Just Finished Reading...

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

A boy born with an extreme facial deformity is going to school for the first time in his life, middle school to boot.  August Pullman knows 5th grade is going to be tough, but his parents promise he can quit anytime. In order to live a normal life outside of his sheltered home environment, he needs his teachers and peers to view him as the normal kid he is.  But it won't be easy.

This is a book that stays with you long after you've read the last page.  The characters are real, vulnerable, and honest.  No one admits to being perfect, and Palacio shows that we all make bad decisions sometimes.  Auggie is a sweet kid who could be or belong to any of us.  I often forgot while reading that he has a facial deformity until he and I were both reminded when he would encounter strangers' stares and masked horror upon meeting him.  Being a kid in school is hard enough, but Auggie's challenges are magnified due to his appearance.

The story is told from several of the characters' perspectives, allowing the reader to place himself in diverse roles and view the same situation from different sides in order to understand motivations and actions.  There are an equal number of male and female viewpoints (though they could be interchangeable), and the chapters are short allowing for appeal to a wide range of readers.  Palacio chooses to focus on her characters' acts of kindness and courage despite fear instead of the many acts of bullying.  Julian, the ringleader who refused to accept Auggie as a friend, is the only main character whom the reader does not get to understand his motivations as Palacio never writes from his point-of-view.  I was curious about this decision and how she chose to deal with his character at the end.   Perhaps she is showing that there are people out there who are just mean for no reason other than that is their character (and in this case, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree).

This book is highly recommended.  I first read about it in a blog review and immediately wanted to read it, but there was a waiting list at my library.  Then I went on vacation with my in-laws, and my SIL was reading it with my niece for their book club.  My MIL and I both read it that week after my SIL was finished with it.  MIL was in tears at certain points, and my niece kept checking on me to see where I was at in the book.  Every time she would say, "Oh, that's a good part!"  I recommend this book exchange hands with all in your household as well.

#thewonderofwonder

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End of the Road

I've reached the finish line, or more accurately, the finish line has reached me in the #48HBC.  Upon visiting other participants' blogs, I've decided to include some of my "random reading" in my total hours.

First off, I completed reading Jon Scieszka's Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka.  It took roughly an hour, from 3 - 4:30 pm (I did have to stop and console my dog during a thunderstorm, then wrap him up in a blanket and swaddle him in my lap to finish reading.)  This book had its humor.  I enjoyed the short chapters and episodic tales.  Students would read this for pleasure, while teachers can use it for modeling autobio writing.  My complaints were that some of the chapters fell short, and the black and white family photos were hard to make out.

Yesterday, I also spent 40 minutes getting through only 10 pages of my MLIS course text: The Organization of Information.  In it, I learned all about the wonderful world of descriptive metadata, and more specifically finite vs continuing resources, FRBR entities, and the 8 levels of an ISBD surrogate record.  (In library school, you learn to use acronyms and abbreviations for just about everything, as annoying as it is.)

Upon awaiting the return of True Blood's 5th season (what a messed up show that is!) I read another 30 minutes of Watership Down.

I've also decided to count my time listening to 35 minutes of chapter one in One Second After by William R. Forstchen while I was getting ready for a dinner Saturday night.  Written in 2009, the main character Jon sure seemed out of touch with reality - buying Beanie Babies for his daughter's 12th birthday and looking utterly baffled at this thing called a text on his cell phone.  It didn't help that the introduction was written by his "good friend" Newt Gingrich.  That was a warning I should have stopped there.  I deleted the audiobook with no plans of listening to it any further, especially after reading more reviews about it.

Final Tally:

10 hours and 10 minutes reading
1 hour and 30 minutes blogging
5 completed books
866 pages read

If I donate $1 per 50 pages read, it would be roughly $17, so I think I'll round it up to an even $20.  My money isn't going toward RIF, however.  I have two non-profit organizations that I pledge my money to every year, and I'd like to keep that practice going.  Therefore, I'll be sending $20 to LiteracyKC and RoseBrooks.

