Critical Thinking: Astrology Edition

Irony

Ayn Rand Center: "Social Security Is Immoral"

VS

Ayn Rand: "My Social Security and Medicare payments, please."

Where Men Win Glory

I didn't officially sign up for the TBR Dare but was inspired by it to finally take a few books down off my shelf that I hadn't gotten around to.  This is the first of those.  I got it for Christmas last year and I hung on to it thinking it would make a good book for our club.  But when book-choosing time rolled around they mentioned that we'd already done a Krakauer a couple of years ago.

It's also lingered on my shelf because, honestly?  It looked like broccoli.  Depressing broccoli.  It was the same reason I put off seeing An Inconvenient Truth for so long.  I knew that would be depressing and that there was nothing I could do about it so why go out of my way to deal with that?

I am glad I read it, though.  It's a well done piece of work.  Krakauer captures the true character of the person Pat Tillman was which couldn't have been easy and puts him in the context of the world events that led, ultimately, to his death and the fiasco of what some tried to use him for afterwards.

I think the first half is the most compelling.  Krakauer inter-cuts what's happening in Tillman's life as a young man with what's going on with the Taliban, the mujahideen, Osama Bin Laden, and others in that part of the world.

Interestingly, Tillman isn't the most likable character in his younger days.  He wasn't a bad guy by any means and he definitely wasn't the stereotypical jock.  He had a violent altercation in high school that almost led to his losing out on his college scholarship, but I don't fault him for that.  I was a high school boy and know how these things can go.  But every time I felt sympathy for the guy he'd do something goofy like the time he and his girlfriend went to France where he got trashed and acted like a typical boorish American yelling that if it wasn't for us, they'd all be speaking German.

Yet then he would really work hard in school, not just coast on his football scholarship and it's perks.  He read deeply and got into many intense discussions and went out of his way to befriend unique people.  And he was loyal beyond measure.  He was chosen by the Arizona Cardinals as a 7th round draft pick and worked his tookus off to prove himself.  It worked and he got noticed by the Sport Illustrated gods and was subsequently courted by a team offering him a multi-million, multi-year contract whereas the Cardinals could only offer one-year league minimum contracts.  He baffled everyone by sticking with the Cardinals.  But he felt he owed them for giving him his chance, loved his coaches and wasn't that impressed with money.

This very characteristic, however, was partly what got him killed.  After the World Trade Center attacks and the ensuing invasion of Afghanistan he began to feel that he should enlist.  Most heroic stories point to some "tragic flaw" that brings down the hero in question.  Krakauer calls Tillman's a "tragic virtue" and does a great job with the complexity of this man and this situation.

Once we get to Iraq, the level of detail is impressive but can get a little mind-numbing.  I think it's important and Krakauer certainly wants to be as clear as possible in describing events that have been so called into question, but as a general reader it can be rough going for a few chapters.

The investigation into the cover-up will, of course, make you sick but I think it's important to read these kinds of things.  I didn't know, for example, that Tillman was present at the "rescue" of Jessica Lynch which of course foreshadows the same bone headed PR and cover up response that the Tillman story would eventually receive in a much darker and painful way.

Overall it's an amazing piece of work and fits right in with Krakauer's growing list of are-they-crazy-or-idealistic characters that he has spun into some of the most masterful narrative non-fiction of the past decade or more.

Observation Post, Forward Operating Base Tillman

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

Strange & Norrell: Book Club Edition

I guess I read this back before I started blogging.  For some reason this was a book club pick.  Maybe because we didn't have a December meeting and some bold dude decided this was the time to tackle it.  I must have missed that meeting...

Since I'd already read it I went with The Magicians just to keep with the theme.

I loved J.S. &Mr. N., but I was a literature major and had already read plenty of Henry Fielding, Dickens, Austen, etc.  I got the whole thing and enjoyed the whole experience.  There was only one other guy in the group that enjoyed it that much and only two or three that even finished it.  For them, I recommended The Magicians or Neil Gaiman instead.  (Oh, someone told me there might be a sequal to The Magicians.)

