If we are a bacon nation (oh, we are!), the T-shirt on the upper left provides an excellent state of the union for this week’s Bacon Nation-themed Live By the Book feature. Our country’s bacon mania is so broad-reaching that not only can you taste bacon in many forms (see the aforementioned cookbook by Peter Kaminsky and Marie Rama), you can bathe with it, dress in it, pick your teeth with it, ride on it (yes, that’s a bacon skateboard), and even wrap yourself in it (see the bacon bandages). See, bacon does make everything okay.

Go ahead, pig out.

Are you unplugging this week? (Besides, of course, your momentary glance at this screen to get some great ideas — we’ll give you a pass, just this once.) Here are 20 screen-free activities to keep the kids engaged and having fun.

1. Go stargazing! On a clear night, go outside and see if you can identify any of the spring constellations. Here are just a few that should be visible because they are highest in the sky this time of year: Leo, Virgo, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Cassiopeia. The star Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo, is also known as the “little king” or “lion’s hear” (Cor Leonis). –from Camp Out by Lynn Brunelle (page 188)

2. Write with sunlight! Use a magnifying glass to focus sunlight onto a soft piece of wood, like pine (don’t forget to wear sunglasses), and gradually move the beam of light over the wood to burn a message or a picture. –from Catch the Wind, Harness the Sun by Michael J. Caduto (page 88)

3. Free associate. Play this noncompetitive word game in which one person says a word, then next person calls out a word associated with that first word, the third person calls out a words associated with the second, and so on (example: love, tennis, court, supreme, Diana Ross…). At the end, see if you can recall it in reverse! –from The Games Bible by Leigh Anderson (page 105)

4. Make a “Life-Size Me”! Cut a piece of butcher paper about 12 inches longer than your child’s height. Place it on the floor, have your child lie on top of it, and trace your child’s outline. Your child can use crayons and markers to fill in the details — clothes, expressions, and any other add-ons! –from Unplugged Play by Bobbi Conner (page 142)

5. Make utensil-free fruit salad and take it on a picnic. Cut up approximately 1-inch chunks of fruits like cantaloupe, pineapple, pear, apple, banana, add some whole fruits like strawberries, grapes, and pitted cherries and slide them onto bamboo skewers. Yum! –from The Mom 100 Cookbook by Katie Workman (page 295)

6. Play the ABCs of groceries! Write the letters A through Z on index cards. Shuffle them up, and place the deck face down on the floor. Your children can take turns rolling a pair of dice and selecting a card. If you roll a 4, and turn over the B card, you call out 4 grocery items that start with the letter B: beans, bananas, bread, and beets! –from Unplugged Play by Bobbi Conner (page 295)

7. Make a simple rock sculpture. Collect some fist-sized flat rocks at the beach or park or in your backyard. Sort them by color or size or shape. Arrange them in a spiral or pile ‘em high! Make a stone fairy house or construct a miniature Stonehenge. –from Camp Out by Lynn Brunelle (page 264)

8. Have a cookbook scavenger hunt! Select a cookbook that includes the categories “Main Dishes” and “Desserts” (use rubber bands to close off the other portions of the book). Have your child pick a recipe, announce the category, and reveal the ingredients to you one by one. You get to take a guess after each ingredient. –from Unplugged Play by Bobbi Conner (page 274)

9. Plant a tree. Did you know that one billion pounds of carbon dioxide would be taken out of the atmosphere if every family planted just one tree? Keep a pair of binoculars handy — as the tree grows over the next months and years, you might spy some visitors: birds, squirrels, tree frogs. –from Catch the Wind, Harness the Sun by Michael J. Caduto (page 68)

10. Take a hike! Lace up an old pair of shoes (don’t break in those brand new boots now, or it’s blister city!) and a fresh pair of socks. Pack a layer (it often gets colder in the shade of trees and at higher altitudes when there’s more wind and less to block it), some snacks and water, a compass and map, sunscreen (and hat, and sunglasses) and insect repellent, and a basic first aid kit. And don’t forget to pack your camera, so you can show off the sights when you get back! –from Summer: A User’s Guide by  Suzanne Brown (page 86)

11. Make chocolate covered pretzels. (You can’t say that this isn’t better than TV!) Melt a 12-ounce bag of chocolate chips, open a 10-ounce bag of pretzel rods, and put any number of the following toppings on small plates: chopped nuts, colored sprinkles, sweetened flaked coconut, crushed cookies, miniature M&Ms or other tiny chocolate candies. Dip the pretzel rod about two-thirds of the way in the chocolate, then roll the pretzel rod in a topping and place them on a baking sheet until the chocolate hardens. (Variation: Dip strawberries instead!) –from The Mom 100 Cookbook by Katie Workman (page 293)

12. Build a clubhouse. This one’s obviously a bit more involved, but start with the plans — let your children brainstorm and draw the sorts of features they’d like. Write up a shopping list together, then take a trip to the local lumber yard and pick out the materials. Go ahead and build your dream house — square the foundation, set the cornerstones, and construct walls and windows. When it’s finished, draft rules, keep an activity log, and throw a clubhouse warming party! –from Keep Out by Lee Mothes

13. Run in a back-to-back race. Here’s another game to get people moving (and not too fast…). Have kids pair off back to back and link their arms at the elbows. Then it’s a race to the finish line! –from The Games Bible by Leigh Anderson (page 321)

14. Play toddler basketball. If your kids aren’t quite 7 feet tall yet, just grab a laundry basket or other small tub and a soft, medium-sized ball. Hold the basket at toddler height — and don’t forget that part of your job as basket tender is moving the basket to help catch the ball! –from Unplugged Play by Bobbi Conner (page 54)

15. Play red light, green light. A perennial favorite, and one to really stop people in their tracks (ha!): One person is “it” and turns his/her back on the rest, who line up about 25 paces behind. “It” calls out “green light!” signaling the other players to advance, then whirls around and yells “red light!” to indicate a stop. If “It” catches anyone still moving, he or she is sent back to the starting line. First one to reach “It” wins! –from The Games Bible by Leigh Anderson (page 321)

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What do you plan to do to unplug? And if you haven’t taken the screen-free pledge this week, head over to the Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood to sign up! Let us know in the comments what you’re doing to unplug, and you could win a copy of one of the books mentioned above.

