Book #2: The Story of Beautiful Girl (Rachel Simon)

What a beautiful book!  The Story of Beautiful Girl was one of our fall group reads on the Reading Circle, and I'm so glad we chose it.  I plan to write more about it here later, when I have more time, but wanted to get this post up here before the 52 Books deadline for the week.

For now, you can head on over to Rachel Simon's website to learn more about the book and about Ms. Simon.  I'm looking forward to exploring over there, now that I've finished the book.  I highly recommend this novel.

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Okay, I'm back to tell you more.  One of my first thoughts is that the author, Rachel Simon, clearly values and appreciates books and stories.  Here is a quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl:

"A book wasn’t something you could open anywhere and then flip to anywhere else. You opened it at the front and went forward, and the pages went from one to the next, each adding to the last, and the story grew more exciting with each page. It was like the way corn grew from the seed that got planted in spring to the tall rows you hid inside in the fall. A story grew."

At the beginning of this story, Martha, a 70-something retired teacher and widow who lives in a farmhouse, hears a knock at her door in the middle of a powerful storm. When she opens the door, she finds two people there – a young woman and a deaf man. Make that three people:  The woman is holding a newborn baby.  Martha is not sure what she should do – they can’t communicate with her very well, as neither of them speaks – but soon she gets the feeling that they are looking for a place of safety. She also observes that they love each other very much.

Soon, people from “the School” arrive at her house, and the young woman is caught. The man escapes, and the baby is still upstairs. Martha learns the woman’s name is Lynnie, and that she never speaks except to say the word "no." She lives at the School (an institution for people with developmental disabilities), and they’ve come to take her back. As they prepare to take her away, Lynnie has the opportunity to look into Martha’s eyes and whisper, “Hide her.”

From there, the story grows.

It follows four characters -- Lynnie, the deaf man, Martha, and Kate (a woman who works at the School) – alternating viewpoints. We see what life is like for each of these people with different situations and unique ways of interacting with others and the world. The novel spans over forty years, and at first, I was concerned that this would make it difficult to read, jumping around to different people and time periods, but the author switches stories and viewpoints without making it feel jarring or disconnected.

Here is the website for the book. I just learned that the book is coming out in paperback this February.

Rachel Simon was inspired to write this book for many reasons, some of which she explains in her afterword. She previously wrote and published Riding the Bus with My Sister, a memoir, and several other books as well, including one on writing.

I am really glad she wrote this novel, and I’d love to hear her speak someday. I found a couple of videos of her on YouTube:

~ Click here to watch an excerpt of a talk she gave in 2004.
~ Click here to hear an interview with her about the book.  (This one is about 30 minutes long.  I've only listened to the first five minutes, and hope to find time to watch the rest soon.)

Our Picture Book Reading

I mentioned in my readolutions post that I wanted to make a point of reading more picture books with my kids.  At ages 7 and 12, they both still really enjoy them, so of course I should be taking advantage of this!  I want to encourage them to read picture books all their lives.

Here are some of our recent favorites:

Press Here (Hervé Tullet)

I've seen this one talked about a lot, and I kept finding it in different places at our library, which suggests to me that kids are loving it, pulling it off the shelf and playing with it.  I finally checked it out.  Skye and Felix agreed that it's a lot of fun, and I love that everything that happens uses only the magic of the two-dimensional page.

Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? (Susan A. Shea, paintings by Tom Slaughter)

This one has been mentioned on a few "Best of 2011" book lists.  The rhyming text is catchy -- Felix and Skye had fun remembering the rhymes later that day, and making up some of their own.  The pictures are gorgeous, simple and bright, using gentle colors.  It's a neat concept to think about, too.

Color Zoo (Lois Ehlert)

This is an old favorite.  We had the board book, but recently gave it away, so I checked out the hardcover from the library.  For some reason, I felt this version helps you see the creativity even better.  My kids flipped the pages back and forth to see how Ehlert created the different animals using only shapes.  I was inspired to get this one again because of the following book...

My Heart Is Like a Zoo (Michael Hall)

My kids enjoyed this one, too!  They liked finding and counting all of the different hearts that made up each animal.  And the ending is sweet.  Michael Hall is from Minnesota!  The website is really cute, and the trailer there helps you to find some hearts you might have missed.

Perfect Square (Michael Hall)

So, of course we had to check out Hall's newest picture book, too.  I've also seen this one on some 2012 Bests lists.  I'd love to get this one again, so that we can do some artsy/craftsy stuff inspired by it.  Check out the trailer and you'll see what I mean.  And another nice ending.


Now, the layout of this post looks okay on my computer screen, but I'm assuming it's different for others.  As a new(ish) blogger, I'm not sure how to put together posts like this to be sure that pictures of book covers are next to the writing about them.  Any advice?

What picture books have you been reading?

What I Read in 2010

Ah, this is very satisfying.  I'm organizing my lists of past reads.  Here's what I read in 2010; no links, but maybe I'll add them at some point...

For me:

1. East (Edith Pattou)
2. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson)
3. Little Heathens (Mildred Armstrong Kalish)
4. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
5. Birds of a Feather (Jacqueline Winspear)
6. Cracked Up to Be (Courtney Summers)
7. The Girl Who Played with Fire (Stieg Larsson)
8. A Noble Radiance (Donna Leon)
9. The Out-of-Sync Child (Carol Stock Kranowitz)
10. Before I Fall (Lauren Oliver)
11. Gunnerkrigg Court, Volume 1: Orientation (Thomas Siddell)
12. The Wild Party (Joseph Moncure March)
13. Getting Air (Dan Gutman)
14. Out Stealing Horses (Per Petterson)
15. William – an Englishman (Cicely Hamilton)
16. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Stieg Larsson)
17. Life As We Knew It (Susan Beth Pfeffer)
18. Keeping the Feast (Paula Butturini)
19. The Dead and the Gone (Susan Beth Pfeffer)
20. This World We Live In (Susan Beth Pfeffer)
21. Very Valentine (Adriana Trigiani)
22. Brain, Child magazine, Spring 2010
23. The Postmistress (Sarah Blake)
24. The Crimson Rooms (Katharine McMahon)
25. Day for Night (Frederick Reiken)
26. The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
27. Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins)
28. Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins)
29. Summertime (Raffaella Barker)
30. Confessions of a Teen Sleuth (Chelsea Cain)
31. The Clue in the Crumbling Wall (Carolyn Keene)
32. Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)
33. The Charming Quirks of Others (Alexander McCall Smith)
34. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (Aimee Bender)
35. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Alan Bradley)
36. Every Last One (Anna Quindlen)
37. 77 Love Sonnets (Garrison Keillor)
38. A Study in Scarlet (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
39. A Study in Scarlet: A Sherlock Holmes Graphic Novel (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
40. Room (Emma Donoghue)
41. The Grimm Legacy (Polly Shulman)
42. The Heretic’s Daughter (Kathleen Kent)
43. The Language of Trees (Ilie Ruby)
44. The Line (Olga Grushin)

