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!

Just Finished Reading...

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt
          This book is on the top of about every mock Newbery 2012 award list, and I can see why. Doug Swieteck is about the most real and well-written character I've read in a long time in young fiction. The entire story spans Doug's 1968-69 school year beginning with him and his family moving to stupid Marysville, as he deems it.
          Doug has a meekly sweet mother and not-so-loving father, as well as two older brothers.  The oldest, Lucas, is away fighting in the Vietnam war, but we get an idea of his character when Doug does or says something "jerky" and compares it to his brother. Now I sound like Lucas.  That's something Lucas would say.  Christopher, the second oldest brother, seems to be another chip off the old block.  He is ruthlessly mean to Doug, stealing his Joe Pepitone-signed hat, and making fun of all he does.  Doug has to hide anything valuable or special to him from his brother.  The boys' poor attitudes are a result of their father's character.  He is negative, abusive physically and through his words.  Doug's mother is the only saving grace of Doug, but she does not stand up to her husband.
          Doug's story has its ups and downs - things look up and then something happens to dampen his spirit.  His teachers and principal think the worst of him for crimes his brother allegedly committed.  People in town question his nature as well.  And, of course, there is the crotchety librarian who scolds Doug for waiting on the steps of the library to open.  What librarian would do that?
          There is so much addressed in this book that one could spend days discussing - John James Audubon's Birds of America and how Doug can associate what's happening in each painting with what's happening in his life, domestic violence, the controversies of the Vietnam War, Jane Eyre!, baseball and the New York Yankess, NASA's space program and landing on the moon, as well as other significant events of the 60's, etc.  Doug is such a dynamic character, as well, that the story almost reads as a memoir.  A nice surprise at the end of the book is a teaching guide full of discussion questions and activities, along with the first chapter of The Wednesday Wars, a companion to Okay for Now.

Add to your to-read list.

Just Finished Reading...

The Wall... Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis

          I placed this book on hold at my local library along with some other children's picture books.  I got a call yesterday that a few of my book selections were available, so I headed over, found a seat, and got to reading.  This book was compactly educational in regard to the Cold War and Communist Soviet Union.  I grew up hearing about the Berlin wall and "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" I knew about the Cuban missile crisis. I knew we were at odds with Soviet Russia, but I didn't understand the conflict any further than we had differing governing ideologies.  I also liked that the introduction concisely explained the link between the events of WWII's aftermath to the onset of Russian-formed Soviet Union, because many times we study events of our history in isolated segments, and we forget to examine the cause-effect sequences in between large events. This book told the story of author Peter Sis's first-hand account of life in then Czechoslovakia and how the Prague Spring of 1968 helped him to awaken from his "brainwashed" youth.  Art and music played a huge role in his awakening.  I've read many fictional dystopian novels and never fully realized that these societies truly existed/exist today.  I highly recommend putting a copy of this on every school/classroom library shelf.  It's a great jumping off point for further research and examination.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List.

Just Finished Reading...

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
*read by Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and Cassandra Campbell on audiobook

“Everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family. Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it.” ― Kathryn Stockett, The Help 

Well, Mammy's still waiting for someone to ask her...

      
          I started out listening to the audiobook of The Help on a six hour trip back from Pensacola Beach.  I was never really excited to read it, because I usually don't find myself enjoying many of the mainstream best-sellers in women's fiction - or "chick lit" I like to call it.  It happened to be the only book available to check out on my online library account at the time, so when my companion and I were finally bored enough on our drive home, we turned it on.  Right away, we were both entertained.  The narrators all did an exceptional job, and the narrator for Minny even went on to play her in the movie. 

          We continued listening to it on a two hour drive to Orlando and back over the weekend, and when I got home, I decided I didn't want to have to wait to finish reading it; so I ran out to Barnes and Noble and bought the paperback.
          I'm not going to waste time summarizing the story, because just about everyone's read it or seen the movie, or at least know the premise.**   I'm just going to jump in with my reaction, so I apologize for any spoilers I may reveal.  The Help is definitely an entertaining read.  The characters are well-developed, and I felt invested in their stories.  Should this book be considered a champion of the civil rights movement and the victorious black women of the South?  Heavens, no.  It was, after all, written by a white woman, Kathryn Stockett, who, like Skeeter, grew up in Mississippi.  Stockett was also sued by her own brother's housekeeper for using her likeness to create the character Aibileen. The suit was only thrown out due to a statute of limitations.  The character of Skeeter is not interested, nor does she know much about, the black woman's struggle under the Jim Crow era, and only initially decides to create a book about black housekeepers in Jackson because she has a dream to be published.  The character Aibileen in the story is even responsible for giving Skeeter the idea to write the book.  So why anyone would mistake Skeeter as the heroine of the story is beyond me.  Aibileen and Minny risk their jobs and safety to write this book.  Skeeter risks being ostracized from Hilly's League.  Her biggest worries are getting her hair to straighten and to find a man to marry so that her mother will stop pestering her. Skeeter is merely the editor of the book, so it bugs me that she takes so much credit for it. 

