http://jamarattigan.com/2013/05/17/friday-feast-hawaiis-food-trucks-on-the-go-by-beth-greenway-and-jamie-meckel-tablason/

http://jamarattigan.com/?p=9621

When I was little, every so often my father would take us for a drive around the island. This was an all-day affair, where we’d see what we could see and eat what we could eat all over O’ahu.

I loved spotting the lunch wagons parked along the Honolulu waterfront, hoping to feast on an onolicious plate lunch with beef stew, teriyaki, or breaded mahimahi. No matter what you ordered, you always got two scoops of rice and macaroni salad. But usually we’d drive right on by because it wasn’t lunch time yet. This only intensified my fascination with lunch wagons: I thought it would be so cool to cook on a little stove in a truck and wait on people through the window on the side.

I don’t know exactly when people in Hawai’i started calling lunch wagons, “food trucks.” But they’re still a big part of the local scene, enticing the always hungry on side streets and main streets with longstanding island favorites as well as gourmet treats.

In jaunty rhyming verse, Beth Greenway’s Hawai’i's Food Trucks on the Go! takes kids on a fun and tasty ride around the island from sunrise to sunset.

The trucks all rev their engines up
and head out on their way:
it’s time to feed the working cars
this bright Hawaiian day.

The Harbor’s where the cranes all work
unloading boats and ships,
a bowl of saimin’s great for lunch
just right for slurps and sips.

Each cheerfully decorated truck serves up a different specialty on its designated turf: Kim’s Korean BBQ downtown, saimin at the harbor, Spam® Musubi at the North Shore, poi in Waikiki, poke at Ewa Beach and laulau in Kapolei.

The North Shore surfers like to munch
on musubi with Spam®,
another food truck, Yuko, cooks
fried rice with bits of ham.

Kahuku’s shrimp is number one
the locals all agree,
the trucks roll up and park between
the mountains and the sea.

This mouthwatering traveling menu celebrates Hawai’i's rich cultural diversity, as Ms. Greenway incorporates Hawaiian place names and food terms from several languages in her rhyming couplets. What could be more fun to read aloud than chewy mouthfuls of rolling-like-the-waves syllables — malasadas, manapua, Waimanalo?

There’s Manuel’s malasadas, yum,
served any time of day,
and Kimo’s manapua truck
past Waimanalo Bay.

Tablason’s trucks, cars, and boats are colorful, charming, and brimming with personality. Each truck is proud of its offerings and so happy to share. At the end of the day, all the food trucks meet downtown to “party down,” reminding us that after a hard day’s work, it feels good to meet friends, relax and play.

Certainly all my childhood favorites are mentioned in this book, so I know local kids will drool in recognition. Munchkins who’ve never been to Hawai’i will enjoy this first taste and tour of the city streets, mountains and beaches. Young ears will love the musicality of the Hawaiian language and of course will be very curious to try some of the food. Who wouldn’t like a deep-fried Portuguese doughnut, a steamy bowl of noodles, a soft bun full of sweet roast pork, a hot dog baked inside a waffle, a refreshing cone of finely shaved ice drenched in strawberry, pineapple, and coconut syrup?

Hawai’i's Food Trucks on the Go! introduces young readers to a much beloved island tradition rooted in the old days at Honolulu Harbor when pushcart peddlers sold soft drinks, snacks, and plate lunches to stevedores, sailors, cruise ship passengers, and laborers passing through the immigration station. Busy people from all over the world united by their love of food!

Whether from pushcart, lunch wagon, or food truck, there’s nothing like the personalized experience of eating something yummy in the warm Hawaiian sunshine, purchased from a small vendor while you’re on the go.

Now, step up to my window, reach through your computer screen, and help yourself to some local favorites:

* * *

HAWAI’I'S FOOD TRUCKS ON THE GO!
written by Beth Greenway
illustrated by Jamie Meckel Tablason
published by BeachHouse Publishing, 2012.
Picture Book for ages 4-8, 32 pp.
Cool themes: Hawai’i, food, diversity, travel, vehicles.
A perfect share for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!

