Chanticleer Book Reviews

Author: stephanie-w-cawthon-phd

  • The 2025 I&I Spotlight for Self-Help and How-To

    The 2025 I&I Spotlight for Self-Help and How-To

    Mastering Life’s Skills

    I&I or Instruction & Insight Awards CIBA Badge

    The I&I Awards can show you how!

    In an era where knowledge is power and practical skills unlock new possibilities, readers are seeking guides that deliver real results. From mastering specific crafts and hobbies to developing personal growth strategies and exploring the world through informed travel, the best instructional works combine expert knowledge with clear, actionable guidance. The Instruction & Insight Awards for How-To and Self-Help celebrate the exceptional authors who transform complex subjects into accessible learning experiences, empowering readers to expand their capabilities and enrich their lives.

    Celebrating Our Grand Prize Winner!

    Success with Hydrangeas cover by Lorraine Ballato

    We’re proud to celebrate our 2024 I&I Division Grand Prize Winner, Lorraine Ballato for her comprehensive guide Success with Hydrangeas: A Gardener’s Guide. This expertly crafted work addresses one of gardening’s most beloved yet challenging plants, providing gardeners with the scientific insights and practical techniques needed to achieve reliable blooms and healthy growth. Ballato, who serves as the resident hydrangea expert at the New York Botanical Garden and has been teaching hydrangea classes for over a decade, brings both professional expertise and real-world teaching experience to this thorough guide.

    What makes Success with Hydrangeas exemplary is its comprehensive approach to solving common gardening challenges. The book features over 150 photos and illustrations across thirteen color-coded chapters that cover everything from propagation and fertilizing to pruning techniques, pest management, and achieving desired flower colors. Ballato addresses the most frequent gardener concerns like proper pruning timing, optimal watering practices, and transplanting strategies paired with clear scientific explanations and practical solutions. The inclusion of garden design applications and a detailed index ensures readers can quickly find answers when they need them most. Ballato will receive a Chanticleer Editorial Review and be invited to participate in an Author Interview, offering deeper insights into her expertise and approach to hydrangea cultivation.

    The I&I Awards recognize the remarkable breadth of instructional and self-improvement literature, encompassing categories from Travel Guides and Culinary arts to Health & Fitness, Writing Guides, and Home & Garden expertise. This comprehensive scope reflects our understanding that learning takes many forms, whether through Arts & Crafts tutorials, Nature & Environment education, Psychology insights, or Business & Money strategies that enhance personal and professional development.

    Explore All Business & Self-Help Divisions

    The I&I Awards are part of Chanticleer’s comprehensive celebration of transformative non-fiction:

    We’d love for you to join us in reading about some of our favorite guides that we’ve reviwed!

    Eating Together, Being Together Cover

    Eating Together, Being Together
    By Julian C.E. Clauss- Ehlers and Caroline S. Clauss-Ehlers

    Chanticleers 2023 I&I Grand Prize Winner!

    Eating Together, Being Together is a rare, enlightening book that teaches the importance of family dining, both on the culinary side and in its benefits for childhood and young adult development beyond the kitchen walls.

    Co-authored by master Chef and Dad, Julian C.E. Clauss-Ehlers, and Ph.D. Psychologist and Mom, Caroline S. Clauss-Ehlers, Eating Together, Being Together offers up their parental wisdom and expertise from the heart of the home—the kitchen.

    With informative but relaxed conversations about food choices, preparation, and related activities, the two provide great insight into how family mealtime promotes well-being in a child’s life. As involved adults, they incorporate thoughtful discussions about spending quality time with their children, sharing and mitigating bad feelings, and making wonderful memories. Ultimately, they showcase family meals as nourishment for both the body and soul.

    Within the pages of the book readers will find ways food can serve as a message of care and support, as well as a way to model kindness in the face of questions and concerns.

    Read More Here

    What's Your Name Cover

    What’s Your Name?
    By Albert Jung

    Albert Jung’s What’s Your Name?, subtitled How to Write Your Name in Han’gŭl Without Learning the Korean Language, is more than a primer for learning how to write in the Han’gŭl script — it’s a study of the evolution of the Korean writing system and, through it, the history of Korea itself.

    What’s Your Name? offers a crash course in how to write your name in Han’gŭl for anyone who attends international conferences, hosts Korean exchange students, or simply has Korean speakers in their social sphere. Although the reader quickly plunges into the components of the Han’gŭl alphabet, Jung suggests a light read for the basics, and a comprehensive read for those seeking a deeper understanding of Han’gŭl and its evolution.