For/with Skye (grades 5-6):

1. The Sea of Monsters (Rick Riordan)
2. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg)
3. Meet Felicity: An American Girl (Valerie Tripp)
4. Calamity Jack (Shannon Hale et al)
5. The Arrival (Shaun Tan)
6. The Titan’s Curse (Rick Riordan)
7. The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook (Eleanor Davis)
8. Smile (Raina Telgemeier)
9. When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead)
10. A Family Secret (Eric Heuvel)
11. The Search (Eric Heuvel)
12. Sideways Stories from Wayside School (Jon Sciezcka)
13. The Mozart Season (Virginia Euwer Wolff)
14. The Magic Thief (Sarah Prineas)
15. The Magic Thief: Lost (Sarah Prineas)
16. The Magic Thief: Found (Sarah Prineas)
17. Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown (Jarrett J. Krosoczka)
18. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Rick Riordan)
19. The Gollywhopper Games (Jody Feldman)
20. The Popularity Papers (Amy Ignatow)
21. The Last Olympian (Rick Riordan)
22. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)
23. Julie: An American Girl – Story Collection (Megan McDonald)
24. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (Jeff Kinney)
25. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Jacqueline Kelly)

 

With Skye (grades 5-6) & Felix (grades PreK-K):

1. Down Girl and Sit: Smarter than Squirrels (Lucy Nolan)
2. Down Girl and Sit: On the Road (Lucy Nolan)
3. Down Girl and Sit: Bad to the Bone (Lucy Nolan)
4. Funny Frank (Dick King-Smith)
5. The Twin Giants (Dick King-Smith)
6. Dragons Don’t Cook Pizza (Debbie Dadey & Marcia Thornton Jones)
7. The School for Cats (Esther Averill)
8. Jenny’s Moonlight Adventure (Esther Averill)
9. The Big Big Big Book of Tashi
10. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Roald Dahl)
11. Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel (Ruth McNally Barshaw)
12. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (Betty MacDonald)
13. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic (Betty MacDonald)
14. Dinosaur Cove #1: Attack of the Tyrannosaurus (Rex Stone)
15. Miss Daisy Is Crazy! (Dan Gutman)
16. Jack Stalwart #1: Escape of the Deadly Dinosaur (Elizabeth Singer Hunt)
17. Mr. Klutz Is Nuts! (Dan Gutman)
18. Jack Stalwart #2: The Search for the Sunken Treasure (Elizabeth Singer Hunt)
19. Mrs. Roopy Is Loopy! (Dan Gutman)
20. Ms. Hannah Is Bananas! (Dan Gutman)
21. Dinosaur Cove #2: Charge of the Triceratops (Rex Stone)
22. The Giants and the Joneses (Julia Donaldson)
23. Dinosaur Cove #3: March of the Ankylosaurus (Rex Stone)
24. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Farm (Betty MacDonald)
25. The Doll People (Ann M. Martin & Laura Godwin)
26. Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus (Barbara Park)
27. How to Save Your Tail (Mary Hanson)
28. Runny Babbit (Shel Silverstein)
29. Betsy-Tacy (Maud Hart Lovelace)
30. The Meanest Doll in the World (Ann M. Martin & Laura Godwin)

 

With lit circles (grade 5):

1. Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally) (Lisa Yee)
2. Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Midnight Visitor (Donald J. Sobol)
3. Skellig (David Almond)
4. The Lemonade War (Jacqueline Davies)
5. Chasing Vermeer (Blue Balliett)
6. Hatchet (Gary Paulsen)
7. The 39 Clues, Book 1: The Maze of Bones (Rick Riordan)
8. The City of Ember (Jeanne DuPrau)
9. Holes (Louis Sachar)
10. Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom (Eric Wight)
11. Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute (Jarrett J. Krosoczka)
12. Gregor the Overlander (Suzanne Collins)
13. Lunch Lady #2 (Jarrett J. Krosoczka)
14. Lunch Lady #3 (Jarrett J. Krosoczka)
15. Once Upon a Marigold (Jean Ferris)
16. Star Jumper (Frank Asch)
17. The Headless Cupid (Zilpha Keatley Snyder)

 

Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award nominees (for Kids Book Clubs at the library):

1. Eleven (Patricia Reilly Giff)
2. The Missing: Book 1 – Found (Margaret Peterson Haddix)
3. Deep and Dark and Dangerous (Mary Downing Hahn)
4. How to Steal a Dog (Barbara O’Connor)
5. All of the Above (Shelley Pearsall)
6. If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period (Gennifer Choldenko)
7. The Sloppy Copy Slipup (DyAnne DiSalvo)
8. No Talking (Andrew Clements)

Two More Challenges

I'm joining two more challenges this winter, and then I think I've got to call a halt to this challenge thing for a bit.  The first one is The Comment Challenge hosted by MotherReader and Lee Wind, and its goal is to encourage commenting on others' blogs.  MotherReader says:

Since it is said that it takes twenty-one days to form a new habit, we’re going to run the Comment Challenge for the next three weeks — starting Thursday, January 5, and running through Wednesday, January 25, 2012. The goal is to comment on at least five book blogs a day. Keep track of your numbers, and report in on Wednesdays with Lee.

I'm posting about this after the starting date, but if you're interested in joining, it's not too late!  You can either up your average comments a day, or set your own goal.  Come & join the fun!

The second challenge is on the Reading Circle, which is an online book group that I co-moderate.  (You'll find the link in my sidebar.)  We are doing a Classics Challenge this winter; each of us participating will recommend 2-5 classic novels, and then all of our lists will go into a hat.  We'll pull them out and match readers to lists.  The only requirement is to read one book from the list received and then share your thoughts with the group.  This is open to others, too!  Recommendations need to be posted by this Friday, January 13.

The first book I completed this year...

So, I thought the first book I’d post about this year would be The Story of Beautiful Girl, but I’m not quite done with that one. Today was a double-book-club-meeting day, so I had to pause in my reading of it to finish up two books that were both re-reads for me. One of them, for the teen book club I co-lead at our neighborhood library, I decided to skim and read about online, since I’d just re-read it this spring with Skye. (A Wrinkle in Time: What a fun book to share with her! She really identified with Meg, and enjoyed the tesseract concept.) The other one was for our mother-daughter book club, which was supposed to meet this evening, but was postponed due to illness of the hosts, much to Skye’s chagrin.