* * *

Ed DeCaria is hosting today’s Poetry Friday Roundup at Think, Kid, Think! Truck on over and sample all the poetic goodness being served up in the blogosphere this week!

* * *

This post is also being linked to Beth Fish Read’s Weekend Cooking, where all are invited to share their food related posts. Put on your bibs and aprons, and come join the fun!

————————————————

*Spreads from Hawai’i's Food Trucks on the Go! posted by permission of the publisher, text copyright © 2012 Beth Greenway, illustrations © 2012 Jamie Meckel Tablason, published by BeachHouse Publishing. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2013 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.

http://www.deadlinedames.com/why-some-people-will-hate-replica/

http://www.deadlinedames.com/?p=11702

In a little less than two months (July 16, to be exact), the first book of my new YA series will finally be hitting the stands. In many ways, the wait for this one has seemed endless–when Replica comes out, it will be my first YA release in two years.

Replica will be my first published science fiction novel. It’s set in the relatively near future, and while there is a major science fiction element to it–the ability to create exact Replicas of human beings, down to memory and personality–at its heart it’s more like a political thriller/murder mystery. In the world of Replica, science may have advanced, but human society has taken some steps backward. Corporations have become hereditary monarchies, and society has once again become highly stratified. Arranged marriages are the norm for the aristocracy (known as Executives), and it is very rare for someone to be elevated past the class to which they were born.

The two concepts make for a rather unusual science fiction novel, but there is something else about it that–as far as I know–is unusual in today’s YA science fiction and fantasy market: one of my two protagonists, Nate Hayes, is gay. (My impression is that it is more common to have a gay protagonist in contemporary YA than in sf/f.)

I know some YA authors who have featured gay secondary characters, and I know they have met with some criticism for it. Sometimes, very nasty criticism. To tell you the honest truth, I took this step with a lot of trepidation, because if other authors get flack about gay secondary characters, I can only imagine how some people might react to a gay protagonist. And yet, I loved what the concept did to my storyline. (In the Executive class, homosexuality is unacceptable, so Nate is firmly in the closet. He has also been informally engaged to his best friend, Nadia, since they were both children. It makes for a wonderfully awkward marriage-of-convenience story.)

I am still nervous about how some people will react to the story. I think our society has come a long way toward acceptance, but it still has a long way to go, and those who oppose gay rights often do so with a great deal of anger. But there’s a general rule of thumb I follow when I’m writing: if I’m scared to write something for any reason, then I must write it. I am a prolific writer, and if I keep writing things that feel safe and easy, I know I will get bored and stop growing as a writer. I want to challenge myself–that’s part of the joy of writing for me–and the fact that something scares me is a sure sign that writing it will be a challenge.

I can confirm that writing the Replica trilogy (I’m at work on book 3 right now) has been quite the challenge–but it’s been a wonderful one. I love these characters, and I love this story. Enough to put it out there even though I know some people will be offended by it. I will probably get some angry emails and some ugly reviews. But you know, if someone is unable to accept Nate for what he is, then that person probably isn’t really in my audience anyway. And I refuse to let fear stop me from doing what is right for my story.

Sixteen-year-old Nadia Lake’s marriage has been arranged with the most powerful family in the Corporate States. She lives a life of privilege even if she has to put up with paparazzi tracking her every move, every detail of her private life tabloid fodder. But her future is assured, as long as she can maintain her flawless public image—no easy feat when your betrothed is a notorious playboy.

Nathaniel Hayes is the heir to the company that pioneered human replication: a technology that every state and every country in the world would kill to have. Except he’s more interested in sneaking around the seedy underbelly of the state formerly known as New York than he is in learning to run his future company or courting his bride-to-be. She’s not exactly his type…not that he can tell anyone that.

But then Nate turns up dead, and Nadia was the last person to see him alive.

When the new Nate wakes up in the replication tanks, he knows he must have died, but with a memory that only reaches to his last memory back-up, he doesn’t know what—or rather, who—killed him.

