Category: iRead Book Tours

After an exhausting day at work, hitting the drive-thru or nuking a pre-fab meal is all too often the go-to decision for feeding a family. Cooking a meal from scratch using fresh ingredients can seem beyond the average person’s time, energy, or financial means. But with mounting evidence pointing to processed food and our industrial food system as the culprits behind many of our nation’s health problems—including obesity, diabetes, and cancer—it’s now more important than ever to be fully informed about what goes on your family’s dinner plates.

About Ditching the Drive-Thru

If you’re ready to take control of your food choices but don’t know the difference between grass-fed versus grain-fed, pastured versus free-range, or organic versus sustainable, read this book to discover:

• How to create your own thirty-month plan to convert your family from junk food to real food, without a revolt!

• Recipes and advice on planning and prepping meals so you can make home cooked a habit for your family

• Instructions for getting the most out of produce using techniques such as lacto-fermentation, dehydrating, and canning

•  introduction to the world of farm-direct sales, including tips on locating local farms, seeing through marketing buzzwords, and shopping with CSAs Ditching the Drive-Thru exposes the insidious hold the commercial food industry has taken over the fast-paced lives of the average American and the danger these processed foods and diet plans pose to our health, environment, and emotional wellbeing.

Learn how to break free from the grind and return to a simpler relationship with food from farmers, not factories, and home-cooked meals that are created in your kitchen, not on a conveyor belt.

Book Excerpt

Getting Your Family to Eat Better ─ Meet Your Sherpa Guide

by Joel Salatin

Every time I talk to a group about getting in touch with their food supply, healing the planet one bite at a time, or cultivating enthusiasm for domestic culinary arts—all common sound bites— I receive thunderous applause and then . . . then the queries and excuses start:

“I don’t have the time.”

“I don’t have the money.”

“I don’t know how to cook.”

“My kids are picky eaters.”

The script plays out every time, on every socioeconomic level, in every geographic region. Our modern American culture is profoundly ignorant about eating.

Most modern Americans demean and cheapen body fuel to a mundane afterthought, less than a comma in our helter-skelter, plugged-in, harried lives. Running on dirty fuel, our people now lead the world in per capita health care costs, all the while spending the least—in both money and time—on food.

It’s time to leave the sidelines. It’s time to play the game. Natalie Winch, through her book Ditching the Drive-Thru, is both mentor and coach. Yet this New Jersey high school English teacher, with husband and two children creates a plan as simple and fundamental as a shopping list. Applying the most tried-and-true goal-setting templates to the traditional heart of the home, Winch takes us on a delightful journey—along with her beloved Homer’s Odyssey as metaphor—and leaves us empowered to exit our bleacher seat, charging onto the field, game plan in hand.

What makes her saga even more special is that she’s not a scientist, food nutritionist, or gourmand. She didn’t wait for a grant or a reality TV show offer. She started where most of these stories start—how can I be a better mom for my kid? It’s really that simple.

So if you want to walk instead of talk. If you want to do instead of dream. If you want to play instead of observe. If you want to change instead of wish, here is a great little book to get you going on your own food empowerment odyssey.

Joel Salatin is a Virginia family farmer who was made famous by Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and the award-winning film Food, Inc. Time magazine called him “the most influential farmer in America.” This posting was excerpted from Ditching the Drive-Thru, by J. Natalie Winch.

My Thoughts

Changing my eating habits has been a huge item for me in the last two years, more so in the last six months. What we eat affects our health and well-being, and I had come to realize I was not eating things that were making me feel good (nor helping with my weight!). I have done a complete overhaul of my habits but there is always something new to learn and try out.

Ditching the Drive-Thur helps you work through some of the new and emerging terms that you probably hear a lot about (GMOs, organic,etc) by breaking these themes down chapter by chapter and explaining them in simple terms.

The layout in this book is perfect and makes sense from a readers standpoint (with the progression of terms, recipes,etc..). The writing is easy enough for most adults and youths to understand and relate to their own lives. She also provides great recipes, tips and ideas on how to make healthier choices and how to stock your home. All of which are key themes to eating healthy!

