Portrait Drawing for Kids by Angela Rizza

Portrait Drawing for Kids: A Step-by-Step Guide to Drawing Faces by Angela Rizza ISBN-13: 978-1641527255 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Rockridge Press Released: May 19th 2020

Source: review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Anyone can take a picture―but drawing a person with recognizable likeness takes practice. Portrait drawing offers a completely unique interpretation of your subject, and Portrait Drawing for Kids gives budding artists the skill set they need to draw pictures of themselves, their family, and friends. Broken down into simple, step-by-step instructions, this book will teach you every aspect of portraiture, from features of the face, to capturing emotions, to techniques like shading and highlighting. This drawing for kids book will help you take your artistic talents to the next level―beginning with a sharpened pencil.


My Review:
Portrait Drawing for Kids is an art instruction book for beginners at drawing human faces with graphite pencil. The targeted age range is 9 to 12 years old, but I think it would be most useful for teenagers and adults since it assumes a certain level of focus and observational skills. In each chapter, she taught a new concept and then demonstrated how to draw it using six illustrated steps with brief text instructions for each step. She then provided three practice pages which simply showed the six steps with no new instructions. These practice faces would be at different angles and be both male and female and different ethnicities.

The author started by looking at the basic facial shape and how the face changes when you view it from the front, side, three quarters view, etc. Then she covered eyes and eyebrows, nose and mouth, different expressions, shading and how it changes based on the direction of the light source, adding ears, necks, hair, beards, and glasses. She then had you practice by doing different activities (with explanations on how to pose or otherwise do these activities), like drawing yourself, your friends, profiles, and group portraits. She also had you look at different portrait styles throughout history and try some of those styles. Overall, I would recommend this book to beginners at drawing faces, but I was confused by why she didn't better explain how to get an individuals facial portions correct.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Northeast Medicinal Plants by Liz Neves

Northeast Medicinal Plants by Liz Neves ISBN-13: 9781604699135 Paperback: 432 pages Publisher: Timber Press Released: May 26th 2020

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
In Northeast Medicinal Plants, herbalist Liz Neves is the reader's trusted guide to finding, identifying, harvesting, and using 111 of the region’s most powerful wild plants. Readers will learn how to safely and ethically forage, and how to use wild plants in herbal medicines including teas, tinctures, and salves. Plant profiles include clear, color photographs, identification tips, medicinal uses and herbal preparations, and harvesting suggestions. Lists of what to forage for each season makes the guide useful year-round. Thorough, comprehensive, and safe, this is a must-have for foragers, naturalists, and herbalists in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.


My Review:
Northeast Medicinal Plants is a guide to foraging wild medicinal plants in the Northeast (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.). The author started by explaining how to gather the different parts of a plant for medicinal use (leaves and flowers, bark, roots, etc.), how to store them, and how to make a infusion, decoction, tincture, oil infusion, poultice, syrup, etc. She included some information about plant identification, including pictures to help illustrate the different terms.

The main part of the book was an alphabetically organized list of 111 plants found in the region. For each listing, we're given the common names, the Latin name, the parts of the plant used, a description of how to identify the plant, when and how to gather the plant, the medicinal uses of the different parts the plant, how to ensure a future harvest, any safety cautions, and details about how to use the plant (the proportions used in a tincture, etc.). For each plant, there was a picture of the plant (often including its natural habitat) and usually a picture or two of distinguishing details, like the flower or a close-up of the leaf. Overall, this is an excellent resource for anyone interested in gathering and using medicinal plants from this area. It's very informative and provided practical information.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Healthy Vegan, Happy Body by Tess Challis

Healthy Vegan, Happy Body by Tess Challis ISBN-13: Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime Released:

Source: review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Go healthy vegan! When you have the foods you love every day, eating healthy is hassle-free. Reap the many benefits of a healthy vegan diet--extra energy, reduced inflammation, and even financial savings! Healthy Vegan, Happy Body can help you discover the uniquely satisfying flavors of a plant-based diet with recipes like Pad Thai, World’s Healthiest Mac and Cheese, and Mint Chocolate Chip Nice Cream. With go-to information on a healthy vegan lifestyle and recipes that minimize salt, oil, and refined flours and sugars, becoming a healthy vegan using vegan cookbooks has never been so easy or tasty.

