he store shelves where the Hostess display used to be have been bare for two months as the sale of the snack cake company inches its way through layers of legalities.

Buyers are anxious to take over the name and start producing Twinkies and other snack cakes again, and it’s likely that a sale will come soon.

But that’s little comfort if you’re hankering for a Twinkie now.

Of course, you don’t have to wait to have one of those cream-filled golden sponge cakes. Twinkies are pretty easy to make at home, and folks have been doing it for years.

It was one of the first recipes that Todd Wilbur ever cloned.

Wilbur is the author of the Top Secret Recipes cookbook series, in which he takes brand-name foods or chain restaurant menu items and replicates them for the home cook.

His first book, Top Secret Recipes, came out in 1993, and the Twinkie clone was in that book.

Since the demise of the Twinkie in November, Wilbur said his website, www.topsecret
recipes.com, has seen a significant increase in traffic from “people looking for a home-brewed way of making a Twinkie.”

His recipe calls for a boxed poundcake mix, which makes it easy to replicate. However, Wilbur, now at work on his 11th Top Secret book, said he may try to make a recipe completely from scratch to include in the new book.

Wilbur’s first cloned recipe was Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip cookies. Since then, he’s tackled everything from Kentucky Fried Chicken to Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

He always begins by looking at the ingredient list on the side of the box. Twinkies had 37 ingredients, many of which were thickeners or preservatives.

Contrary to popular belief, Twinkies won’t last forever. “It looks exactly the same, but it smells terrible. The oils go rancid and it gets petrified, it turns into a rock,” he said.

Wilbur said most folks find that when they make Twinkies from scratch, they enjoy them more than the original.

Akron resident Judith Farrar made her own Twinkies several years ago, when she was looking for a more healthful snack for her kids.

She said they were good, but she didn’t continue to make them because her kids preferred her homemade cupcakes and brownies to the cream-filled snack cakes.

“I used a sponge cake recipe. I made the filling with butter, cream and powdered sugar and poked holes in the bottom with chopsticks to fill,” Farrar recalled.

Cookbook author and food blogger Alana Chernila, in her book The Homemade Pantry:101 Foods You Can Stop Buying & Start Making (Crown Publishing, $24.99), offers a completely from-scratch recipe for cream-filled snack cakes. Her recipe is a bit denser than a commercially made Twinkie, but the filling is tasty.

The cakes aren’t difficult, and as Chernila notes, making the foil molds for the cakes will take longer than making the batter.

Twinkie-shaped pans, called canoe muffin pans, are available on the Internet or through commercial bakeware stores. One pan will cost about $25.

Most folks who bake the cakes at home make small foil molds. The process isn’t difficult, but it is time-consuming and uses a lot of foil, which is expensive. Simply cut a piece of foil into a 12-by-14-inch rectangle, fold twice and mold around a spice bottle about the size of a Twinkie.

Jennie Naraway of Cuyahoga Falls made Twinkies for the first time recently, after hearing the news that Hostess was shutting down its operations.

She opted to make them in the shape of whoopie pies because it was easier to bake and fill them that way. Making them in a cupcake pan is another foil-saving option.

Naraway used a recipe from Cleveland chef Michael Symon, which he demonstrated on his television show The Chew. (Find the recipe here: http://abc.tv/YrxUyq).

“I did it because I hadn’t eaten one since I was a kid. My child had never touched one. Then, after all this, I made them at home,” she said.

Naraway said she won’t be making them again because they were “too good.”

“While Michael Symon’s recipe obviously lacks the distinct chemical taste of the original Twinkies, it is still a very high-fat recipe, especially the filling,” she said.

Wilbur said he is confident the Twinkie will be back soon and it will be identical to the one everyone remembers.

“They will be back, without a doubt,” he said. “Don’t worry. Be patient. In the meantime make my recipe to hold you over; eat it quickly, though, because it’s not the same 37 ingredients,” he said.

TODD WILBUR’S CLONED TWINKIES

For the cakes:

Nonstick spray

4 egg whites

1 box (16 oz.) golden poundcake mix

⅔ cup water

For the filling:

2 tsp. very hot water

¼ tsp. salt

2 cups marshmallow creme (one 7-oz. jar)

½ cup shortening

⅓ cup powdered sugar

½ tsp. vanilla

You will need a spice bottle, approximately the size of a Twinkie, 10 pieces of aluminum foil, 12 by 14 inches each, a cake decorator or pastry bag and a chopstick.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Fold each piece of aluminum foil in half twice. Wrap the folded foil around the spice bottle to create a mold. Leave the top of the mold open for pouring in the batter. Make 10 of these molds and arrange them on a cookie sheet or in a shallow pan. Grease the inside of each mold with a light coating of nonstick spray.

Disregard the directions on the box of cake mix. Instead, beat the egg whites until stiff. In a separate bowl combine cake mix with water and beat until thoroughly blended (about 2 minutes). Fold egg whites into the cake batter and slowly combine until completely mixed.

Pour the batter into the molds, filling each one about ¾ inch full. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean.

Cool completely and remove from molds.

For the filling, combine salt with the hot water in a small bowl and stir until salt is dissolved. Let this mixture cool.

Combine the marshmallow creme, shortening, powdered sugar and vanilla in a medium bowl and mix well with an electric mixer on high speed until fluffy.

Add the salt solution to the filling mixture and combine.

When the cakes are done and cooled, use a skewer or chopstick to make three holes in the bottom of each one. Move the stick around inside of each cake to create space for the filling.

Using a cake decorator or pastry bag, inject each cake with filling through all three holes.

Makes 10 snack cakes.

— www.topsecretrecipes.com

THE CREAM-FILLED SNACK CAKE

For the cakes:

Cooking spray

1½ cups sifted cake flour

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

2 large eggs, separated

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

½ cup whole milk

For the filling:

4 tbsp. nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening, at room temperature

4 tbsp. (½ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

¼ tsp. salt

½ cup powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Make 12 foil molds for the cakes. Spray the insides of the molds with cooking spray.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl and stir until thoroughly combined. Put the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat with the wire whip attachment until the whites hold soft peaks. Gently transfer the beaten whites to another bowl and set aside. Rinse the mixer bowl and dry it thoroughly.

Put the butter in the mixer bowl and beat with the paddle until the butter starts to get light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the sugar and beat again until fluffy, about 2 more minutes. Add the egg yolks and vanilla, and beat to combine.

Add a third of the flour mixture to the mixer bowl, beat for a moment, then add half the milk and beat for a moment. Add one more third of the flour, beat, then the rest of the milk, then the rest of the flour. Make sure that the flour and milk are entirely incorporated. Then stir a third of the beaten egg whites into the batter. When that is fully incorporated, gently fold in the rest of the beaten egg whites.

Use a pastry bag to pipe the batter into the prepared molds, filling each one just under halfway. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the cakes start to turn golden and a cake tester or toothpick, when inserted, comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool entirely.

Unwrap the foil from each cake, and use a knife to make a 2- to 3-inch cut in the bottom. The cut should go about halfway into each cake. Wash the pastry bag and the mixer bowl.

To make the filling, combine the shortening, butter, salt, powdered sugar and vanilla in the mixer bowl. Beat with the paddle attachment until fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Scoop the filling into a pastry bag and stick the tip into the cut at the bottom of each cake. Keep squeezing the pastry bag until the filling begins to leak out around the tip of the pastry bag. Then it’s ready.

Makes 12 cakes.