In my haste to get this posted as near to 7 as possible, I forgot to mention how my weekend went for me.  I will say that for the most part, none of my reading selections were a total let down.  I enjoyed my time reading, but felt the guilt-laden pull of life preventing me from succumbing completely to the challenge.  Mornings worked best for me, as I could curl up on my couch with my coffee cup beside me.  Things like showering and cleaning the house tore me away in the afternoons.  (My husband cleaned our vents this weekend and left behind a wake of dust and ceiling popcorn on the floors of every room!  He, being satisfied with a job well done, didn't clean up after himself, so I had to get out the vacuum and broom and sweep everything up in every room.  I also had to clean the kitchen, fold laundry, pick up, etc.)  It's hard for me to sit still for long.

My Reading Space:

Just Finished Reading...

Checking in with the 48HBC...

After yesterday's posting, I didn't really have time to do any extra reading, so this morning I took up again with Watership Down.  I read 128 pages of it, essentially Part 2 of the story before switching to some shorter reads  to feel a sense of accomplishment (and to have something to post about). 

Watership Down by Richard Adams, Part II - pages 129-257, 3 hours

This story is amazeballs.  How can a book about a small warren of rabbits be so compelling?



 
Marty Mcguire by Kate Messner and Brian Floca - 131 pages, 45 min.

Marty is getting a lot of compliments via reviews on Goodreads, but I have a problem with the authors vilifying a girl who likes to play dress up.  What's so wrong with that?







Big Nate: In a Class by Himself by Lincoln Peirce - 214 pages, 1 hour

I enjoyed the humor of this story more so than Wimpy Kid's whiny, self-centered Greg.  Obviously, very predictable and ridiculous antics, but fun all the same.






Babymouse: Queen of the World! by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm - 93 pages, 20 min.

Is this what it's like to have ADHD or be on crack?  My first graphic novel for kids. 






Totals so far for the day:

3 books and 1 not yet completed
566 pages
5 hours and 5 minutes

Time blogging:  15 minutes

Just Finished Reading...

Enclave by Ann Aguirre

There is no new territory covered in this teen dystopian/apocalyptic first book in Aguirre's Razorland series.  It starts out with the cliched right-of-passage ceremony in which fifteen-year-old, Girl15, is named Deuce and given the marks of her new position as a Huntress.  Deuce's people live underground in an enclave called College, where no one lives longer than their twenties.  The subterranean dwellers are sorted into one of three responsibilities:  Hunters, Breeders, and Builders.  Builders are in charge of creating everything needed for survival.  Breeders, ahem, breed with other Breeders to keep the population going and care for the brats until they are old enough to attend their own naming ceremonies.  Hunters have the most regarded jobs of patrolling the dangerous tunnels, snaring meat and killing any Freaks (some distant relation to humans with sharp teeth and claws who live on flesh of humans as well as their own fallen) they may encounter along the way.

Deuce's small world is very much that of a dystopian society: elders she had grown to trust with blind deference may not be capable of keeping their enclave safe, including the strict rules set to ensure their survival.  Her partner, Fade, comes from Topside, though no one believes this because nobody survives above ground.  As Deuce comes to trust Fade, she begins to reconsider all she was taught as a brat. 

While nothing new in this story, Aguirre's decision to not disclose Deuce's world and its history of coming into being outright made me curious to learn more of College and the other underground enclaves, as well as the world above and how it came to be.  Not all is illuminated, but hopefully more will be revealed in the books to come. 

Recommended for teens. Pause for violence, gore, and references to rape.

48HBC
time spent reading 3.5 hours
time spent blogging 45 min.
pages read 262

Getting Ready for the 2012 48-Hour Book Challenge

This is officially the seventh annual 48 Hour Book Challenge but my fourth year participating.  This year it happens to fall on a busy weekend for me.  In previous years I had been freshly finished with the school year and in need of serious downtime, so it was easy for me to wipe my schedule clean for a weekend to stay home and read.  This year I am in the MLIS program at FSU and have responsibilities that require me to work on the weekends, and there are some personal engagements on the calendar that I can't ignore.  That being said, I will do my best to read as often as I can in between everything else.  My goal will be 15 hours, but that may be reaching.  While my time may be limited, I have no shortage of books to read.  Here are some possibilities:

