Category: Fall 2011

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Launch of: Winterberries and Apple Blossoms


Last weekend, the amazing creators of Winterberries and Apple Blossoms: Reflections and Flavors of a Mennonite Year, Peter Etril Snyder and Nan Forler, launched their book at Conrad Grebel University College.


Along the stage, the original artwork by Peter Etril Snyder was on display.


Words Worth Books was on hand to help! Thank you so much for your constant support of our local authors and illustrators!


Nan Forler had activity stations for all the kids that attended. Here, you could make your own quilt square.


Amish paper dolls and Mennonite colouring sheets.


Perhaps the favourite among all the guests, the whoopie pie station! You could fill it with frosting and dip the edges with sprinkles. To find out how to make your own, click here.


Nan Forler did a reading from the book – with the help of her family!


Just look at all the guests that came out to support Nan and Peter! For more photos from this book launch, please click here.

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National Adoption Day

National Adoption Day is a collective national effort to raise awareness of the many children in foster care waiting to find permanent, loving families. To learn more, please visit www.nationaladoptionday.org.

Nini
By François Thisdale
Hardcover | 40 Pages | Ages 3-6
ISBN: 978-1-77049-270-7
This exceptional book about adoption is a comforting story for children and families who have experienced it first-hand, a tribute to the author’s own adopted child, and a very heartfelt thank-you for the gift of family.

Emma’s Story
By Deborah Hodge
Illustrated by Song Nan Zhang
Hardcover | 24 Pages | Ages 5-8
ISBN: 978-0-88776-632-9
In gentle text, Deborah Hodge tells the story of one small girl’s adoption: the hopes and prayers of her Canadian parents, their trip to the other side of the world, their meeting with the new baby, and the very long ride home to the new family waiting for Emma.

Anne of Green Gables
By L.M. Montgomery
Illustrated by Laura Fernandez and Rick Jacobson
Introduction by Kate Butler MacDonald
Hardcover | 328 Pages | All Ages
ISBN: 978-0-88776-515-5
Anne (with an ‘e’ of course) starts out as a mistake. The elderly Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert had planned on adopting a boy to help Matthew with the chores on their Prince Edward Island farm. What are they to do with the red-haired, high-spirited girl who arrives instead?

A Home for Foundlings
By Marthe Jocelyn
Trade Paperback | 120 Pages | All Ages
ISBN: 978-0-88776-709-8
Thousands of mothers carried their babies to the gates of the Foundling Hospital desperate to save them from the cruel streets of eighteenth-century London. Each baby was left with a personal “token” – identification if a repentant mother ever returned to reclaim her child.

Folly
By Marthe Jocelyn
Hardcover | 256 Pages | Ages 12+
ISBN: 978-0-88776-929-0
eBook: 978-1-77049-212-7
Set in the late 1800’s, Marthe Jocelyn’s stunning new novel is told in the voices of four people whose lives and destinies intertwine. There’s Mary, who begins “exceeding ignorant” (apart from what a girl can learn from family mayhem, a dead mother, and a grim stepmother) and winds up encountering lust and betrayal when she becomes a servant in a fine house in London. Mary’s nemesis is another maid in the household, Eliza. Eliza also knows lust and betrayal, but she doesn’t know who is betraying who.

Raspberry House Blues
By Linda Holeman
Trade Paperback | 248 Pages | Ages 11-14
ISBN: 978-0-88776-493-6
Poppy is on an odyssey. Her adoptive mother has taken off to find herself, so Poppy decides to live with her adoptive father, his new wife, Calypso, and their toddler, Sandeep, in a ramshackle rasp-berry-colored house. At first Poppy is distressed by the disordered household, which is unlike anything she has ever known, but soon it becomes a jumping-off point for her search for her birth mother.

Promise Song
By Linda Holeman
Trade Paperback | 264 pages
ISBN: 978-0-88776-387-8
The year is 1900 and orphaned 14-year-old Rosetta and her beloved younger sister Flora sail from England as “home girls.” They are sent to Canada so that they can have a chance at family life. Their dreams are shattered when Flora is adopted, but Rosetta is deemed to be too old. She is to become a farm worker, far from Flora’s new home.

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Whoopie Pies

The cool crisp air in November makes visiting a bakery or baking in your own home feel really nice and cozy. This weekend, turn on your oven and treat yourself to some chocolate and marshmallow whoopie pies:

Whoopie Pies
Recipe reprinted from Winterberries and Apple Blossoms: Reflections and Flavors of a Mennonite Year by Nan Forler, paintings by Peter Etril Snyder

Ingredients:
1 ounce semi-sweet chocolate
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cups cocoa
1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Filling:
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon milk
2 cups marshmallow cream

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
  2. Gradually melt the chocolate. Let it cool slightly.
  3. Using a wooden spoon, cream butter and brown sugar together.
  4. Add egg, vanilla extract, cooled chocolate, and buttermilk. Beat well, scraping sides and bottom of bowl.
  5. In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining dry ingredients.
  6. Add dry ingredients to wet mixture gradually, mixing well.
  7. Using a small scoop, drop batter onto parchment-lined baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between the pies.
  8. Bake for 12-15 minutes until tops crack slightly and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
  9. Let the pies cool completely before adding filling.
  10. Using a wooden spoon or mixer, cream butter and sugar together.
  11. Add vanilla extract and milk, blend in.
  12. Add marshmallow cream and beat well.
  13. Spread filling generously on the flat side of a whoopie pie. Place another half on top and gently press together.