This was my third reading of The Hunger Games. I read it when it first came out, requesting a library copy and plowing through it when I got it, sending it on to the next person in line after just a few days. (I love it when I can do that!) I’d read about its premise and was skeptical; I expected to be horribly offended and repelled. How could anyone enjoy such brutal speculative fiction? But, on a friend’s reassuring recommendation (“Trust me. It’s really amazing.”), I gave it a try. As I watched the whole spectacle unfold with bated breath, I marveled at how Suzanne Collins had me gaping at the whole thing just like the citizens of the Capitol. I *was* offended and repelled, but I was also hooked and dazzled. Very impressive storytelling.

My second reading came when, preparing for the release of Mockingjay, I decided to refresh my memory by re-reading books 1 & 2. As I reviewed, I noticed more details about the characters, as well as the foreshadowing techniques Collins uses.

This third reading came sooner than I thought it would. Skye is a sensitive soul. Being twelve years old, she’d heard plenty about The Hunger Games trilogy, but had no real interest in it. She told me her friends were raving about how great it was, but that she thought she’d wait awhile before giving it a try. When one of the moms in our mother-daughter book group asked if it would be okay to read this one for our next book, I checked with Skye, and she decided she was open to reading it.

We made it through, and she didn’t hate it! That was my goal. After the first scene in the arena, she did have some bad dreams, so the next day we decided to try a different strategy. I’d describe to her the sensitive, intense scenes, and she’d read all of the other stuff. And I was surprised at how much she could read without a problem. Collins does such a nice job telling the story of the monstrous Hunger Games. Katniss is a wonderful main character, and Skye could relate to her anger, confusion, and sadness. She cheered her on and shook her fist at the Capitol.

Today at Teen Book Club, Skye shared her thoughts about the book, and it was interesting to hear what others thought, too. One teen said she’d read the trilogy because she’d enjoyed Collins’ Gregor the Overlander series so much. She liked Hunger Games, but thought Gregor was better. Another teen gave it a try when her friends were all telling her she’d love it. She quit after 50 pages; the writing wasn’t as strong as she’d expected, it reminded her of a friend’s writing, and she found herself wanting to read her friend’s stories instead. The other co-leader read it but wasn’t as impressed as she expected to be after hearing all the hype. The librarian and I were the two who liked it best, and we both read it when it first came out, before it became THE HUNGER GAMES. We really loved it. Interesting how our expectations can color our experience with a book.

Skye hasn’t asked about the next book in the trilogy, and I’m fine with that. I hope that someday, when the hype has calmed down and she’s older, she will pick these books up again and experience them the way I did the first time. If she wants, I’ll read them along with her, and we can both cheer for Katniss and rage with her.

52 Books in 52 Weeks

In my readolutions post, I mentioned that I am signing up for the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge this year.  I learned of it from my friend Michelle at Fond of Books, and I can't wait to see what she reads.  (Check out this crazy molasses book that she chose to ring in 2012.  How does she find these books?  I love it.)

One of the rules is that you can't include children's books in this challenge.  But luckily I read the fine print, which says, "If an adult is doing read aloud with kids, the book should be geared for the 9 - 12 age group and above and over 100 pages. If adult reading for own enjoyment, then a good rule of thumb to go by 'is there some complexity to the story or is it too simple?'  If it's too simple, then doesn't count."  Got it.  No problem!

I hope this challenge helps inspire me to post here at least weekly, and I look forward to getting to know some other book bloggers along the way.

2012 Readolutions

I love readolutions.  This year, instead of making a list, I will write a bit about the kind of a reading year I hope to have in 2012.

I look forward to reading with my kids (ages 12 & 7). I read to them from a chapter book just about every night, and I read books with Skye for our mother-daughter book group and our teen book club at the library. I'd like to find more time to read one-on-one with Felix, and I'd like to remember to make time for picture books, which they both still love.

I plan to continue to track my reading on Goodreads. This has been a great resource for me. I joined in July 2011, and since I had already been keeping a book list, I added all of the books I’d read from the start of the year on. I'm really enjoying taking a look at everything I read in 2011! I love how you can put the books into different groupings (called "shelves").

I will participate in my reading communities! I am a co-moderator of StorkNet's Reading Circle, so that’s a priority; I will do my best to post a reading update there each week, and to read the group reads and post about them on our discussion threads. I will participate in the challenges there. I’ve been enjoying FridayReads on Facebook. I love the Chicklit forums and hope to post more there. Maybe I’ll even jump into some discussions at the Republic of Pemberley. My biggest leap will be to enter the bookish blogosphere more fully.

As for my blog, do I even have to say? Of course I want to post more. Maybe this pretty new format will keep me motivated for awhile. I’m also signing up for the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge, so that should help, too.

I just posted a goal on Goodreads of reading 100 books in 2012. That will include the chapter books I read with my kids, too. I have been reading lots of middle grade & YA fiction, which I love, but I'd like to find a bit more time for "grown-up" books this year.

I also want to:

~ Read more books from my shelves. I’d like to especially focus on my lovely collection of Persephone books, as well as books that have been given or loaned to me.

~ Organize our bookshelves. We got some new shelves this year, but the organization is maybe only half-way complete. I love doing this, but I think I put it off because it seems more like a treat than a must-do.

~ Rein in my bookstore shopping – at least make it more purposeful. I will focus on book club books, the kids’ Christmas book stacks, and keepsake books (ones I love and want on my shelves.) I will try to avoid those impulse buys.

~ Participate in Buy a Friend a Book week at least once this year. I’d forgotten about this cool tradition!

Ah.  I love envisioning my great reading year ahead.  Do any of you make reading goals, or have any special reading plans for 2012?

Look what I made!

I've finally changed the template of my blog, and as I was playing around with it this morning, I learned I could use my own photo in the background.  So, to the left you see a picture of the current stack of TBR books on my nightstand.  No guarantees I'll get to them all!  I think it nicely conveys the "Leaning Tower of Books" vibe.

I need to work on my sidebar stuff next.  For some reason, Blogger changed my most recent additions and plugged in some old stuff instead, so now I have to think about what I'd like to see here.  Your patience is appreciated.

But first, I'm going to finish up my list of Readolutions for 2012, and post those.  Back soon!

Best of 2011

I love this time of year, and one of the things I enjoy most is looking over the list of books I read and putting together a list of my favorites.

I'm using my Goodreads account to create this list. The ratings system makes it easy to find my favorites of the year. I re-read a lot of my favorite YA books this year because I am leading a couple of book groups at our neighborhood library. I'll leave those off this list, and only include the books I encountered for the first time.

Fiction:
A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)
Excellent Women (Barbara Pym)
The Blue Castle (L.M. Montgomery)

Graphic Novel:
Ethel and Ernest (Raymond Briggs)

Middle Grade and YA:
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette (Jeanne Birdsall)
Keeper (Kathi Appelt)
A Tale Dark & Grimm (Adam Gidwitz)
Toys Go Out and Toy Dance Party (Emily Jenkins)
Moon Over Manifest (Clare Vanderpool)
Wonderstruck (Brian Selznick)
Inside Out & Back Again (Thanhha Lai)
The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Inga Moore; abridged)

I didn't give any of the nonfiction I read five stars (unless you count the above graphic novel, which is about Briggs' parents). I gave four stars to these:

Nonfiction:
The Wilder Life (Wendy McClure)
The Circuit (Francisco Jiménez)
Through No Fault of My Own: A Girl's Diary of Life on Summit Avenue in the Jazz Age (Coco Irvine)

Merry Books Day!