— Adapted from The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying & Start Making, Alana Chernila

Lisa Abraham can be reached at 330-996-3737 or at labraham@thebeaconjournal.com. Find me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @akronfoodie or visit my blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/lisa.

Fishers Foods, North Canton, 440-729-1110, http://www.lpscinc.com.

I Can’t Cook: Fish, with Chef Stefanie Paganini, 6 p.m. Jan. 24. $50.

“Big Game” Party, with Chef Brad Miller, 6 p.m. Jan. 29. $45.

Fat Tuesday Feast, with Chef Tim McCoy, 6 p.m. Feb. 4. $45.

Linda’s Kitchen, Tallmadge, 330-630-8117.

Decorating Made Easy, 6-8 p.m. Tuesday and Jan. 24. $50.

Michaels craft store, Cuyahoga Falls, 330-929-2012.

Wilton cake-decorating classes, $22.50 each; call for times.

Today’s Kitchen Store, Wooster, 330-601-1331, http://www.todayskitchenstore.com.

From Mix to Masterpiece, with Julie Starr, 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday. $20.

African Teas, with Susan Heady, 10-11:30 a.m. Saturday. $22.

Gourmet Peanut Butter for 6- to 8-year-olds, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday. $18.

Gourmet Peanut Butter for 9- to 13-year-olds, 5-6:30 p.m. Jan. 25. $20.

Cajun! with Johnny of Zydeco Bistro, 10-11:30 a.m. Jan. 26. $24.

Gourmet Peanut Butter from Scratch, with Cheryl Davis, 6-7:30 p.m. Jan. 30. $26.

Fresh Baked Bread, with Jennifer McMullen, 10-11:30 a.m. Feb. 2. $24.

Knife Skills, with Ed Bartush, 6-7:30 p.m. Feb. 5. $25.

Western Reserve School of Cooking, Hudson, 330-650-1665, http://www.wrsoc.com.

5-Day Intensive Bread Clinic, with Kathy Lehr, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Jan. 25. $595.

Slow Cooking When You Are on the Go, with Betty Shewmon, 1:30-4:30 p.m. Jan. 27. $75.

Techniques & Theory of Cooking Part I: Salt and Water, with Catherine St. John, 6:30-9:30 p.m. Jan. 29. $60.

Beginning Pastry Workshop, with Christina Korting, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. 28-Feb. 1. $595.

Pressure Cooking 101, with Catherine St. John, 6:30-9:30 p.m. Jan. 31. $75.

Essential Knife Skills, with Catherine St. John, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 2. $75.

Techniques & Theory of Cooking Part I: The Power of the Onion, with Catherine St. John, 6:30-9:30 p.m. Feb. 5. $60.

Dark leafy greens — namely collards, kale and mustard greens — are powerhouses of vitamins, fiber and other plant-based health benefits. But the taste and texture of these strong greens are a bit much for some people.

When I was growing up in the South, collards were a staple at our table; I love their chewy, bittersweet taste. Other people may have grown up with kale or mustard greens and have a similar love for them.

One way those who don’t love greens can enjoy their obvious health benefits is to mix them in with other savory flavors. The wellness payoff is in today’s recipe for Greens, Sweet Potato and Chicken Soup With Almonds; the strong flavor of the greens is matched by the recipe’s other low-fat ingredients, combining them in culinary bliss.

I prefer collards in this soup, but mustard greens and kale will work just as well. When using fresh greens of any kind, the cooking time will increase by almost 20 to 30 minutes. To keep the prep time down, use frozen chopped greens if possible.

Greens, Sweet Potato and

Chicken Soup With Almonds

3 cups low-fat, low-sodium chicken broth, divided use

4 oz. boneless skinless chicken breast, chopped into small pieces

1 cup sweet potato, peeled and diced

½ cup onion, chopped

1 cup frozen chopped collard greens (or kale or mustard greens; see note)

1 tsp. minced garlic

½ cup almonds, sliced

½ cup warm water

1 tsp. vegetable oil

¼ tsp. fine sea salt

⅛ tsp. ground black pepper

2 tsp. fresh lime juice

In a large soup pot or Dutch oven, heat 2 cups of broth over high heat. Add the chicken, sweet potato and onion, and cook on high 4 to 5 minutes, until sweet potato is tender and chicken is no longer pink. Stir in frozen collards and garlic, and reduce heat to medium-low to simmer.

In the bowl of a mini food processor, process the almonds, water and vegetable oil on high until almonds form a smooth paste. Set aside.

Once all the vegetables are tender, add the remaining cup of broth, almond paste, salt, pepper and lime juice. Stir to blend well. Cook another 1 to 2 minutes to combine flavors. Serve immediately.

Makes 2 servings, easily doubled or tripled.

Note: If you can’t find frozen greens, triple-wash fresh greens and cook them in boiling water until tender, about 20 to 30 minutes. Chop well and use an equal amount of fresh greens as called for in recipe.

Each serving has about 387 calories, 18 grams fat (2.5 grams saturated), 50 milligrams cholesterol, 32 grams protein, 26 grams carbohydrates, 6 grams dietary fiber, 897 milligrams sodium.

Alicia Ross is the co-author of three cookbooks. Contact her c/o Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106, email tellus@kitchenscoop.com, or visit http://kitchenscoop.com.

Two major pet-food companies voluntarily are pulling products from store shelves after traces of antibiotics were found in them that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have not approved.

Nestlé Purina PetCare Co. announced last week it is withdrawing its Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch brand dog treats until further notice.

Del Monte Foods said it is recalling its Milo’s Kitchen-
brand Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers home-style dog treats from retailer shelves nationally.

New York state’s Department of Agriculture notified the FDA and the companies that antibiotics had been found in several lots of the treats made in China.

The use of antibiotics to keep chickens healthy and disease-free while raising them is standard practice in poultry production for human and pet food, according to a notice of the recall from the FDA. However, the antibiotics found in the products were unapproved and should not be present in the final food product, the FDA said.

“The antibiotics are approved for use in poultry in China and other major countries but are not among those approved in the U.S. Antibiotics are commonly used globally, including in the United States, when raising animals fit for human consumption,” a notice on the Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch website stated.

While Milo’s Kitchen has a comprehensive safety testing program in place for its products, the company did not test for all of the specific antibiotics found by the New York Department of Agriculture, the FDA notice said.

“While there is no known health risk, the presence of even trace amounts of these antibiotics does not meet our high quality standards. Therefore, today we decided to recall both products and asked retailers to remove the products from their shelves,” said Rob Leibowitz, the general manager of pet products at Del Monte Foods.

Last year, chicken jerky treats made in China were in the news when U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Avon Lake, warned owners of the dangers pets face when given the treats. He urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to recall them after a Westlake family lost a pet and another suffered kidney failure after consuming the same treats.

In November, however, the FDA said scientists had not been able to determine a definitive cause of reported dog illnesses and warned that many of the illnesses reported might have been the result of causes other than eating chicken jerky.

For product refund or more information about Purina products, call 800-982-0704 or go to www.waggintrain
brand.com. Consumers with questions about Milo’s Kitchen products can get further information at 877-228-6493.

Kathy Antoniotti can be reached at 330-996-3565 or kantoniotti@thebeaconjournal.com.

Akron Children’s Hospital has named a new top doctor to work with physicians and oversee quality and patient safety initiatives, recruitment, research, medical education and other key areas.

Dr. Robert S. McGregor joined Children’s this week in the new position of chief medical officer.

McGregor, 57, previously served as pediatrician-in-chief — the equivalent of chief medical officer — and interim chair of pediatrics at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. He also was a professor of pediatrics at the Drexel University College of Medicine.

