The adventures of Luke Walker begin with the first two episodes in comic-book style right here on the 5 and up page, but the book is, for a change, written in prose. It contains the first eight short stories. Luke is an eight year old boy who, after noticing what a raw deal animals have, has decided to become vegetarian – much to his parents dismay. He is outspoken, full of righteous anger and is not afraid to do what needs to be done, despite lack of support from the grown-ups around him. He is a vegan ‘Just William’. I hope you will find Luke’s first eight adventures entertaining – I had a lot of fun writing them.
The giveaway ends on the 11 June so if you want a free, signed copy you’ve got just over two days to enter (you’ll have to sign up with Goodreads but that’s quick and easy and free to do). 681 people have entered so far.
ps: I don’t know whether this will always be the case but I noticed that with the other Goodreads giveaways we’ve done, the winner was always someone who entered on the last day 😉
This week we are giving away a copy of The Princess Who Liked To Be Popular which is a fairy tale about a princess who, when her parents go on holiday and she is left in charge of the kingdom, makes the mistake of trying to increase her popularity by giving the people whatever they ask for.
You can find the story on our Fairy Tales page, and the paperback is available on Amazon, but if you’d like to win a free copy just comment on this post to be entered into the draw.
Congratulations – a copy of Maddicts will be on its way to you as soon as you give me your address (you can contact me privately using the contact form on the About page)
And for those not so lucky, don’t worry – you too can have your own copy of Maddicts if you order it from Amazon 😉
I’ve recently discovered buckwheat which is naturally gluten free as it is not actually a grain – it’s a fruit seed. Buckwheat is related to rhubarb and the flour has a subtle sweet fruity taste to it which means you don’t need so much sugar. This organic Doves Farm pack is not certified gluten free because it wasn’t bagged in a totally gluten-free environment, but I have been told they do do a certified gluten-free version for those who are highly sensitive. My recipe is very simple:
8 ounces organic buckwheat flour
3 ounces organic fair trade sugar
100 ml organic sunflower oil
4 tablespoons of water
organic fair trade cocoa
***
First pre-heat the oven to 180°c. Weigh out half of your dry ingredients (ie 4 oz flour and 1.5 oz sugar) and place in a mixing bowl with a dessert spoon or two of sieved cocoa. Mix well and then add half the wet ingredients (50 ml oil and 2 tablespoons of water). You might need a dribble or two more of water to compensate for the cocoa and make a soft, moist cookie mixture.
(Bear in mind that I had doubled the recipe the day I photographed it so you won’t have this much mixture unless you do the same). Put the chocolatey mixture to one side and mix up the other half of ingredients (minus the cocoa) in another bowl.
Then spoon teaspoons full of ‘white’ mixture onto ungreased baking trays. Flatten with the back of a spoon. (These look quite big because I had doubled the recipe that day)
Then add another teaspoon of chocolate brown mixture to each cookie and press it on like so:
Bake for 20 minutes and then remove to a cooling tray. There is no need to double the mixture, the 8 oz mixture makes 20 to 24 cute little cookies, but if you want big fat ones like these you know what to do! Oh, and if you do double it they’ll need cooking a bit longer – say 30 mins at 170° in a fan oven.
These are so yummy that I forgot to take any pictures of them after they came out of the oven. When they’ve cooled they’re kind of hard, like a ginger nut, but a little bit chewy on the inside.
If you want to win a copy of Maddictsyou’ve only got two more days left! Comment on this or Monday’s post to put your name in the hat and you could be the lucky winner of this exciting vegan graphic novel (for teens and up) when we make the draw on Friday.
Well, we’ve kept on with it, sprouting seed after seed, growing seedling after seedling, and we have quite a few in different sized pots around the garden. Some of them didn’t make it, sadly, but that’s the way it goes, and we just keep on going. (I say ‘we’ but really it’s Miranda who does all the work. I help with watering 😉 )
If you look over here you will see what our oldest ones looked like a year ago – nice strong, woody stems, but still tiny.