For me this was a great reminder of why I am choosing to eat healthier and why it is so important for my family to do so also. It gave me fresh new ideas to try out while giving me opportunity to adapt it to my own home. A great read for those looking to change bad habits and adopt a healthier lifestyle!

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Rating: 4/5

About the Author

J. Natalie Winch lives in southern New Jersey, not far from where she grew up, with her husband, two children, and dogs. When she isn’t mothering, teaching, grading, or making lesson plans, Natalie runs the Hebrew School at her synagogue, coaches soccer, teaches lacto-fermentation classes, writes the occasional entry for her blog Food Empowerment (tradsnotfads.com), and fights the dust bunnies that threaten to take over her family room. You can connect with her on her website.

The Giveaway!

You can now enter to win one of twenty copies of Ditching the Drive-Thru and One $30 Amazon Gift Card. You can enter via the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck!

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Ready to laugh about motherhood and be encouraged? Tired of feeling overwhelmed and stressed out in the baby and toddler season? Need some fresh vision and perspective so you can enjoy—not just endure—your young children?

About Stop and Smell Your Children

Stop and Smell Your Children: Laugh and Enjoy the Little Years offers moms-to-be and moms of young children short, real-life parenting stories that encourage and inspire. Leah Spina, mother of three children ages five and under, and former journalist, unleashes humor and perspective for tired moms who are parenting the “little” years. From the excitement of the positive pregnancy test to morning sickness and the banes of pregnancy, to childbirth, babies, toddlers and new parent struggles, the stories will make you laugh and see beauty in the chaos. Each story also includes thought-provoking takeaways to help busy moms gain a fresh outlook.

Strangers remind us that our children will be small only for a short time and to enjoy each moment. But then we return to the wild reality of parenting young children! All-night crying sessions. Never-ending laundry. Every-three-hour feeding schedules. Diaper explosions and projectile spit-up. Teething. Potty training. Yes, we enjoy our children, but we’d also like to enjoy a shower that lasts more than two minutes, or a meal that isn’t lukewarm (if we’re lucky). The truth is, pregnancy and parenting young children can be hard at times. But it can also be one of the best chapters of our lives, if we can learn to laugh and change our mindset.

My Thoughts

Have you ever received a book just in time? Something that you needed to read and hear from someone who wasn’t a family member or friend? Stop and Smell Your Children is THAT book.

Leah uses wit, personal experience and humour to make you see the light at the end of the tunnel, find joy in each rough moment and to cherish each moment. Our children grow so fast (honestly I can still remember my eleven year as a toddler and I am shocked when I look at him now!) and these are the most demanding years of us as parents. It can be hard at times not to be angry or resentful.

Leah uses humour (because if we are honest with each other – we have all been there before!) to help you see that behind every rough moment in time, take a deep breath and appreciate that moment of chaos. You will fall in love with her fresh writing and personal moments she shares. Stop and Smell Your Children should be the example all parenting books use when writing for parents. As parents, we need real life advice, humour and non judgemental views. We are all doing the best we can do! Stop and Smell Your Children will leave you in tears, smiling and remembering each and every special moment of your child’s life.

You can purchase a copy of Stop and Smell Your Children on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Leah Spina is a former journalist of a national newsweekly magazine and also worked as a childbirth coordinator at a large adoption agency. She has her B.S in Business Administration from Thomas Edison State College. She has two adorable children – Samson and Esther – and resides in Dallas, Texas with her husband, David. When she’s not changing diapers, she enjoys singing Broadway, sun tanning on Italian beaches and riding horses.

Book Trailer

The Giveaway!

My Canadian and American readers can now enter to win one of ten copies of Stop and Smell Your Children. Enter via the form below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Jesusita is the story of immigrants—legal and illegal—trying to survive in California in the years after World War II.