In his new role, McGregor reports directly to Akron Children’s Hospital President and Chief Executive William Considine and serves as a voting member of the hospital’s board of directors.

McGregor said he was attracted to the opportunity because his research showed him Children’s is “an incredible organization” and “rising star” that can be a dominant provider of pediatric health-care services.

“Having spent most of my medical education and medical career on the East Coast, I knew of Akron Children’s but I didn’t see the depth and quality that we have here,” he said.

As chief medical officer, McGregor said, he’ll serve as “a voice at the administrative table” for the hospital’s estimated 400 staff physicians as Children’s moves forward with strategic growth plans, quality and safety improvements and other initiatives.

Children’s decided to add the chief medical officer role to the senior executive staff to ensure strong relationships with the medical staff, board of directors, patient families and the community as the hospital continues to grow, Considine said. Children’s now provides services in 90 locations throughout eastern Ohio.

The new position also enables the hospital to shift some administrative oversight duties among its top executives as the institution gets larger, he said.

McGregor stood out as Children’s pursued a chief medical officer during a national search because of his experience with leadership roles at pediatric hospitals, Considine said.

“Having an M.D. who has a high degree of credibility, who’s highly respected, that complements the team we take out to share the Children’s story,” he said.

McGregor's salary wasn't disclosed.

Over the next several months, McGregor said, he plans to learn more about the culture and staff at Children’s, in part by taking shifts treating hospitalized patients on a limited basis.

“I think it is important for a physician leader,” McGregor said. “If I’m going to advocate or understand some of the physicians’ concerns, I think I really need to have some front-line exposure to the systems that are in place.”

McGregor earned his medical degree from Pennsylvania State University and completed his pediatric residency at the University of Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital. He also completed post-doctoral training at the Harvard School of Public Health in physician leadership development.

In addition to his role at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, McGregor also previously worked at Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital and Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa.

Medicine apparently is a family affair for McGregor.

McGregor’s wife of 32 years, Sharon, also is a pediatrician. The couple now resides in northern Summit County.

Their oldest daughter, Ali, 26, is finishing medical school and wants to become an obstetrician-gynecologist. Their younger daughter, Abby, 24, plans to pursue a degree in nursing.

Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or cpowell@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Powell on Twitter at twitter.com/abjcherylpowell.

Isabelle George, matriarch of the George family that founded Bell Music and Akron’s iconic Tangier restaurant, died Tuesday at age 101.

Mrs. George was born Isabelle David in Massillon, the oldest daughter in a family of 13 children, born to Lebanese immigrant parents, Joseph and Marie David.

Her husband, Ed George Sr., was an orphan who came to Akron from Lebanon in 1929. He made his fortune founding Bell Music Co. and later the Tangier.

They married when she was 26 and had eight children, who survive her. Also surviving are 35 grandchildren and 64 great-grandchildren.

“The best thing about Mom was her devotion to family. That was her whole life,” said Sandy Boarman of Copley Township, the youngest of her children.

Boarman noted that three more great-grandchildren are on the way, which will push the number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren over 100. “What a beautiful tribute to her life; that was her pride and joy,” she said.

Mrs. George was 55 when she began working at the restaurant, after her own children were raised.

The Tangier’s first location on East Exchange Street opened in 1948 and burned down in 1958. It reopened at the current West Market Street location, and eventually expanded into a 2,000-seat restaurant and nightclub that became the crown jewel of the Akron dining scene in the 1970s.

In an August 2011 interview, just days before her 100th birthday, Mrs. George recalled how in 1966, on a day when the restaurant was particularly busy and her husband was shorthanded, he called and asked her to come down to help out.

She never left, starting a 35-year career at the Tangier that lasted until she retired in 2001 at age 90. Her son, Ed Jr., and several of his daughters now run the restaurant.

“Mom found a whole life outside of being the beautiful homemaker that she was,” Boarman said. “It added another dimension to her life.”

Her husband died in December 1976, but she remained at the restaurant, working in the office. During her tenure, Mrs. George hobnobbed with comedian Danny Thomas, President George H.W. Bush and exercise guru Richard Simmons.

Boarman said her mother would spend hours at the restaurant, and was daunted only by the new computers that arrived at the restaurant. “She had a hard time adjusting to that, but she was determined she was going to learn it,” she said.

Mrs. George was a devoted fan of Akron native Paige Palmer, whose exercise program was a fixture on Cleveland television and whom she also had the opportunity to meet at the Tangier.

“She was very healthy. She was on very few medications even in her old age. The doctors were always amazed at how healthy she was. Even at the hospice they told us, ‘You don’t live to be 101 unless you are one strong person,’ ” Boarman said.

Mrs. George died in hospice care early Tuesday morning. She had remained in her home until nine days prior to her passing. “We were determined to keep her home,” Boarman said.

In her August 2011 interview, Mrs. George attributed her long life to her years of exercise, a healthy Middle Eastern diet, hard work and her strong Catholic faith.

Boarman said she and her siblings have been reminiscing about their mother, and none of them could recall any funny stories about her. “We laughed, because she wasn’t that funny. She was all business, hard work and no play, although she did love to play cards, she played bridge every night and she was, when she was younger, one heck of a bowler,” Boarman said. “She loved to cook, she loved to clean, but at the end, she loved that restaurant and she loved to work.”

A Mass of Christian Burial will be 10 a.m. Friday at St. Vincent Catholic Church in Akron. Calling hours are 3 to 8 p.m. today at the Ciriello & Carr Funeral Home, 39 S. Miller Road, Fairlawn.

Lisa Abraham can be reached at 330-996-3737 or at labraham@thebeaconjournal.com.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn. A woman disappears on her fifth anniversary; is her husband a killer?

2. The Racketeer, John Grisham. Malcolm Bannister, an imprisoned ex-lawyer, knows who murdered a federal judge. He concocts a scheme to exchange this information for his freedom.

3. Merry Christmas, Alex Cross, James Patterson. Detective Alex Cross confronts both a hostage situation and a terrorist act at Christmas.

4. The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling. The sudden death of a parish councilman reveals bitter social divisions in an idyllic English town.

5. Threat Vector, Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney. As China threatens to invade Taiwan, covert intelligence expert Jack Ryan Jr. aids the administration — but his agency is no longer secret.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Killing Kennedy, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. The host of The O’Reilly Factor recounts the events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

2. Thomas Jefferson, Jon Meacham. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist celebrates Jefferson’s skills as a politician.

3. Killing Lincoln, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. The host of The O’Reilly Factor recounts the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

4. No Easy Day, Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer. An account by a former member of the Navy SEALs of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.

5. America Again, Stephen Colbert, Richard Dahm, Paul Dinello, Barry Julien, Tom Purcell et al. The mock pundit of Comedy Central’s Colbert Report tells how to bring America back from the brink.

EBOOK FICTION

1. Safe Haven, Nicholas Sparks. The arrival of a mysterious young woman in a small North Carolina town raises questions about her past.

2. The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden, Jessica Sorensen. A boy and girl, both of whom have tragedy in their past, come together after a chance encounter in college.

3. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn. A woman disappears on the day of her fifth anniversary; is her husband a killer?

4. Hopeless, Colleen Hoover. The man who has been relentlessly pursuing Sky Davis is not who he pretends to be.

5. Fifty Shades of Grey, E.L. James. An inexperienced college student falls in love with a tortured man who has particular sexual tastes; the first book in an erotic trilogy.

