Books On Film | Teen in '14 (The Maze Runner/The Book Thief)

The Maze Runner by James Dashner is the first book in a trilogy. A boy named Thomas wakes up in 'The Glade' surrounded by a giant maze with no memory of his past. Thomas, and the other fifty other boys, work to survive and protect themselves from the monsters that roam within it.

The movie adaptation is schedule to be released in September. It stars Dylan O'Brien (Teen Wolf) and Kaya Scodelario (Skins).

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is narrated by Death who tells the tale of a young foster child, her family, neighborhood, and the Jewish man hidden in her home in Nazy Germany during World War II.

The movie adaptation is schedule to be released in November. It stars Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson.

Covers courtesy of LibraryThing.

She's Crafty | Have You Ever Wondered?

Have you ever wondered how "they" make some of the common things we use every day? Or, have you ever wondered what you would do if "they" ever stopped making them? I know, my kids think I'm weird on that point, too. But, you never know when the apocalypse is coming and, I've learned how to make and do some interesting things by wondering about this. For instance, I can bake my own bread using sourdough as the leavening. I can, in theory, make my own cheese (well, I've made yogurt cheese before--and the yogurt!) And, I can make children's clothing that looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. I can even knit things that sort of fit, as long as it's a scarf (don't ask how my first sweater fit.) Well, along these lines, our blog about making books last week got me to thinking of paper.

Now that we'd kind of know how to make our own books, I thought, what about the paper? How would we make our own paper? The first thing I did was look up papermaking (make sure it's one word) in our library catalog.

There were some interesting titles:
Trash to treasure papermaking, by Arnold E. Grummer
Book making and papermaking, by Deborah Hufford (there's even one for kids!)
Papermaking techniques book, by John Plowman
Step by step papermaking, by David Watson 
The paper maker's companion, by Helen Hiebert


This list took us back to a publication date of 2000, and there were several older titles as well. A pretty respectable list for our library system, I thought. These will keep me busy for a while. I'll start with Trash to treasure paper making because that one will show me how to make recycled paper. That way, if the apocalypse never comes, I can at least be green. And, maybe being green will actually help with the apocalypse thing too...

Then, I expanded my search to Link + and hit the mother-lode of papermaking books! There were 174 "most relevant" titles! Some of the first few of these were:
Arnold Grummer's complete book of papermaking, by Arnold E. Grummer
300 papermaking recipes, by Mary Reimer
The encyclopedia of papermaking & bookbinding, by Heidi Reimer-Epp
The ergonomics of hand papermaking, by Peter Thomas
Papermaking for the first time, by Rhonda Rainey

Wow! Imagine recipes for paper--three hundred of them. I had thought some of the instructions I had seen in Trash to treasure papermaking looked kind of like recipes, and now here are so many I probably won't ever use them all!  I'm also intrigued by The ergonomics of hand papermaking. I'm not sure how this will affect my papermaking, but I'd better find out before I hurt something by not doing it properly!

Now that I have all this great information from the libraries to draw from, I think I need to figure out what kind of paper to make first. I mean, there seem to be many kinds of papers to make, and I have seen some of them. Some are so beautiful, you'd want to hang them somewhere, like art. Then, there are the papers in which you would wrap a very special gift. But, I think I'd like to start with some paper I can write on, preferably in as light a color as I can make it if I can't actually get white...you just never know about that apocalypse and when it might be coming.

If you have ever wondered whether it would be a good idea to make some common everyday thing like paper, leave us a comment and let us know about it. As you can see, we kind of like to be prepared.

Until next time, stay crafty, apocalypse or not ~ Kaye & Malia

Just Life | Too Tired To Read

Sometimes I have a hard time getting my child to read. Some nights she says, "Mom I am too tired to read."

So, we try to compromise and take turns reading. Although, I think I am still doing the majority of the nightly reading.

Last month, I came across these children books that are life savors. They are the perfect books for those nights that you don't have any energy to read a long book. 

They are full of funny, but grotesque facts. These books are published by the National Geographic Kids. Here are a few of these books:

That's gross!

Weird but true! 5 : 300 outrageous facts

Just joking 4 : 300 hilarious jokes about everything...

Kids really dig reading about yucky stuff. Here is an example of what you find in these books:

My daughter and I laugh uncontrollably reading funny factoids from these books.

I wonder if I look this like this Batfish when I use too much lipstick in the morning.
 

So, check out these great books on your next visit to your local library. Here is a link to other books by the National Geographic Kids:

National Geographic Kids

Signing off until next Monday- Panteha