Books with author Sharon Powers

Kids passionately love everything about candy - the sweet satisfying taste, of course, but also the smells, the colors, the shapes, and the textures. So why settle for just eating it? In Candy Construction author Sharon Bowers reveals how inexpensive and readily available store-bought candy offers an irresistable treasure trove of crafting material.Armed with a bedazzling variety of sugary shapes, from rolls and sticks to ropes and strips to rings and cubes, there is no limit to what kids can build -- with Candy Construction as inspiration. Imagine a chess set with Hershey's Kisses playing pieces! Candy snakes made from Necco Wafers and bubble-gum tape, with M&M's for eyes! There are spaceships, race cars, planes, woodland creatures, jewelry, and more -- all crafted from candy. Perfect for birthday parties and rainy day activities, the more complex Candy Construction projects offer plans for complete tabletop scenes, including a construction site with dump truck and construction workers; a steam train with an engine, tanker cars, caboose, and boxcars; and a magical castle with stacked cookie towers. There are also fun projects for holiday decorations for Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and more. Every project is accompanied by full-color photos and easy-to-follow, step-by-step building instructions. With small children of her own, Sharon Bowers knows the challenges of preventing excessive candy consumption. To her pleasant surprise, she found that offering kids an alternative use for candy actually cut back on the eating — without eliminating any of the fun! Parents will welcome this creative new way of looking at candy and using it up, while watching their young construction workers put their imaginations and hands to work!

Samuel Clemens, the man known as Mark Twain, invented the American voice and became one of our greatest celebrities. His life mirrored his country's, as he grew from a Mississippi River boyhood in the days of the frontier, to a Wild-West journalist during the Gold Rush, to become the king of the eastern establishment and a global celebrity as America became an international power. Along the way, Mark Twain keenly observed the characters and voices that filled the growing country, and left us our first authentically American literature. Ron Powers's magnificent biography offers the definitive life of the founding father of our culture.