They did it. The books are all unwrapped! Once they started, there was no stopping them. Aren't they beautiful?







Oops. There are a couple missing from Skye's stack, the two that she hugged and scurried off to read immediately.


And here is Felix's first pick from his stack. Good choice, kid.

Book Stacks 2011

We had a very merry Christmas day, and as I type, the bookstacks still sit wrapped up tight under the tree. We always save them for last, and this Christmas, we were overwhelmed with wonderful gifts and so enjoyed each other's company that we had no need to open them. We look forward to unwrapping and relishing them throughout the coming week. I want to savor each of them with my kids, so this suits me just fine.

Tonight, I'll just post the list of the titles included in each stack. Later, I hope to write a bit about each of them -- why I chose them, where I got them, how they were received. One of my dreams is to make more time to blog in the New Year.

For Skye (age 12):
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
The Way We Work by David Macaulay
Order of the Stick comic collections: Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales and Dungeon Crawlin Fools by Rich Burlew
Wildwood by Colin Meloy
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (in Spanish)
The Shadow Thieves by Anne Ursu
Ida B... by Katherine Hannigan (in Spanish)
Puffin Classics: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett and The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

For Felix (age 7):
This Is Paris by M. Sasek
Plum by Tony Mitton
Marshall Armstrong Is New to Our School by David Mackintosh
No dejes que la Paloma conduzca el autobus! by Mo Willems
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren (with illustrations by Lauren Child)
The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
Moomin books: Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson
Bad Kitty books: Bad Kitty Gets a Bath and Happy Birthday Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel
Dragon Slayers Academy books: #2: Revenge of the Dragon Lady and #3: Class Trip to the Cave of Doom by Kate McMullan
Puffin Classics: Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie and The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Week of 5/16

Just finished:

Please Write in This Book (Mary Amato)

American Born Chinese (Gene Luen Yang)
Prime Baby (Gene Luen Yang)
The Eternal Smile (Gene Luen Yang & Derek Kirk Kim)

Night of the Ninjas (Mary Pope Osborne)
Polar Bears Past Bedtime (Mary Pope Osborne)

Dealing with Dragons (Patricia C. Wrede)
A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle)
The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster)
The Saga of Rex (Michel Gagné)

The Outlander (Gil Adamson)
Juliet (Anne Fortier)

Reading now:

My Kindergarten (Rosemary Wells)
Dinosaur Cove: Tracking the Diplodocus (Rex Stone)

Beezus and Ramona (Beverly Cleary)
The McElderry book of Aesop’s Fables (Michael Morpurgo)

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: Young Readers Edition (Michael Pollan)

The Dreamer (Pam Munoz Ryan)
Knock at a Star (X.J. Kennedy and Dorothy M. Kennedy)
Self-Nurture (Alice D. Domar)
Next (James Hynes)

On the nightstand:

The Dragon in the Sock Drawer (Kate Klimo)

Uglies (Scott Westerfeld)
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Scott McCloud)

Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer)
Foiled (Jane Yolen & Mike Cavallaro)
The Penderwicks #3 (Jeanne Birdsall)

The Cat (Jutta Richter)
Sensational Kids (Lucy Jane Miller)
Bossypants (Tina Fey)
Model Home (Eric Puchner)
The Lacuna (Barbara Kingsolver)

Week of 4/4

Just finished:

Keeper, Kathi Appelt
This story takes place on the Texas Gulf Coast. We just returned from a visit there (although we were further south), and that plus its presence in School Library Journal's Battle of the Kids' Books inspired me to pick it up. I'm so glad I did. What a beautiful book.

A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
Winner of this year's National Book Critics Circle Award. Contender in this year's Morning News Tournament of Books. (I won't tell you how it did; you'll have to click on the link to find out.) Egan is talented, and this book is a lot of fun.

Reading now:

The Dreamer, Pam Muñoz Ryan
Another contender in the Battle of the Kids' Books. It's lovely so far. (I'm three chapters in.)

Dealing with Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede
My daughter and I are hosting this month's mother-daughter book club meeting. This is our pick.

Self-Nurture, Alice D. Domar
Reading and discussing this one with my sister.

On my nightstand:

The Outlander, Gil Adamson
I gave this one to my father-in-law and told him I'd read it, too, so that we could discuss it. He's finished. I'd better get going!

Model Home, Eric Puchner
Another Tournament of Books contender. Sounded intriguing, so I got it from the library.

The Keep, Jennifer Egan
I've had this on my shelf for awhile, and I've advanced it now to the nightstand after reading Goon Squad.

some of Gene Luen Yang’s work
A friend and I are going to be leading a teen book club at our library. American Born Chinese is our first pick.

Julia Donaldson's Picture Books

We missed The Gruffalo when it was at the Children’s Theatre, but my nephew saw it and was so mesmerized by the story that I think it will always be one of his favorites. How can you not love a little mouse who out-smarts his would-be enemies, scaring them off by describing his great friend, a gruffalo. What’s a gruffalo, you ask?

“He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws…”

And of course, his favorite food is always whichever predator the mouse is talking to.

The twist in the story comes when the mouse finds out that the creature he is describing truly exists! Check out this book to find out how the mouse outsmarts him, too.

My kids and I recently went on a Julia Donaldson reading spree, and this was one of their three favorites. Another winner was The Spiffiest Giant in Town. This giant actually starts out as the scruffiest in town. He decides to spruce himself up, but soon discovers that his kind heart will not keep him spiffy for long. My kids loved the last page of this book.

These two books were illustrated by Axel Scheffler, who has a bright, friendly style. Tyrannosaurus Drip’s illustrator is David Roberts, and although the Donaldson/Scheffler partnership feels perfect, I think Roberts gets this one just right. His dinosaurs are quirky and make me giggle. In this story, a duckbill egg ends up in a T-Rex nest. Since duckbills are peaceful plant-eaters, and T-Rexs are scary meat-eaters, Little Drip finds himself in quite a predicament. (And yes, he comes out of it a hero!)

In checking online, I found this Gruffalo website, which includes games and some little videos of Julia Donaldson and her husband singing a few songs based on her books. The Gruffalo was also made into a 30-minute animated movie for BBC television last holiday season, with a cast including Robbie Coltrane (in the title role) and Helena Bonham Carter. You can see a trailer here.