But now the tallest one is about four feet tall! I’ve photographed it next to a garden chair to give you some idea of scale:
How fantastic is that?!!!
It seems like no time since we sprouted those first seeds.
We have planted a few in the wild and intend to keep doing that, inconspicuously near public footpaths, in the hope of providing free food for the future, but most of them are still in pots for now.
We love our little trees 😀
If you want to do this yourself, go to the original post to see how 🙂
This week’s giveaway is a copy ofMaddicts and you’ve got until Friday to enter.
Maddicts is not for young children. We don’t recommend it for under 12s. It’s a vegan graphic novel; a dark satire; a piece of self-indulgent wishful thinking (on my part); it is humorous speculation about what might happen if the natural world fought back and all the animals simultaneously turned on their oppressors and escaped.
Of course you are free to read it in full here, but if you’d like your own copy, comment on this post and your name will be entered into Friday’s draw.
We do our best to inspire people towards veganism but are very careful not to push too hard. We don’t want to frighten people away so we take the gently, gently approach with stories and colourful pictures and poems.
But after watching Cowspiracy in full yesterday I realise there isn’t actually time to do it gently.
If this planet and all its inhabitants have any chance of survival, the entire human population must make the transition to veganism NOW. And when I say transition I don’t mean gradually, one meat-free day a week. I mean now. I mean overnight. There’s no more time for gently gently. Everyone needs to know about the urgency; about the crisis we are in.
World leaders and leading charities have shamefully kept quiet about the devastation caused by animal agriculture. The destruction of the rainforests, the dead zones in the oceans, the pollution of the rivers; the greenhouse gases, land degradation, soil erosion, human starvation, species extinction – all caused by animal agriculture. They distract people with worrying about CO2; encourage them to drive and fly less and use low-energy light bulbs. But CO2 is a minor problem compared to the huge huge one caused by animal farming.
Why do you think they keep quiet about that?
It’s not a human’s right to choose to eat meat, eggs and dairy. No one should be allowed to choose something that is so harmful – so completely devastating – to everyone and everything else. They made it illegal to smoke inside in public places because second hand smoke is harmful to others. Animal agriculture is a billion times more harmful, and not just to others in the immediate vicinity.
And it could be stopped. Without legislation. Without waiting for the slow machine of politics to get around to it (which it won’t). It could be stopped by us. By all of us, ordinary people, just refusing to buy its products.
Tell the world, tell everyone you know that they can have their cars and their holidays abroad. They don’t have to cycle anywhere if they don’t want to. They just need to go vegan. It’s the only way. And it needs to happen now. It isn’t hard. It’s actually very pleasant.
Watch Cowspiracy (it’s on Netflix and if you don’t subscribe to Netflix you can sign up for a month’s free trial to watch it.) The trailer’s great but you need to watch the whole thing. Everyone does. Please watch it. Thank you.
The winner will be drawn on Wednesday, the 11th of May: TOMORROW!
Comment on this post to put your name in the hat
Funny rhymes with messages on vegan lifestyle, sounds difficult to combine but the authors have put a brilliant effort in creating this work. This is a book consisting of poems and picture stories. What is interesting about this book is,the drawings are hand drawn which makes this book a special one because children can actually connect to the drawings and the simple poems and learn in more than one way. Very beautiful illustrations and amazing writing.
A very sweet read. Would recommend it for every kid.
The winner will be drawn on Wednesday, the 11th of May.
Comment on this post to put your name in the hat
Funny rhymes with messages on vegan lifestyle,sounds difficult to combine but the authors have put a brilliant effort in creating this work. This is a book consisting of poems and picture stories. What is interesting about this book is,the drawings are hand drawn which makes this book a special one because children can actually connect to the drawings and the simple poems and learn in more than one way. Very beautiful illustrations and amazing writing.
A very sweet read. Would recommend it for every kid.
The winner will be drawn next Wednesday, the 11th of May.
