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According to the Jenkins Group:

• 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
• 42% of college graduates never read another book.
• 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57% of new books are not read to completion.

So what are they doing? Watching TV! (Among other things.) So no matter if you’re for or against the writer’s strike, your television viewing habits could be affected. So why not pick up a good book instead?

Family Activities for the TV-less

There are lots of book suggestions here at A Readable Feast including YA (young adult) titles. You can look on the right sidebar for books I haven’t reviewed yet like Bobbie Dazzler or Little Skink’s Tail. Or check out November 2006’s posts for Thanksgiving and holiday book ideas.

Did you see the Target toy catalog in last Sunday’s paper? The kids and I were excited about all the new board games out, especially Monopoly Disney Pixar Edition. Why wait for Christmas?

How about cooking as a family? FamilyFun.com has a whole bunch of kid-friendly Thanksgiving cooking ideas like Tiny Turkey Dinner Cupcakes and Tom Turkey Nuggets.

Lots of good new movies out there to rent or buy like Meet the Robinsons, too.

But if you must watch TV (and I understand - we all want to relax and “jell” for awhile) how about introducing kids to classics like the Andy Griffith Show or the original Star Trek? Both are in reruns on various local and cable stations. There’s always educational TV like the Discovery Channel, PBS, and the History Channel.

How is your family going to handle the writer’s strike?

1. Watch reruns of our favorite TV shows.
2. Watch shows we don’t normally watch on TV.
3. Watch sports on TV.
4. Do family activities like play games, cook, go to the community pool, or make a craft.
5. Rent lots of movies.
6. Turn of the TV and READ.

It’s amazing how you can get inspired for the holidays everywhere you go. Stopping by my local post office the other day, I grabbed a copy of USA Philatelic, a catalog for stamp enthusiasts. (You can see the catalog online at the U.S. Postal website.)

With gift shopping season here, you should check it out. They have a lot of great activity books and toys that will appeal to kids (and are educational) such as:

• Disney’s Let’s Write a Letter - This 20-page book is filled with Disney characters and offers instructions on letter writing for kids. The set includes eight pieces of stationary and envelopes and eight The Art of Disney: Romance stamps. ($14.95)
• Curious George Wonders Stamp and Sticker Book - Curious George introduces kids to stamp collecting in this activity book, and is a wonderful way for kids to learn about some of the natural and man-made wonders of the U.S. Comes with eight Favorite Children’s Book Animals stamps. ($9.95)
• Space Discovery Book Inside Outer Space Collectible Activity Book - This children’s activity book takes kids on a journey through space, where they’ll discover secrets of the cosmos.  Includes five Inside Outer Space stamps and a special holograph envelope. ($9.95)

There’s also stamp collecting kits on subjects like history, famous people, Marvel Comics, travel and baseball.

Preschool Inspiration

After the post office trip, I went to pick up Lucie at preschool. The teachers had set up two large pumpkins on a table and the kids were using rubber mallets to hammer golf tees into the oversized gourds.

The boys were really loving it. After all how often do you get a chance to whack away at a pumpkin? I thought it was a very clever idea. Plus, now I know what to do with all those golf tees that I find in Nathan’s pockets after he hits the links with his dad.

Thanksgiving Fun

Golf tees in a pumpkin? How about skewers of fruit to turn a squash and a pear into a vegetarian turkey called a Fruit Gobbler? This edible Thanksgiving craft comes from FamilyFun.com.

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I’m so excited! Ratatouille is coming out on DVD next week (November 6). The nice people at Click Communications sent me a preview copy. It was wonderful timing as my mother, who’s French, was in town. She hadn’t seen it, so it was a perfect movie to share with her grandkids.

We loved watching Ratatouille again even though we had seen it in the theater when it was first released. We enjoyed the short features, too. The foodie in me loved “Fine Food and Film: A Conversation with Brad Bird and Thomas Keller,” a behind the scenes look at how master chef and restaurateur Thomas Keller brought his real life expertise to the table. And the kids loved the new animated short film “Your Friend the Rat,” starring Remy and Emile from Ratatouille

So, What’s Cooking?

For the occasion, I made dinner using a recipe from the movie’s children’s cookbook, What’s Cooking? A cookbook based on a movie? Yes, and a good one at that. It has very authentic but kid-friendly recipes for classic French dishes like crepes, croque monsieur (a favorite of my nephews in Switzerland), and quiche lorraine. There’s a few fun dishes in What’s Cooking? too, like Easy Faux Escargot (roll ups) and Pizza Rats (cut up English muffin pizzas that look like rats’ faces).

(If you would like some more Ratatouille-based recipes, click here to download a four-page PDF from Disney and Family Fun magazine at AtoZKidsStuff.com. The recipes are based on ones in What’s Cooking?)

And of course there was this recipe for Gusteau’s Ratatouille, which my mother and I enjoyed and tried to pursuade the kids to eat

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