Tuesday Teasers: "If I Grow Up" and "Play Their Hearts Out"

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should  Be Reading. Anyone can play along, so I thought  I  would play for fun! Just do the following:          

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on  that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away!   You don’t  want  to  ruin the  book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can  add the book to their TBR  Lists  if they  like your teaser. 

Karen's::

"You forget how your momma died?"  Gramma snapped.  "How many times I have to tell you not to run when they shoot?  You could run right into the cross fire.  You hear shootin', you drop to the ground and stay there."

From p. 18 of If I Grow Up by Todd Strasser.

Gerard's:
 Like most children, they saw only the glory.  It was up to the parents to see what lurked behind it.

From p. 92 of Play Their Hearts Out--A Coach, His Star Recruit, and The Youth Basketball Machine by George Dohrmann

"Dewey's Nine Lives" by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter

Vicki Myron, best-selling author of Dewey, The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World Library Cat, is back with more stories about Dewey and other stories about people who have had their lives touched by cats in her book, Dewey‘s Nine Lives.  This is just an outstanding read.  The stories about Dewey are good and the other stories are really good too!  I enjoyed this book so much!  So, welcome back, Dwey, and the friends he brought along.  This book will make my top 10 for the year for sure!  I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys reading about pets, people‘s everyday lives and cats.
(Gerard's review)

Dewey's Nine Lives by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter is a collection of nine short stories about different people and how Dewey or another cat affected their lives.  Although I did not enjoy it as much as Gerard did, I did like it okay.  It is a touching book but not one I couldn't wait to get back to see what happened next.  It's about ordinary people who had some unusual experiences with different cats.  I liked seeing the pictures of the different people with their cats.

I was amazed at how tough "Spooky" was.  He survived being tossed onto a moving car from quite a distance, riding on a goose, riding a motorcycle, being swatted by a bear and thrown  through the air and being dumped in the garbage by his owner's landlady and walking back home 20 miles.
(Karen's review)

Announcing Winners Our Stephen King Spooktacular Giveaway

Congratulations to our winners.  I printed out the emails of all our entries and those getting more than one entry I printed more times.  I shuffled the stacks and spread the entries out on the floor upside down for each of our pets to choose a winner for a book.  Here are the results:

Manny chose April X of Princess Reviews to win 

Four Past Midnight.

Abby chose Arceli (Half broke college student) to win  

The Tommyknockers.

Spunky Doodle chose Christine of Christine Senter's Blog to win The Dark Half.

We hope you all enjoy these books which I hope to get in the mail to you this week and everyone has a happy and safe Halloween!

Watch for our next Gratitude Giveaway for our fabulous followers November 17-27.  All you will need do to enter is be a follower and leave a comment.  We will also be running a giveaway for our fabulous followers over at "My Funny Dad, Harry."  Hope you will visit that blog too.

“Who Switched Off My Brain? Controlling toxic thoughts and emotions” by Dr. Caroline Leaf

I want to thank Rebecca at The Freaky Frugalite for recommending Who Switched Off My Brain? By Dr. Caroline Leaf when she commented on my Things I Learned This Week post.  I found this to be fascinating and very helpful.  I am interested in scientific research that relates to my everyday life which is in abundance in this short book about the brain.  The beginning chapters were pretty technical and had a lot of words related to the brain that I am unfamiliar with so that part dragged along a bit for me.  However, after reading those beginning chapters, I have a much better understanding of how thoughts are processed and stored. 

Caroline Leaf goes into a lot of detail in the first four chapters about how inter-related our thoughts are to our emotions and our health.  Who Switched Off My Brain gives scientific research that supports what the Bible has said relating to our thoughts and thinking on things that are positive rather than negative.  I liked the last two chapters best because those are the ones which focused more on how we can actually take control of our thoughts.

There are 13 techniques listed in the last chapter to implement to detox our brains.  The one that "jumped" out at me describes exactly how if feel Mondays through Fridays which I share with you here:

Rush, rush, rush!  Hurry, hurry, hurry!  Busy, busy, busy!  The ever-increasing pace of life is called the “acceleration syndrome,” and it is causing a global epidemic of hurry sickness.  The next time you think you don’t have time for exercise or relaxation, think again.  The reality is simply that you have chosen to fill your time with activities and things other than exercise and relaxation. P. 135-136

  
I really need to relax during the weekdays too!  Just to give you a sampling of some other things I learned by reading Who Switched Off My Brain?:  Laugh and play every day, exercise, take time alone for prayer, love others no matter what, forgive freely, don’t eat when angry, touch, and root of stress is fear. 

I do not normally purchase books, but this is one I would like to own.  I’ll be checking www.PaperbackSwap.com for it.  I would love to own this as a reference book.  I highly recommend this book!(Karen's review)

Have you read this one? What did you think of it?

Check out our Stephen King Book Spooktacular Giveaway but hurry--entries end 12:30 p.m. on Halloween, Oct. 31, 2010.

"Dewey, The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World" by Vicki Myron

I give Dewey, The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched The World as many stars as in the sky!  This is one worth buying! My favorite book of the year!
Here are 4 things about this book:

1)  You will LOVE this book.
2)  You will not want to put it down.
3)  You will cry a lot!
4)  You will never forget it!

That being said, this is a wonderful book. I plan to get this book to have and read it again and again!!  This book will touch you like it did me.  What a special cat Dewey was and wonderful person Vicki is.  Thanks for telling the story, Vicki.  I wish I could have met Dewey and pet him!!  Treasure and enjoy this book!!
(Gerard's Review 10/08)

Dewey, The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World by Vicki Myron is a true story about the love between a lady and the cat she found in the library book drop box that she let live in the library. It was a very friendly, affectionate, energetic cat who became famous and who greeted the patrons and laid in their laps. It reminded me of my relationship with my cats and how special they are. The end as he aged reminded me of our Moe cat. I think anyone who likes cats would enjoy reading this book.
(Karen's review 10/08)

Check out our Spooktacular Giveaway but hurry--Entries close at 12:30 p.m. on Halloween, Oct. 31, 2010.


Have you read this one? What did you think of it?