Comment on this post to put your name in the hat
Funny rhymes with messages on vegan lifestyle,sounds difficult to combine but the authors have put a brilliant effort in creating this work. This is a book consisting of poems and picture stories. What is interesting about this book is,the drawings are hand drawn which makes this book a special one because children can actually connect to the drawings and the simple poems and learn in more than one way. Very beautiful illustrations and amazing writing.
A very sweet read. Would recommend it for every kid.
Being diabetic myself, I was very interested many years ago when I read that, through clinical observation at a children’s hospital in Canada (in the 1980s I think it was), they had discovered that type 1 diabetes is actually caused by an immune reaction to dairy milk protein because the immune system mistakes cells of the pancreas for milk protein and attacks them. I was surprised, since this had been discovered some years before my diagnosis, that I had never been told about it by any of my diabetic specialist doctors and nurses. In fact, in the 1990s, my GP pleaded with me to give my baby dairy foods after I became vegan because he said “babies need dairy for at least their first five years”! And even today the UK charity that gives advice for diabetics, Diabetes UK, does not advise avoiding dairy – it’s included in their suggested meal plans! I actually wrote to them about that and they said, “oh, thank you for telling us,” but of course nothing changed.
Anyway, the following is a brilliant short video by a doctor who really knows what he’s talking about, and he explains really well how dairy causes diabetes. Well worth a watch if you’ve got a spare 8 minutes 🙂
It’s been over a year since this one came out in January 2015 – unbelievable!
You can read more about it here in the post about the earlier giveaway, when it was published, and if you’re still not sure you’re interested, look at this lovely review we just found on Goodreads:
Funny rhymes with messages on vegan lifestyle,sounds difficult to combine but the authors have put a brilliant effort in creating this work. This is a book consisting of poems and picture stories. What is interesting about this book is,the drawings are hand drawn which makes this book a special one because children can actually connect to the drawings and the simple poems and learn in more than one way. Very beautiful illustrations and amazing writing.
A very sweet read. Would recommend it for every kid.
So, if you would like to win a copy of this colourful, happy vegan children’s book, just comment on this post and let us know. You’ve got seven days to do so – next Wednesday, the 11th of May 2016, we will draw a name from our ‘hat’ to select the winner. Open to everyone, worldwide.
Here’s another big colourful story book from Edward Benn (of Wibbolywub fame), this time beautifully illustrated by Cynthia Barnett: Grandpa Wollemi’s Birthday.
It’s a happy, friendly story about children getting ready for their Grandpa’s birthday.
Kauri and Myrtle have made presents for Grandpa but Cedro, who can’t get the hang of sewing or making things with paper, doesn’t know what to give him.
That is, until he remembers that Grandpa is no stranger to the cookie jar and would probably really like a birthday cake.
So he makes him one.
And the story explains how he does it, incorporating the simple, egg-free vegan recipe naturally. The colourful, naïve illustrations make this book charming.
It is clearly designed to be read to young children, a lovely bedtime (or daytime) story but is, in addition, a vegan birthday cake recipe book which will enable little ones (with adult supervision of course) to make a delicious cake of their own with ordinary ingredients likely to be found in everyone’s kitchens.
It’s so perfect! Full of vibrant colour and light.
Valerie Bloom’s happy, funny poem is gorgeously illustrated by David Axtell.
Every page is full of delicious mischief and tasty, sweet, juicy fruit.
The rhyming story is told in the first person from the point of view of a delightfully naughty little girl who loves fruit and eats as much as she can get her hands on while teaching little sis how to get it without getting caught.
The written-in Caribbean accent naturally adds sunshine to the words and you really feel like you’re inside the head of big sis; which makes you as eager as she to taste all those juicy fruits.
I probably shouldn’t show any more, wouldn’t want to spoil the ending 😉 You really should get down to the library and borrow this wonderful book (or get your own copy) – especially if you’ve got a little one who’s learning to count.
This great big beautiful comic book, being over 400 pages long, has ended up being rather expensive at £32 on Amazon, so why not cut out the middle man and get it directly from us? Come over here where we can offer you a much better deal 😀
Due to the popularity of the Fruit Sudoku I thought I’d make another one – for people who love puzzles but hate numbers!