Poetry Friday: First Snow

This past Saturday, we had our first snow. In the early hours of the morning, I heard Skye's footsteps as she went from window to window to see the beautiful views. Later, I heard Felix exclaim, "Everyone, come here! It snowed!" I love those snowfalls that happen in the night, so that you awake to a fairy-world the next day.

Here's a little poem I found by Mary Louise Allen, titled "First Snow":

Snow makes whiteness where it falls,
The bushes look like popcorn balls.
The places where I always play,
Look like somewhere else today.

I think this is what Felix was feeling as he looked out on our backyard.

I also found this lovely poetry project which uses Flickr to randomly collect snow photos. Click here to watch the images as you hear the poem. You can even replay the poem, asking it to search for new images. The first cycle of photos I got worked really well. The words and imagery in the poem are gorgeous. You can read the poem here. You can read about the project here.

Is there snow now where you live?

You can find more poetry at Random Noodling, this week's Poetry Friday host.

Poetry Friday: Garrison Keillor's 77 Love Sonnets

From "November":

Readers and writers are two sides of the same gold coin.
You write and I read and in that moment I find
A union more perfect than any club I could join:
The simple intimacy of being one mind.
Here in a book-filled sun-lit room below the street,
Strangers -- some living, some dead -- are hoping to meet.

I just finished Keillor's book of sonnets, and enjoyed so many of them. This was one of my favorites, and appropriate to post here both for its title and its book-loving thoughts. Others I particularly liked include "Supper," "In a Cab," "Speak to Me," "Sonnet for a Major Birthday," and, from his twelve-months cycle, also "March" and "December."

Just a quick note for Poetry Friday this week. I hope to write more sometime soon about Keillor and his poems, as well as his bookstore, which is the "book-filled sun-lit room below the street" in the poem above. I haven't had much time to post recently, but plan to get back to it soon. You can find more lovely poetry reading over at Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, this week's Poetry Friday host.

Poetry Friday: Runny Babbit

My kids and I just finished reading Shel Silverstein's Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook. If you haven't seen it before, you can guess from its title how the poems are written.

Both Skye and Felix loved it. We'd read each poem in "Runny Babbit talk," and then do a translation together. Each poem has a Shel Silverstein vibe to it, and the added bonus of a new language is fun to explore. I think playing with language in ways like this helps to expand children's literacy.

I was really pleased to find a YouTube version of one of the poems. Click here to read/watch "Runny on Rount Mushmore."

Shel Silverstein's website is wonderful! There's a special area for kids, where they can do things like play games, print a bookmark, and send an e-card. In the books area, you will find more poem animations. Ideas for teachers, parents and librarians include some lesson plans and activities for Runny Babbit.

Here's one of my favorite Shel Silverstein poems:

Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.

Head over to the Teaching Authors blog to see more Poetry Friday posts!

All Hallow's Read (Postscript)

After posting about All Hallow's Read, of course I had to participate! Here's what I gave:

After browsing in my favorite used bookstore, I picked two mysteries to give my parents, who babysat for us this past weekend. My dad likes quick mysteries with short chapters, those chocolate bon-bons of the reading shelf. He also loves Paris. I've never read Harlan Coben before, but spotted Long Lost and grabbed it for him. It may not be great literature, but I hope it's an enjoyable read. I've heard some good things about these Myron Bolitar thrillers.

I also got them a signed copy of A Carrion Death. Michael Stanley is actually the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. I recently heard Trollip speak about their mysteries, and loved what he said about their writing process: "People ask me how we write together. They think it must be difficult. I think it must be difficult for authors who don't write with others!" That's not an exact quote, but it's the way I remember it.

I had a great time shopping for my kids. I went to our local independent children's bookstore and first browsed the Halloween display. Felix has been loving Amelia Bedelia lately ("But why does she take everything literally?"), so I scored a signed copy of Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia for him. I also got him Spooky Sara because the pictures were so cute and I thought he'd like it. (He loved both of the books.)

For Skye, I asked the advice of the bookseller there. I told her about Skye's three recommendations, and she immediately went to the shelf to look for Eva Ibbotson's Which Witch? They didn't have it in stock, so we ended up choosing The Secret of Platform 13 instead. Skye hasn't felt motivated to give it a try yet, but she says she'll read it with me when we are done with our book for mother-daughter book club. I hope she likes it!

I couldn't resist getting them a couple of other goodies: Day of the Dead paperdolls for Skye, and two Dover Little Activity Books for Felix. Skye loved the paperdolls; Felix enjoyed a few mazes. I'll have to get them out again this weekend.

Poetry Friday: "When the blaze is blue"

Since I'm all about All Hallow's Read right now, I thought I'd pick a poem that truly scared me as a kid. But I loved it, too, with its dialect which made it fun to read, and the lovely new words. I'd beg my mom to read it again and again:

-----

Little Orphant Annie
by James Whitcomb Riley

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other children, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

-----

You can read the rest of the poem here. (Beware! Creepiness ahead!)

As I was searching for this poem online, I came across a folk singer who had set some of Riley's poems to music. Click here to see Anne Hills singing her musical verion of Little Orphant Annie. I thought it was really neat. I love how the audience joins in at the end of later verses.

Head over to The Writer's Armchair to read more poems this Poetry Friday.

Have a wonderful All Hallow's Read, everyone!

All Hallow's Read, Part 2

Yesterday, I posted about Neil Gaiman's great idea, along with some scary book suggestions from my kids. Now, Gaiman’s created an All Hallow’s Read website.

Here are the other suggestions I promised:

From me, for young adults

~ A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Gothic, historic, fantastic fiction. What’s not to like?
~ Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Sigh. I first read this one in high school, and it was the perfect time for me to read it. Loved it.
~ How about some Eva Ibbotson, in honor of her amazing writing life?
~ And of course you can't go wrong with The Graveyard Book or Coraline. Our All Hallow’s Read host knows his scary stuff!

From me, for adults

~ We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The Haunting of Hill House is spooky, but I think this one is spookier.
~ Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
Senior citizens start receiving phone calls informing them that death is coming. “Remember, you must die.” Spark’s storytelling is unexpected and sly.
~ Dracula by Bram Stoker
But of course! How could you pass up an opportunity to give someone this classic horror story? Told from a variety of viewpoints, the pieces come together in a creepy, satisfying way.

Happy All Hallow’s Read, everyone!

All Hallow's Read, Part 1

Have you seen Neil Gaiman's great idea? He proposes we give someone a scary book this Halloween season. Tonight, the kids and I looked at our book collection and they picked out a few of their favorites to recommend. Here are their suggestions, with comments about each book:

From Felix, my almost-six-year-old:

~ Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler, illustrated by S.D. Schindler
"A skeleton has the hiccups. (Hic hic hic!) He tries to get them away. It's funny because he drank some water upside down! Read the book to find out how he got rid of them."
~ We're Going on a Ghost Hunt by Marcia Vaughan, illustrated by Ann Schweninger
"Two kids go on a ghost hunt. They go past things that look spooky to them. Who is the ghost? Read the book to find out!"
~ Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
"Max was being mean. His mom called him a 'wild thing' and sent him to his room when he says, 'I'll eat you up!' There, he does his imagination -- went in a private boat with his name on it. Read the book to find out what happens next!"

