This Moment is Your Life (And So Is This One) blog tour

BOOK DESCRIPTION 

    Don't just do something, be here.

The key to happiness is being able to find comfort in this moment, here and now. When you are completely present and not distracted by regrets, worries, and plans, even for a little while, you begin to feel more confident and can deal more easily with everything you experience. This is mindfulness: paying attention to this very moment, on purpose and without judgment--simply being present with curiosity.

This engaging guide, packed with simple exercises and endearing full-color artwork, provides a handy starting point for bringing mindfulness into your daily life. Chapters on meditation, yoga, and mindful breathing explain the benefits of these practices, and you are free to pick and choose what to try. There are quick exercises throughout, and a more extensive tool kit at the end of each chapter. The final chapter offers satisfying five-day challenges that map out ways to pull all of the book's mindfulness techniques together in your day-to-day life.

With the appeal of a workbook or guided journal, and full of examples relevant to tweens and teens today, this book will be your trusted companion as you begin the valuable, stress-relieving work of being still with skill.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mariam Gates has a master's degree in education from Harvard University and has been teaching children for more than twenty years. The founder of Kid Power Yoga, she now devotes herself to training children and adults in yoga and mindfulness. She is the author of the picture books Meditate with Me, Good Night Yoga, and Good Morning Yoga. She lives with her husband, Rolf Gates, and their two children in Santa Cruz, California.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Libby VanderPloeg is an illustrator and designer living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She grew up in Grand Haven, Michigan, on the edge of the Great Lakes, and since then, she has lived in Grand Rapids, Chicago, New York, and Stockholm. She's created book covers and editorial illustrations for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Design*Sponge, among others, and as well as a line of cards and prints that she sells via her Etsy shop and in stores.

I absolutely loved Mariam Gates's picture books Good Morning, Yoga and Good Night, Yoga, so I jumped at the chance to read her newest book for middle grade and young adult readers. I have been searching for a book on mindfulness to share with my students and this book definitely filled that need. I will definitely be sharing some of the mindfulness exercises with my students.

This Moment is Your Life (And So Is This One) by Mariam Gates, illustrated by Libby VanderPleog
Published: May 22, 2018
Publisher: Dial
Pages: 248
Genre: Nonfiction
Audience: Middle Grade/Young Adult
Disclosure: Review copy provided by publisher

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

Brunette Ambition by Lea Michele

Lea Michele is best known for her role as Rachel Berry on the wildly popular TV show Glee, but she was also an incredibly successful Broadway performer before she rose to TV stardom. In this memoir/how-to book, Lea tells her story of her rise to fame, as well as gives health, fitness, and beauty advice.

Brunette Ambition is beautifully laid out with many color photos and organized in such a way that makes it feel more like a magazine than a book. I know its unconventional and innovative approach to a memoir will appeal to teen girls, but as a thirtysomething teacher I wasn't impressed. The best parts of this book were when Lea forgot about the gimmicky layout with ridiculous diversions like recipes, beauty advice, and photographs of exercises she does to stay in shape, and just got real and told her story. She is not someone I would consider an authority on food or fitness, so adding those advice column-type diversions lessened the impact of her story. Instead, this book comes off as more novelty than substance.

What also didn't sit well with me about this book is that Lea talks a lot about staying true to who you are and not changing your appearance for the sake of Hollywood, yet the photos in this book are clearly heavily airbrushed. In addition, she comes of as a bit boastful when she talks about how to be red carpet ready, which she tries to downplay by attempting to approach her advice to the  "commoner"  by saying that her words hold true whether you're getting ready for the red carpet or your high school prom.

I'm not saying there aren't special moments in this book. I really do find Lea's story and her life fascinating -- I especially loved her story of when she met her hero, Barbara Streisand. But I wish she would have just focused on being real instead of distracting the reader with so much superficiality. I don't think this is a book I will be adding to my classroom library.


Brunette Ambition by Lea Michele
Published: May 20, 2014
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Pages: 208
Genre: Memoir/How-to
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: Finished copy provided by publisher


If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.  

Bogart and Vinnie: A Completely Made-Up Story of True Friendship by Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Henry Cole

When Vinnie, a hyperactive, overly-enthusiastic dog finds himself lost one day, he stumbles into a wild animal preserve and befriends a curmudgeonly rhino named Bogart. Well, at least Vinnie thinks they're friends. To say Bogart is dubious (and maybe a tad bit bored) of Vinnie might be an understatement. But soon the media gets wind of this interspecies friendship and reporters flock to the animal preserve, making Bogart and Vinnie famous. Will their friendship last the test of fame? And what about Vinnie's home? Will his family find him and take Vinnie away from Bogart?

In my eyes Audrey Vernick can do no wrong. I continue to marvel at the smart, sassy humor in her fictional picture books and the sincerity and heart in her nonfiction picture books. Everything she writes has such a cleverness about it, right down to the zebras in this book whose names are Polka and Dot. I wish I were that clever.

Vinnie's enthusiasm comes off as both annoying and endearing at the same time, a trait I know many a dog owner can relate to, and Henry Cole's illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to showing the reader the striking variance of personalities between Bogart the curmudgeon and Vinnie eager optimist.

Audrey was gracious enough to read my class and their third grade buddies Bogart and Vinnie via Skype on World Read Aloud Day in March so I already knew I loved the story, but being able to see the words and illustrations up close made it even better.

If you are an animal lover, or just plain like funny stories, then pick yourself up a copy of Bogart and Vinnie today!

Bogart and Vinnie: A Completely Made-Up Story of True Friendship by Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Henry Cole
Published: June 18, 2013
Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers
Pages: 40
Genre: Picture Book
Audience: Primary/Middle Grade
Disclosure: Purchased Copy