This one is a PLANT FOOD sudoku which means you must make sure there is one, and only one, of each letter in each of the nine 9-square boxes whilst at the same time ensuring there is one of each in every vertical and horizontal line 🙂
P L A N T F O O D
To save you having to print it out, just save the picture on your computer and then open it in ‘Paint’ or another picture editing program where you can fill in the missing letters.
Here is a post I found yesterday on the Mercy for Animals website:
Ontario Legally Recognises Ethical Veganism
“In December, the Ontario Human Rights Commission redefined creed to include non-religious beliefs that like religion, substantially influence a person’s identity, world-view, and way of life. Because ethical veganism is a way of life, it falls under this definition.
So what does this all mean? The code sets guidelines for service providers on respectful treatment and accommodation of people with creed-based requirements. Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, the animal rights group that worked tirelessly to ensure the code was updated, said, “The policy recommends that a person in a hospital facility who has a creed-based need for vegetarian food be provided with appropriate food by the facility.”
Labchuk also noted that the new code protects vegan students from participating in dissections, and vegan employees from wearing work uniforms that contain fur or leather.
We applaud Animal Justice and others who pressed for the updated code, as this truly sets an important precedent.
Click here for delicious recipes, tips on making the transition, and more!”
We’ve got a new book shop! And I decided to call it a Book Shoppe just for the fun of it.
We’ve just published a few new books, which I’ll tell you about in the coming days, so I thought I’d set up a pretty little book shoppe to show them off. See the picture of a Book Shoppe in the side bar to your right? Why not click on that? Go on, it’s nice in there 😀
Yes, the cute fluffy little animal is in a way responsible for Sweets From The Earth. It was the mid-70s, and my dad went out hunting with a neighbor. The next day, the neighbor came over with rabbit stew, and as a 7 year-old animal lover, I was horrified. It was then I declared myself a vegetarian. I began fending for myself in the kitchen amongst my meat-eating family, and learned to love cooking and then…baking.
My passion for food meant that years later when I adopted a vegan lifestyle, I didn’t think for an instant of giving up my love of luscious, decadent desserts. Instead, I decided to learn the craft and science of baking in pastry school, and soon enough discovered that no animals or animal by-products need be used in the making of sweet delicious things. I began whipping up the kind of scrumptious cookies, cakes and treats that dessert lovers everywhere dream about, and in 2002, Sweets From The Earth was born.
Today, Sweets From The Earth makes a full line of original recipe, egg and dairy-free baked goods, which are made all the more delectable by using only the best all natural, 100% plant-based, GMO-free ingredients. Bonus: You don’t have to be vegan or have dietary restrictions to love these desserts – any old sweet tooth will do. They’re a healthier alternative to your run-of-the-mill baked goods, and you’ll never miss what’s missing from them!
And where is all this yumminess created? In two separate facilities: One dedicated dairy, egg, peanut and nut-free, the other dairy, egg wheat and gluten-free.”
This is a great story of a child trusting their natural good instincts and not being swayed by grown-ups – she reminds me a little of Luke Walker for whom it also began with a rabbit 😀
And look at these for a happy ending:
gluten-free, fair trade, espresso cheese cake
gluten free flourless cashew cookies
nut-free vanilla cupcake
And those are just a little taster. Get over to Sweets From The Earth and see what else they’ve got!
Yesterday I went with a friend to visit Purezza, the UK’s only plant-based pizzeria! All their food is vegan, organic and environmentally friendly. I had a brilliant time there! The food was delicious! I was blown away by the fantastic selection to choose from – I can’t wait to go back and try all the pizzas. I had the Marinara pizza, which is tomato sauce, with garlic, oregano and basil, while my friend had the Margherita pizza, which is tomato sauce with cheese and basil. They were absolutely gorgeous!! Phenomenal flavours.
Here you can see the starters and specials – I was very tempted by the garlic bread, I definitely want to get some of that next time! I’d also like to try the Hoisin pizza, and the Nacho pizza!