From Skye, my eleven-year-old:

~ The Witches by Roald Dahl
"This book isn't about fairy-tale witches. They don't have tall, pointy hats and ride around on broomsticks. This book is about real witches. Once you get started, you want to read more and more. It's that kind of book -- very suspenseful! (Just so you know, no real witches are here today. Thank goodness!)"
~ Bunnicula: A Rabbit Tale of a Mystery by Deborah and James Howe
"A family finds a rabbit in a movie theater and they name him Bunnicula, after the Dracula movie they were watching. The story is told from the point-of-view of the family dog. His friend, the cat Chester, thinks that Bunnicula is a vampire, and together they assemble clues to the mystery. Everything turns out okay! They don't have to drive a wooden stick through Bunnicula's heart, and their house doesn't have to be garlic-reeking forever. A very funny book!"
~ Babymouse: Monster Mash by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm
"If you saw the first book of Babymouse, you might have thought that it is a girly-girl book, probably because it's all pink and it's called Babymouse: Queen of the World. I thought that. But when I saw this book, this changed everything. I was begging for the other books. Its cover is orange, not pink, and it has a funny picture. Once I started reading it, I didn't quit. It is simply hilarious, especially the narrator, and Babymouse is just a riot. So stick with me and say, 'Step back, Superman, make way for Babymouse!'"

Tomorrow, I'll post some suggestions for young adult and adult readers.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (Aimee Bender)

As I ate my take-out pad thai today, I tried to discern all of its flavors and nuances: the location of the farm the onions and peanuts came from, the factory that made the noodles, the deepest feelings of the cook, the creator of my meal. After reading The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, I wonder what it would be like to feel all of these things whenever I eat.

Rose Edelstein is able to do this. She realizes she's got this talent the week she is turning nine. She tries a piece of lemon cake with chocolate frosting that her mother's made for her. "A practice round," her mother sweetly calls it, a classic example of something made with love. But Rose doesn't taste love there; what she tastes makes her feel particularly sad and terribly ill.

How can she live with this strange gift/curse? What does it mean to know someone better than they know themselves, but also know that the people you love are truly strangers to you? This coming-of-age story has a nice dose of magical realism and a profound sadness about it. I liked it, and I admire the writerly curiosity and creativity and honesty it took to tell it.

Here's an interview Ms. Bender did about her book. In it, the interviewer asks her about why she doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue. I remember noticing she had a different way with dialogue, that there was more being said underneath the words; she put the words together in unique ways to make them say more. I hadn't even noticed the technicality that she didn't use quotations marks, which tells me it probably worked for me the way she wanted it to. Ms. Bender's answer to the question: "I often don't [use quotation marks] and I don't in this book. Kind of aesthetic choice in certain way because I like how it looks, but it also feels like that line between her internal and external world is a little blurry, which I think is kind of her deal."

Home Sweet Home (Page)

Things are shaping up here at Leaning Tower. Check out my sidebar, which I tidied yesterday. Swept the cobwebs away and dusted off the book lists.

And dusting book lists leads me to, what else? Thoughts of books, of course. Memories of dearly loved books, to be exact. As a child, I delighted in stories with "housekeeping" themes. Still do. Do most people enjoy them? I am not such a good housekeeper. I'd much rather talk about it and daydream about it than actually do it.

Here are a few titles I remember very fondly, plus a new one I recently discovered:

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
My mother read this one aloud to us, her three children. This story of four orphan siblings who have to figure out how to survive on their own -- they find a boxcar to live in -- had us captivated. As the oldest, I was then in charge of our Boxcar Children games. We did not take on the particular roles of the children in the book; rather, we were ourselves, in a Boxcar Children dilemma, and must make do with what we had.

Do you want to know what we had? A typical play session involved a collection like this: four wooden matches (little twigs we'd broken and lined up on a step), one small pot for boiling water on our pretend fire, a cup that we pretended was cracked, like Benny's, and a small handful of raspberries we'd picked, laying on one of our father's old handkerchiefs. Delicious, all of it. I remember begging our parents to let us scrounge up treasures at the dump, and wondering why they didn't think that was a good idea.

This was the first chapter book I read aloud with Skye, when she was just turning five. She was just as fascinated with the details -- Benny's cracked cup! -- as I remember being. We plan to read it with Felix soon.

Mandy by Julie Edwards
This was another of my mother's read-alouds. I'll have to ask her where she first heard of this one. I remember her telling us proudly that this was the author's pen name. It was really Julie Andrews, in disguise! Lovely Mary Poppins/Maria wrote a children's novel? I was sold from the start. (Of course, now I know Julie Andrews and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, are big kidlit advocates.)

Mandy is an orphan, and hops over the orphanage wall one day -- which is really out of character for her, and shows you how desperately lonely and restless she feels. She soon has the good luck of finding a little abandoned cottage, and proceeds to clean it out and tidy it up and create a secret space for herself.

I hope to read this one aloud to my kids someday soon, and relive the abandoned cottage fantasy with them.

Miss Suzy by Miriam Young
Melissa Wiley reminded me in a recent blog post of this lovely picture book. When I was little, my mom signed me up for a Parents Magazine Press book club. So exciting, to get books in the mail! This is my original copy.

I just read the story to my kids tonight. Miss Suzy has a sweet little house in an oak tree. "She liked to cook, she liked to clean, and she liked to sing while she worked." One day, some mean red squirrels chase her out and eat up all the nuts she had stored for winter. (At this point, I looked up at my silent kids; their faces showed clear feelings of horror. "Why are they mean and quarrelsome?" asked Felix. I always have a hard time giving a satisfactory answer to questions like this. Why, indeed?) Eventually, Miss Suzy discovers a dollhouse in an attic, and noticing the cobwebs and dust, she can't help but clean it up. Soon, she finds herself settling in there, with five toy soldiers for company -- she found them in the attic, too. Can you guess what happens next? It's Skye's favorite part. Felix tells me his favorite part is the "quarrelsome squirrels."

Do go over and read Melissa Wiley's post about this book. A descendant of the author responded in the comments! I'm crossing my fingers that we'll see another Miss Suzy/Miriam Young post soon at the Bonny Glen.

The Maggie B. by Irene Haas
This is the new discovery, a housekeeping book I would have loved as a child. I believe I first saw mention of this one over on the Fuse #8 blog. Now I can only find a brief mention of it there, with a link to this post from a different blog (Jenny Reads Books), so I'm assuming I clicked over and read about it and then requested it from our library.

