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A Sweet Book for Valentines Day

2/2/2023

Although Saint Valentine's Day is not a public holiday in any country, it is a significant cultural and commercial celebration of romance and love. Observed on February 14, it generates millions of dollars in chocolate, flower, and card sales.

Originally, Saint Valentine’s Day recognized the martyrdom of a third century Roman priest who was executed in 269. One legend says that he was killed for performing weddings for Christian soldiers who were forbidden to marry. Another is that, while being jailed for his faith, he restored the sight of the jailer’s blind daughter, to whom he wrote a letter which he signed "Your Valentine" before he was executed.

Regardless of why and how it started, Valentine’s is a day that causes a lot of stress. This is especially true for middle grade students, who feel they are too old for the silliness of elementary school Valentines Parties, yet aren’t confident in matters of the heart.

Hector “Hec” Anderson is a good example of a middle grader blundering his way through first love. An awkward, geeky sixth grade boy, Hec finds himself speechless when a new girl, Sandy Richardson, enrolls in his school. Sandy is beautiful and kind and Hec is instantly smitten with her. Unfortunately, so is the tall, handsome and popular captain of the basketball team, who sics his goons on Hec in an attempt to intimidate him.

The Valentine’s Day Dance is coming up. Hec tries to get Sandy’s with flowers and candy, but everything he does turns into a disaster. Does he dare ask her to dance with him – and earn a chance to win her heart?

Tweet Sarts, the Valentines-themed middle grade novel in the Anderson Chronicles series, is for middle grade readers and older readers who remember the difficulties of young love.

Jennifer Bohnhoff taught middle school for years. She is now a full time writer of books for middle grade through adult readers.

Tweet Sarts is onsale to download onto an ereader from Amazon from February 2-9 for only .99. Rather have a signed copy sent direct from the author? You can do that here.

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Sweets for the Sweet

1/26/2023

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Valentine's Day is growing near, and for the Anderson family, that spells complications. Dad's long work hours makes Mom trade in her no- nonsense pony tail and sweatpants for capris and curlers. Big sister Chloe, who believes that Valentine's day is just an excuse for crass consumerism, abandons her principles and her black Goth style for pretty pinks after getting roses from an anonymous admirer. Much to his consternation, little brother Calvin's hand puppet, Mr. Buttons, falls in love. Only the youngest member of the family, Stevie, seems san as he anticipates the sweet tarts and lollypops he'll be getting at preschool,.

For Hec Anderson, a geeky sixth grader, is so inept when it comes to love that he feels like a sci-fi visitor abandoned on an alien world. All of Hec's confusion reaches a crisis point when the girl of his dreams moves to town and he must challenge the most popular boy in school for her attention at the school dance.

When Hec learns that Sandy loves polka dots, he decides that M&Ms are the way to her heart. Sandy reciprocates, giving Hec a bag of M&M-studded cookies, which he resolves to keep forever. Forever ends up being a very short period of time, and the cookies end up being eaten: by whom, I won't tell you. But if you'd like some of your own to eat, here's a recipe.

Polka Dot Cookies

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup shortening
2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup candy-coated chocolate pieces

Heat oven to 350°
In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, butter and shortening until light and fluffy.
Add vanilla and egg and blend well.
Stir in flour, baking soda and salt.
Stir in chocolate pieces.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for easier handling.
Shape into 2" balls and place 4" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
You can press an additional 1/2 cup candy into balls to decorate tops of cookies.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until light golden brown. Cool 2 minutes before removing from sheets and placing on a cooling rack. Makes 14 large cookies

If you'd like to read something sweet this Valentine's season, Tweet Sarts is available in paperback and e-reader formats from many online books stores. You can also purchase a signed copy dedicated to the one your love directly from the author. She is selling this book at a discount between now and Valentine's day because she loves her readers.

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Some love (and not) for Middle Grade Books

2/6/2022

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Middle Grade readers can be pretty confused about life. Kids in the upper end of elementary school and the lower end of middle school or junior high often don't know from day to day whether they want to be treated like adults or kids. When I taught middle school, I listened to kids snort derisively when a sticker appeared on their returned work, then complain when they didn't. The same kid who seemed to be emotionally bobbing in the rafters one day would seem to crawl on his belly the next. A lot of this confusion is hormone driven. Puberty is hard on bodies and minds alike.

