Janet’s Book Nook

I have young children and I am always amazed at what does and doesn’t scare them. Every time I think I have figured them out I am proven to be wrong. With this in mind I have to carefully choose what books and movies I allow my children to watch. I am passing along a list to you that I got from a new magazine I just started receiving. The magazine is titled "Wonder time" and they have a terrific list of Halloween books that won’t scare the pants off of your kids.

Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex

Jumpy Jack & Googily by Meg Rosoff

Inside the Slidy Diner by Laurel Snyder

The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman

When a Monster is Born by Sean Taylor

Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes

These are all books that will entertain your children without scaring them and the illustrators have gone above and beyond to make the pictures interesting. What a fabulous way to introduce some of the popular characters of Halloween to children without making them afraid and dreading the arrival of Halloween each year. Enjoy!

I wanted to pass along that I found another site where you can exchange books with other users. I love this idea in general because you are able to get rid of books you no longer need and clear the clutter and yet still get the books you are wanting.

There is no cost for joining this site. The only costs you incur is for the postage to mail out the books you don’t want. You get points for each book you give to someone else and can use those points to redeem for a book you want for yourself.

One of the things that I found on this site that I haven’t seen other places is that you can use them to donate books to charities. You can donate children’s books to children’s hospitals so that ill children can have reading materials while they are in the hospital. I LOVE this.

You also receive partial points from this site just for entering your books in to their list. Even if the book never gets chosen you have received something for your time. Once the book goes out you receive additional points.

The site allows users to leave feedback so that people who are good users will receive the highest scores and their books will be chosen first based upon their feedback scores. Great idea!

How does Mooch make its money? They have Amazon links and make a commission when users click on them or purchase through them. Simple really and it is a great service that readers will fill useful. Check them out at bookmooch.com.

I have seen a lot of hype on the Internet today about Sarah Palin. I figured since she was chosen as a running mate for McCain that I should research what she is all about. Funny thing is I keep stumbling upon articles that discuss the possibility that she attempted to get books banned from the public library when she was mayor of a small town in Alaska. This peaked my interest because it is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. It most certainly would affect my opinion of her if she were involved in banning books from public libraries based upon her religious beliefs.

I searched high and low today to see if I could find some kind of proof that she was involved in banning books. I couldn’t find any. The story as I can piece it together is that she requested information about the process that one would use if they were wanting to try to get books banned. There is talk of a list of books that she wanted to be banned but all of the ones I have seen disclose that some of the books on their list were not even published when she was mayor.

What does this mean for me? It means that I continue to search for some sort of verification on her stance on banning books. I for one would love to know how she feels about government (big or small) intervening in the choices people have on what books to read. I agree that there are books that children should not read but I feel it is the responsibility of each parent to control what their children read. While I hold some of the same religious and political beliefs of Sarah Palin I would never condone someone presuming that they could make the choice for me or anyone else on reading material based upon those beliefs.

For now I am going to hold my opinion on the matter until I can get more information. You can be sure though that I will be closely watching her actions with regards to the matter because it is a matter that I find to be utterly important .

It appears that the awaited next book in the Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer will put on hold indefinitely. There was an unedited and unfinished portion of the newest book "Midnight Sun" that was released on the INTERNET without the author’s permission. Meyer is hurt and angry that her rights have been violated and has decided she doesn’t want to continue to work on the book and will put it on hold indefinitely. This will be a disappointment for Meyer fans who eagerly await the arrival of her books. I thought it might be prudent to let you guys know this since we are planning on covering the series starting on the 15th of this month. I surely hope that last book isn’t one that I need to read to tie the whole story up in a bow because I will be very disappointed in whoever chose to violate Ms. Meyer i that manner. I am a strong believer in trademark rights and I completely get why she wouldn’t want an unfinished portion of her work to be released. I guess we will have to see how this plays out.

Now that McCain has announced that his running mate would be Sarah Palin I decided to hunt down a book she had written like I have for all of the other candidates. Problem? She hasn’t written one. There is one book that was written about her though and it appears that the book is gaining in popularity. The book "Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down" was written by Kaylene Johnson who is from Palin’s hometown. The book was originally published in May but it never sold more than 6.000 copies. It will now though as people are scrambling to get a copy and the publisher is quickly having thousands of copies printed up for distribution. I don’t really have an idea about what this book entails except that it is the story about how Palin went from hockey mom to political figure. Let me know if any of you have read this one as I would be interested in your thoughts.