Making New Friends and Alliteration

Hey everyone. I hope the week past left everyone full of joy and energy. I attended a library author event in Fremont, Ohio this past week which was hosted by the Birchard Library. I generally don't sell many books at library events, but I love to visit and talk shop with other writers. I also didn't notice that I was standing under a sign for "Best Sellers". Maybe it's a sign of things to come, lol.

And along the way, I made some new friends like Holly Leemaster from the circulation desk who recently published a book of poetry.

There was Cas Miller, homeschool champion, steam punk dresser-upper, and author.

There was Sally Snyder author of children's books.

And there was Robert J Roman who just happened to be from the neighboring town of Mansfield.

But all this camaraderie didn't make me forget to grab a book from my library pile for review. And this week's review is an outstanding offering full of Onomatopoeia called Wodney Wat's Wobot. Rodney Rat has a problem pronouncing his r's and they all come out sounding like w's until he receives a robot for his birthday. Much to his surprise, Rodney's robot repeats everything he says but with r's in all the right places. Even more surprising is how Rodney uses h is robot to scare the school bully into leaving the school for good.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by Literacy Musings Mondays for more great blogs as well as my personal website Fun With Aileen where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own chapter and picture books. And finally, you can find me on twitter if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.

A Sweet Strawberry Sensation and A Burgled Bakery

Now that February is upon us, I'm practicing recipes in preparation for my library's 18th Annual Chocolate Lover's Bake Off. In past years I've won first place for my double chocolate chunk cookies and my chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butter cream frosting and peanut butter cheesecake filling. I have also won second place for my Samoa cookie pie. This year I thought I'd attempt a Neapolitan cake.

Thought being the key word here. I already had a great chocolate cake recipe and a white cake recipe, but I needed to find a strawberry cake recipe. So while my attempt at homemade strawberry cake turned out fine, it didn't taste quite as fruity as I'd like and wasn't a pretty pink color. The frosting was sensational though, so I have decided I'm going to make Neapolitan cupcakes instead. That recipe involves a half chocolate half vanilla cupcake with strawberry frosting which I will decorate with chocolate butterflies. And in case you need some strawberry frosting too, just mix two sticks of softened butter with five cups of powdered sugar. add strawberry puree until it's of a spreadable consistency (about 1/2 cup) and there you go!

The book I read this week for review was in keeping with my baking endeavor and was titled Betty's Burgled Bakery and was an adventure in alliteration starting with the letter "A" and finishing with the letter "Z". The end papers were particularly beautiful with tiny pictures of baked goods, the story was told in graphic style, and the mystery of who burgled  Betty was solved satisfactorily. This seems like a fun book that would benefit both regular teachers and home school teachers.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by Literacy Musings Mondays for more great blogs as well as my personal website Fun With Aileen where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own chapter and picture books. And finally, you can find me on twitter  @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.