Together, Nadia and Nate must discover what really happened without revealing the secrets that those who run their world would kill to protect.

If you’d like to read the first chapter of Replica, click here.

If you’d like to bid for an ARC of Replica, you can do so here, in the Brenda Novak Auction for Diabetes Research. (I also have a complete set of autographed Nikki Glass books available.)

If you know of any YA science fiction or fantasy that has a gay protagonist (not just a major character, but an actual protagonist), I’d love to hear about it. I know they’re out there, but the lists I’ve seen either haven’t broken it down by genre, or lump in protagonists with secondary characters.)

Dear Ms. Creech,

This is a thank you note mixed with a confession. Read on, and you’ll understand.

First, I have to say that I loved your talk at the New England SCBWI Conference and was thrilled to finally meet you in person.

So thank you for that. But that’s only part of the thank you.  Before I get to the rest, I have to do the confession part.

So…you know that poem you have on your website? The one that explains to teachers why you can’t accept any more invitations for school visits this year?  It starts like this:

My phone is ringing

and the fax is going
and sometimes I am sick

(I hope you are not sick!)
and my car needs fixing

and I have to go
to the grocery store
and do the laundry

and clean up messes
and I am supposed to be
writing a new book
which takes a lot of time
to think about and
to write all those little words…

 

(The rest of Sharon’s why-I-can’t-visit poem  is here,  for those of you who are not Sharon and don’t know how it goes.)

You might not remember this, but a whole bunch of years ago – maybe nine or ten – you got an email from a teacher begging you to requesting that you consider making an exception to your no-more-school-visits-this-year policy.  It was written as a poem, too, because she thought you might like that, and she figured it was worth a try.  She doesn’t have that exact poem any more, but it went something like this.

We know that you are busy

Answering your phone

And buying food

and doing laundry

and sneezing

(Bless you)

And writing books we adore..

But we love-love-love those books so much

And wondered if you might sneak away

To visit us anyway.

It would just be for a day,

And then you could go back

To your grocery-shopping

Laundry-doing, phone answering, sneezing life

(Bless you)

To write more magical stories

For us all to love.

 

That teacher figured it was a long shot. (She used to be a reporter and understood all about deadlines.) But your poem inspired her poem, just like that, and before she knew it, she’d gone and hit the send button.

Your schedule was too busy to visit.  (She figured it would be.) But you made time to write back. You told her you loved her poem, that it made you smile.

And that made her whole teacher-day.

That teacher was me.

And that explains why I had to sit down when you tweeted this picture last week, saying you found your book in good company at the bookstore.  There’s your book on the left, and beside it, Grace Lin’s book, and then mine. Roald Dahl and Karen Cushman are there, too, just for good measure.

 

Thanks for making my day.   Again.

.

Yesterday was the perfect day to smell lilacs and pass under the white blooms of dogwoods on my way to the Smith College Greenhouse. The museum area is currently devoted to a show called From Petals to Paper: Poetic Inspiration from Flowers. Poems printed on placards and arranged according to flower types were selected by Liliana Farrel and Janna Scott, class of ’13, who were inspired by Annie Boutelle’s poetry workshop. Walls featured irises, tulips, and other spring flowers. The section on daffodils offered Wordsworth wandering lonely as a cloud, along with Robert Herrick, Amy Lowell, and Alicia Ostriker giving the flowers a political context. Poets including Li-Young, Mary Oliver, and Louise Gluck show flowers as solace, taunting, sensuous, exuberant, or demure.


A small room was devoted to Smith alum, Sylvia Plath. We see a draft of Among the Narcissi filled with cross-outs and new words, with still more lines and notes from an editor at The New Yorker, then we see it published in the magazine.