This sweet book tells of Maggie and her little brother, who set sail for a day in a boat named for her. Their adventures mostly involve homey comforts, like Maggie creating meals (fruit trees grow on the boat, and a goat and chickens give them milk and eggs), giving her little brother a bath, and singing him a bedtime song. My kids and I felt so cozy after reading it. We went on an Irene Haas binge after this.

-------

As for blog housekeeping, I'm still trying to decide what to do with my current list of reads for 2010. My 2009 list is now a blog post, and it became neater when I separated it into categories: what I read for me, with my daughter Skye, with my son Felix, and for the literature circles I led. Something like that could work in the sidebar, but could get unwieldy as the year goes on. Hm. Maybe I'll keep a running blog post for the list instead.

Oh, and I think I'll use hokey cross-stitch phrases for the titles of my posts from now on.

What I Read in 2009

For me:
1. Shakespeare Wrote for Money (Nick Hornby)
2. The Eight (Katherine Neville)
3. Jerk, California (Jonathan Friesen)
4. Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons)
5. Book of a Thousand Days (Shannon Hale)
6. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County (Tiffany Baker)
7. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (E. Lockhart)
8. Austenland (Shannon Hale)
9. Letter to My Daughter (Maya Angelou)
10. The Tenderness of Wolves (Stef Penney)
11. Little Bee (Chris Cleave)
12. The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman)
13. The Careful Use of Compliments (Alexander McCall Smith)
14. Emiko Superstar (Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston)
15. The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday (Alexander McCall Smith)
16. The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
17. Death and Judgment (Donna Leon)
18. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (Julia Strachey)
19. Shakespeare's Landlord(Charlaine Harris)
20. The Believers (Zoë Heller)
21. How I Live Now (Meg Rosoff)
22. 44 Scotland Street (Alexander McCall Smith)
23. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz)
24. Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout)
25. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (Cesar Aira)
26. Tender Morsels (Margo Lanagan)
27. The Actor and the Housewife (Shannon Hale)
28. Acqua Alta (Donna Leon)
29. Julie & Julia (Julie Powell)
30. The House at Riverton (Kate Morton)
31. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Agatha Christie)
32. Sarah’s Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)
33. Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins)
34. Brain, Child: Summer ’09 issue
35. Quietly in Their Sleep (Donna Leon)
36. The Principles of Uncertainty (Maira Kalman)
37. A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle)
38. When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead)
39. The Clothes They Stood Up In (Alan Bennett)
40. The Lady in the Van (Alan Bennett)
41. The Lost Art of Gratitude (Alexander McCall Smith)
42. Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading (Lizzie Skurnick)
43. The Help (Kathryn Stockett)
44. A Wind in the Door (Madeleine L’Engle)
45. The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan (Wendy McClure)
46. Spiral-Bound (Aaron Renier)
47. The Guinea Pig Diaries (A.J. Jacobs)
48. The School of Essential Ingredients (Erica Bauermeister)
49. A Redbird Christmas (Fannie Flagg)
50. Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming (Rachel Hartman)

For/with Skye: (grades 4-5)
1. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey (Trenton Lee Stewart)
2. Babymouse #4, #5, and #6 (Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm)
3. Bud, Not Buddy (Christopher Paul Curtis)
4. Rapunzel's Revenge (Shannon and Dean Hale)
5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (J.K. Rowling)
6. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren)
7. Deltora Quest #01: The Forests of Silence (Emily Rodda)
8. Sisters Grimm #1: The Fairy Tale Detectives (Michael Buckley)
9. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)
10. Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh)
11. The Homework Machine (Dan Gutman)
12. Savvy (Ingrid Law)
13. The Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)
14. Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning (Danette Haworth)
15. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Jeff Kinney)
16. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules (Jeff Kinney)
17. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw (Jeff Kinney)
18. Amulet, Book One: The Stonekeeper (Kazu Kibuishi)
19. Caddie Woodlawn (Carol Ryrie Brink)
20. Amulet, Book Two: The Stonekeeper’s Curse (Kazu Kibuishi)
21. Warriors #4: Rising Storm (Erin Hunter)
22. Castle Waiting (Linda Medley)
23. The Lightning Thief (Rick Riodan) – reread for book group
24. Millicent Min: Girl Genius (Lisa Yee)
25. Grampa and Julie: Shark Hunters (Jef Czekaj)
26. Babymouse #7, #8, and #9 (Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm)
27. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Trenton Lee Stewart)
28. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Barbara Robinson)
29. The Magician's Elephant (Kate diCamillo)

With Felix (and often Skye, too): (Pre-K)
1. Two Times the Fun (Beverly Cleary)
2. Magic Tree House #01: Dinosaurs Before Dark (Mary Pope Osborne)
3. Catwings (Ursula Le Guin)
4. Magic Tree House #02: The Knight at Dawn (Mary Pope Osborne)
5. Maybelle in the Soup (Katie Speck)
6. Adventures of the Bailey School Kids #06: Frankenstein Doesn't Plant Petunias (Debbie Dadey)
7. Moongobble and Me #1: The Dragon of Doom (Bruce Coville)
8. Catwings Return (Ursula Le Guin)
9. Mummies in the Morning (Magic Tree House #3) (Mary Pope Osborne)
10. Stage Fright on a Summer Night (Magic Tree House #25) (Mary Pope Osborne)
11. Pirates Past Noon (Magic Tree House #4) (Mary Pope Osborne)
12. Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings (Ursula Le Guin)
13. Jane on Her Own (Ursula Le Guin)
14. Ellen’s Lion (Crockett Johnson)
15. Owly: Tiny Tales (Andy Runton)
16. Owly: The Way Home & The Bittersweet Summer (Andy Runton)
17. Owly: Just a Little Blue (Andy Runton)
18. Maybelle Goes to Tea (Katie Speck)
19. Owly: Flying Lessons (Andy Runton)
20. Owly: A Time to Be Brave (Andy Runton)

With lit circles: (grade 5)
1. Dear Mr. Henshaw (Beverly Cleary)
2. Spy X #1: The Code (Peter Lerangis)
3. Spy X #2: Hide and Seek (Peter Lerangis)
4. Spy X #3: Proof Positive (Peter Lerangis)
5. Spy X #4: Tunnel Vision (Peter Lerangis)
6. Freaky Friday (Mary Rodgers)
7. Room One: A Mystery or Two (Andrew Clements)
8. The Family Under the Bridge (Natalie Savage Carlson)
9. The Tiger Rising (Kate diCamillo)
10. Tuck Everlasting (Natalie Babbitt)

Bless This Mess

I do intend to come back this blog, I really do. Now that the kids are in school again, I've started to sort through my towers of books, working to come up with a plan for Leaning Tower. Just yesterday, I did a bit of organizing in the sidebar, and I have lots of blog post ideas jotted in a notebook.