One fun thing was the comparison of formats.  This is a big book and runs to around 850 pages.  I own the trade sized paperback.  One guy had the hardcover (ouch).  One guy had a mass market sized paperback.  Dudem the print was way too small and the footnotes? Forget about it!  But then who reads all those footnotes anyway?  And finally, one guy had a three-volume trade paperback set.  He seemed the happiest since he was just toting the third volume to the meeting.  Nowadays I'd get it on my Kindle. That thing always weighs only 8.5 oz. no matter what I stuff into it!

Have I told you about my all-guy book club?  It's awesome.  We're all connected to a certain bookstore where we meet up, then head over to a nearby pub.  So it's really a book and excellent beer and food club (though we embrace tea-totalers as well).  We have only two ironclad rules: The chosen book must be in paperback and Oprah can't have picked it.  Other than that: anything goes.  We read fiction, non-fiction, kid's books, YA, graphic novels, male writers, female writers, classics, genre, whatever.  Once we were even blessed with a visit by the man himself, Christopher Moore, when we had our A Dirty Job meeting.  We've even had a few females join the group now and then.  I've been in other book groups, but this has been my favorite because it's very laid back and intellectually stimulating.

How about you?  You ever try a book club or do you prefer to go it alone?

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

The Magicians: A Novel

A Dirty Job: A Novel

Different Various

Another funny email sent to all the librarians in the district:
"HELP! the mic is shocking the students when they touch it to try & adjust it - any suggestions?????"

I guess I'm mean because that just cracked me up.

Now there is a Kindle Lending Club.  I'll have to try it out.

No Kindle?  Here's some fun bookshelves.

The ALSC has a nice Notable Children's Books list if you can't get enough of lists.

A pet peeve: those who demonize ADHD medications.

Have a great weekend!

Video Sunday

I know this is Ms. Bird's schtick, but I just wanted to make sure these got out as well and I rarely have this many good ones to share all at once!

Oooh, numbers can be pretty. I need to share this with our Math Coach:



This isn't an official NASA video, just something from a great fan:



A Wrinkle in Time in 90 seconds? It's been a while since I read it and this is about all I could remember from the plot anyway. Hilarious. I hope we see more of this kind of thing soon:


"A Wrinkle In Time" In 90 Seconds from James Kennedy on Vimeo.

I have no defense for this last one, but it weirdly makes sense...



Have a great extended weekend!

Questions Answered!

I love this.  I've actually been getting questions and requests for posts lately.  I would be more than happy to make this a regular feature, so keep them coming!

Heather Kelly asks about my WEEK off of school to to the weather: "Wow--how much snow did you guys get?"

We got about five inches.  That doesn't sound like much (I remember getting that many feet in Ohio),  but it was a record-breaker here in the Atlanta area.  That's not why we were out a week, though.  It was the covering layer of ice and then the continuing sub-freezing temperatures that made the roads completely impassable.  Along, of course, with the lack of snow and ice removal infrastructure for obvious reasons.

In a similar vein, Doret asks: "Have you gotten out at all this week?"

Not really, no.  The three of us (My Lovely Bride (MLB), my daughter Harper, and I) all trekked out to the park and sledded on found objects that first day.  We also made a Totoro snow-person.  Tuesday was a complete jammies day for us all.  Wednesday the girls were getting loopy but some friends who had to work dropped off their daughters for us to watch and Harper to play with.  Thursday afternoon/evening the girls braved a two-mile drive for a playdate and Mom chat time.  Apparently the car almost went into a ditch right near the friend's driveway.  The other girl came back with Harper for an overnight.  Friday some other girls joined them as all three Moms went to lunch and I fixed lunch here, tea-party style for the gaggle of girls and their dolls.  (How many points do I get for that?)  Today we will be going out (very carefully) for groceries and a make-up Little Gym class and even a dinner date with friends.

klonghall wants to know about my new reading device: "I got a Kindle for my upcoming birthday.  I hope you'll do a post soon on what you like (and dislike) about yours."