    From absolute beginners to linguistics scholars and students, readers will find valuable reference material and guidance for practice in this extensive text.

    Read More Here

    Disability is Human Cover

    Disability is Human
    By Stephanie W. Cawthon, PhD

    In Disability is Human: The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life, Dr. Stephanie W. Cawthon advocates for the rights and needs of a group that is often underrepresented, ignored, or misunderstood.

    Disability is Human offers a broad scope of examples and advice that has proven to enhance lives through accessibility, whether implemented in programs, institutional practice, or daily life. The book also has a companion workbook for those interested in incorporating its ideas into programs, institutional practice, or daily life.

    Cawthon contrasts ableism against accessibility, including her own experiences as a person born deaf who uses hearing aids and sign language to communicate. She tells of a time before anti-discrimination laws were enacted to protect disabled peoples’ rights and make the world available to everyone.

    Cawthon comes to this conversation with deep, personal knowledge of the issues faced by disabled people.

    Read More Here

    Dementia Home Care
    By Tracy Cram Perkins

    An I&I First Place Winner!

    Dementia Home Care: How to Prepare Before, During, and After, by Tracy Cram Perkins, offers the lived experience of a caregiver, sharing the experiences that impressed upon her the enormity of the physical, emotional, and psychological task she undertook.

    These same experiences made Perkins aware of the dearth of practical resources for the novice embarking on this journey. She hopes to fill that gap with this comprehensive, “user-friendly” guide that goes well beyond the limits of a self-help book, impersonal how-to manual, or clinical tome. From Dementia Home Care, readers will gain new insights into human behavior and how to become an effective caregiver without sacrificing their own well-being.

    Perkins’ written voice captivates from the beginning. Her first-person accounts of caring for afflicted loved ones are both relatable and authentic. The reader will find themself laughing aloud, or filled with dread, as the author recounts actual experiences that are otherwise hard to imagine happening to oneself.

    Read More Here

    These reviews represent just a glimpse of the practical expertise and transformative guidance waiting to be discovered in today’s instructional and self-help literature.

    See the Chanticleer Difference for Yourself!

    We’re excited about all the outstanding instructional and self-help works we receive every year for both the CIBAs and for our Editorial Reviews. Throughout this year’s I&I Book Awards, we had the pleasure of promoting numerous valuable guides as they advanced through our competition tiers. The Chanticleer International Book Awards provide ongoing recognition that amplifies authors’ digital footprints through high-traffic website features, social media promotion, newsletter spotlights reaching thousands of industry professionals, and long-tail marketing that continues promoting winners throughout the year and beyond!

    This is the journey from beginning to end for the CIBAs! Every list you make means more promotion for you and your work as each advancement tier is posted right here on our website, on our social media, and also out in our newsletter! Your book deserves to be discovered.

    Don’t Let Your Expertise Go Unrecognized!

    The instructional and self-help market continues to thrive as readers seek trusted guidance for improving their skills, expanding their knowledge, and enhancing their quality of life. Whether your work provides step-by-step craft tutorials, transformative self-help strategies, comprehensive travel insights, or specialized knowledge in areas from cooking to psychology, the I&I Awards provide the recognition and promotional platform your expertise deserves.

    Instructional literature has the unique power to unlock human potential, solving problems and opening new worlds of possibility. From practical guides that help readers master tangible skills to self-help works that facilitate personal transformation, every well-crafted instructional book has the potential to become an indispensable resource. Don’t let your knowledge remain untapped—submit to the I&I Awards today and join the skilled authors who’ve found their eager audience through Chanticleer!

    I&I or Instruction & Insight Awards CIBA Badge

    Enter the I&I Awards today! Deadline: September 30th

    You know you want it…
  • DISABILITY Is HUMAN: The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life (Audiobook) by Stephanie W. Cawthon PhD – Disability Advocacy, Ableism, Accessibility

    DISABILITY Is HUMAN: The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life (Audiobook) by Stephanie W. Cawthon PhD – Disability Advocacy, Ableism, Accessibility

     

    In the audiobook Disability is Human: The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life, Dr. Stephanie W. Cawthon advocates for the rights and needs of a group that is often underrepresented, ignored, or misunderstood.

    This exceptional audio version of Disability is Human has a companion workbook for those interested in incorporating its ideas into programs, institutional practice, or daily life. The audio version covers the book to the last letter and is easy to comprehend.

    Cawthon contrasts ableism against accessibility, including her own experiences as a person born deaf who uses hearing aids and sign language to communicate. She tells of a time before anti-discrimination laws were enacted to protect disabled peoples’ rights and make the world available to everyone.