— New York Times

REDBOX TOP DVD RENTALS

1. Looper

2. The Dark Knight Rises

3. Trouble With the Curve

4. Total Recall

5. The Watch

— McClatchy-Tribune

News Service

ITUNES TOP SONGS

1. I Knew You Were Trouble, Taylor Swift

2. Thrift Shop, Ryan Lewis and Macklemore (feat. Wanz)

3. Locked Out of Heaven, Bruno Mars

4. Scream & Shout, will.i.am (feat. Britney Spears)

5. Home, Phillip Phillips

— www.apple.com

ITUNES TOP ALBUMS

1. Babel, Mumford & Sons

2. The World from the Side of the Moon, Phillip Phillips

3. Pitch Perfect: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, various artists

4. Les Misérables: Highlights from the Motion Picture Soundtrack, various artists

5. Take Me Home, One Direction

— www.apple.com


Holmes County author tells

inspirational tale of Amish

After writing Hiking Through: Finding Peace and Freedom on the Appalachian Trail and Biking Through, his book about cycling from the Washington coast to Key West, Fla., Holmes County author Paul Stutzman has turned to fiction. His inspirational debut novel The Wanderers, which takes place around the late 1960s, reflects Stutzman’s Amish heritage.

The primary narrator is Johnny Miller, a dissatisfied young man who resents that his non-Amish friends can watch television, go on vacations and, most important, continue their educations. Johnny hasn’t joined the church yet, and he takes to drinking and wild parties; his attitude leads him into bad company and potential disaster. He meets Annie, whose Christian faith has the potential to redeem him, but their future together is not beyond doubt.

The second part of the book introduces Sabio and Mariposa, two of the Monarch butterflies that are Annie’s special delight. Their migration from Ohio to Mexico represents Johnny’s wanderlust and the fragility of life, and Johnny himself, his faith faltering, embarks on a self-revelatory journey. It’s the Vietnam era, and Johnny has been granted exemption from the draft as a conscientious objector. He meets hippies, veterans, millionaires and bums, all of whom help him on his path.

The Wanderers (374 pages, softcover) costs $14.99 through Stutzman’s website, www.paulstutzman.com; $9.39 for the Kindle and Nook. Paul Stutzman lives in Berlin; his family converted from the Amish faith into a Conservative Mennonite community when he was very young.

Writer’s columns collected

Although many of the issues covered in On the Mark, Craig A. Marks’ collection of columns from the West Side Leader and South Side News Leader, are no longer really issues, it’s no less enjoyable to read his takes on topics such as the demise of Quonset Hut record stores and the Cavs winning the 2003 draft lottery for you-know-who.

Almost a hundred columns, and almost all of them winners, span the years from 1992 to 2012. Some of them are drawn from Marks’ personal life, like a 1999 letter to his newborn daughter, whom he mentions over the years, and his father’s ongoing battle to keep the squirrels out of his backyard bird feeder.

Though the content of some of the columns is out of date (case in point: a 1993 recap of a Cleveland Thunderbolts indoor football game at the Richfield Coliseum), it’s fun to look back at the things that occupied our attention 20 years ago.

On the Mark (221 pages, softcover) costs $7.99 from online retailers.

Advice for graduates

Don Philabaum’s disheartening statistic is that 80 percent of graduating college seniors are unemployed on graduation day. He has more statistics, but plenty of advice, in The Unemployed Grad: And What Parents Can Do About It, his new guide with strategies to help college students prepare for the working world and land jobs by the time they earn their diplomas.

One of Philabaum’s gripes is that few students make use of their colleges’ career centers, where they can take vocational tests, get help with their resumes and find network opportunities. But he also charges that many universities don’t devote enough resources to their career centers; many are understaffed, located “on the edges of campuses, in converted boiler rooms.” Why, he asks, aren’t they in the student union?

Philabaum, principal of Internet Strategies Group in Richfield, also discusses the use of social media, “guerrilla marketing tactics” and skills that employers expect. The Unemployed Grad (285 pages, softcover) costs $24.95 from online retailers and includes a link to download videos and a workbook. Don Philabaum attended Kent State University.

Event

Visible Voice Books (1023 Kenilworth Ave., Cleveland) — Kimberly Loving Ross signs The Library Room, about students of diverse faiths who collaborate on a project, 6 to 8 p.m. Friday.

— Barbara McIntyre

Special to the Beacon Journal

Send information about books of local interest to Lynne Sherwin, Features Department, Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309 or lsherwin@thebeaconjournal.com. Event notices should be sent at least two weeks in advance.

Dear Life: Stories

By Alice Munro

The final four works in Dear Life, Alice Munro’s 13th collection of stories, are preceded by a brief author’s note. “Not quite stories,” they are “autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact.” Fair enough. To fictionalize one’s life is a fiction writer’s prerogative, and for decades, Munro has been writing stories that recall her own experience growing up in rural Ontario.

But with the next sentence, these not quite personal essays claim a unique status in the Munro canon: “I believe they are the first and last — and the closest — things I have to say about my own life.” That “last” feels a bit chilling, an inevitable reminder that she is 81 years old. Still, what Munro devotee wouldn’t also feel a rush of excitement at this promise of intimacy?

In the book’s closing section, Munro draws us into the world of her childhood.

We learn that young Alice saw (or believed she saw) a young woman’s eyelid move inside the woman’s coffin. She watched another young woman weeping after a dance, and marveled at the way her male companions offered comfort, “as if she was so fine and valued a creature that whatever it was, whatever unkindness had come near her, was somehow a breach of a law, a sin.”

Despite Munro’s family’s financial hardship and her mother’s illness, she considered herself “a lucky person.” We see the influences on a young girl — the things she sees, and wonders at, and believes — that will hold court in her imagination throughout her life.

Munro’s autobiographical narratives, along with most of the other stories in the collection, unfold in a time when children with tuberculosis were sent to sanitariums, a million dollars was a lot of money and “devotion to anything, if you were female, could make you ridiculous.” The stories take place in towns where the movie theater is called “the Capital,” where every stylish house has a piano, where a funeral offers the town’s “best show of liveliness.”

Munro grants a heartbreaking nobility to what, in inelegant therapeutic parlance, we might call coping mechanisms. In a story titled Pride, the narrator’s harelip saves him from World War II, but it also renders him “a neuter” to a beautiful female friend, who proposes the two “live together like brother and sister.”

In the man’s later years, someone suggests that surgery could do wonders. “She was right,” he reflects. “But how could I explain that it was just beyond me to walk into some doctor’s office and admit that I was wishing for something I hadn’t got?”

We encounter characters schooled in stoicism, young people facing an incomprehensible world, and older people aged out of the world they’ve spent their lives trying to navigate. In To Reach Japan, a careless mother finds her little girl trapped between train cars, “not crying, not complaining, as if she was just to sit there forever and there was to be no explanation offered to her, no hope.”

In Dolly, an elderly couple has sensibly made plans for their deaths. Everything is settled, the narrator reports. “It was just the actual dying that had been left out or up to chance.” Still, she admits to being a little bothered by the “assumption that nothing more was going to happen in our lives.”

As trapped as many of the characters may be — by the mores of their times, by painful memories even a dedicated stoic can’t completely lock away — their stories suggest that perseverance, the determination to keep at the work of living, can invest a life with dignity.

In the autobiographical piece Night, Munro reveals that during her 14th summer she had trouble falling asleep. She was haunted by a thought: “that I could strangle my little sister, who was asleep in the bunk below me and whom I loved more than anybody in the world.” Tormented, she eventually confessed to her father. He had his own real-world demons to contend with, but his unruffled response, “People have those kinds of thoughts sometimes. … It happens in life,” was exactly what she needed.