From the library -
Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee
Babymouse, Queen of the World! by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm
Marty Mcguire by Kate Messner and Brian Floca
Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Mostly True Stories About Growing Up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka
Big Nate: In a Class by Himself by Lincoln Peirce
Watership Down by Richard Adams (currently reading)

My personal collection -
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
When the Whistle Blows by Fran Cannon Slayton
Enclave by Ann Aguirre (gifted to me in the Book Blogger Holiday Swap)
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain (on my Nook)

For school -
Readings in Reading Instruction: Its History, Theory, and Development by Richard D. Robinson
The Organization of Information by Taylor and Joudrey

More Books

Yesterday was the 100th Art Walk in downtown Jacksonville, so we hit it up hoping they would have some special events going on.  Well, the art/crafts/solicitations (really, there was a Scentsy stand, and at one point we walked into what looked more like a wedding expo than an art walk) were slightly underwhelming, but the local street bands provided good music for our ears.

We ended up going into Chamblin's to look around, where I found a couple of books.  It's harder getting lost in the Uptown store than the gargantuan store on Roosevelt.  I ended up with three books, setting me back $38.  It was quite a shock after getting well over 50 books at the JPL sale for less than that.  Oh well.  Here's what I found:

Daphne Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel.  I was looking for a good copy of Rebecca, but those were all old, crusty, pocket paperbacks.  I never heard of this title, but I figure if I enjoy it half as much as I did Rebecca, it'll be good enough for me.

John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.  I haven't read a bad John Green book yet.  I took Looking for Alaska on vacation with me one summer, and it consumed me until I finished it.  My nieces probably didn't appreciate that.

Joyce Carol Oates's Dear Husband, stories.  I'm starting to have a thing for reading short stories.  They're lovely when I only have a few minutes to read, or right before bed when I don't want to stay up half the night because I can't put a book down.  I like that Oates can be dark and a bit creepy.  She has a way of putting a death grip on you, and even if you're disturbed by what you're reading, you can't stop.

On a side note, I am having a nice reprieve from reading children's books.  I still have my weekly books to read for my children's lit class, but that's the extent of my reading for that genre right now.  After my bibliography assignment, I needed a break from the children's department.  I'm getting into poetry as well, and am currently reading Money Shot by Rae Armantrout which I borrowed from the library.  I brought it along to the art walk last night, and as I was sitting outside of Burrito Gallery reading, a kind lady walked by and handed me a flyer to use as a bookmark. 

JPL Book Sale

JPL had a book sale this weekend at their University Branch warehouse.  We went Saturday just to check it out and found a few good books.  It was almost overwhelming, though, looking through the stacks.  The workers there told us to come back on Sunday, because the books (which were priced between 50 cents and $2) would only be $10 a bag - as full as you can make it.  I'm always one to take up a challenge, so I headed back today.  However, I got there at noon when it was just opening, and there was already a line around the building.  So I left.

I came back, though, around 2, with my husband, and we had an unspoken (friendly) competition to see who could get the best money's worth of books.  He came out 23 books to my 15, but most of mine were either professional resources, award winners, and/or best selling authors, as well as hard back and in good condition. So I figure, I win.

Day One:  13 books

  Trav picked up four of the 5 Piers Anthony series.  He found the last book on Sunday.  I grabbed a Laur Bush Bio, YA books Going Bovine and Into the Wild, Oates' We Were the Mulvaneys, and three of my favorite children's books:  Walk Two Moons, Wrinkle in Time (with related short stories at the end), and the second book in the Tripod's series, City of Gold and Lead.  Oh, and Ray Bradury's short story collection The Cat's Pajamas, which is my current bedside reading.

Day Two: Trav's finds

 He picked up:

almost the complete Mission Earth series from L. Ron Hubbard, 

some "lawyer" books by John Grisham, 

spy novels, 

Robert Ludlum's Bourne books, and

 the last book in the Clan of the Cave Bear series, to name a few.

Day Two: My finds

Professional Resources:

From Cover to Cover:  Evaluating and Reviewing Children's Books,

Bookplay: 101 Creative Themes to Share With Young Children, and

The Kids' Book Club Book

Children's/YA:

(all in hardback, mint condition, I might add!)