I think it is made of awesome.  I do feel guilt because I can walk to a library and I work in a library and I have many unread books lying around the house but I love love love it.  My first initiative was to buy only kids books for it so that Harper and MLB could also read them on their iPad (thereby lessening my guilt).  But kids books are short and I was going through them pretty quick and that was adding up.  I slowed myself down with some free books and all three Mysterious Benedict Society books bundled together for the price of one.  I also decided to read the kid books on my own and every other book from my TBR pile (again, a guilt-lessening move but I find I can read a book much faster when my goal is to get back to my Kindle reading).

My current books are both non-Kindle but I keep finding excuses to read short things on it.  I use Instapaper and have found I can download the whole shebang and stuff it in my Kindle.  Sweet!  I was also reading a blog post yesterday and the author recommended the introduction of a book.  On a Kindle, Amazon lets you download a "sample" which can be pretty generous depending on the length of the title.  So I downloaded the sample and, sure enough, had the entire introduction and then some.  I now have a bunch of samples I'm working through and it's a great way to make some future reading decisions.

I also have a generous amount of free classic books downloaded "just in case" so I never run out of stuff to read.  And just because I could I paid less than $2 to download The Complete Mark Twain Collection which includes more than 300 works!  And it all always weighs only 8.5 ounces!  Which is much nicer than one of those wrist-breaking 15.8 ounce Nooks (that was a joke).

But seriously, I still love books but the Kindle is nice.  I know I'm now married to Amazon and while I've had some pointed comments about them in the past, I figure if you're going to go for and electronic reader, why not go for the absolute best reader with the best selection?  Amazon is benefitting, sure, but so are independent publishers and self-publishing authors.

Oh, and I got one of the covers that have the little lights on it.  In my opinion, Amazon should just make that part of the deal because it's amazingly great to have a book light embedded right there.

I love: the weight and size and clarity.  Having the built-in dictionary!  Never having to worry about finishing a book and not having something else to read.  Being able to know I have a handful of things in my bag without stuffing said bag full of books and magazines.  Never again having to worrying about falling asleep and having some big-assed book conk me on the head in bed.  Always opening a book to where I left off and never needing a bookmark.  And being able to bookmark important pages to go back to without having to dog-ear pages!

I wish: the screen savers were customizable, but that's no biggie.  Um, that's about it.  They seem to have thought of just about everything.

I wonder: the point of the read-aloud computer voice.  It's silly.  Although I did once come across a word I didn't know how to pronounce and used the voice to figure it out.  I don't know if the voice was right, but I went with it.

And if you are worried about the expense of buying all those ebooks, don't forget you can ask all your loved ones for Amazon/Kindle gift cards for all future gift-giving and you're set!

Kindle (Wi-Fi)

Kindle, Lighted Leather Cover, Black

The Magicians

Well it's obvious I don't have magical powers or I would figure out a way to get out of these jammies and get back into school so we didn't have an unexpected EIGHT DAY break from school.  People are getting loopy.

This book was a hoot and no, it's not Harry Potter for the post-adolescent crowd (though Grossman tosses in a couple of Potter jokes for good measure, along with Narnia, Tolkien, etc).  This reminded me much more of a riff on post-adolescence itself using the familiar tropes of supernatural fantasy as metaphors for what goes on in life during this time much like what Joss Wheden achieved with his brilliantly-written Buffy the Vampire Slayer series.

In that show, Buffy had to deal with parents and school and relationships through the lens of a magically-endowed being learning to control and use her power, much like most kids have to do at some point.  It's wasn't static, either.  She didn't stay in high school for a seeming twelve years like some of the kids on other shows.  She went off to college (enduring a literal roommate from hell at one point) and beyond.

This is the kind of thing Grossman's protagonist, Quentin Coldwater, has to deal with through a more Narnia-like lens.  He's your typical smart-but-unmotivated kid dreading post-high school life, wishing he could escape, really escape to some magical land like the set of fantasy novels he read obsessively as a kid (and still does).  He wishes this in such an aching way that it's no surprise that he ends up walking through a magical porthole to an enchanted school for magicians.  Not the card trick kind, the magic is real kind with spells and enchantments and all.