“It set me down, but without either mockery or alarm, in the world we were living in,” Munro writes. For more than 40 years, she has been doing that for us. To read her wonderfully frank and compassionate stories is to feel that we are understood, whatever town we come from, whatever dreams or nightmares may disturb our sleep.

Ron and Jane Hopkins know how challenging an inaccessible home can be for people with disabilities.

As newlyweds 18 years ago, the couple lived in the tiny two-story house in Ellet where Jane Hopkins grew up. She had to lift her husband’s wheelchair up and down the two steps leading into the house, and they had to connect a spray attachment to the sink in the small bathroom to create a makeshift shower.

“It definitely wasn’t accessible,” said Ron Hopkins, who has cerebral palsy.

Those kinds of obstacles are common in a world built for able-bodied people, the Hopkinses say. And unfortunately, adaptive products designed to deal with those obstacles are often expensive, especially for people with limited incomes.

So the Hopkinses put their ingenuity to work and came up with their own ideas for adapting a home, many of them inexpensive. They compiled those ideas into a new book, Remodel for Accessibility: Suggestions to Improve the Living Quality of Your Home.

The book covers everything from choosing kitchen utensils with easy-to-grip handles to designing a bathroom to accommodate a person with mobility problems. Some are tips the Hopkinses have put into use, but many are just ideas they devised from listening to friends’ concerns or from contemplating the challenges they knew others face.

The couple lives in an apartment in East Akron, so they can’t always make the changes they’d like to their own home. Their carpet is a good example: Ron Hopkins’ powered wheelchair has loosened it over the years, causing it to buckle. They’re hoping to have it replaced with linoleum — not Jane Hopkins’ favorite, but “sometimes you have to be willing to give up what you like for functionality,” she said.

Both have long been aware of the needs of people with limitations. Ron Hopkins was born with cerebral palsy, which requires him to use a wheelchair and gives him full use of only one hand. Jane Hopkins is a former home health aide and the mother of a son with learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, who’s accustomed to considering the needs of others and looking at situations from their point of view.

Some of the ideas in the Hopkinses’ book don’t add significantly to the cost of an item — for example, choosing dining chairs with arms for people who have trouble getting into or out of a seated position, or opting for an electric stove as a safer choice than gas for people with vision, mobility or comprehension issues.

Other ideas are useful for anyone, regardless of their physical abilities. They suggest such features as bathroom mirrors that tilt to accommodate people of different heights, sheet straps to keep fitted sheets in place and slide-out shelves in kitchen cupboards to provide easier access.

Their favorite ideas, however, are the ones that require more creativity than money, such as making a flatware handle easier to grip by slipping on the foam cylinder from a hair curler or wrapping the handle with duct tape.

They’re continually thinking of inexpensive solutions for themselves or their friends. When one friend with vision problems kept knocking over drinking glasses, for example, Jane Hopkins simply turned a margarine tub upside down and cut a hole in it to provide a stable holder. And Ron Hopkins attached his keys to his wheelchair with an ID badge reel so if he drops them, he can just reel them back in.

They welcome the challenge of solving problems simply and inexpensively.

“Sometimes you’ve just got to sit down and think about it,” Jane Hopkins said. “… Don’t look at something for what it is. Look at what it can be.”

Remodel for Accessibility was produced in association with the Microenterprise Program of the County of Summit Developmental Disabilities Board. The book is available for $8 at the Gallery Store at the board’s Ellet facility, 2420 Wedgewood Drive, Akron, or at the Cuyahoga Falls facility at 2355 Second St. It can also be ordered by contacting microenterprise adviser Gary Peters at gpeters@summitdd.org or 330-634-8186.

In addition, the book is sold at the Market Path store in Highland Square and the Sampler Store in Hudson. Those stores can add a markup to the cost, Peters said.

Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/mbbreck, follow her on Twitter @MBBreckenridge and read her blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/mary-beth.

The Golden Globes kick off the Hollywood award season at 8 tonight on NBC.

Earlier this month, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association released the menu for the awards dinner. The celebrities will dine on a fancy feast designed by chefs at the Beverly Hilton hotel.

• First course: Grilled artichoke on frisee served with dried pear, fennel tomato lemon mousse, Kabocha pumpkin and smoked dried tomato tart and pepper honey goat cheese.

• Entree: Smoked flat iron steak with grilled sweet pickled pepper and California olive-orange marinated Pacific sea bass with caramelized mint and fennel.

• Dessert: A trio of cappuccino mousse cake dome, orange sanguine and chocolate salted caramel.

To wash it all down, plenty of 2004 Grand Vintage Moet et Chandon champagne. It will be served up on tables festooned with arrangements of red roses.

Too bad we won’t be there. Luckily for us, the Beverly Hilton released all of the recipes in case you want to replicate the meal at home. You can find them at www.beverlyhilton.com.

Here’s one to get you started.

PACIFIC SEA BASS

12 oz. Pacific sea bass (3 oz. per serving)

1½ cups fresh orange juice

Juice of 1 lime

3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

⅓ cup sugar

3 tbsp. white balsamic vinegar

½ cup vegetable stock

2 tbsp. fresh mint

1 bulb fennel, sliced

Salt and pepper to taste

For the olive-orange marinade, pour the orange juice into a saucepan and heat until reduced by one-third. Mix olive oil and lime juice in a separate bowl and whisk in reduced orange juice.

Pour the mixture onto the sea bass, marinating both sides; let sit for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake the sea bass for 15 minutes or until cooked through.

Sauté the sliced fennel with olive oil in a pan until it softens; put aside. In the same saucepan, pour the sugar and toast until lightly browned, deglaze the pan with balsamic vinegar and vegetable stock, and reduce the mixture, stirring. Add the fennel and mint and mix to coat with the sugar mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish the sea bass with the caramelized sautéed fennel and mint.

Makes 4 servings.

— Adapted from www.beverlyhilton.com

Lisa Abraham can be reached at 330-996-3737 or at labraham@thebeaconjournal.com. Find me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @akronfoodie or visit my blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/lisa

Car thief becomes victim of car theft

Mauricio Fierro gained instant fame in December in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as the reported victim of a car theft (captured on surveillance video) when he dashed into a pharmacy.

He went to a police station to file a report, but encountered the pharmacy owner making his own report — that Fierro was actually robbing him at the moment the car was taken. More surveillance video revealed that while Fierro was standing outside the pharmacy, wondering where his car was, a man ran by and stole the stolen cash.

Fierro then immoderately complained to the police even more about Sao Paulo’s crime rate and lack of security. Afterward, Fierro admitted to a local news website that in fact he had stolen the very car that he was reporting stolen.

— News of the Weird

The Music of “Nashville,”
Season 1, Volume 1

Various artists

One thing you can say for sure about Nashville, the prime-time soap opera on ABC: It gets the music right. As you can hear on this disc, even with the show’s actors doing all the singing, the results are as good as anything the city’s Music Row has to offer.

Perhaps that’s not surprising, because (the sometimes overrated) T Bone Burnett did the bulk of the producing, along with the always-estimable Buddy Miller. They have a terrific collection of songs to work with, and they manage to strike a balance between commercial accessibility and rootsy character.