 Things That Also Bothered Me

          Aibileen - I can't believe Aibileen would be truly sorry to leave her job working for Elizabeth.  She's sad to leave Mae Mobley and perhaps the steady income, but I would think she'd be jumping for joy to be rid of those women and their bridge club lunches.  Plus, she gets a job writing for the paper, and there's potential their book will bring in more money as time goes on.
          Minny - Minny's story was my favorite to read.  She's a strong, outspoken woman full of sass, so I was surprised that she suffered from spousal abuse.  She addresses it in the end of why she doesn't fight back, and eventually leaves Leroy, but I have to wonder why the author thought it was necessary to put this in.  It seems that it's only the black men who are seen doing the abusing and leaving and not the white men.  I'm not sure what the author's message is here.
          Skeeter - Beyond what issues I already have with this character, I can't understand her friendship with Hilly.  Skeeter speaks in a disparaging manner about her closest friend, and can't trust her to not snoop in her satchel, and yet because they've been friends since childhood, she reasons that's justification enough to have stayed  her friend so long.  Also, the storyline with Stuart seemed nothing more than a way to show the "sacrifices" Skeeter makes for her dear new friends publishing deal.  I think the story would have been much better if Skeeter wasn't in it in the first place.  This wasn't her story to tell.  I'll be interested to see how the movie portrays her, but I'm sure it will be much the same since Stockett and her close friend were the screenwriters/director for the film.  I hope that the readers and audience of this story realize the irony/hypocrisy of it all.  It is still a white woman telling her version of the black woman's story.  The cheesy declaration at the end that the point of the book is to show that there's really not much different about us women is the most ridiculous revelation Skeeter could make.  I didn't see a whole lot of similarities between Minny and Hilly, Minny and Celia, or Aibileen and Elizabeth.
          Plot plunks - There were a lot of plot secrets Stockett used to keep the story intriguing:  What is wrong with Celia?  What happened to Constantine?  What was the "horrible thing" that Stuart's ex-fiance did? And all of them were either predictable, overly-dramatized, or both.

          Overall, I don't discourage anyone from reading this book.  It is an entertaining read, probably more so as audiobook, but please take it as the work of fiction that it is and not a revolutionary memoir of the Jim Crow south.

**After spending the holiday at my grandmother's house, I feel obliged to mention the premise, as she had heard about the book from her friends and tried to download it on her Nook, only to have accidentally downloaded The Help, A Novel, or The Secret Confessions of a Traditional Housekeeper by Shay Arthur.  She complained, "I don't know why everyone says that book is good.  I thought it was so boring."  She started to tell us about the plot, and that's when we realized she had purchased the wrong book. 
          The Help is told from the point of view of three women: Aibileen, a housekeeper in Jackson, MS who has worked her whole life working in white people's homes and raising their babies; Minny, Aibileen's friend and fellow housekeeper who gets in trouble for her sass-talking, and Skeeter, a recent college graduate who is a socialite and friend of the women Minny and Aibileen work for. Skeeter's dream is to become either a writer or journalist, and by way of talking with Aibileen, decides she wants to write about housekeepers' experiences working in the south.

I apologize if this review is not the most cohesive. I wrote it over the span of my week on Thanksgiving holiday - ten minutes here and there.

Just Finished Reading...

The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

While I enjoyed last year's The Lost Hero starring Jason Grace as the Roman demigod and amnesiac, I felt there was something missing.  Leo is the only character who sticks out in my memory from my reading of the first installation of the new Heroes of Olympus series.  Maybe because he *SPOILER* appears in book two.  I didn't feel as invested with the characters as I had with Percy, Annabeth, and Grover from the first Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. 

The first two books are a set up for the new fight.  In PJatO, the fight was with Kronos, in HoO, the fight is with big, bad mamma Gaea.  The Greek and Roman camps are unaware of each other, but will now be forced to work with one another in order to fight the mother of creation. 

In Son of Neptune we find out where Percy's been the whole time Jason and his new gang were fighting wind gods and flying around on mechanical dragons on a quest to free Hera/Juno.  Percy wakes up from a long nap and finds himself at a camp for Roman demigods, Camp Jupiter.  He meets two campers, Hazel and Frank, who helped save his life but are of course not highly respected by the other campers.  I thought these characters were more richly drawn than the characters in the previous book, and so I cared more about their stories.  Hazel gets flashbacks that render her unconscious, and Frank, though big and beefy, doesn't think much of himself.  Percy is his usual self, even with losing his memory, full of wit, humor, and courage only a true hero possesses.  Their quest is to free the god of death, Thanatos (imprisoned somewhere in Alaska), defeat the king of giants, Alcyoneus and rush back to help defend Camp Jupiter from attack by the Feast of Fortuna.  No problem, right?  Actually, that's my only quip with these stories.  It seems too easy for these half-bloods to defeat these ancient (and usually stupid) monsters.  I would think the gods have to be on their sides for them to always be so victorious.

What I love about this new series is that (and I said this with the first book) it introduces the reader to Roman mythology.  The reader sees that not only do the names change of the gods, but that their personalities are altered as well.  We see this mainly with the character of Ares/Mars in book two. 

Riordan gives us more of what we love:  good battles, a tiny sliver of puppy love, lots of humor, and a world where fantasy and reality collide.  If you haven't read The Lost Hero, you could probably skip it and read The Son of Neptune without missing a beat. 

Oh, yes.  My only other problem with the book was that I bought it as a Nook book, and the spacing was jacked up throughout.  Slightly annoying.