Book Reviews

The Great Pig Escape

By Linda Moller

The Great Pig Escape is a children's fiction book published in Dublin, Ireland. The author, Linda Moller, is a member of Friends of the Earth and a former hill farmer in Wales. According to her biography, she believes that a greener and better world is a realistic goal, enhancing the lives of both animals and humans.

In this book, 13 pigs escape from a farm just moments before they are to be taken away to a slaughterhouse. Readers follow the pigs as they run away and experience freedom in the wild. It is a frightening and challenging experience for the pigs.

This story has an animal welfare slant rather than a true animal rights slant. (I don't want to spoil the story by saying too much.) Nevertheless, this book is an exciting read for children between the ages eight and ten and worth looking for in your local library.

Energy Foods

By Nic Rowley and Kirsten Hartvig

Some people are looking for ways to fast or to "gain more energy" from raw or barely-cooked foods. Energy Foods, with its stunning and sparse design, is visually invigorating from the cover to the last recipe. The first chapter, meant to jump-start your mood, largely re-iterates keywords such as "power" and "burn," and the instructions themselves are rather thinly orga-nized and commonsensical. But following is a cleansing all-fruit-and-tea 24-hour detox regimen (if you're into that sort of thing), and then 30 vegetarian recipes which are scored by their "energy-boost" potentials. The recipes are mainly launchpads for similarly-styled concoctions you could easily devise in your own kitchen, but they are beautifully furnished with gorgeous photos that make them hard to resist. All in all, Energy Foods is a slim but beautiful volume that reads like a magazine, but we mean that in a positive way.

The Everyday Vegan

By Dreena Burton

Dreena Burton promotes this book as being useful for committed vegans, as well as those individuals who simply wish to add vegan meals to their menu. One section titled "Everyday Cooking Tips and How-To's" is quite useful. Here you'll find information on preparing and marinating tofu, roasting garlic and peppers, cooking with fresh and dried herbs, making breadcrumbs, and toasting nuts and seeds, as well as other valuable instructions.

The recipe section includes appetizers and munchies; sauces, gravies, and salad dressings; soups and stews; salads and sandwiches; main courses, including pasta sauces, burgers, and other favorites; simple sides; muffins and snack loaves; and sweet treats, including creams/puddings/sauces, cookies, cakes, pies, and other treats. Unique recipes you'll find in this book include Puréed Roasted Parsnip and Fennel Soup, Mushroom Pecan Burgers, Carrot Pineapple Muffins, Pumpkin Raisin Loaf, and Lusciously Light Tiramisu. Nutritional analyses are provided with each recipe.

More Than a Meal

By Karen Davis, PhD

More Than a Meal is an extremely interesting read about the turkey in history, myth, ritual, and reality. Karen Davis examines the cultural, literary, and natural history of this bird. The goal of More Than a Meal is to encourage individuals not to consume turkeys.

This unique book would make a wonderful addition to any library. Perhaps the next time students are learning about Thanksgiving, their teachers will have access to this book and thus question the need to slaughter turkeys.