urbanmoms.ca Book Club

Top 10 Holiday Gifts For Teens: Batteries Not Required

Contest Alert! urbanmoms.ca is excited to support The Top 10 Gifts for Teens by offering two individual prize packs to be won by two lucky members. The Teen Girl Pack and Teen Boy Pack will each be filled with the books listed in the associated category below. Post a comment identifying your favourite teen book (make sure to include your email address) to be automatically entered to win!

Don’t know what to buy your teenager this year? Forget the latest electronic gadget or expensive designer jeans and this year wrap up a book.

In an unprecedented move book publishers in Canada and the United States are working together to promote books this holiday season and have just released a debut holiday video featuring celebrities like of Martha Stewart, Jon Stewart, Barbara Walters, Dean Koontz, Alec Baldwin, Rachael Ray and many others: all sharing their reasons why books make great gifts.

Says film and TV star Alec Baldwin “Books makes great gifts because you don’t have to plug them in.”  Exactly.  So this year be their coolest Santa and show them a world of vampires or dragons.  Books are really affordable so your holiday dollars will go farther this year too.

There are some great sales going on in bookstores, or if you prefer to avoid the crowds online retailers like Amazon and Indigo also offer some great deals.  Offering both 30% discount and free shipping on books is www.giftsforreaders.ca.

Check out www.booksequalgifts.com for the video and more celebrities talking about giving books as gifts this year.

Best Book Gifts for Teen Girls:
If your teen loves Stephenie Meyers and the movie Twlight then she will love Kelley Armstrong too. Book One in The Darkest Powers series is called The Summoning and features a young girl who starts to see ghosts and discovers her friends have special powers too.

If they loved the movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants then why not buy the books that started it all. Ann Brashares is the author of the bestselling and popular series which includes the sequels The Second Summer of the Sisterhood, Girls in Pants and Forever in Blue.

A Bucket List for kids and a big sentimental favourite is the terrific YA novel Before I Die by Jenny Downham. When she discovers that she has just months to live, young Tessa writes a "Things To Do Before I Die" list, and in the process of dying, finds herself feeling very alive.  Warning though, this one is a tear-jerker, but its life-affirming message is loud and clear.

Best Book Gifts for Teen Boys:
The hottest books for boys since Harry Potter is the Eragon trilogy which features both Eldest and the brand new worldwide bestseller Brisingr, about a boy who discovers his destiny as a Dragon Rider who must fight to save The Empire. Another hit with teen boys is The Eyes of a King by Catherine Banner, a new series set in a parallel world called Malonia.

For adventure seekers The Devil’s Breath by David Gilman is an amazing read. Max Gordon is on a quest to save his missing father from the hands of Shaka Chang, a ruthless businessman masterminding an ecological disaster that will destroy countless lives. The clues Max’s father leaves will take him to Namibia, and will test his survival skills.

For hipster music lover teens there is the novel by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, which was recently made into a hit movie starring Michael Cera. The comedy is set during one fateful night in the lives of Nick and Norah, as they weave through a first date that will change their lives forever.

Will Work from Home Winner

Congratulations to Chantal, winner of the Will Work from Home Giveaway!

Here is Chantal's commuting story:

"When I was pregnant with my first son I had a 35 minute commute to work. I lived out of town and drove though one small community on my way to the city. In my last trimester my son had taken up permanent residence on my bladder. I would go to the washroom as I was leaving work but within 10 minutes I had to go again. I would drive into that small community (which was half way home), frantically waddle my way to their public washroom. I did this every day for 2 weeks. The staff eventually got used to seeing me and would smile sympathetically as I passed them."

Stay tuned to the urbanmoms.ca Book Club for more great books and more giveaways in the weeks to come!

Will Work from Home (and a Giveaway!)

Here at urbanmoms.ca we're very supportive of the recent trend towards WAHMs (work-at-home-moms, for the uninitiated). After all, it's what we are! We even have an entire section of the site devoted to sharing stories from fellow mom entrepreneurs (work at home or otherwise) and to helping them promote their businesses - check out the urbanmoms.ca Marketplace for more.

So we were really excited when the folks at Penguin offered to send us a copy of Will Work from Home: Earn the Cash Without the Commute to review and give away (including a nifty free bookmark and all).

This book is not just about starting your own business from home (in fact, only one section is devoted entirely to the mom entrepreneur option). It's all about finding options for earning income from home, whether that means moving your existing job to your home office, finding a new employer who supports your desire to work from home or pursuing one of the several other options to earn income without commuting. But the basic message is this: Escape the cube. Ditch the commute. It’s not just a dream anymore.

Many people already spend 12 hours a day getting to work, working, getting home from work. Here’s some good news: thanks to advances in technology, acceptance of outsourcing, the trend towards corporate flextime, and other factors, working from home is easier than ever.

Good Morning America’s Workplace Contributor Tory Johnson and consumer advocate Robyn Freedman Spizman tell readers exactly how to turn today’s cultural change to their advantage without giving up an income. Specific business plans will teach them how to:
• Take their current position home
• Find a new company whose policies will allow them to work from home
• Reseach a product they believe in, and sell it from home
• Start their own business, doing something they love, for a minimal initial investment

With real-life stories, a step-by-step plan, resource guides, and lists of scams to avoid, this is the book that will help readers finally make the leap––and show them that they don’t have to give up their family, creativity, or peace of mind to earn a decent salary.

And now, here's how you can win your own copy of Will Work from Home (including free bookmark!). In keeping to the "ditch the commute" theme, we're going to ask you to share your best commuting to work stories in the comments below. One winner will be chosen at random from the entries below to receive the prize. Please remember to include your email address (it won't be displayed) so that we have a way to get in touch with you if you're the lucky winner.

So, get to work! Tell us your longest, shortest, silliest, slowest, craziest or best commute to work story. It doesn't have to be a horror story and it could be from before you had kids - it just has to be related to commuting to work. Go!