After Tupac and D. Foster by Jacqueline Woodson,

Hush by Jacqueline Woodson,

The Loud Silence of Francine Green,

Hope Was Here,

When the Whistle Blows,

Moonpie and Ivy (mother-daughter book included in my bibliography),

What Would Joey Do? (from Newbery winner Jack Gantos)

Sadly, I don't know a lot about adult fiction because I don't spend a whole lot of time reading it. (I'm trying to fix this.) I REALLY wanted a copy of Daphne DeMaurier's Rebecca in hardback and an old edition, but I couldn't find that book anywhere, and the classics section was completely picked through.  Here's what I found:

The Kite Runner,

From Dead to Worse (#8 in the Sookie Stackhouse series),

S.E. Hinton's Hawkes Harbor,

Sarah Dessen's This Lullaby 

(I remember my sister loving this author when she was in high school). and

Carl Hiassen's Nature Girl.

Now I need to figure out where to put all of these.

Mother-Daughter Fiction for "Tween" Girls

For my Information Needs of Children class, I had to create a bibliography of 20 books of outstanding quality on the topic of mother-daughter fiction for girls around the around the ages of 10-12.  I did a LOT of reading for this assignment and found some great books.  Today, however, I'm going to provide just five of my personal most favorites from that list.

#5 - Pieces of Georgia by Jennifer Fisher Bryant (2006) NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Georgia, 13, is on Mrs. Yocum’s “At-Risk” list ever since her mother died from pneumonia six years earlier. Mrs. Yocum provides Georgia a notebook, suggesting she write down any thoughts, feelings, or questions she would ask her mother if she were alive. In journal entries to her mother, written in verse, Georgia tells of the anonymous gift she received for a free membership to the local museum, her and her father’s struggle dealing with the death of her mother, her friend Tiffany’s struggle with trying to do it all, and her own journey to becoming an artist like her mother.


I was rooting out loud for Georgia. She's a quiet, reserved girl and slightly odd (like most great artists), but she deserves the world. This book evokes happy tears.


Check it out on Goodreads.

#4 - Ida B...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World by Katherine Hannigan (2004) NY: HarperCollins Publishers

Ida B. Applewood (not to be confused with her mother’s name - Ida Applewood) lives on an orchard with her parents and is friends with the trees. Life is swell for this fourth grader, until one day Mama has some bad news, and the repercussions of that news Ida B.’s not going to like one bit. Ida B. is mad and soon feels her heart turning into a hard stone, leaving her to wonder if she will ever be happy again.

I first read this back in the summer of 2009 and fell in love with Ida B. Although it sounds selfish for her to be mad at her mother for having cancer, I was sympathetic to her feelings. I remember being a little girl and being so angry at the world I could explode. It was touching to go through the experience with her.

Check it out on Goodreads.


#3 - Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (1994) NY: HarperCollins Publishers

Thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle (Sal) takes a cross-country road trip with her grandparents to visit her mother in Idaho, who had earlier left Sal and her father behind in Kentucky. Along the way, Gram and Gramps ask Sal to entertain them with a story, so she tells one of her best friend, Phoebe, whose mother also had gone missing. Through telling Phoebe’s story, she ultimately tells her own.

This is another old favorite, read in the summer of 2009 as well. (2009 was a good year for me - reading wise!) For the longest time before reading this book, I assumed it was a Native American tale from the looks of the cover and the title. Very misleading. This is a great story, entertaining and touching. Just like the movie "Titanic," you know how it's all going to end, but you keep hoping and crossing your fingers that it'll miss the iceberg.

Check it out on Goodreads.


#2 - The Summer Before Boys by Nora Raleigh Baskin (2011) NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers


Twelve-year-old Julia spends the summer before seventh grade with her “cousin” (who is actually her niece) of the same age. Julia’s mother is serving as a nurse with the National Guard in Iraq, and her father (Eliza’s grandfather) works long hours. She and Eliza have been best friends all their lives, spending hours playing dolls and pretend, but this summer things are different for Julia. Worrying about her mother and the next chance she will have to see that cute boy, Michael, begins to take up more of her attention, straining her friendship with Eliza.