Inside one of the most comprehensive vegan cookbooks, you’ll find: Make the transition to healthy eating fast and simple using the included tips to set up your kitchen with pantry essentials and nourishing staples. Find the perfect dishes for you with clearly marked labels to show whether recipes are gluten-free, leftover-friendly, fast to prepare, and more. Look for numerous recipes that eliminate salt, oil, sugar, and other processed foods, plus tips for making other recipes WFPB-friendly.


My Review:
Healthy Vegan, Happy Body is a vegan cookbook that focuses on healthy, tasty recipes. The recipes used minimally-processed, whole-food, plant-based ingredients. She started by talking about how to make plant-based foods that are tasty and fulfill your nutritional requirements. She also talked about the health benefits of eating this way and some basic vegan cooking information, like making nut milk and cooking grains or beans. She didn't use white flour or refined sugar and generally used minimally processed ingredients. She did use some high quality, healthy oils to add flavor, but she didn't use excessive amounts of oil, salt, or sugar. I found a lot of recipes that I'm interested in trying that look both healthy and tasty.

Most of the recipes served 4 to 6 people and took around 20-60 minutes to make. Almost all of the ingredients in the recipes should be easy to get. She included 13 recipes for smoothies, juices, and shakes; 16 recipes for breakfast; 16 recipes for snacks and sides; 15 recipes for salads; 12 recipes for soups and stews; 13 recipes for rolls, tacos, and wraps; 16 recipes using noodles or rice; 9 recipes for special occasions; 15 recipes for deserts; and 14 recipes for staples (sauces, dips, seasonings).

The recipes provided the preparation time, cooking time, how much is made, ingredients, instructions, cooking and substitution tips. Each recipe was labeled with one or more of the following: 30 minutes or less, plan ahead, gluten-free, leftover friendly, nut free, wfpb (no salt, oil, or refined sugar). Each recipe included "per serving" information on calories, fat, carbohydrates, fiber, protein, sodium, and iron. There were only two or three pictures of finished recipes per each section of recipes.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

The Victorians by John D Wright

The Victorians by John D Wright ISBN-13: 9781782745884 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Amber Books Ltd Released: May 14th 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
The Victorian era boasted the glory of the Empire and the grandeur that Empire afforded, it saw huge technological advances in civil engineering and transport, mass urbanisation and social change, as well as still-treasured literature and the most popular sports that we play today. But it was also a time of great poverty, of mass child labour and prostitution, of the Irish Potato Famine and British concentration camps in the Boer War, of the boom and bust of the California Gold Rush and slavery being fought over in America, of sexual hypocrisy and rigid class differences.

The Victorians explores the Victorian world from its cholera epidemics and asylums to its workhouses and chimneysweeps, from the Opium Wars to London’s opium dens, from the gangs of New York to convicts bound for Australia, from body-snatchers to freakshows, from the British in Afghanistan to the American Civil War, from imposters claiming fortunes to women pretending to be men. Included are the lives of such colourful figures as Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, the Elephant Man and Jack the Ripper, and the world that inspired Dracula, detective stories and the character of Sherlock Holmes. Expertly written and using 180 photographs, paintings, and illustrations, The Victorians reveals that behind the splendour and the facades was a world of poverty, disease and hypocrisy.


My Review:
The Victorians provides an overview of the Victorian era along with many photographs and illustrations from the time. If you're already familiar with the Victorian era, you probably won't find much new here. However, this is a good overview of the time period for those unfamiliar with it. The focus was mainly on England and America, but other countries were mentioned if something notable happened there, like a great fire that destroyed most of the city. The author covered things like wars, new technologies, notable crimes and criminals, popular literature or entertainment, city life, women's issues, slavery, and more. The illustrations and photographs from that time period were interesting and helped give a sense of the time. I'd recommend this book to those interested in an overview of the main issues of the Victorian age.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.