Recipe excerpted from Winterberries and Apple Blossoms by Nan Forler. Copyright © 2011 by Nan Forler. Photographs Copyright © 2011 by Sylvia Chan. Excerpted by permission of Tundra Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Good Nutrition Month


November is Good Nutrition Month! Eat well and learn about your growing body with books from the Body Works series:

My Achy Body
By Liza Fromer and Francine Gerstein MD
Illustrated by Joe Weissmann
Hardcover | 24 Pages | Ages 6-9
ISBN: 978-1-77049-204-2

“…informative, straightforward and, most of all, entertaining…. The fun and frank approach isn’t, however, just for kids. It’s meant to be appealing to parents and caregivers, too, and wit and warmth – along with solid information about the intricacies of the human body – are in no short supply.” – The Medical Post

My Messy Body
By Liza Fromer and Francine Gerstein MD
Illustrated by Joe Weissmann
Hardcover | 24 Pages | Ages 6-9
ISBN: 978-1-77049-202-8

“Using amusing, cartoon-y watercolor illustrations and a couple of paragraphs of text per page, the book provides correct terminology for the kid-familiar terms.”- Kirkus Reviews

My Noisy Body
By Liza Fromer and Francine Gerstein MD
Illustrated by Joe Weissmann
Hardcover | 24 Pages | Ages 6-9
ISBN: 978-1-77049-201-1

“Helping launch the Body Works series, this informative guide explores the facts behind ‘burps, hiccups, stomach growls, and farts.’ Weissmann’s cartoons depict wafting fumes and awkward glances as Fromer and Gerstein discuss what causes these sounds” – Publishers Weekly

My Stretchy Body
By Liza Fromer and Francine Gerstein MD
Illustrated by Joe Weissmann
Hardcover | 24 Pages | Ages 6-9
ISBN: 978-1-77049-203-5

“…the books keep things simple, straightforward, and almost entirely squirm-free…. Fun facts are offered, as are true-or-false questions and health tips…. You couldn’t really ask for a more straightforward and snicker-free handling of body-related topics. These books would work very well in a classroom or as a health primer.” – Quill & Quire

EXTRA! EXTRA!

  • Co-author, Liza Fromer, has written a piece about how the series came to be on the Yummy Mummy Club.
  • Win 1 of 10 Body Works Prize Packs from the Yummy Mummy Club!
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Chocolate Cinnamon Sparkle Cookies

Trick-or-Treat? Here at Tundra, we always prefer treats. To celebrate Halloween, I made some chocolate cinnamon sparkles cookies for my colleagues. The recipe is from The Case of the Missing Deed by Ellen Schwartz, a culinary mystery for ages 8-11.

Take a dash of colorful characters, a pinch of danger, and generous scoops of adventure and you have a terrific culinary mystery for young readers. Ellen Schwartz introduces her young readers to a delicious genre. She even provides easy-to-follow and yummy to eat recipes. Here is one of them:

Chocolate Cinnamon Sparkle Cookies
Star light, star bright, can you see the sparkle tonight?
Recipe reprinted from The Case of the Missing Deed by Ellen Schwartz

Ingredients:
9 ounces (approximately 1¾ cups) bittersweet chocolate
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 eggs
1½ cup granulated sugar, plus 1 cup more for rolling
1 tablespoon honey
¼ cup finely ground almonds or almond meal
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions:

  1. Chop chocolate, then set aside ¼ cup. Fill a small pot halfway with water and bring to a simmer. Transfer remaining chocolate to a heat-proof bowl, then place bowl on top of simmering water. Stir the chocolate gently until it melts. Add cubes of butter and stir until they melt, set the mixture aside to cool while you prepare the other ingredients.
  2. Beat the eggs, sugar, and honey until the mixture thickens. The eggs are ready when you can lift the whisk and the mixture holds a ribbon-like shape when you dribble it back on itself.
  3. Gently stir the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, then add the ground almonds, cocoa, salt, ½ teaspoon of the cinnamon, and the chocolate you set aside earlier.
  4. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill it until it is firm enough to roll, at least 4 hours or overnight.
  5. Preheat the oven to 325° F.
  6. Prepare a bowl with 1 cup of granulated sugar and the other ½ teaspoon of cinnamon. Roll the chilled dough between your palms into 1¼” balls, and drop the balls into the sugar.
  7. Gently shake the bowl to coat cookie balls with sugar, then place on a lined or buttered baking tray 2 inches apart.
  8. Bake cookies until the tops are dry but the centers are still soft, about 12 minutes.
  9. Remove cookies from oven and cool 15 minutes, then gently drop the cookies (round side down) into the remaining sugar to add more sparkle.


Enjoy!


Recipe excerpted from The Case of the Missing Deed by Ellen Schwartz. Copyright © 2011 by Ellen Schwartz. Photographs Copyright © 2011 by Sylvia Chan. Excerpted by permission of Tundra Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Tundra Book Group