Of all the books on my list, this is the one I really wish had been written when I was a girl and one that I think all girls will love. I remember that age so well when one week we're playing with Barbies and the next we're talking about boys!

Check it out on Goodreads.


#1 - My Name is Mina by David Almond (2011) NY: Delacorte Press

Mina is strange. Mina is weird. Mina is different. She does not fit in at her school, exasperates her teachers and principal, and is teased by her classmates. Her mother consequently decides to home school her. Mina spends her days sitting in her tree, writing in her journal, playing with words, and dreaming she can fly. Sooner or later though, Mina realizes she is going to have to come down from her tree and find her place in the “real” world.


This is one of those books that is inspires great teaching. After reading this, I want so badly to go back to the classroom so I can tell my students we're throwing out homework and replacing it with "Extraordinary Activities!"  David Almond uses nine-year-old Mina to exude his immense wisdom, and I'm glad I got schooled.  This book is a prequel to Skellig, which means you don't have to have read that to appreciate this book.  I haven't read it yet, but after this was so phenomenal, I think I have to.

          Check it out on Goodreads.

Reflecting on Reading

These questions are taken from p. 57 of Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries, and Community. 





1.  What is the first book that you can remember either having read to you as a child or reading yourself?  What can you remember about it?

We didn't have story time in my family.  Reading happened, but it wasn't a shared activity.  The first book that I remember reading all by myself was The Golden Children's Bible.  I know that I had read many picture books before that, because my mom had signed my brother and me up for a program that delivered us a stack of shiny new books each month.  It was probably a Scholastic program.  But I distinctly remember sitting on my bed, deciding to take on the Children's Bible, and I remember that when I finished I was so proud of myself that I ran to my mom to tell her what I had done.  The images are probably what stuck with me the most, and that's why I was able to figure out which exact children's Bible it was that I read.

2.  Can you think of a book/story that really stands out in your memory?  What was special about it?

There are so many books that stand out that I don't know how I can narrow them down, so I guess I'll start from the beginning.  There is one paperback picture book I received through the Scholastic reading program that has always stuck with me, but annoyingly I can't recall the title nor can I find it anywhere.  It's about a little girl who is afraid of EVERYTHING.  She doesn't like taking baths because she's afraid she'll get sucked down the drain.  She doesn't like escalators because she's afraid she's going to get pulled into the belt, etc.  I loved that book.  It's obviously not a popular or well-known story, or I might have found it by now.  Sad face.  Most of my reading in childhood was serendipitous.  The books that I enjoyed the most, or have a lasting impression of, were books that fell into my lap one way or the other, not the books that I picked for myself from the library.

3.  What do you remember reading next?  Next?  After that?

I can't pull out a timeline from my memory of childhood reading.  I'm sure there were a ton of books I read that didn't stick with me.  Perhaps the books that I owned stay with me the most, because as they were easy to access, I read them the most.  I remember around second grade my grandpa gave me a picture book that I found "boring," but read again and again, about a girl on a farm in the country during the winter not doing a whole lot.  I think she went to church on Sunday, but I can't recall.  I think I remember a black horse(s?) pulling a sleigh.  I remember the book seemed "elegant" to me - it was hardback with a shiny jacket cover, glossy pages of white with embedded pictures and text underneath.  And the cover was forest green with a snowy picture in the center.

4.  Was there anything in your childhood experience that you would say fostered reading?  Discouraged reading?

I think the adults in my life fostered reading for me - teachers, parents, grandparents.  The simple act of giving me books - whether as gifts, garage sale finds, pillaged from the lost and found, or a monthly book delivery program, and visits to the public library - all were signs that reading is an act of enjoyment.  As I got into my preteen years and started to enjoy books like Goosebumps, Christopher Pike, and (shamefully - but not really) V. C. Andrews, I did have a couple of (boy) family members who told me that my reading choices were not REAL reading, not REAL books.  That's when I started to develop guilt for certain reading choices and the idea that all reading wasn't created equal.  Meanwhile, they were reading Stephen King, and if I had the wisdom I have now I could have argued the same about their reading choices, but alas, I was only twelve.