Love Like Mine and Telescope, sung by Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere’s character), exude a spitfire attitude that would fit right in on a Miranda Lambert album. Several other numbers play up country’s duet tradition, as with Rayna Jaymes (Connie Britton) and Deacon Clayborne (Charles Esten) on No One Will Ever Love You, and Gunnar Scott (Sam Palladio) and Scarlett O’Connor (Clare Bowen) on If I Didn’t Know Better and When the Right One Comes Along. And Britton and Panettiere’s rousing, rocked-up Wrong Song is every bit the show-stopper that it was in the show.

—Nick Cristiano

Philadelphia Inquirer

Blood Money

James Grippando

James Grippando continues to deliver great legal suspense with his latest thriller, Blood Money. His hero, Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck, has appeared in previous novels, but this case becomes his most personal.

According to the general public and the media, Swyteck’s client Sydney Bennett is guilty of murdering her 2-year-old daughter. Everyone but the court has already convicted her, and when the verdict is not guilty, hysteria ensues. Swyteck receives death threats and is accused of taking blood money, but his main concern involves getting his client out of prison safely. On the night of Bennett’s release, a woman who looks like her is assaulted and ends up in a coma. The media blames Swyteck, but the young woman’s parents go to Swyteck for help.

The mystery itself is a bit obvious, but Grippando’s examination of corporate media and the power of the court of public opinion elevate Blood Money. Swyteck has to work within the law to save his client, while dodging blows from a zealous TV reporter and countering the spreading lies in media reports. Every step he takes is scrutinized and examined in the world of instant news. Swyteck’s career and his client’s life hang in the balance.

The courtroom antics are fun and will remind readers of the best of Perry Mason. Grippando has been at the top of the legal-thriller ladder for some time, and Blood Money will enhance his reputation.

— Jeff Ayers

Associated Press

CROSS CULTURE

Joe Lovano and Us Five

Most jazz musicians are flexible. At 60, Joe Lovano is moving toward universality.

The Cleveland native’s tenor saxophone sound rolls and smears and smokes, rhythmic unto itself; it can fit in or accommodate. His starting place is bebop’s complex language, but he seems to be listening to something underneath language and style. He’s good with a particular rhythm, or a structure, or a set of changes, but he doesn’t need any of it. He’s developed a band for that temperament, Us Five, where anything can happen, sort of.

Lovano’s third album with Us Five, Cross Culture, with drummers Francisco Mela and Otis Brown III, pianist James Weidman, bassist Esperanza Spalding and guitarist Lionel Loueke in an intermittent, undefined role, can sometimes sound like a jam session based on scraps. In fact most of these pieces are more composed than they seem; several have appeared in different arrangements on earlier Lovano records. But overall the feel is organic and basic, intense and casual.

There’s a gold-star version of one of jazz’s most elegant ballad standards, Billy Strayhorn’s Star Crossed Lovers, with rustling free rhythm at the beginning and end and easy swing in the middle. Lovano’s performance is a knockout. Both he and Weidman play with care and attention to the song’s changes; Spalding plays a melodic, songlike solo.

But right after that comes a runic, short-melody piece called Journey Within, and then Drum Chant, a raw and generous jam session that at a little over four minutes feels too long. Cross Culture covers the bases, showing you all it can do. It’s a record with very little anxiety.

Sometimes too little. Even Lovano’s scrappiest pieces remain essentially placid; his coolness is a rare force, but how much of it can you take before your attention slips? Lovano is taking a step back from the material of jazz and looking at its motivating forces; implicitly, he’s asking why we make it. As long as the question lingers in your head, the album works.

— Ben Ratliff

New York Times

Soul legend on stage

Rock and soul legend and rock hall of famer Booker T. Jones will bring his oft-imitated Hammond B-3 grooves to two performances at Nighttown, 12387 Cedar Road in Cleveland Heights, at 8 and 10 p.m. on Thursday. Tickets are $50. Call 216-795-0550 for reservations.

Baby, it’s cold outside

Too chilly to take the kiddos outdoors? Check out http://highlandsquarebranch.akronlibrary.org/ for snowy-day activities, thanks to Laura McFalls, the Akron-Summit County Public Library’s Early Literacy Specialist.

Among her suggestions is bringing the snow indoors on bitter cold days. Dig out the towels and fill up a large plastic tote, bucket, bin, or even a roasting pan with snow. Add measuring cups, scoops, spoons, plastic bowls, and allow children to play with the snow. Encourage them to touch it, scoop it, measure it and watch it melt.

Awards mania

These are the days for glittering prizes, with last week including the People’s Choice Awards and the Oscar nominations and tonight bringing that celebration of itself known as the Golden Globes. Hopes are high for comedy, with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosting the ceremonies beginning at 8 p.m. on NBC. But this being the Globes, they will have to be very funny to top whatever celebrity decides this year that the best time to talk is immediately after finishing off that third rehoboam of Moet & Chandon.

The buzz on beekeeping

Beekeeping is all the rage among folks out to support pollinators, practice self-sufficiency or just get a fix for their honey addiction.

You can learn the basics at Beginning Beekeeping, a class starting this week at Quirk Cultural Center in Cuyahoga Falls.

The class, led by the Summit County Beekeepers Association, will address why and how to get started in beekeeping, the costs and time involved, and basic management of a hobby apiary.

The class meets from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays from Jan. 16 to Feb. 6 at the center, 1201 Grant Ave. Cost is $52.

To register, call 330-971-8425.

Swap meet to swap meat

The Countryside Conservancy is hosting its first Countryside Food Swap at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Uncorked Wine Bar, 22 N. High St., downtown Akron.

At food swaps, producers of locally made and locally grown foods can trade items and network.

Food swaps are the third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. Locations will vary. Participation is free, but registration is required. To register or for more information, contact Erin Molnar at emolnar@cvcountryside.org.

Comic book-style books known as graphic novels come in all categories — from biographies to adaptations of classics. The subject areas also include math, science, social studies and sports.

Here are some examples compiled by Karen Gavigan, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, and Mindy Tomasevich, a middle school librarian in North Carolina.

The two co-wrote a book published in 2011 called Connecting Comics to Curriculum: Strategies for Grades 6-12.

Classics: Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare; Nevermore: A Graphic Adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe; Beowulf by Gareth Hinds

Biography: Houdini: The Handcuff King by Jason Lutes

Math: The Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Larry Gonick and Woollcott Smith

Fine Arts: The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert

Political Science: The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation by Jonathan Hennessey

Science: The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA by Mark Schultz

Social Issues: Mom’s Cancer by Brian Fies

Social Studies: Gettysburg: The Graphic Novel by C.M. Butzer

Sports: 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago

CHICAGO: In honors English class at Alan B. Shepard High School, sophomores are analyzing Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood with the help of another book filled with drawings and dialogue that appears in bubbles above characters’ heads.

Capote in Kansas is what generations of kids would recognize as a comic book, though it has a fancier name — a graphic novel.

That honors students at the Palos Heights, Ill., high school are using it illustrates how far the controversial comic-strip novels have come in gaining acceptance in the school curriculum, educators say.

Once aimed at helping struggling readers, English language learners and disabled students, graphic novels are moving into honors and college-level Advanced Placement classrooms and attracting students at all levels.

They’re listed as reading material for students in the new “common core” standards being adopted across the country, even though some naysayers still question their value.

There’s no data on precisely how many schools nationwide use graphic novels. But no one disputes that in other markets the popularity of the comic-style books — adapted to classic literature, biographies, science, math and other subjects — is on the rise.

Karen Gavigan, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina who has focused her research on graphic novels, points out that their sales have increased by nearly 40 percent over the past 10 years. And public libraries have seen significant increases in circulation after adding such material.

