(Photo by Steve Rawley)

“Harry Potter: The Character Vault,” Jody Revenson’s astounding encyclopedia (Harper Design, 2015, $45, 207 pages), was a holiday gift to my children from their loving grandmother. Then I had to steal it from them because oh, it is so fantastic, this book. You know when a book isn’t just a good read, but it looks neat-o (that’s what the cool kids say nowadays, “neat-o”), it feels good, it makes you happy? That is this book. Loads of info about the characters, the movies, the props, weapons, special effects. Lots of great art and illustrations, plus two posters in the back of the Order of the Phoenix members and the Death Eaters. Super! So maybe I should buy my own copy and give theirs back now?

“Harry Potter Coloring Book” (Hot Topic, $10, need I say more?) I bought one for the kids; one for me. Then I donated mine to my library because the students loved it so much. There you have it.

“Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone Illustrated” (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2015, illustrated by the incomparable Jim Kay, $40, 246 pages). Lovely, this book, everything about it. Quite a find. It’s like the man looked into my mind and knew what I was imagining, then drew it. Thanks, sir. Nice work!

Have a great day, reading lovers.

— wm

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

Bon appetit, babies!

— wm

Lemon Ricotta Poppyseed Pancakes

This is a great one, borrowed from Martha Stewart. Perfect for spring brunch.

Ingredients

3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
Pinch of coarse salt
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese, plus more for serving
3/4 cup milk
3 large eggs, yolks and whites separated
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon poppy seeds
Unsalted butter, softened, for cooking
Honey Syrup, for serving

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. In a large bowl, mix together ricotta, milk,
egg yolks, and vanilla. Add the flour mixture to the cheese mixture and mix until batter is just combined. Stir in
lemon zest and poppy seeds.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites until stiff. Gently fold egg whites
into batter.
3. Heat a griddle or large nonstick skillet over medium­high heat; brush surface with butter. Working in batches, ladle
1/3 cup batter for each pancake on griddle, leaving space as they will spread. Cook until golden and top begins to
bubble, 3 to 4 minutes. Gently turn and continue cooking until bottoms are light brown, 3 to 4 minutes more. Serve
immediately with ricotta and honey syrup.

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

Ally Condie (“Atlantia” and the “Matched” trilogy) is a new author to me and I’m thrilled to have found her. I was sent a review copy of “Summerlost,” and what luck it was sent my way. Beautiful book, characters, setting, writing. All good. Our heroine, 12-year-old Cedar Lee, is spending the summer in Utah with her mom and younger brother, Miles, a year after her father and brother, Ben, were killed by a drunk driver in a car accident. It’s her mom’s hometown, she has extended family there, but is still so alone. Then she meets a friend… gets a summer job… and discovers a mystery that she’d really like to solve. And off she goes.

It’s an intense story, but “Summerlost” is a fantastic book. I hope readers aren’t scared off by its serious subject. Kids go through dramas and loss, large and small, just like the rest of us, and I appreciate Condie’s fearlessness as a writer. In a blurb on the cover, Brandon Mull (“Fablehaven,” “The Candy Shop War” books) called it, “A moving tale of friendship and loss. I loved these characters — I wish we could have been friends when I was a kid.”

Beautiful. I felt the same way. I don’t want to quote the whole book to you, but I could. Passage after passage that are just so concise, lovely, hard.

“When I was small I used to pretend that I had to tell my body everything it had to do or it would stop. Lungs, breathe, I whispered. Heart, beat. Eyes, focus. Tummy, digest. Legs, walk. Arms, move. I was so glad then that everything did what it was supposed to do without any conscious help from me. But after the accident I wished that my heart wouldn’t keep hurting so much. Wouldn’t keep going like this without my telling it to. Beat. Beat. Beat.”

The ending, and how we get there, is a good, healing trip.

Pretty picture of Mt. Hood for you, by one Steve Rawley

Best Banana-Coconut Bread Ever

1 3/4 cups flour
a little less than 2/3 cup honey
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup mashed ripe banana (2 to 3 medium)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup oil
1/4-1/2 milk
2 eggs
1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas and stir in lemon juice. Add honey; beat in eggs; add oil. Stir in flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and vanilla. Drizzle in milk until batter is almost consistency of cake batter. (It should be a little thicker than that.) Stir in coconut last; stir all ingredients until blended. Don’t overbeat.

Pour into two greased loaf pans. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the centers comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool thoroughly on wire racks. Wrap and refrigerate leftovers (if you have any leftovers).

This recipe turned out great! Well, it’s hard to go wrong with banana bread, but still! I recreated it the next day, with 2 cups of frozen blueberries and the rest of the coconut and baked it as a cake in a 9×13 dish.

Baking temps: Start baking at 350, cake or loves, then turn down to 325 about halfway through baking. I used soy milk with the banana bread; rice milk with the blueberry cake. Both were fine. Bon appetit, babies :)

Coconut Cookies (my sissy’s recipe) (because we are cuckoo for coconut)

(Leave out the raisins and add chia seeds and coconut instead)

Ingredients:
¾ cup coconut oil, softened
¾ cup white sugar
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
2 ¾ cup rolled oats
1 cup raisins, golden and regular

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
In large bowl, cream together coconut oil and sugars until smooth. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until fluffy. Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Gradually beat into butter mixture.

Stir in oats and raisins (chia seeds and coconut). Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool slightly, remove from sheet to wire rack.

xo me, wacky mommy)

“Brown Girl, Brownstones” (Paule Marshall)
“Desperate Characters” (Paula Fox)
“The Fortress of Solitude” (Jonathan Lethen)

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

going through the paperwork, shredding, recycling and filing. found four! book lists, so here they are, combined into one.

happy reading, babies!