About Jesusita

Jesusita, alone and impoverished, struggles to keep her four young children together. Though she finds support from Padre Montes at St. Teresa’s Catholic Church, her faith won’t solve her problems, especially those with her daughter, Paulina. Far from home, Filipino laborers are denied by law any contact with white women. Angie, the young daughter of an illiterate and unmarried mother, knows only one way to make money. And Felix, abandoned by his mother and separated from his only brother, is placed in a foster home on an isolated ranch. The interrelated lives of these people provide a complex, sometimes violent, and often tragic image of American poverty within the nation’s postwar boom.

My Thoughts

Jesusita, tells the story of one woman who has struggled to earn a living in a country that is not accepting of her culture and a society that would do anything to keep their existence hidden.

Jesusita is the main character in this novel and the other characters seem to move around her and as we get to the later half of the book we understand the importance of finding out about the lives of Angie and Felix. It is from her the story flows and that we learn about the others tied in to her story and her struggles. She suffers to keep a roof over her children’s heads and food in their stomachs. This is a pain that I can not even begin to imagine experiencing as a Mother. The emotional and physical strain takes a toll on her and we can witness this through the relationships between herself and her children.

It is God that helps her through her darkest moments but also that helps her hide her frustrations and angers instead of dealing with them. She hides behind the perfect image she portrays to her religious family, while her home life falls apart.

Jesusita was a fascinating novel, that at times was hard to follow but near the end of the novel the story comes together full circle. It is complex, intricate but fascinating at the same time. A very good read!

You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Rating: 4/5

About the Author

After reading Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment at the age of 17, I knew I wanted to be a writer. But I knew nothing about the craft. My first novel, Happy Birthday Jesús, was published 36 years later. Surprisingly, it received good reviews

For many years, I was a criminal defense attorney and at the end of my career a prosecutor, but I always managed to find time to write. What I saw and experienced during those years often serves as a basis for my writing. For me, learning how to write has been a long, continuous and, at times, torturous process.

Now retired, I try to write every day and I feel fortunate that I have found something in writing that sustains me. I’m glad I persevered during all those years of rejection. More than anything, writing about what I see and experience in life has given me a sense of worth.

The Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

In Murder on Safari, it is up to a reality TV producer and an expert safari guide to stop a terrorist attack.

About Murder on Safari

Every adventure starts at the fringes of civilization. For expert safari guide Mbuno and wildlife television producer Pero Baltazar, filming in the wild of East Africa should have been a return to the adventure they always loved. This time they’d be filming soaring vultures in northern Kenya and giant sea crocodiles in Tanzania with Mary, the daughter of the world’s top television evangelist, the very reverend Jimmy Threte.

But when a terrorist cell places them in the crosshairs, there is suddenly no escape and they must put their filming aside and combine all their talents to thwart an all-out al-Shabaab terrorist attack on Jimmy Threte’s Christian gathering of hundreds of thousands in Nairobi, Kenya.

My Thoughts

Murder on Safari is an intense, action full novel that demands your full attention. Peter incorporates the language of the African countries they travel through (with some explanation to the terms so you just have to pay a little bit more attention to the first time the words are used but it doesn’t take away from the story). I loved how action packed the entire novel was from start to finish as they traveled East Africa and explored the wilds while trying to escape terrorists. There was never a really dull moment.

Despite the action packed adventure in the story, there was just as interesting story line playing out behind the scenes in our main characters of Pero and Mary. Pero has lost someone close to him and it is this loss which helps him on this mission. Mary is the glue that holds the story together, a very important part of the novel and how the story unwinds.

Murder on Safari was a fantastic read from start to finish, that readers will not want to put down.

You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Chapters.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Peter Riva spent many months over thirty years in Africa, many of them with the legendary guides for East African white hunters and adventurers. He created a TV series (seventy-eight 1-hour episodes) in 1995 called WildThings for Paramount TV. Passing on the fables, true tales and insider knowledge of these last reserves of true wildlife is a passion.

The Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.