jbronderbookreviews

The Lemonade Stand Cookbook by Kathy Strahs

With easy-to-follow, kid-tested recipes and crafts, THE LEMONADE STAND COOKBOOK offers a modern take on this classic childhood rite of passage, empowering kids to achieve their goals in a fun and creative way.

Lemonade stands . . . kids have been running them for decades, whether to raise money for a new bike, for a charitable cause, or simply to conquer boredom. Inspired by dozens of kid experts from all over the country, author Kathy Strahs pours her expertise as a food writer, entrepreneur and mother of two school-aged children into the ultimate guide to setting up your own lemonade stand. Step-by-step illustrations and full-color photographs of each recipe and craft make each page easy and fun to dive into. Find delicious drinks, such as Classic Lemonade and Cold-Brew Iced Tea, sweet treats such as Polka Dot Blondies and Chocolate-Dipped Marshmallows, grab-and-go snacks such as Owen’s Cheddar Chompers and Sunflower Crunch Balls, and creative crafts such as Hayley’s Flower Pencils and Friendship Bracelets. Tips for setting up a successful stand, packaging ideas, cooking technique tutorials, and real-life “stand stories” from kids themselves are sure to inspire kids everywhere to “give life a squeeze.”

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Author’s Bio

Kathy Strahs is an author (The Lemonade Stand Cookbook, The 8×8 Cookbook and The Ultimate Panini Press Cookbook), food blogger (Panini Happy and Cooking on the Side), and the founder of Burnt Cheese Press, LLC. Her innovative recipes and mouthwatering food photography have been featured on the websites of The New York Times, The Washington Post, PBS, The Huffington Post, Saveur and TLC, in Pillsbury Magazine, San Diego Family Magazine, the Associated Press and highlighted in The Wall Street Journal. She is also a frequent cooking contest judge, including the Grilled Cheese Invitational in Los Angeles and the World Food Championships in Las Vegas. She lives with her husband and their two children in the Silicon Valley.

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My Review

5 stars

Are your kids bored? Want to earn some money? Like to bake? This is the cookbook for you. The Lemonade Stand Cookbook gives you everything you will need to help your child mix and bake goodies to sell at their lemonade stand. The recipes are simple but delicious and have a lot of variety so you don’t have to make the same old plain sugar cookies to go with your lemonade.

But it’s not just about the baked goodies, you will not look at lemonade the same way again. Why make plain old kool-aid or lemonade? Why not make some smoothies or flavored lemonades? A little variety is going to draw in more customers.

But this book does not stop at goodies alone. How much attention are you going to draw sitting on a folding chair and table? Why not make some flashy signs, fancy straws or glasses? The book also gives you some ideas to catch your customer’s eyes and draw them in.

I really enjoyed this book. It has so much information about everything for a lemonade stand. It’s has great recipes and wonderful eye catching ideas. If you want your kids to learn how to make a little money this book has a lot of ideas to get them and you started.

I received The Lemonade Stand Cookbook from PR by the Book for free. This has in no way influenced my opinion of this book.

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Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn

A mysterious murder in a dystopian future leads a novice investigator to question what she’s learned about the foundation of her population-controlled society.

Decades after economic and environmental collapse destroys much of civilization in the United States, the Coast Road region isn’t just surviving but thriving by some accounts, building something new on the ruins of what came before. A culture of population control has developed in which people, organized into households, must earn the children they bear by proving they can take care of them and are awarded symbolic banners to demonstrate this privilege. In the meantime, birth control is mandatory.  Enid of Haven is an Investigator, called on to mediate disputes and examine transgressions against the community. She’s young for the job and hasn’t yet handled a serious case. Now, though, a suspicious death requires her attention. The victim was an outcast, but might someone have taken dislike a step further and murdered him?  In a world defined by the disasters that happened a century before, the past is always present. But this investigation may reveal the cracks in Enid’s world and make her question what she really stands for.

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Author’s Bio

Carrie Vaughn is best known for her New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty who hosts a talk radio show for the supernaturally disadvantaged. The fourteenth installment, Kitty Saves the World, was released in 2015. Her forthcoming novels include a near-Earth space opera, Martians Abroad, from Tor Books, and a post-apocalyptic murder mystery, Bannerless, from John Joseph Adams Books. She’s written several other contemporary fantasy and young adult novels, as well as upwards of 80 short stories. She’s a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin and a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop.

An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado.

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My Review

4 stars

One hundred years after the Fall, people are living simple lives. Along the Coast Road (think California) people live with strict rules for having children and wasting resources. People must prove that they can take care of a child before they are allowed to have one, they will have a green and red banner. Those that have a bannerless child are severely punished and shamed. Enid is a young Investigator, this world’s police. Enid and her partner Tomas are call to Pasadan to investigate a death of Sero. Initially it looks like a suicide but things are not adding up and it is starting to look like a murder.

While investigating, Enid thinks it strange how quiet the residents of Pasadan are about Sero’s death. It’s also a strange coincidence that she runs into her former lover, Dak in Pasadan too. The story then bounces between the present day investigation into the death and flash backs of Enid’s time with Dak.

This was an interesting take on the dystopian story. The Coastal Road has found if they work together in communities they can flourish in this new world. Those that obey the rules get the chance to reproduce while those that don’t have their communities broken up, divided, and shamed. The main problem we see is the bannerless, those that both have children with no banner/approval and the child.

I liked the idea of the world and how it has regrown from the ashes of a former world. The thing that got me though was the fact that everything is simpler yet you have the advanced abilities to produce birth control. There were a couple other things like that that made this feel out of place. Also, the mystery doesn’t seem to play that big of a part in this story. It feels more of a story of Enid and how they have recovered from the Fall.

Overall this is a good story. I see that it will be the first in the Bannerless Saga and I am excited to see where Carrie Vaughn is going to take it from here.

I received Bannerless from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for free. This has in no way influenced my opinion of this book.

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5 Stars

 

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