“A whole range of kids just love these,” Gavigan said.

Fans abound in English teacher Eric Kallenborn’s sophomore honors class at Shepard.

“It perfectly complemented In Cold Blood,” student Kyle Longfield, 16, said of Capote in Kansas. He believes the story helped him better understand Capote’s groundbreaking book about two killers and their brutal murders in Kansas.

Gavigan said graphic novels help students develop language skills, reinforce vocabulary and develop critical-thinking skills, among other benefits.

The comic book-style format goes back decades or even centuries, depending on scholars’ interpretations. In the 1970s, the term “graphic novel” emerged when Will Eisner’s A Contract with God stories were published, Gavigan said.

“Then Maus won the Pulitzer, and I think that changed everything,” she said. “I think that gave a lot of credibility to the format.”

Daniel Argentar, a communication arts instructor at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill., along with a colleague, introduced the graphic novel Maus to some struggling freshman readers about eight years ago.

“People thought we were crazy,” Argentar said.

The Holocaust-related book won a special Pulitzer Prize award in 1992, the first graphic novel to do so.

At the time, many Stevenson students already had read Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust book Night, so Argentar was looking for an alternative that would appeal to students more attuned to the visual. Some colleagues didn’t think the comic-book format of Maus was rigorous enough, Argentar said, but students liked it.

A website he and his colleague created to help educators teach Maus still generates calls and emails from around the country, Argentar said.

“You’re always going to have the traditionalists say comic books aren’t real literature, and I guess to a certain extent they have a point,” he said. “But my point is that it is different literature. It is visual literature, and I’d be failing my kids if I didn’t train them for all the visual reading they do today.”

Graphic novels moved further into the mainstream when states began adopting the new common core learning standards that guide schools on what students should learn. The standards refer to “texts” as the medium through which literature and reading skills are taught, and can include picture books used in kindergarten or the graphic novels available in high school.

That might surprise some parents who may not be familiar with graphic novels in the classroom or who may be wary of this modern twist on literature.

Jennifer Williams’ son Larry Lesniak is in Kallenborn’s honors course at Shepard. She admitted to being “a little opposed” when Larry and his younger brother began reading graphic novels.

She remembers reading classics by authors Edgar Allan Poe and John Steinbeck when she was a high school honors student. She also recalls not liking some of the material she had to read.

So if a graphic novel can hold her sons’ interest, “I’m all for it,” Williams said.

Whether districts will increase their use of graphic novels is unclear and likely will depend on a buy-in from teachers and curriculum officials, experts said.

Kallenborn has used graphic novels ranging from a version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to Maus and Ultimate Spider-Man.

He joined two other teachers recently in a presentation at a National Council of Teachers of English conference. Their discussion included Kallenborn’s experiment with senior Advanced Placement and honors students who were studying the epic Old English poem Beowulf.

Half the students spent nearly six hours on average reading the full traditional text. The other half, who read a Beowulf graphic novel, spent about two hours.

Both groups took the same 25-question multiple-choice test. Students who read the traditional text scored 81 percent on average compared with 75 percent for those who read the graphic novel.

The teachers’ presentation raised the question: Is the score difference worth the additional time spent by kids who read the traditional poem or “would that time be better spent doing other things?”

Q.: Our son is in kindergarten at a small private school. Most of the children in his class are boys. From the beginning, he’s been somewhat of a behavior problem. Each time we get a notice from his teacher, we punish him.

Last week, he and a boy in his class were goofing around. The boy twisted my son’s arm and my son hit him to get away. Both of them were laughing the entire time. Nonetheless, the school said they were fighting and expected us to discipline at home. Several days later, he punched another boy, again in the course of goofing around.

The teacher agrees he’s not being mean, just playing around, but any physical contact that can be interpreted as aggressive is unacceptable. Can you suggest anything?

A.: I have two suggestions: First, figure out how to get your son to stop the goofing around before he’s expelled. Second, find another school for him before he’s expelled from this one or they make his continued enrollment contingent upon him seeing a mental health professional of one sort or another.

You’re not describing a boy who has an aggression problem. You’re describing a boy. This situation is representative of the tendency on the part of schools to over-react to aggressive behavior of any kind. Because boys are generally more aggressive than girls, boys are the usual targets of these over-reactions. Schools — public and private — seem to be having great difficulty differentiating between what is simply normal boy behavior and what is truly pre-sociopathic behavior. They end up punishing boys for simply being boys.

The more immediate problem, however, is the practical one: to wit, most private schools — especially those with waiting lists — have no reservations about expelling problem students. As one student goes out the door, another student comes in. I don’t need to tell you that if your son is expelled, it will be difficult to find another private school to take him.

There’s another possible dimension to this as well. I’ll just bet your son is not only having fun goofing around physically with other boys; he’s also having fun out of getting such a disproportionate reaction from so many adults. Unfortunately, all of this is likely to lead straight to a one-way ticket through the school’s front door.

Level with your son. Sit down and tell him you understand he’s having fun as opposed to being bad, but that if he doesn’t stop, the school is going to kick him out. Furthermore, tell him that as much as you don’t want to, you’re going to have to punish him when he goofs around. That’s the nature of your agreement with the school.

In that regard, whatever punishment you use is going to have to more than cancel the fun he’s having. When the next incident occurs, take away all privileges and put him to bed early for two weeks. Whatever you do, it’s going to have to make a permanent impression.

Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions on his website at www.rosemond.com.

Unwanted electronics can convert into cash

You know what usually comes with the holidays — new phones, new computers, and new tablets. So what do you do with old? The last thing is to trash it where it can sit for generations and leak dangerous metals into the environment.

There are many online websites that make it easy to get money or gift cards for those unwanted electronics. Check out eBay’s Instant Sale program, NextWorth.com or Gazzelle.com to get instant quotes for your particular device.

Another option for computer equipment is to donate to Goodwill’s ReConnect Program. Goodwill and Dell work together to responsibly recycle or refurbish all brands of computer equipment. The money generated goes to job training and employment opportunities for people in your community.

And if you prefer to donate a cell phone, consider www.cellphonesfor
soldiers.com.

— Terri Bennett

MCT Information Services

Hints from Heloise:

Readers suggest ideas
to remove broken bulb

Dear Readers: How to remove a broken light bulb from a socket? Wearing garden gloves, use a (rubber) jar opener, slowly reach in and twist and jiggle back and forth to gently remove the base that is left behind. Be sure no glass remains in the socket.

Here are some other hints from readers (TURN OFF the circuit breaker before doing anything):

• Elaine V. in Spokane, Wash., says: “I have two ways of removing a light-bulb base that remains stuck in a socket after the glass bulb has broken off:

“Take a pair of needle-nose pliers. Grab the edge of the metal base. Gently turn the metal counterclockwise, holding the outside of the socket.

“Or you can open up the pliers inside the metal base and press the tips firmly against the sides of the metal. Twist the pliers slowly counterclockwise, keeping a strong, steady pressure on the pliers. Voila! Out pops the bulb base.”

• Karen M. of Colorado Springs, Colo., says: “Broken-off light bulb? Make a wad of duct tape; push it on the exposed base and turn. Works every time.”

At one time, using a raw potato was the solution for a stuck light-bulb base. That is no longer a recommended solution, as the moisture from the potato could cause a short.

