (fictional) James Meisenheimer. It starts before he is born, as his Grandparents Jette and Frederick meet, fall in love, and quickly escape to America from Germany. Their story is where the book really shines. Jette and Frederick's differing opinions on this new, foreign country are intriguingly different. James' characterization of his grandparents leaps off the page, and I find myself sympathizing with both Jette and Frederick, right or wrong, and my heart broke when (spoiler) America tore them apart.

The book then talks of Frederick's "American Dream"- the bar that he works at and eventually owns which morphs into different establishments through the book, then talks about James' parents and then ultimately James and his brothers, all four of them. This part of the book for me was less strong (some of the comedic elements were a little over the top-wacky, and sometimes this worked-sometimes it didn't). It was still a very enjoyable read, even if the "twist" at the end was unsettling to me and without any resolution.

Overall, this book was interesting, heartbreaking (there are some scenes that moved me to tears) and generally funny read that kept me coming back to finish (and that's not an easy task right now).

Please go visit Blogher to join the discussion about the book, A Good American

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own (of course)!

Review: Egret the Elephant

I recently (well, recently-ish- I am way behind) was contacted to review Egret the Elephant, written by Corey Feldman and illustrated by Rachel Fishman. I looked forward to reviewing this because we are always looking for new reading material in this house, and the title seemed to suggest a whimsical tale, which is always a hit at our house. I was not disappointed.

The rhymes in this series of stories about Egret and her sister Red, are infectious and add even more spirit to these playful tales. There are seven stories in all, and the tales tend to build on one another to add to the story of Egret, even though they could be read separately. My favorite story is titled "Egret, Red and the Mysterious Light", which explores the friendship between Egret and her sister, and is a great moral for siblings. I also really enjoyed "Egret Dances with Moon Rabbit", which was a perfect story about Egret's dream to send your own child off into dreamland.

The singsong quality of the rhymes along with the whimsical story and pictures, are perfect for a sweet bedtime story for a young child. My five month old was very captivated with the story, and even my 5 year old stopped running around to sit and listen to the stories (that's high praise indeed). We will definitely be adding these stories to our bedtime collection.

Egret the Elephant is available in both paperback and Kindle versions on exclusively on Amazon.

Disclosure: I was provided with a Kindle version of Egret the Elephant for this review; all opinions and experiences are my own. I received no compensation for this review.

Shutterfly Card Giveaway

I have a Holiday Tradition. Every year, I send a card of the little Bees in front of our Christmas tree to family and friends. I think it's really fun to watch our family grow through the years. 

That is why I was so excited when Shutterfly contacted me to blog about their line of Holiday Cards. I was excited to see which ones were my favorite. They offer so many varying cards at so many different price points, there is no way you won't be able to find a winner.

They have flat ones for those that don't want to have to write a message (raising hand) or folded ones for that extra room to go all sentimental. They also have every kind of color, font, and style you could want in stationary paper (my favorite) or photo paper where you can choose glossy or matte. It's impossible not to create your own personal take on a design.

There are so many to choose from, I'm not even sure what I will end up with! Some of my favorites are:

The classic look of the "Royal Elegance" design.

The Simplicity of the "Sparkle Joy" design".

The cool retro vibe of the "Retro Stripe" design.

The Modernness (I like creating words) of the "Berry Merry Design."

The best part is that you can store and share your pictures there for free, so you are all set to create gifts and cards whenever you want, for any occasion or any season. You can also print your pictures and pick them up at Walgreens, CVS, and Target^® stores.

Are you a blogger? Want a chance at 25 free cards this holiday season? Register here: http://goo.gl/DDw7Q

Buy it!

Below are links to Shutterfly, where they are offering 20% off on cards and free shipping on select orders.

Holiday cards
Christmas Cards
Greeting Cards
Christmas Photo Cards
Calendars Perfect gift for the Grandmas (or the Nanas as they are called around here).
Photo Gifts

Win it!

3 lucky readers will win Promotional codes good for 25 cards of your choosing! MANDATORY- To enter, all you have to do is visit Shutterfly and tell me which Holiday card design is your favorite (besides the ones listed above) in the comments.