    Cawthon comes to this conversation with deep, personal knowledge of the issues faced by disabled people.

    As a child she received speech training at a special school for disabled children, but when she was seven years old her family moved to California and enrolled her in a mainstream Catholic school. To navigate the new hearing-centered learning environment she had to sat in the front row and read lips.

    After graduating, Cawthon went on to attend Stanford University, where she dove into early research on assessing accessibility for deaf children. This gave her the opportunity to explore what it fully meant to be disabled in today’s modern world.

    Disability is Human helps the reader understand many of the ways that one in four people might experience a disability.

    She emphasizes the need for understanding and suggests ways we can improve accessibility to a population that wants and needs to participate within this complex world—a world with buildings that lack a ramp to higher levels for people in wheelchairs, or lectures that don’t provide sign language interpreters to enable a deaf person to understand what is being said.

    Cawthon organizes her chapters around the concept of accessibility for all people, how to address some of the most glaring shortfalls, and how to discuss the topic of disability without making disabled people feel diminished or less-than. Her discussion isn’t coined in terms of victimization, but rather what accommodations could be authentically inclusive for all levels of abilities and not impose further barriers on a person who may already be struggling to engage in everyday life.

    Readers will find both expert knowledge and first-hand experience in this timely and important discussion.

    As the narrator of her own book, Cawthon reads with clarity and precision, and her years of training in enunciation and public speaking shine through. She doesn’t deviate from her text and even takes time to describe each graphic in the book.

    Cawthon lists her resources at the end of the book, guiding readers to explore more on the subject. She also includes a “Time to Reflect” section with focused questions and suggestions at the end of each chapter, and a “Creator Call Out” that offers links to other experts in the disability community who are working hard to break down barriers within their own spheres of influence.

    Readers in education, health, and business will find Disability is Human: The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life both engaging and informative. Cawthon provides valuable insights to help shape our perspective and encourages readers to engage in the conversation around accessibility in a meaningful way.

     

  • DISABILITY Is HUMAN: The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life by Stephanie W. Cawthon PhD – Disability Advocacy, Ableism, Accessibility

    DISABILITY Is HUMAN: The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life by Stephanie W. Cawthon PhD – Disability Advocacy, Ableism, Accessibility

     

    In Disability is Human: The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life, Dr. Stephanie W. Cawthon advocates for the rights and needs of a group that is often underrepresented, ignored, or misunderstood.

    Disability is Human offers a broad scope of examples and advice that has proven to enhance lives through accessibility, whether implemented in programs, institutional practice, or daily life. The book also has a companion workbook for those interested in incorporating its ideas into programs, institutional practice, or daily life.

    Cawthon contrasts ableism against accessibility, including her own experiences as a person born deaf who uses hearing aids and sign language to communicate. She tells of a time before anti-discrimination laws were enacted to protect disabled peoples’ rights and make the world available to everyone.

    Cawthon comes to this conversation with deep, personal knowledge of the issues faced by disabled people.

    As a child she received speech training at a special school for disabled children, but when she was seven years old her family moved to California and enrolled her in a mainstream Catholic school. To navigate the new hearing-centered learning environment she had to sit in the front row and read lips.

    Cawthon attended the Standford University, where she dove into early research on assessing accessibility for deaf children. This gave her the opportunity to explore what it fully meant to be disabled in today’s modern world.

    Disability is Human helps the reader understand many of the ways that one in four people might experience a disability.

    She emphasizes the need for understanding and suggests ways we can improve accessibility to a population that wants and needs to participate within this complex world—a world with buildings whose stairs deny a person in a wheelchair, or a lecture that doesn’t provide a sign language interpreter for a deaf person.

    Cawthon organizes her chapters around the concept of accessibility for all people, how to address some of the most glaring shortfalls, and how to discuss the topic of disability without making disabled people feel diminished or less-than. Her discussion isn’t coined in terms of victimization, but rather what accommodations could be authentically inclusive for all levels of abilities and not impose further barriers on a person who may already be struggling to engage in everyday life.

    Readers will find both expert knowledge and first-hand experience in this timely and important discussion.

    Cawthon lists resources at the end of the book, guiding readers to future reading. She includes a “Time to Reflect” section with focused questions and suggestions at the end of each chapter, and a “Creator Call Out” offers links to other experts in the disability community who are working hard to break down barriers within their own spheres of influence.

    Readers in education, health, and business will find Disability is Human: The Vital Power of Accessibility in Everyday Life engaging and informative. Cawthon provides valuable insights to help shape our perspective and encourages readers to engage in the conversation around accessibility in a meaningful way.