At first this seems great, but then he realizes that this is just as hard and annoying as the real world.  He still has homework and classes and nutty friends and annoying adults around him and still doesn't know what he wants to do in those hazy post-school years down the road.  Then someone discovers a porthole to the actual magical land written of in those novels.  It's a real place and they can go there...

The book is good.  It's paced at a decent clip, is terrificly funny in just the right places and achingly heartbreaking in just the right places as well.  Good thing it's not terribly long and that there are some wonderful surprises, because Quentin can grate at times.  A little too much self-loathing and moping around.  Nothing a few quick slaps might not cure.

In the end, it's not all about your own powers and gifts (whatever form they may take) and the proper use of them, but about your own humanity and your ability to connect with others in your pursuit and use of these powers and gifts that make us not only who we are, but can keep us from the nihilistic melancholy that dogs Quentin and other potentially lost souls.  That's the real magic.

That, and the enchanted creature sex jokes.

The Magicians: A Novel

Critical Thinking: "Nigger" Edition

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mark Twain Controversy
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Thank you, Larry Wilmore!  Best defense of Huckleberry Finn, ever!  Whenever I hear about this controversy my mind flashes to that scene in "The Hobart Shakespearians" where the class is reading the scene in Huckleberry Finn, in which Huck decides he will go to hell to save his friend Jim.  Every fifth grader in that class in openly weeping.  And there are people that think kids can't handle it?  Whatever.  It's essential.

The Hobart Shakespearians

Freshwater Firing: A Sigh of Relief

This is good news indeed: John Freshwater has been fired.

I'm just sad my childhood school system had to spend over $900,000 to fire this ignorant bully.  Ignorant because of his creationism and a bully because of his burning a student with Tesla coils (the act he was actually fired for).

I wish that money could have been spent on good science books and equipment instead of a legal action against a creationist blowhard.

Hope there's a lesson learned here for other school districts!

Dear Self: Shut Your Piehole

A post yesterday questioned why people would post long lists of who won what at recent children's lit. award ceremonies when their readers are probably already aware of these lists and at any rate can look up the list on the official website.

Some thoughtful commenters have given me my answer:

Firstly, many people like to make lists and compare it against what they themselves have read.

As a librarian I cannot say anything against anyone's list-making desires!  I love me some lists.  I myself use Goodreads to keep track of what I read.  While I blog about much of it, I never considered using my blog as a way to actually keep track of my reading.  D'oh.

Secondly, (and more to the point, I might add) people can put whatever they want to on their blog!  It's their blog, you goofball!  (This might have been communicated more politely, but that's how they should have put it.)

Right indeed.  I don't think there is any more to be said.

In my defense, I am embarking on my THIRD DAY trapped in the house due to a winter storm.  In Atlanta, of all places.  I'm getting a bit punchy.

I told my girls yesterday that it's a good thing I liked them.  I can't imagine this if I were cooped up with people I didn't like.  And we may be out the rest of the week!

I'll get back to my reading and list-making...

The Boy Who Dared

I'll admit that for the first 50 or so pages I was worried this was going to be like an unnamed movie you hopefully didn't get a chance to see this year.  I belong to a cinema club and get to see a few movies before they get released.  It's fun but there are inevitably a few clunkers.  This past season the first movie we saw was from a woman who had done a documentary on the subject ten years earlier and the story had just stayed with her so much that she decided to make a feature film about the same subject in hopes of spreading the story further.  Unfortunately this director is no feature filmmaker and I think the documentary would have been more interesting.

This book started out that way for me.  I knew Ms. Bartoletti had written the jaw-droppingly amazing Hitler Youth and vaguely remembered the main character in this novel from that book.  But the amount of exposition she was having to cram in was making me feel less than enthusiastic.