Here they are! I was so excited by the arrival of my pizza that I forgot to take a picture of it before I started eating! This is the Marinara:
And this is the Margherita:
Here is a slice of mine – it’s really perfect pizza, so thin and soft and crunchy all at the same time.
Once we had finished our pizzas we could not resist the dessert menu! I was just so thrilled by the selection! I was very tempted by the Apple Pie Calzone, the Chocolate Brownie and the Cheesecake, especially as they all come with a scoop of ice cream! But when we came to order, the waiter recommended the Chocolate Calzone, so I had that!
And I was very glad that I did! The Chocolate Calzone is heavenly! It’s a folded pizza with Italian chocolate spread, walnuts and pistachios!!! And I chose to have it with chocolate ice cream. Isn’t it beautiful? It’s a work of art! And it tastes so good too!
It was delicious! I recommend it to you all.
As soon as I got home I wanted to go back. I can’t wait to go back and try everything else on the menu! I hope you can visit them too, and see how wonderful it all is! The staff were really friendly and helpful, checking on us a few times to see that everything was great. The music was lovely too.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – the best Star Trek movie ever! We love this film and watched it again last night. If you haven’t seen it, or even if you have, you should watch it at your first opportunity and witness Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Chekov, Uhura and Sulu go back in time in a Klingon vessel (complete with cloaking device) to save the whales. In spite of its serious message it is full of humour and is a fast-paced, entertaining, well-told story. Highly, highly recommended 😀
Britain has been struck by a succession of Atlantic storms accompanied by very heavy rain. In early December Storm Desmond saw 5,000 people flooded out of their homes in Carlisle in spite of £38 million of flood defences recently installed by the Environment Agency. More recently, Storm Frank has caused similar havoc in the Southwest, Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Scottish borders and Northern Ireland.
We demand that a major national tree planting effort is implemented, to build our national resilience to future flood events, and that the shooting of beavers is halted immediately!
The key to reducing the risk of more floods is to realise that conventional ‘flood defence’ can never provide security against the ever more extreme weather events that global warming will bring. The storm waters must be held back into the moors, bogs, fields and headwaters, so that they are given the chance to replenish soils and aquifers, and are released only slowly into the main streams and rivers.
We need more trees: it’s no secret that just having trees in the landscape helps rainwater to infiltrate into soils.
Next, beavers: trees are food for beavers, and beavers use them to build their dams. And that’s absolutely key to restoring landscapes and making them water retentive. We should select water–loving tree species that are palatable to beavers — like poplars, willows, sallows and alders — and establish them along watercourses, ditches, streams, ponds and eroded upland gullies.
Once upon a time there were two beautiful girls called Snow White and Rose Red. They were very unhappy because they were imprisoned in a large windowless shed with thousands of others like them. They were cramped and miserable; they never saw daylight or felt the wind on their faces; and the prison guards were rough and cruel. Then one night, everything changed.
As the wind blew and the rain poured down, someone came and lifted them out of their prison and carried them out into the night.
The beautiful girls were scared at first. They tried to shelter their heads from the wind and rain, instinctively ducking under the chin of the person carrying them. What was this cold, dark, wet outside world? They had never seen it before and didn’t know what to think.
After hours and hours of jostling and jolting in the wind and rain; after feeling cold and wet and very very nervous; they arrived somewhere. Somewhere new. Somewhere unfamiliar.
They explored with care. They didn’t know what to make of it. They didn’t know who to trust. But they were curious. They weren’t so desperate to get away anymore. They started to wonder if this was, after all, something good.
As they settled in to their new surroundings they were approached by other individuals. One of whom in particular, Mrs Teapot, became their devoted friend.
Search for the following food items and draw a line through them – they might be forwards, backwards, vertical, upside down or diagonal. And you don’t have to print it out if you don’t want to – just click on the pic, then right click and save it to your computer, then open it in ‘paint’, or whatever picture editing program you’ve got, and you can draw the lines on there 🙂
Violet's Vegan Comics 