David Trinidad had given us a brief introduction to both Sylvia Plath and tulips in his amusing and profound poem The Red Parade. Here we find Sylvia Plath’s Tulips on the wall and can also listen to a recording on a television. The poem tells of a red gift in a stark hospital room at a time when the narrator felt as if of nurses were claiming her clothes, the anesthetist her history, and the surgeons her body, so that I believed the line near the end: “Tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals.” I like the poem, but am glad I’m a person who can receive tulips and simply say “Thank you, what a gorgeous color!” The recording was made in 1961, two years before Plath would die by her own hand at age thirty, leaving two children.


This heart-tugging show is open until the first weekend of September.

We watched the first semifinal last night and are catching up with the second one tonight. So far: some really nice backup dancing. Also, cool drums of unspecified folk-ish origin. By far our favorite from the first semifinal was Denmark. It had a cool flute/whistle, it had nice drums, it had an actual melody, and well, I guess we were swayed slightly by the lead singer's strong resemblance to Hermione Granger:



We thought she had a much nicer song than the one from Estonia in 2010--we can never remember the name of the group because they remind us too much of another Harry Potter character. Instead, we call them Draco and the Malfoys. (The downer lyrics sort of fit...)

My 12YO thought Moldova's lead singer was Gandalf's wife. (Starting around 2 minutes or so...)

Then we have Lithuania, winner of the slightly peculiar English lyrics award. We kind of liked this one, even though the words are full of deep feeling and he's smiling away. But really, when you are giving a declaration of love and singing about how it's because of your shoes...well, that's one of the things that makes Eurovision entertaining.

Croatia had great singers (sort of a 7 Tenors approach) and nice outfits, but there just wasn't a tune to the song. Too bad. They could have really shone with a more interesting song.

Tonight: the second semifinal. Switzerland's entry is the only one I've heard all the way through. I rather like it. Their song won the national choice, but they had to change their name and costumes because they weren't allowed to compete under the Salvation Army name. (Heilsarmee) The oldest performer is 95! See, this is what's fun about Eurovision: you can have opera and techno and metal and folk and bizarre combinations that may or may not work, all back to back. It's like an unlabeled bag of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans or something. It might be toffee, or you might take a bite and realize it's alas, earwax. It's adventure! And everyone needs some of that now and then...

Would you spend $190,000,000 for this house? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323716304578481020743972716.html#project%3DSLIDESHOW08%26s%3DSB10001424127887324082604578485290472433784%26articleTabs%3Darticle

Needs updated and is not an open concept ;op

So, I'm reasonably confident that the Police's "Every Breath You Take" is a savvy enough song to know just how deeply sophipathological it is. I'm pretty confident about Blondie's "One Way Or Another." (Still amuses me that the first couple of seasons of Farscape use a modified but identifiable version of the riff in the theme. Because yeah.) 

And I know Sarah McLachlan's "Possession" does, because she wrote it that way on purpose.

I'm willing to give unreliable narrators a lot of benefit of the doubt, and people in art do not exist to be role models.

Dido's "White Flag," on the other hand...

I'm pretty sure this song does not know how fucked up it is. I'm just saying. And I'm pretty sure the object of the song needs a restraining order.



...It is pretty, though.

Title: The Gift of Life
Author/Artist: ???
Prompt: Harry had a drunken one night stand and doesn't remember who he slept with, which was usually fine except that he was pregnant now. Draco is a veela and something about Potter is different and eerily similar to his own scent.
Word Count/Art Medium: 13,608
Rating: NC-17
Contains (Highlight to view): Pensieve used for x-rated material, bottom!Harry
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Epilogue compliant?: Absolutely not! (shudders at the thought)
Who is pregnant?: Harry
Notes:Thank you to my wonderful beta [Bad username: ”gusx217”] for her precious help and for putting up with my grammar
Summary: Harry had always wanted a family of his own. Now he was going to get it but it'd be nice to remember with whom he was getting it. Also, having a baby with a Veela was a much bigger challenge for Harry than he'd have ever thought possible.


( The Gift of Life )

Mod Note: Due to the length of this story, it has been posted to DreamWidth. Stories longer than the posting limits allowed on LJ will be posted to our mod acct at Dreamwidth. Please return here to leave your comment love for the author. Thank you!