Want additional entries? (Please make sure to leave a comment for each entry, and leave your email address in each comment please):

• Like The Bee Chronicles (my main blog) on Facebook (2 entries)
• Like Shutterfly on Facebook (1 Entry)
• Follow Shutterfly on Twitter (1 entry- Leave your twitter name )
• Follow me on Twitter (1 entry-Leave your twitter name )
• Follow The Bee Chronicles on GFC (2 entries)
• Follow The Bee's Knees (My actual giveaway blog) on GFC (2 entries)
• Tweet this Giveaway: Go visit The Bee Chronicles for a chance to win 25 free cards from @Shutterfly http://bit.ly/oPedl8 #giveaway (Please put link to tweet in comment, you may do this once a day for 1 entry each time)

This contest will run until Sunday, October 30th at Midnight (EST). Then I will draw 3 names using Random. org, and I will email the winner, please make sure to respond in 48 hours or I will draw another name.

UPDATE: The #s drawn were 93, 33, and 76. Congratulations Telitha, Misty and Melissa, I will be emailing you the promo codes!
Thank you to Shutterfly for providing the promotional codes for free cards for me and for the giveaway. No other compensation was received. This post is based on my own personal opinions and experiences.

Lunch Wars: A Review

Synopsis from Barnes and Noble:
There's a battle going on in school lunchrooms around the country...and it's a battle our children can't afford for us to lose.

The average kid will eat 4,000 school lunches between kindergarten and twelfth grade. But what exactly are kids eating in school lunchrooms around the country? Many parents don't quite know what their children are eating-or where it came from. As award-winning filmmaker and nutritionist Amy Kalafa discovered in researching her documentary film Two Angry Moms: Fighting for the Health of America's Children, these days it's pretty rare to find a piece of fresh fruit in your average school lunchroom amid all the chips, french fries, Pop-Tarts, chicken nuggets, and soda that's being served. But what, if anything, can parents do about it?

My Review:

I enjoyed reading Lunch Wars, and was appalled at the same time. I cannot believe how terrible school lunches have become, and how much red tape surrounds the process of cooking and serving school lunches. I also found many useful ideas to get healthy foods implemented in our local school cafeterias and many of them involved blogging. In fact, in some ways I found this book to be a recruitment for bloggers to post on their blogs and start a food revolution.

I was inclined enough by the scary information in this book to conduct my own experiment with my 3 year old son, limiting his sugar intake to less than I normally allow. The result was pretty significant, he was much calmer and focused. I have vowed to put an end to some of our bad habits, and for that alone, I think the book was a good read. Now will I completely revolutionize our eating habits, or take over my children's cafeteria? That remains to be seen, but I know I will make sure to be more aware of what he is eating for lunch.

Please go visit Blogher to join the discussion about school lunches.

This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Slow Love Review: Time to stop and smell the roses

Recently I got an opportunity to review the memoir Slow Love for BlogHer Book Club. Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness  by Dominique Browning is a book about learning to slow down your life and appreciate all of your surroundings.

In 2007, Dominique Browning lost her job as editor for Home and Garden Magazine and found herself adrift, questioning her purpose in life and her identity without her job. This memoir is how she finds that purpose.

Browning goes through many stages to find new purpose in her life. Her growth takes time, and often she was wallowing in food and drink and poor relationships, which I can completely relate to. I often found myself agreeing with many of her opinions and ideas (seriously, what single woman would want to cook dinner for herself), and felt by the end of the book that Browning was a friend and confidant of mine and was invested in watching her learn to be comfortable with a slower paced life. It really made me wonder if I could ever do the same, and it made me interested in trying to slow down as well. (Oh, who am I kidding? Maybe one day...)

Want to find out more? Please come join in the discussion at Blogher!

What Happened to Goodbye Review

Please enjoy my review of What Happened to Goodbye on Blogher. Here is a snippet for you to enjoy....

I am very glad I am not a teenager in today's world. There are so many additional pressures and worries that I never had to think about. Luckily there are authors like Sarah Dessen to portray real teenagers and those pressures that they face in the young adult novel, What Happened to Goodbye.

Read more at Blogher.

PS will be back with a post this week I swear!

A Discovery of Witches Review

Deborah Harkness' novel, A Discovery of Witches, is not what you would call an average Vampire story. It builds mythology of a different world than we know -- a secret world using history, science and folklore -- and weaves these components into a unusual love story.

