Recommended Reads from Mindy Bilyeu, Adult Services Librarian
Save-It-Forward Suppers: A Simple Strategy to Save Time, Money, and Sanity
by Cyndi Kane (Nonfiction)
Cyndi Kane introduces readers to her save-it-forward method to cut down on cooking time and meal prep. She saves components of a meal to use for the following evening’s dinner. Her book features 15 weekly menus to prepare meals for the week. Some of the featured menu items include Shrimp Packet for Dinner and Italian Sunday Gravy and Pasta.
PlantYou: 140+ Ridiculously Easy, Amazingly Delicious, Plant-Based, Oil-Free Recipes
by Carleigh Bodrug (Nonfiction)
Carleigh Bodrug, founder of the social media community PlantYou, inspires readers with 140 plus vegan recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. Recipes featured in the book include Rainbow Summer Rolls, Best Ever Cauli Wings and Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies. Each recipe includes a colorful infographic showing the ingredients needed and portion size.
Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World
by Danielle Friedman (Nonfiction)
A fascinating narrative and historical record of how women’s exercise has evolved over time – from jogging and Jazzercise to the rise of yoga in the ’90s. Women’s exercise culture started off as a beauty tool and progressed into an outlet for mental, physical and emotional well-being. Each chapter highlights the beginning of a fitness movement for readers.
Move: How the New Science of Body Movement Can Set Your Mind Free
by Caroline Williams (Nonfiction)
Caroline Williams, a veteran science journalist, investigates the latest research behind brain health and physical activity. She reveals easy tricks to boost readers’ memory and creativity, strengthen emotional literacy, and more. In a world where we spend 70 percent of our lives sitting or lying still, this book encourages movement to boost those brain cells.
Recommended Reads from Robin Gibson, Youth Services Librarian
Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America
by Mayukh Sen (Nonfiction)
This book weaves together the stories of immigrant women across the globe and their food ways from Mexico to Italy. Taste Makers begins at WWII to present day sharing how these women shaped modern day American cuisine.
Recommended Reads from Robin Gibson, Youth Services Librarian
A Taste of the World: What People Eat and How They Celebrate Around the Globe
by Beth Walrond (Nonfiction)
Travel around the world in this celebration of food – where it comes from, how it grows, and how it is used in different countries. You’ll learn about different types of rice, how it is grown and how it is used for rice cakes in China and mango sticky rice in Thailand (where the word for rice and food “khao” is the same) and paella in Spain.
Bee-bim Bop!
by Linda Sue Park (Picture Book)
The author draws on her Korean American heritage to share the creation of this “mixed-up rice” dish, from grocery shopping to helping in the kitchen and setting the table with spoons and chopsticks. The cheerful rhyming text will have young readers chanting along and perhaps wanting to make their own bee-bim bop.
Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story
by Kevin Noble Maillard (Picture Book)
A Seminole author shares the Native American tradition of making fry bread. The process becomes a sensory exploration of cooking. This authentic story of coming together explores shape (rolling the dough), sound (sizzles), color (sienna), and aspects of time, history and place.
Freedom Soup
by Tami Charles (Picture Book)
A girl and her grandmother (Ti Gran) come together to cook this soup, which is traditionally made in Haiti to celebrate the new year. A joyful story that incorporates music, history and dance into a delightful family meal.
A Place at the Table
by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan (Juvenile Fiction)
Sara, a Pakistani American, is new to Poplar Springs Middle School and meets Elizabeth, a Jewish girl, in the afterschool cooking class her mom teaches. The two become friends as they learn both their mothers are applying for citizenship and team up to invent a new recipe that draws on both cultures for a school contest.
