The author is the owner and chef of the renowned Dairy Hollow House in the Ozarks. This was her first cookbook, written when a hippie teenager in NYC (e.g., it relates experiences jumping turnstiles and shoplifting). But, even then, she was an extraordinary cook, and the recipes I've tried have been unfailingly delicious. The stories and anecdotes are also fascinating; this is a book to sit back and read, as well as to cook from. (Incidentally, the "commune" was a brownstone in Brooklyn, New York.)

This book is filled with simple, proven and easy to prepare recipes which are out of this world. Each recipe is preceded by an anecdote of how the dish was invented and each dish comes with many suggestions for modification. Modifications are based on what is fresh and available during different times of the year. Incredibly easy to follow, these recipes are rich and varied. "The Salad" recipe is one of the best salads you will ever eat and takes 5 minutes to prepare and will turn out the same everytime if you just follow the simple directions. One of my favorite things about this book are the stories which precede each recipe and the fact that the recipes always, always turn out just as delicious as she describes!

"If You Call my Name" by Crescent Dragonwagon is a wonderfully written story about a young girl and her imagination. This story takes the reader through the little girl's daydreams and her fantastical metamorphoses into different creatures, such a fish, a hawk, and a lion as she plays with a friend. The language is poetic and sounds beautiful when read aloud.

If you can find a copy, adults as well as children will love this book.

A simple and beautifully told story, in very short chapters, this book follows a bereaved father and his young daughter through one cycle of the seasons. As they come to terms, each in their own way, with the loss of their wife / mother, they also grow closer and come to a slow, gentle understanding about beginnings and endings and how life works. Moving, tender, and gentle, the dialogue between father and daughter and their small adventures as the year turns are true to life. One of the best books on this difficult topic for readers in second to fifth grade, and deeply helpful to children who have lost a parent or face the serious illness of one.

She's a run-away. Driven by rage and a passion to have a normal life, nothing can stop her. Who is this? Her name is Chrysta, a young 14 year old that is just trying to find a normal life or even a normal family.
This teen finds many friends along the way. Leaving some so thy can go their ways (but always communicating). As she travels about the country, she learns lessons, and the real meanings of things that weren't so important to her before. She grew up hard in the beginning, but she learns about herself along the way. This realistic fiction novel is sure to enter the lives of teenage girls.
This book was strait with the information. There were hardly any if, an's, or but's. You would think with all the description it had, it might have been real. I would defiantly recommend this book to teenage girls! It is so realistic, and makes you think, "Wow, this book could of really happened!" It's not one of those boring books that make you think, "When will this part ever end?"
Chrysta is constantly moving around to new places, more new friends, and even more life-long lessons. Page after page you knew you had to keep going. There was no stop. Many teens could of related to Chrysta during one of her situations in the book. So many events that happened, you would have to relate to one of them.
So do you happen to be a teenage girl with a thirst of realistic fiction adventures through the up's and downs? Pick up, To Take A Dare. You couldn't regret it. You're questions are sure to be, "Does she find her NORMAL life?" Maybe, maybe not. She may find other things just as important along the way.

Part of the blisteringly honest modern YA genre born of Judy Blume, which exploded in the 70s and 80s, "To Take A Dare" explores the unbearable pressures which lead up to Chris/Chrysta's running away from home, finding herself on the road, and the reasons why she attempts to adopt a young runaway, Dare, in an attempt to give him a true family. Fans of Dragonwagon's witty, funny, sharp and tender writing style won't be disappointed; Chrysta's word-portraits of the stifling suburbia she grows up in, her sadly frustrated family, her life on the road and her discovery of a true home in Arskansas, are all memorable. But Dragonwagon's view of life on the road, gritty as it is, with Chrysta's trading sexual favors for a lift or place to stay, is, in the end, terribly naive. This isn't the author's fault; any book about sexual trading pre-AIDS inevitably seems like apostcard written from the deck of the Titanic. But even minus the sex, life on the road for Chrysta seems a little too idyllic; something read and written about, rather than experienced. Like the obvious symbolism of "take a Dare," it is more read-about than real. But the portrayal of a young woman running to find and then defend her own standards and her own life is not easily dismissed. Dragonwagon's literary style and love of language lift this book above the typical teen-problem novel.

Nice book but defenitly not for young readers.

This girls mother lives in New York, her father lives in Colorado. She spends winter, fall, and spring with her mom and summers with her dad. Her parents are both so different, but they both love her. The one thing they agree on is the answer to her question "If you are so different, why did you get married?"

I thought this was a great book. Having divorced parents is difficult. This book helps you understand a little better. If your child is having a difficult time understanding your divorce, try this book.

Crescent Dragonwagon weaves a charming tale of the journey one brass button takes in a years time. She also gives the reader insight into a charming neighborhood with eccentric characters and a sweet romance between two of its elderly neighbors. The illustrations alone could hold a child's interest, but I think the story is most apporpriate for primary grade children.

My name is Margaret Ziegler, so I picked up this book out of curiosity, and the author really picks up on the fact that kids who's last name starts with the letter Z get the short ends of lots of sticks! I really felt the other Margaret's pain!

On a wlk one day, a girl and her parents find a field of daffodils. Wondering how they got there, they find a chimney and foundation. They imagine how life would have been in the house. Going back through time, a normal family was living there. Now this place is home to just animals.

This was not one of my favorite books. It took a while to understand what was going on. If your child has a vivid imagination, this is a good book for them. The illustrations are beautiful.

A family wandering in the woods finds an old abandoned home place and wonders who lived there. Gradually, the past and present merge and separate --- the black family who homesteaded, dreamed their own dreams, lived, cooked, did chores comes to life briefly, then recedes. But "They were here... for every year the daffodils come up / to trumpet the good news of spring / forever and forever." With a strong and mysterious sense of time and timelessness, memory and imagination, the author's quietly spare words and the illustrator's sumptous, moving pictures move together seamlessly. I have used this in my class (it is one of the books which can kindle endless discussion and serve as an easy, natural springboard for student writing), read it to my own children countless times, and bought it as a gift for friends of all ages. Anyone who has a "home place" in their past; indeed anyone who wonders about what lasts and what falls away, will respond to this moving, lovely book.