Here's a view of one of my current book messes:


Maybe I'll try a schedule for writing, as well as for book sorting. I really think I'm going to have to block out time on my calendar for this. If I pick a certain day/time each week, that could help make it a habit. Any other suggestions?

Stay tuned.

unwrapped

We did it! All of the books have been unwrapped, as of 6 p.m. yesterday. Stay tuned for talk of the favorites and the ones that fell flat.

I'm working to post more here in 2010 -- one of my new year's resolutions -- and I'm prepping the blog by updating sidebars and such. If a link doesn't work, it's probably something "in progress."

One of the books I gave Felix came with the poster below, which is a pretty accurate visual representation of me this Christmas.



Hope you've all had yourselves a merry little Christmas -- full of the gifts of sharing stories, enjoying words and language, and reading together.

Merry Christmas and Happy Book Stacks!

I went overboard with the book stacks this year. Throughout 2009, I collected titles I found that caught my eye at the used book store, in the Scholastic flyers, and at my favorite independent bookshops. And it is so easy to find a rationale for buying a book for a child: Oh, this was a favorite when I was her/his age! Ah, s/he keeps checking this one out from the library; better get our own copy! Wow, this is a children’s classic, and at this price, I can’t pass it up! And heck, I really should throw in some of those just-for-fun titles s/he circles in the book flyers.

As I type, the book stacks remain under the tree, the only unopened gifts, patiently waiting for the kids to put down their Nintento DS gaming systems and delve into their rich and varied contents.

I obviously made them too big. They look intimidating, like homework stacks or research stacks. Or maybe they just look dull, like a-gift-that’s-really-for-mom stacks.

Last year, Skye tore through her book stack, smiling and shouting with glee at each title. Then she called to Felix and commanded he do the same, helping him along the way. He indulged her, sitting back and admiring her indefatigable joy at ripping off all the wrapping for him and announcing each new book as it was revealed.

That wasn’t quite the vision I had for the stacks. I’d thought the kids would leave them for last, and then, at each moment on Christmas Day when they needed a gift-opening fix after steamrolling through the main event, they’d migrate to their book stacks, open one, and then, if the book felt right for the moment, they'd open the gift they found inside and settle into a story. (“Read this, Mom! Please?” my sweet little Felix would command.)

Lovely picture, isn’t it? And maybe that’s what will happen today. There are lots of goodies inside all that wrapping, books I’ve been saving, some for close to a year, peeking at them on the shelf in the closet and looking forward to seeing which covers make their eyes light up the most.

(And yes, I’ll share the stacks with you, too... perhaps a little at a time would be best. For now, you can enjoy last year's book stacks post, in case you missed it.)

Infinite Summer

I'm taking the plunge. I'm going to dive into Infinite Jest this summer, along with a whole bunch of other bibliophiles. If I'm going to read it, this is the way to do it. Infinite Summer is sponsored by The Morning News, who brought us the Tournament of Books.

Last night, I began exercising the David Foster Wallace area of my brain by starting A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, an essay about a Caribbean cruise he took in order to write about it for Harper's. I'm twelve pages in, and already I've laughed out loud several times.

I expect Infinite Jest will be much different, being that it is fiction and over 1000 pages long (including footnotes/endnotes.) We'll see. I'm going to give it a try. My expectations for myself are not too high: See what it's like and enjoy the ride. Even if I determine IJ is not my style and decide to abandon it, I will learn a bit more about why DFW is so admired, and I will have discovered his essays, which already makes this endeavor more than worthwhile.

Reading Circle Group Reads

I'm finally back. I'm going to be lazy and copy some posts I wrote about the group reads we picked for the Reading Circle. I am actually proud that I've read and posted about all three of them for 2009.

January: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

SPOILER ALERT: There are some spoilers below for this book.

I enjoyed Cold Comfort Farm. It was a bit different from what I expected, but once I got into the rhythm of the story, I settled in. Flora was a wonderful character. I don't think I know anyone quite like her. She's so contradictory, in a way: you wonder at the start if she's terribly lazy, preferring to live with strange relatives rather than work and be independent, but then she goes to work on the people at Cold Comfort Farm, making all of their lives better.

I loved the transformations, and how Flora was able to pinpoint exactly what each of them needed. Amos should go round the country in "one o' they Ford vans," preaching. Seth should be a movie star. Elfine and Dick Hawk-Monitor belonged together. Reuben needed to run the farm himself. Etc., etc.

The names made me laugh, plus the little details, like Flora suggesting to Adam a little mop for "clettering" the dishes instead of using a twig. (The made-up words had me giggling, too.) The ending, with the wedding, and Flora *almost* getting her questions answered, then being interrupted, then Flora and Charles flying off in his plane, was perfect.

I saw the movie afterwards, and it was quite well done. The actress who played Flora was so likable, and the other characters were almost all how I pictured them. I especially enjoyed Stephen Fry as poor Mr. Mybug and Ian McKellan as Amos.

Here are some great quotes from the movie.


February: The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

This novel was also different from what I expected; for some reason, I thought it would be a bit funny, or maybe quirky is a better word. The characters are a little quirky in that they are all quite unique, but Baker doesn't take advantage of their quirkiness, and that's a great thing.

There is a sort of mystery that you learn more about as you read. Actually, there are several mysteries, but this isn't written as a mystery novel. I thought Baker did a great job with the plot, showing us glimpses of the full story, just a bit at a time. The story is told by Truly (the "Little Giant" of the title), but sometimes Baker lets us in on something Truly doesn't know yet, and she was quite skillful in working the point of view in order to do this.

I loved the themes Baker explored, and the little places where the themes showed up surprised and delighted me. Even the packaging of the book (the cover, chapter headings, and page breaks, etc.) had fun with the themes.

I thought this was a very good first novel. There was one event that I didn't quite believe, but maybe it's just that I didn't see it coming. I don't want to say much more about this, just in case anyone reading this would like to give this book a try.


March: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

SPOILER ALERT: There are some vague spoilers for this book below.

I loved this book. My IRL book group met in March, and when they asked what I was reading, I was in the middle of this. Since I raved about it, we chose it for our next book. I think it will be a great one to discuss.

I loved how many of the chapters could work as a short story: the friendship with Scarlett, the trip through the ghoul-gate (yikes, that was scary!), dancing the Macabray, etc. Gaiman is so skilled with words; he chooses them so carefully, and there's never too little or too much. And I love his sense of humor. The poet, Nehemiah Trot, especially made me laugh: "Hola, young Bod! I hear that excitement is the master of the hour, that you fling yourself through these dominions like a comet across the firmament. What's the word, good Bod?"

What fun Gaiman must have had creating this book. I watched him read the Interlude: The Convocation chapter here, and he looks to be having a blast. See the twinkle in his eye?

He was recently on The Colbert Report. He linked to it in this journal entry. Brave man! He wrote more about the experience here.