Non-Fiction Pick: Undecided. Navigating Life and Learning After High School

Undecided. Navigating Life and Learning After High School
by Geniveve Morgan
Zest Books
2014
247 pages, with resources, index and bibliography
ISBN: 9781936976324

Author Genevieve Morgan offers sound advice for anyone who is in high school or in the "gap years." Whether it's military service, volunteer work, an internship, a two year college, a four year college or the work force, Undecided will give young people much needed information about how to navigate the next few years of their lives.

Helpful and informative sidebars and tips are easy to spot in gray boxes. Readers will want to pay close attention to the information in these. Early chapters are about personality traits, being an introvert vs. extrovert and how to choose a career that will fit your personality. Money matters and the cost of a college education help students and parents plan for this drain on family finances. On-line courses may be taken by some students and preferred by many.

Maybe an internship or apprenticeship is the right idea, or studying abroad, or even opening up your own business. Whatever their choice is, soon-to-be twenty-somethings will gain insight from this new book.

A list of websites for resources is an invaluable addition.

Highly recommended grade 8-up. I would not give to a high school senior. Many of the decisions for college--what admission tests to take, how to finance college, how to apply for a loan or grant-- have to made before a student's senior year.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Foodie and Book Club Pick: My Berlin Kitchen

My Berlin Kitchen
By Luisa Weiss
Viking
2012
302 pages with recipes

Fans of Luisa Weiss’s blog, The Wednesday Chef, are in for a real treat—her own true story of cooking, living and loving. Weiss was a young child when her parents divorced, her father relocating to America and her Italian mother living in Berlin. She traveled between the two continents throughout her childhood and teens, never feeling truly at home or belonging to any country. She remembers the long flights and the Christmases away from either her father or her mother, but never Christmas with both of them.

The only place young Luisa felt safe was in the kitchen, the aromas and colors of familiar food welcoming her into its open arms. Luisa soon associated certain foods with certain family members or places. Her father gave her a recipe for the family’s Tomato Sauce—great comfort food handed down from her Italian grandmother (maternal). Whenever Luisa prepares it, she remembers her father and her grandmother, and she hopes to pass it along to her children someday. She points out that everyone needs a great tomato sauce.

From her uncle Pietro, Luisa includes a delicious recipe for Pizza Siciliana, a Sicilian treasure topped with escarole, anchovies, provolone and grape tomatoes. Serious foodies will love recipes for Erbsensuppe (German Pea Soup), Braised Leeks and Meatballs in Tomato-Chipotle Sauce.

Luisa’s story is shared by countless numbers of career women on the fast track. Through their 20’s and 30’s, they are building a career and not thinking about marriage or children, and suddenly, they hear that biological clock ticking faster. They nearly panic. It’s time! Their clock keeps reminding them. Find a husband. Settle down. Start a family. And like Luisa, they may fight the clock; they may walk away from love. Only to discover it has always been there.

My Berlin Kitchen is a charming and winsome read with wide appeal. It’s a love story, a coming of age story, a food story, a family story, a life story. Like Eat, Pray, Love, this novel will captivate and capture hordes of hungry new fans (pun intended).

Highly, highly recommended for foodies, romantics, and book club members everywhere. Mature content. Wide appeal for high school libraries. Teens will be enthralled by Luisa’s “jet-set” lifestyle.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.