5.  When you were a child, did you think of yourself as a reader?  

Quite simply, yes.  What kind of reader?  Good?  Poor?  Well, that's another story.  I probably didn't think too highly of my reading abilities.  I was never the smart kid in class until I went to an inner-city school; then somehow I was seen as the smartest kid in class.  If it hadn't been for that boost of self-confidence, I probably would have always been an average, or under-accomplishing, student, because no teacher ever thought much of me before then.

6.  How, if at all, did your reading interests change as you reached adolescence?

I think the Goosebumps series was the gateway to less savory reading choices.  Again, I became obsessed with Christopher Pike books in middle school, and most of the teacher-recommended reading I hated.  I remember having to read Cynthia Voigt's Homecoming and Dicey's Song in seventh grade, and I just really didn't care for them.  My sophomore year of high school, our English teacher had a whole unit on YA novels.  She had class copies of ten or twenty different titles featuring authors like Chris Crutcher, Robert Cormier, and Lois Duncan.  She book talked each one, and they were pretty scandalous.  I learned about the guy who pokes his unit through the bottom of a popcorn bucket in the movie theater so that when his date reached down she got a handful of something else.  We were shocked what our teacher was telling us, but she was 70 and crazy and would spend almost an entire class period telling us about Woodstock.  In high school, most of my book choices came from friends' recommendations.


7.  How do you choose a book to read?

Again, recommendations are an important factor in my book selections.  Currently, most of my reading is for my grad classes and keeping up with the latest in children's literature.  The library plays a role in what I read when, too.  I'll put a ton of books on hold, and so I usually read whatever it is that has become available before I read something that's sitting on my bookshelf, because I know I only have so much time to read the library book before it's not available anymore.

8.  Where do you get the books you read?

I'd say about 80% of the books I read are from the library.  The remaining 20% are books that I've either purchased or have had given to me.  I have a Nook, so it is quick and easy to purchase e-books instantaneously, but I still like physical books as well.

Really, Oprah?

9.  Are there types of books that you do not enjoy and would not choose?

Harlequin romance novels, books from Oprah's book list (I've never enjoyed any of her recommendations that I've tried), dry, self-indulgent literature wherein the author is just showing off his craft but not actually saying anything important, books written and advertised for the common "housewife" usually about a middle-aged woman in a boring marriage with 2.5 children who does something radical like joins a quilting club or has an affair - basically that whole shelf in Target labeled Fiction.

10.  Has there ever been a book that made a big difference to your life in one way or another?  (probe:  What kind of difference?  How did it help you?)

Ray Bradbury.  The Martian Chronicles.  Fahrenheit 451.  Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed.  I don't know that these books made a difference in my life except that they made me love reading even more.  I just love his books.  Fahrenheit 451 became my platform for the importance of reading, and perhaps my decision to become a reading teacher and now a library student.


11.  What would it be like for you if for one reason or other you couldn't read?

This question is ambiguous.  I'm not sure if the author means "can't read" as in illiterate, or "can't read" as in I'm prohibited from doing so, or "can't read" as in there is absolutely no time for it.  If I'm illiterate, then my world would be very limited on what I could do.  I couldn't write a blog, couldn't check up on friends on Facebook, wouldn't be a grad student, wouldn't have a great job, etc.  If I was prohibited from reading, I'd probably watch more television.  If I didn't have time, then I'd be sad and stressed out because reading is calming and therapeutic for me, as well as it helps me make sense of my world. 

12.  If you could get an author to write for the "Perfect Book" what would it be like?  What elements would it include?

That's a hard question.  I guess it would have the romance and dark turmoil of Rebecca, the author's views within Things Fall Apart, and the sci-fi world of either a Ray Bradbury or Kurt Vonnegut.  Although, I think all of those elements mixed together would probably make a terrible book.  I think each of those on their own are perfect books, so why can there be only one?


13.  What would you say is the role of reading in your life? 

I would say it's my livelihood.  It provides me a community to which I belong.  It gives me a larger view of the world I live in.  It lets me live 10,000 lives.  It teaches me lessons.  It educates me.  It entertains me.  It's solid good fun!