Stan Berenstain, co-creator of the beloved Berenstain Bears, died Saturday, November 26, 2005.

Berenstain, with his wife Jan, created the popular illustrated All in the Family feature 49 years ago. All in the Family first appeared in McCall’s magazine, running from 1956-1969. In 1970, the column moved to Good Housekeeping magazine for twenty years.

In the early 1960s, Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss), who was then head of Random House’s children’s publishing, worked with the Berenstains to develop a series of books for kids featuring the Bears. Thus was launched a hugely popular series, totaling more than 200 titles. The Berenstain family saga is a sort of ongoing ursine Leave It to Beaver tale of innocent capers and misadventures, full of gentle resolution.

Eve thinks you should read Toni Morrison's Bluest Eye while Jay-Z recommends "Keep Ya Head Up" by Tupac. You can find these recommendations and more on The Hip Hop Reader, an "interactive website created to increase and enhance the reading habits, Internet usage, and civic engagement of urban high school students." Funded by Verizon, the first Hip Hop reader program is being tested in NYC right now, and features a point system (for students in public NYC high schools), where they can purchase prizes after reading from the Leadership Council's selections. The council includes Jay-Z, Russell Simmons, Eve and others. Check out the reading lists, too.

Most of the hotly anticipated movies due to be released next month are based on a book: Memoirs of a Geisha, Brokeback Mountain (from Annie Proulx's Close Range and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Even The New World, Terrence Malick's drama about the 17th century English settlement at Jamestown--a tale that promises a good deal of bloodshed, greed, conquest, starvation, and love--is based on Love and Hate in Jamestown: James Smith, Pocahontas and the Start of a New Nation, left, by James Price, a "sparkling book [that] retells a beloved tale in modern terms...." (Publisher's Weekly)

Sellevision: A Novel by Augusten Burroughs is a wickedly funny book, as it skewers the on-screen personalities of a fictional shopping channel. I read the book in two evenings for a book group, and frankly, it was much more fun than shopping.

November is National Adoption Month, and amid all the publicity, adoptive parents can usually pick up a few good reading recommendations. Our family’s all-time favorite titles are Through Moon and Stars and Night Skies by Ann Warren Turner, and Pablo’s Tree by Pat Mora.

Why does snow always make me want to read about boarding schools? Something about the idea of a cozy wood-paneled room, a roaring fire, and the promise of institutional food at the end of the day ...

If you feel the same way, here are a handful of stories set at boarding school to help you get your fix:

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, in which Lee Fiora copes with being both invisible and an outsider at the East Coast prep school to which she has won a scholarship.
Boy by Roald Dahl, in which the author explains how to mask burned toast and keep from being thrashed. (more below the cut)

The aging baby-boomers have prompted a swell of books on living longer and healthier (mentally, physically, and spiritually).

Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever by Ray Kurzweil
Healthy Aging: a Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being by Andrew Weil
Life Beyond 100: Secrets of the Fountain of Youth by C. Norman Shealy
The Long Tomorrow: How Advances in Evolutionary Biology Can Help Us Postpone Aging by Michael R. Rose
Ten Years Younger: the Amazing Plan to Look Better, Feel Better, and Turn Back the Clock by Steven Masley
The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older by Elkhonon Goldberg
Younger Next Year: a Guide to Living Like 50 Until You’re 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley

For some perspective on old age through history, read A History of Old Age, edited by Pat Thane.

“Riches cover a multitude of woes”…Menander Lady of Andros
“The love of money is the root of all evil”. Bible 1 Timothy 6:10

Moolah, bread, dough, call it what you will, it all comes down to money. This book Money, Money, Money: Where it Comes From, How to Save it, Spend it, Make it by Eve Drobot explores the past, present and future of money. Did you know that Iceland leads the world in the use of credit cards, that a coin machine can count 2,500 coins a minute, that piggy banks go back about a thousand years, that the biggest denomination ever printed in the United States was a $100,000 bill, and that the bird pictured on American money was a real eagle named Peter? This is a fascinating book about a subject that is endlessly fascinating. Check it out! Ages 8 and up.

The Library of Michigan has announced the five finalists for the 2006 Michigan Reads program. This program picks one picture book title to feature for a year. It is part of the Library's push to promote early childhood literacy.

The five finalists are:
Bed Hogs by Kelly DiPucchio
In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming
Stranger in the Woods by Carl Sams
Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw
Imogene's Antlers by David Small

The public is welcome to vote. Votes can be cast here. The winner will be announced on December 12, 2005. That title will be featured in programs statewide during March.

The 2004 Michigan Reads book was Barnyard Song by Rhonda Gowler Greene. There was no 2005 award.

Talk about a change of pace! Two very well-known authors enter the list this week with something entirely different from any of their previous work.

At #4 is Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice: Neither her fans nor her detractors could ever have imagined that Rice would write a novel with Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, as the narrator.

At #7 is Ordinary Heroes by Scott Turow: stepping out of the courtroom and away from the backrooms of Chicago, the author goes back to World War II to tell the story of his father’s military experiences in Europe.