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THE GREEN TEEN COOKBOOK

A good resource for teens who don’t want to use adult cookbooks. (Nonfiction. 12-18)

This by-teens, for-teens cookbook focuses on specific ways teens can live a healthy, environmentally conscious life without sacrificing the food they love.

Early chapters define and present six green ideas. These include eating healthfully, seasonally, locally and organically, as well as vegetarianism and fair trade. The evenhanded presentation focuses on how these ways of eating can benefit both the individual as well as the entire planet. The recipes that follow are simple and utilize easily found ingredients. A photo and a quote from the contributing teen as well as its seasonality precede each recipe. Recipes for such favorites as homemade chocolate-hazelnut spread, vegetable smoothies and Oreo cupcakes are inexpensive and produce dishes that are portable and friendly to the teen palate. Sections feature snacks, DIY kitchen staples, entrées, desserts and more. Quick tips as well as ways in which a recipe might be altered for variety accompany many of the recipes. Cleanly laid out with photos of the teen contributors and the dishes themselves, this introduction to green eating is informative without being preachy. However, other than the fact that it is by teens, this resource fails to differentiate itself from the many other green cookbooks on the market.

A good resource for teens who don’t want to use adult cookbooks.  (Nonfiction. 12-18)

Pub Date: July 29, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-936976-58-4

Page Count: 146

Publisher: Zest Books

Review Posted Online: May 11, 2014

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CONTINUUM

From the Pocket Change Collective series

Best enjoyed by preexisting fans of the author.

Deaf, trans artist Man meditates on his journey and identity in this brief memoir.

Growing up in conservative central Pennsylvania was tough for the 21-year-old Deaf, genderqueer, pansexual, and biracial (Chinese/White Jewish) author. He describes his gender and sexual identity, his experiences of racism and ableism, and his desire to use his visibility as a YouTube personality, model, and actor to help other young people like him. He is open and vulnerable throughout, even choosing to reveal his birth name. Man shares his experiences of becoming deaf as a small child and at times feeling ostracized from the Deaf community but not how he arrived at his current Deaf identity. His description of his gender-identity development occasionally slips into a well-worn pink-and-blue binary. The text is accompanied and transcended by the author’s own intriguing, expressionistic line drawings. However, Man ultimately falls short of truly insightful reflection or analysis, offering a mostly surface-level account of his life that will likely not be compelling to readers who are not already fans. While his visibility and success as someone whose life represents multiple marginalized identities are valuable in themselves, this heartfelt personal chronicle would have benefited from deeper introspection.

Best enjoyed by preexisting fans of the author. (Memoir. 12-18)

Pub Date: June 1, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-22348-2

Page Count: 64

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Review Posted Online: March 24, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021

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GRAMMAR GIRL PRESENTS THE ULTIMATE WRITING GUIDE FOR STUDENTS

Like many grammar books, this starts with parts of speech and goes on to sentence structure, punctuation, usage and style....

As she does in previous volumes—Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing (2008) and The Grammar Devotional (2009)—Fogarty affects an earnest and upbeat tone to dissuade those who think a grammar book has to be “annoying, boring, and confusing” and takes on the role of “grammar guide, intent on demystifying grammar.”

Like many grammar books, this starts with parts of speech and goes on to sentence structure, punctuation, usage and style. Fogarty works hard to find amusing, even cheeky examples to illustrate the many faux pas she discusses: "Squiggly presumed that Grammar Girl would flinch when she saw the word misspelled as alot." Young readers may well look beyond the cheery tone and friendly cover, though, and find a 300+-page text that looks suspiciously schoolish and isn't really that different from the grammar texts they have known for years (and from which they have still not learned a lot of grammar). As William Strunk said in his introduction to the first edition of the little The Elements of Style, the most useful grammar guide concentrates attention “on a few essentials, the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated.” After that, “Students profit most by individual instruction based on the problems of their own work.” By being exhaustive, Fogarty may well have created just the kind of volume she hoped to avoid.

Pub Date: July 5, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-8050-8943-1

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011

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