— wm

ps this is my 2,144th blog post. Huh!

anything by Carol Shields
“Notes from the Country Club” Kim Wozencraft
“Henry & Clara” Thomas Mallon
“Taf” Annie Callan
short stories by Brady Udall
Jacqueline du Pre’s autobiography
“Wild Child” Chelsea Cain
“Life Without Water” Nancy Peacock
“Second Draft of My Life” Sara Lewis
“The Answer is Yes But I Love You Anyway”
“Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage” Madeleine L’Engle
“Song of Myself” Walt Whitman
“Leaves of Grass”
“Tangiers: The Paul & Jane Bowles Story”
“The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu”
“The Rest of Life” Mary Gordon
“Composing a Life” Mary Catherine Bateson
“African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe” Doris Lessing
“Signs of Devotion” Maxine Chernoff
poetry — Rita Dove
“Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang” Joyce Carol Oates
“Girl, Interrupted” Susanna Kaysen
“Mama Makes Up Her Mind” Bailey White
Anne Rice novels
“Waiting to Exhale” Terry McMillan
“All the Pretty Horses” Cormac McCarthy
“Trouble” Fay Weldon
“A Spy in the House of Love” Anais Nin
“Mrs. Caliban” Rachel Ingles
novels by Lois Lowry
novels by Lois Duncan
novels by Sharon Flake
novels by Sharon Creech
novels by Sharon Draper
anyone named Sharon basically
“I Will Go Barefoot All Summer for You” Katie Letcher Lyle
“Greensleeves” Eloise Jarvis McGraw
“Sunshine” (Jacqueline Helton) by Norma Klein
“Fup” Jim Dodge
“Through Her Letters” Nancy Ritter Beard
“A Woman Making History” ed. Nancy F. Cott
“Daughters” Paule Marshall
“Prairyerth” William Least Heat Moon
“The Woman Warrior” Maxine Hong Kingston
“China Men”
“Tripmaster Monkey”
“Trinity” Leon Uris
“Stardust, 7-11, Route 57, A&W and So Forth” Patricia Lear
“Black Water” Joyce Carol Oates
“Not the End of the World” Rebecca Stowe
“The Golden Notebook” Doris Lessing
“Play with a Tiger”
“The Way Men Act” Elinor Lipman
anything by Joan Didion
anything by Margaret Atwood
anything by Joyce Carol Oates
“Black Looks” bell hooks
anything by bell hooks
Lynn Freed
“The Bungalow”
Christa Wolf
Sissela Bok
Alva Myrdal
“Childhood’s End”
“My Son’s Story” Nadine Gordimer
“Foucault’s Pendulum”
“Black Ice” Lorene Carey
“The Content of Our Characters” Shelby Steele
“Why Americans Hate Politics” E.J. Dionne
“Caroline’s Daughter” Alice Adams
“Almost Perfect” Alice Adams
“The Music Room” Dennis McFarland
“Low Life” Luke Sants
“A Thousand Acres” Jane Smiley
anything by Jane Smiley
anything by Anne Tyler
“Mile Zero” Thomas Sanchez
“In a Different Voice” Carol Gilligan
“Skipped Parts” Tim Sandlin
anything by Tim Sandlin

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved — loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” — Victor Hugo, novelist and dramatist (26 Feb 1802-1885)

“In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold.” — John Leonard, critic (25 Feb 1939-2008)

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.” — Helen Keller in “The Story of My Life” (1902)

“Nothing is really so very frightening when everything is so very dangerous.” — Gertrude Stein

Extra, extra: A fantastic NPR story about one Marley Dias, who wants to know why there aren’t more African-American girls starring as main characters in children’s books. I love this kid.
And on to today’s review:

The year: 1925
The setting: Nome, Alaska
Our heroes: Jack and Anna
Our author: The one, the only, our girl Mary Pope Osborne

Yes, it’s time for a new Magic Tree House novel and companion non-fiction book. “Balto of the Blue Dawn” (illustrations by Sal Murdocca, 2016, A Stepping Stone Book, Random House, $12.99 hardcover, 117 pages) is historical fiction based on the true story of the dogsledding teams transporting medicine to Alaska to help stop an outbreak of diptheria. Will they make it in time? Can they survive the freezing cold? And what about our friend Balto? Wonderful book — as always, Mary Pope Osborne comes through with a book that’s engaging and just right for her young readers, with a story and plot that will keep their grown-ups interested, too.

“The wind started to blow.
The tree house started to spin.
It spun faster and faster.
Then everything was still.
Absolutely still.”

I like all of the non-fiction companion books with the MTH series. Subjects have included everything from critters to pirates, from the Titanic to pilgrims, and now, extreme sports. Fun! “Dogsledding and Extreme Sports” (illustrations by Sal Murdocca, 2016, A Stepping Stone Book, Random House, $5.99 paperback, 121 pages). I learned many cool facts thanks to this little book. In the Iditarod, for instance, racers travel more than 900 miles. Get out! The word musher? Comes from the French Canadian traders to called “Marche!” (“Move!”) to their dogs. There’s a section on endurance swimmer Diana Nyad (hero!), the Ironman triathlon, snowboarder Chloe Kim (superpipe hero!) and lots of other fun stuff.

Bon appetit, readers.

— wm

PS — It’s very cool that author-sisters Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Bryce recently donated 5,000 books to Reading is Fundamental (RIF) program in honor of its 50th birthday. (Lots of resources on the author’s site for parents and teachers.)