This week, in celebration of Easter (or at the least the commercial version with bunnies, eggs, and chirpy little chicks) and in anticipation of spring (sweet, sweet springtime!), we’re back to our Live By the Book series with some egg-cellent offerings from The Fresh Egg Cookbook by Jennifer Trainer Thompson.

Egg potholders, egg flower pots, a chicken purse (I saw someone wearing this bag — twice! — in the past week), the egg barbecuing machine (shaped like, not for), a heart-shaped egg frying “stencil,” and the best in farm-to-sidewalk fashion: a pair of good, old-fashioned rubber galoshes. Could we be any more egg-cited?!?

Leave a note in the comments (your best egg-themed pun, please) to win a copy of the book!

With St. Patty’s Day around the corner, today’s Live By the Book is inspired by The Good Luck Book by Stefan Bechtel and Laurence Stains. From head to toe, from suspenders to bow tie, and from here to the end of the rainbow — it’s oh-so-easy being green! Or, of course, you could just Leprechaun Yourself.

What’s your good luck charm? A four-leaf clover, a rabbit’s foot, a horseshoe, a penny? Tell us in the comments, and you will be entered to win a copy of The Good Luck Book!

The world was all atwitter when Joe went shopping at Costco before the holidays. Workman was all atwitter because we spied a copy of Arlo Needs Glasses by Barney Saltzberg in his cart!

We also spied stacks of The Miracle Ball Method by Elaine Petrone and the 10 Button Book by William Accorsi on the table he shopped at (along with that copy of Arlo that’s headed for the cart!). Do you know someone who got to unwrap a copy of Arlo last month? (These kiddos certainly had fun with Arlo recently!)

Have you spied any Workman books in action? Tweet or Facebook a picture to us, and you could win a new book!

One thing we know about our readers is that they like to be in the know. From making the computer work to making candy, from cooking gluten-free to cooking for a hungry giant,  from determining what sort of birds are visiting the backyard to what sort of monsters might be invading your desk. This pint-size reader from Brooklyn just wants to know what lies ahead…

Do you have a Workman reader in your household? Send us pictures! (Or post them to facebook.com/workmanpublishing.) We love to see our books in action!

Forget “Black Friday”….it’s all about a Red-and-Black Friday in Workman and Artisan Editorial today! Christmas is still a few weeks away, but Netta, Liz, Suzie, Megan, and Judy all got the holiday memo. Maybe we’ll all go caroling around the office later. Thankfully, at least one of us will!

Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan, was published in 2006 by our friends over at Algonquin. I have to say, of all the books I read that year, it was my absolute favorite. I passed copies along to my mom, my mother-in-law — and recommended it to almost everyone I knew. This April, however, we have the opportunity to multiply that love, because Mudbound was selected as one of 32 titles to be included in World Book Night (#WBN13) this year! (To give you an idea what we’re aiming for, “on April 23, 2012, U.S. book givers handed out half a million printed books in 5,800 towns and cities across the country.” This, in my humble opinion, is truly awesome.) So the burning question remains, have you signed up to be a World Book Night USA Giver yet?

It’s super easy. Sign up, and you’ll be sent 20 copies of a book (light enough to carry, numbered enough to share the book far and wide) to distribute within your community. We are so excited to have a Workman Publishing/Algonquin Books book selected to be part of #WorldBookNight. Why not celebrate with us by applying to be a book giver? (‘Tis the season!)

 

To celebrate the recent publication of photographer Jordan Matter’s Dancers Among Us: A Celebration of Joy in the Everyday, we dug deep into our coffers of dance fever: Slouchy legwarmers, ribbon dance wands, oh-so-glam leotards, Bacon-era Footloose…

… castanets, tea towels and aprons for the kitchen dancers (they, too are among us), that signature red umbrella (ohmigosh, did you know that other dancers hold umbrellas, too?), and a fine array of dancing shoes for wherever and whenever the mood strikes! (Oh, and a camera, so that even though you’re dancing like no one’s watching, you can still be documented.) Perhaps you might even find yourself… dancing in the streets.

Congratulations to author Jordan Matter, whose book debuted at #29 on the New York Times extended bestseller list after less than a full week on sale! Here’s the image that launched it all:

Happy Election Day, everyone! I wonder if Jordan is off photographing dancers casting their ballets…ahem…I mean ballots.

We love this shot from the release party celebrating Jordan Matter’s new book, Dancers Among Us (right). It turns out that we are not only blessed to have dancers among us — we have editors, designers, salespeople, marketing directors (Workmanites!) among us, too. Oh, and is that an author/photographer I spy in the middle?

Thanks to the Paul Taylor Dance Company for hosting the event and for providing a stunning performance for the guests in attendance. And thanks to Ryan Carville for capturing this joyful shot! (Click through for more stunning shots from the photo booth.)

If you’re not sure what the fuss is about, I strongly urge you to check out this video. If it doesn’t get you dancing in the street, you’ll at least be tapping your toes (or peeling your jaw from your desk, right where you dropped it) by its end!