I read this long enough ago that I can only remember pieces and hopefully all these pieces are from the same story. Harry was in trouble and brought to a location by Severus. Severus it turns out is pretty much destined to be Harry's mate even though at first Harry is interested in someone else but he turns out to be bad. I know this isn't helping... I am pretty sure there were connections to King Arthur and some of the knights of the round table and these people were decendents and had been trying to watch over Harry without letting Dumbledore know. I am pretty sure Dumbledore was one of the main bad guys in this fic. Please help if you can my google-fu isn't working!

Hi! Today we’re celebrating the release of Ashley Elston’s THE RULES FOR DISAPPEARING, which came out on Tuesday!

They say:  

She’s been six different people in six different places: Madeline in Ohio, Isabelle in Missouri, Olivia in Kentucky… But now that she’s been transplanted to rural Louisiana, she has decided that this fake identity will be her last.

Witness Protection has taken nearly everything from her. But for now, they’ve given her a new name, Megan Rose Jones, and a horrible hair color. For the past eight months, Meg has begged her father to answer one question: What on earth did he do – or see – that landed them in this god-awful mess? Meg has just about had it with all the Suits’ rules — and her dad’s silence. If he won’t help, it’s time she got some answers for herself.

But Meg isn’t counting on Ethan Landry, an adorable Louisiana farm boy who’s too smart for his own good. He knows Meg is hiding something big. And it just might get both of them killed. As they embark on a perilous journey to free her family once and for all, Meg discovers that there’s only one rule that really matters — survival.

I say:

I love the hook of a girl in the Witness Protection Program! It reminds me of a childhood favorite, Lois Duncan’s DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU. Meg is a tremendously sympathetic main character. Her dad is keeping secrets about why they’ve got to endure this, her spunky little sister is going silent and childlike, and her mom’s drinking is getting out of control. After being abruptly yanked out of her original life and several placements, leaving friends and identities behind in each place, it’s totally understandable that she’s decided not to even try in Louisiana. Of course, that’s before she meets Ethan, who really is adorable. Her attempts to push him away are, again, understandable, but I appreciate that instead of being endlessly patient, he gets frustrated with her and demands the truth. I love the charming small-town setting and the rich family dynamics – but what really kept me flipping pages is the mystery of what got Meg’s family into this situation and the very real sense of danger following her. The neat ending struck me as a tad implausible, but it’s possible that the sequel will make it all make sense. I’ll definitely be reading it! Recommend!

Now for our interview with Ashley:​

1. Describe your main character in 3 adjectives + a noun.

Meg is a smart, scared, determined sister. (JS: I loved the sisterly relationship here!)

2. Describe your book in 3 adjectives + a noun.

THE RULES FOR DISAPPEARING is a mysterious, romantic, thrilling novel.

3. Describe yourself in 3 adjectives + a noun.

I’m a happy, independent, kind adventurer.

4. If you could travel to any 3 countries, what would they be?

Australia, Ireland, Argentina

5. If you could take any 3 non-writing-related classes, what would they be?

​Pottery, cake decorating, French (JS: ooh, cake decorating would be so fun!)

6. If you could have any 3 alternate careers, what would they be?

Photography, horticulturist, archeologist

7. What are your 3 favorite flowers?

​Gardenia, hydrangea, Louisiana Iris

8. What are your 3 favorite foods?

Crawfish, German chocolate cake, sushi

9. What are your 3 favorite books?

GRACELING by Kristin Cashore, ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins, DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE by Laini Taylor (JS: awesome choices! I love all of these!)

You can find out more about Allison at her website and add the book to your Goodreads shelf here.

Ashley is offering up a swag pack to one lucky winner in the US (necklace, bookmark, and stickers). To enter, leave me a comment telling me what fake name you’d choose if you had to go into hiding. I’m going to go with Lia!

Thank you for stopping by, Ashley! I hope you’re having a fabulous debut week!

Originally published at Jessica Shea Spotswood. You can comment here or there.