Check out the rest at Blogher

A Review for me and for You

Hey all,

I got a great chance to review books with #Blogherbookclub and I am happy to say the first one went live tonight. Here is an excerpt:

Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok , tells the semi-autobiographical story about a girl named Kimberly Chang and her mother who emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn. Due to family debts from the immigration and a lack of employment, her mother begins working in a sweatshop. Kimberly must help her mother in order to make any money, forcing her to lead a double life, one of an exceptionally bright schoolgirl in the day and a sweatshop worker by night. This is the story of her childhood and the struggles of life in America, which was not as wonderful as she was promised.


Read more at Blogher

Color Blanks Review

Recently we were given a few of the color blanks figures  from RoseArts (two of them, thank goodness) to try out.  I was very excited to let the boys try them because they have been very creative lately and I am not, and it seemed like a nice project for a Saturday, and so last Saturday I let them try them out. 

Color blanks are little figures that come with stickers and markers. You can create anything you want. There are endless possibilities on ways to personalize them and there are a bunch of ideas in this video http://youtu.be/nBkEcfqkqd8.  I gave Drew the "Doggy" Color blank.
This is what he made:

Jacob thinks he looks like a detective Doggy. (It's unfinished because of course he wants me to finish it.)

Jacob, being younger, I thought he should have the "Bunny" color blank which came with pastel colors. He made an Easter bunny.

Jacob named him "Gleeky". The colors are light, but they are on there, it's hard to tell in the photo.

The boys LOVED the color blanks, and love their little guys. They had a great time working on them and it was a great craft project for me because I am terrible at coming up with craft projects.

My biggest disappointment with the color blanks is the markers. They take a long time to dry and can turn out a little "stripey" looking. The box says to wait 24 hours to let them dry, and you should wait at least that long to touch them (that's a hard thing for a 3 year old to understand). Luckily, even though the markers are permanent, they seemed to wash off our hands easily enough. Even so, this is definitely a full parental supervision craft project with the markers.

I would buy the color blanks again, but maybe wait until I am alone with Drew, as Jacob was a little young in my opinion for the color blanks. (The box said 3 and up, but the website says 6 and up, and the website age is more realistic). I really like that their arms move, and that they come with decorative stickers and glue blobs to use to attach things of your own. You could get really creative. I could definitely see my boys coming up with some crazy ideas of what to attach to "Gleeky" and "Dectective Doggy" so I will be holding onto the glue for now. Next time I would buy one for myself though, as neither boys took any of my suggestions on coloring! I think the price of $9.99 for two figures plus stickers and markers, is actually a pretty good deal. Just make sure you know what you want to create first.


Buy It: Color Blanks

Disclosure: I was in no way compensated for this review other than receiving the two test products to try out. The written opinions expressed here are my own and no one elses.

Review: Dream Big, Little Pig!

I recently got a chance to review Dream Big, Little Pig!, By Kristi Yamaguchi. When it came in the mail, both boys were excited to get a chance to open the envelope and look at the book. While the cover was decorated to mostly catch a girls attention, my boys were excited to read it, and thought the cover was fun. (My youngest has a cabbage patch baby named "Movie" so we do not worry about "gender-appropriateness in this house.) The cover was sparkly and pretty and grabbed their attention and they liked it, even with all the pink and the purple.

While the cover of the book might be considered"girly", the message and story most certainly weren't. In the book we meet Poppy, the pig with big dreams who learns to never give up, to keep trying, and soon enough, she finds her calling on the ice skating rink. At the end of the book she even dreams of being a pilot.

The writing had a lyrical quality to it, which made it much easier and more enjoyable for me to read and for my children to pay attention to the book. The drawings featured animals from all over the world and they were beautifully drawn. Overall I really enjoyed this book, and my youngest son did too. My oldest son had less interest in the book, mostly because his life revolves around science, and not as much about fictional stories (anything not real is not cool, unless it is Phineas and Ferb). The book is listed on Amazon as being for 4-8 year olds, but I would think that it's better suited for 3-6 year olds. Still, it's a wonderful, high quality book that I will read to my boys again.

*Disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book for review. I received no compensation for this review other than the book itself. The thoughts and opinions on the book are my own.