— King Features Syndicate

FDA begins campaign

on illegal pharmacies

Medicine purchased from illegal Internet pharmacies might look real, but it could be counterfeit, contaminated, expired or otherwise unsafe. The Food and Drug Administration (www.fda.gov) has launched a campaign, BeSafeRX, to help consumers distinguish between legal and illegal online pharmacies.

The agency says safe online pharmacies:

• Always require a prescription from your doctor and don’t offer prescriptions free or for sale.

• Provide a physical address and telephone number in the United States.

• Offer a licensed pharmacist to answer your questions.

• Are licensed with the state’s board of pharmacy.

• Don’t offer deep discounts or prices that seem too good to be true.

• Never send spam or unsolicited email offering cheap drugs.

— Chicago Tribune

A few easy ideas for making home life easier for a person with a disability, from authors Jane and Ron Hopkins:

• Pots and pans with large knobs or handles are easier to grasp. Choose handles that won’t get slippery.

• Plates with high rims enable people with limited dexterity to scoop up their food.

• Rubberized shelf liner or a wet towel can be used as a place mat to keep dishes from sliding.

• Flip-top caps on condiments, toothpaste and other products are easier to use than screw-on caps.

• Motion sensors make toilets, soap dispensers and faucets easier to use.

• Items are easier to reach on shelves than in closed cupboards.

• Spring-loaded clothespins can hold a book open for reading.

• Hooks are simpler for hanging clothes than hangers.

• Cheap bamboo back scratchers make great reaching tools.

• Key rings or binder rings can be attached to zipper pulls to make them easier to grasp.

• To turn lace-up shoes into slip-ons, lace them with narrow elastic cord from a fabric store while the person is wearing the shoes, and then tie the elastic in a double knot. The shoe can then be removed without untying the elastic.

• The curved blade of a mezzaluna knife makes it easier for a person with limited dexterity to use. If the person has use of only one hand, choose a mezzaluna with a single handle.

• A rope tied to a laundry basket allows it to be pulled instead of carried.

ORLANDO, Fla.: Disney’s Magic Kingdom has added a forest to Fantasyland, doubling its size and reorganizing it into two mini-lands with polished charm, color, music, storytelling, long-lashed cuteness and talking critters, be they a gruff but softhearted seagull or a kindly candelabra with a French accent.

The expansion, which officially opened Dec. 6, adds an area called the Enchanted Forest with two castles, hills, groves and waterfalls. It contains the ride Under the Sea — Journey of the Little Mermaid, an enhanced meet-and-greet built around the story of Beauty and the Beast, a table-service restaurant that serves wine and beer, and several smaller features.

Much of existing Fantasyland is now part of Storybook Circus, headlined by double Dumbo rides, a rethemed Barnstormer junior coaster, the Casey Jr. water play area and such old favorites as the Mad Tea Party and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

The two key attractions in the Enchanted Forest center around princesses — Ariel, the mermaid and daughter of King Triton, and Belle, an official member of Disney’s princess lineup even though nothing in the Beauty and the Beast story suggests royal lineage.

Both incorporate new technology and an emphasis on characters. And like most of Fantasyland, they appeal primarily to younger children.

Under the Sea is a traditional ride in which clamshell cars take guests under the sea and past scenes and music from The Little Mermaid movie, much as boats take riders past scenes of happy singing people on It’s a Small World After All — but the mermaid’s music is vastly better. Favorites: Ursula, the fabulous, villainous sea witch, sings Poor Unfortunate Soul, and lobsters and a conga line of fish dance to the calypso beat of Under the Sea.

The ride itself is almost identical to the version that opened at Disneyland in California in 2011, but the Orlando attraction has more space for landscaping and an elaborate queue. Guests walk past waterfalls and into the grotto under Prince Eric’s Castle, where Scuttle the seagull entertains them with an interactive scavenger hunt. Afterward, fans can meet the princess in Ariel’s Grotto.

Enchanted Tales with Belle is an enhanced meet-and-greet in a richly detailed setting, a fun storytelling experience. Guests are assigned roles by a trilling and effusive Madame Wardrobe, then turned over to Lumiere (the candelabra), who introduces them to a surprised Belle.

Belle tells the story of how she and Beast met as guests wave their props, roar like the Beast, slap their hands on their thighs to make the sound of galloping horses and cheer on the kids who get roles in the story. Little ones get their pictures taken with Belle and exit beaming. So did a couple dads who played the parts of suits of armor. (“Yaayyy Daddy!” cried a little voice from the rear of the room, as Belle took Daddy’s arm and posed with him.)

Under construction

The expansion, elements of which are still under construction, uses the area formerly occupied by 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as well as previously undeveloped land. Still to come are Princess Fairytale Hall, a meet-and-greet site for princesses who don’t have a home of their own, this year, and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, its bones rising above construction walls, to open in the first half of 2014.

On both sides of Fantasyland, the new and revamped attractions have an amazing level of detail, from the mother-and-child elephant footprints in the asphalt near the twin Dumbo rides to the ambience signaled by the kinds of rock used in the Beast’s Castle and Prince Eric’s Castle (rough, sharp-edged and foreboding for the former; warm, golden and rounded for the latter) to Maurice’s inventions in and around his cottage at Enchanted Tales with Belle.

Gone are the flat painted plywood scenes in Snow White’s Scary Ride, torn down to make room for Princess Fairytale Hall. Instead, a holographic rose drops petals in Be Our Guest restaurant in the Beast’s Castle, snow sparkles on ledges of Cinderella Castle, and electronic crabs get help from guests in the scavenger hunt in the Under the Sea queue.

Guests now have more opportunities to interact with characters, which for many youngsters are as important as the rides — the Beast in his restaurant, Belle in Enchanted Tales, Gaston by his tavern near the Beast’s Castle, the Little Mermaid in Ariel’s Grotto, plus Goofy, Donald, Daisy and Minnie at Pete’s Silly Sideshow in Storybook Circus, which opened in October.

Be Our Guest eatery

Disney is promoting Be Our Guest restaurant in the Beast’s Castle as another attraction, and in some respects it is. It is set in beautiful rooms designed to look like the film, with as much attention to detail as any new ride, and the rose theme woven throughout.

In the ballroom — the main dining room — diners can see snow falling beyond the high, arched windows. Red napkins are folded and twisted into the shape of large rosebuds. Belle and Beast whirl in a dance atop a 7-foot music box in the Rose Gallery. In the West Wing, a slashed portrait of the prince changes to a portrait of the Beast.

Since the original story was set in the French countryside, the cuisine is French-influenced. Lunch is fast-casual: Guests place their orders on touch screens, and the food is brought to the table. At night, servers take dinner orders. For the first time in Magic Kingdom, wine and beer are available, although with dinner only.

The ambience is quiet and as elegant as it can be in a theme park where the Beast stalks through the dining room and many guests are wearing sneakers. For theme-park dining, the food is very good, but not as good as meals in several of the resort’s hotels. The wait staff is attentive, sometimes to the point of being intrusive, but that might be expected in a new and very visible opening. Here’s hoping they mellow as they find their rhythm. Dinner entrees are $15.99-$29.99; wine $8-$17 per glass.

Be Our Guest’s dessert cart offers tempting cupcakes and cream puffs, but we opted to stop by Gaston’s Tavern for a LeFou’s Brew, a nonalcoholic slushy based on apple juice with a taste of marshmallow and a mango-passion fruit foam. The drink has a nice tang, as if the juice came from Granny Smith apples. (If you’re keeping score, it’s not as good as the frozen Butterbeer at Universal’s Harry Potter attraction, but better than the Pumpkin Juice, which is also apple-based.)