These conflicting emotions often come to a head around a holiday, especially one as emotionally charged as Valentine's Day. Kids say they don't care if they get valentine's cards, but there's a bit of fear in their eyes right behind the bravado. They may think valentines are childish, but they're afraid that not getting any will mean they're not liked by anyone.

Hector Anderson, the main character in the series named The Anderson Family Chronicles, is a typical geeky 6th grade boy who doesn't get what all the fuss is surrounding Valentine's Day. Like his preschool-aged brother Stevie, he's most attracted to the candy - which Stevie called the tweet sarts and pollylops - until a new girl enrolls in his school and he is bitten by the love bug. Hec finds himself in competition with the handsome, athletic, and rather bullying big man on campus to win a dance with Sandy at the Valentine's Day dance.

If this sounds like a book you'd like, you're in luck. My Valentine's Day gift to you is a copy of Tweet Sarts! You can get a copy for free just by signing up for my emails here. If you'd rather not, you can still download the book for just .99 on Amazon between February 7 and 14. Please pass this on to anyone who might also want a copy.

I recently read From the Desk of Zoe Washington, by Janae Marks. I know that I'm in the minority here, but I didn't love this book. Google says that 97% of the people who read it loved this book. It got 4.3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, and 4.8 out of 5 on Audible. What turned me off is what I call the Ariel Affect.

Ariel is the name of the little mermaid in the Disney version of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. In the original version, the mermaid falls in love with a prince and uses magic to become human, but he spurns her for a mortal princess. The broken-hearted Little Mermaid almost kills the prince in order to become a mermaid again, but instead throws herself overboard and becomes seafoam. In the end, she is transformed into an ethereal, earthbound spirit and given 300 years to make up for her errors by doing good deeds before attaining Heaven.

In the Disney version, the Little Mermaid defies her father and convention to chase the prince, and is rewarded by living happily ever after. She proves that her father was wrong in his assumptions, and that she had every right to determine her own future, despite her father's wishes.

In From the Desk of Zoe Washington, Zoe receives a letter on her 12th birthday from her biological father, who is in prison for murder. She decides to sneak around behind her mother's back to get to know her father. Zoe lies and engages in some pretty dangerous behaviors as she tries to prove that her father is innocent. Occasionally she wonders if he is all that she thinks he is. What if he really is a murder? What if he's not as nice as he appears? In the end, though, she is able to prove that he is innocent and the whole family accepts him into their lives.

This is all well and good in a novel, but it's a bit scary in real life. While it's true that some people are incarcerated for crimes they did not commit, it's also true that a lot of people who are imprisoned are con artists who can sweet talk the innocent and naïve into believing their sad-sack stories. Zoe's story might have turned out very differently.

Parenting has never been easy. It's harder when the media tries to convince children that they know what is good for them far better than their parents do. I know there are bad parents out there, but most are doing their best to protect their children from dangerous and hurtful situations. I hope no child reads From the Desk of Zoe Washington and does what she does, only to end out with a less than fairy tale ending to their own personal story.

After a career teaching English and history at the high school and middle school level, Jennifer Bohnhoff left the classroom and now writes from her home high up in the mountains of central New Mexico. Her next book, Where Duty Calls, is the first in a trilogy of middle grade historical novels about the Civil War in New Mexico, and will be published this summer by Kinkajou Press.

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Sandy's Cookies

1/4/2016

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They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

Although Hec fell for Sandy at first sight, there's no denying that her cookies played a part in winning his eternal devotion.

Here's the recipe for the cookie that won Hec's heart:

Sandy's Cookies
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 shortening
2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup candy coated chocolate pieces (such as M&Ms)
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375.
Beat brown sugar, butter and shortening until light and fluffy.
Add vanilla and egg. Beat well.
Stir in flour, baking soda and salt.
Stir in candies and nuts.
Drop by teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 8-10 minutes until light golden brown (unless you're Sandy, and then you can burn them a bit.). Cool 1 minute before removing from cookie sheet onto rack to cool completely.

Hec and Sandy are characters in Jennifer Bohnhoff's newest middle grade novel, Tweet Sarts: An Anderson Family Chronicle, which is now available to preorder as an ebook and will be available in ebook and paperback starting on January 15th.

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A Sweet Book for Valentines Day

Sweets for the Sweet

Polka Dot Cookies

Some love (and not) for Middle Grade Books

Sandy's Cookies

ABout Jennifer Bohnhoff

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