Then, at some point, and I don't know exactly when, that all dropped away and I felt for Helmuth (which would be pronounced "Helmood")and became as ashamed at what happened to his country as he had and understood why he felt he had to do what he did and it all made dark and terrible sense to me.  I was proud of him, even though I thought he could have gotten away with his little scheme if he'd been just a little more paranoid and suspicious.

Helmuth loves his country but not the new Nazi regime in his Fatherland in the late 30s.  He begins questioning their methods and even his own Mormon principles, even though it seems partially through his outsider feelings from being a Mormon that lead to some of his outsider-looking-in questioning of the Nazis.

When his brother goes off to war, Helmuth breaks the radio law as he breaks into the closet to listen to British news reports on his brother's short wave radio.  He just wants to know the truth of what's going on and the German stations don't report on their own casualties.  He is surprised to find the British do report on their own losses as well as the German's.

Eventually he and some friends begin making pamphlets to stash in public places to get the news out and eventually they are caught.  I don't want to give away the ending, but Helmuth comes through for his friends.

Then there is the afterward.  There often is in a piece of historical fiction like this, but this is unlike many I've read.  It goes on much longer than usual but that's a good thing.  It follows the lives of his friends  and is an important part of the book itself.

Right after I finished it I went to my most recent cinema club offering, thinking I just had to be in for something a bit lighter.  Nope!

 Boy Who Dared by Susan Campell Bartoletti

Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow

Dear Kidlitosphere:

Yes, I know who won which children's lit. award yesterday.  You don't need to re-post the list on your blog.  I mean it's cool if you're just mentioning a few of them with your own commentary but re-typing the whole list just seems silly to me when you can just link to the official one and leave it at that.

Trust me, if we have that little "Kidlitosphere" tag on our blog or are in the comment challenge or whatever, we Know already.  And if we didn't know, we'd probably go to the official list first anyway.

I'm just saying.

Oh, and congrats tot he winners!  Cheers, indeed!  (Not that any of them read this blog...)

Woo Hoo!

My daughter giving me a push down a hill at our nearby park.  Fun, but cooooold.

I also added a few more pix to this album.

Now for more hot chocolate and toasty blankets!

We May Be Out of School Longer Than I Thought...

It's baaaad out there.

We were out trying to make a Totoro snowperson, but had to take a break due to the sleety rain!  Whew.  Here's some more pictures of our brief outdoor adventures so far.

Doug has some words of wisdom from MN.  I'm from OH and haven't seen snow like tis since I moved from there in '83.  (Though '93/'94 here in Atlanta was pretty close).

That's my daughter.  She want me to take her to the park and try sledding a bit later.  I'm bracing myself now as I finish catching up on the book awards.

Brrrr! Stay Safe!

It's bad here.  But bad in an awesome Winter Wonderland way if you're not crazy enough to try to actually leave the house and try to go out on roads.  I'll be sure to grab some pix after my daughter drags us out to make snowmen and such. 

Which titles are YOU most anticipating in 2011?

Vonnegut, natch.  An the TC Boyle and the Sarah Vowell look good to me.  This is a bit literary-fiction heavy for my tastes.  I'm more into genre, nonfiction and, of course, kid's books!  But it is definitely fun to peer into the future...

Most Anticipatied: The Great 2011 Book Preview from the good people at The Millions

Book Challenges?

Man, people are nuts for these things and I can certainly see why.  Laura Miller ha a cool article about them over at Salon.  My favorite idea for one is also one she mentions, the TBR challenge.  C.B. has a great variation on this, the TBR Dare, which just sounds a bit nicer than a challenge, no?  You have to read only
 books you've collected but not gotten around to in a while.  A great exercise in relieving the guilt involved in book buying.

I seriously considered joining this one, but I really make myself grumpy when I force myself to read things from a list.  I am working seriously on my TBR list this year but I'm not going to give it any specific number or time frame.  I'm also going to be a little pickier about which book club books I read so I can continue to enjoy self-chosen books.

As a first-year children's librarian I have a great desire to read more middle aged chapter books (from about grades 3-6) along with all the picture books I read aloud to K-2 anyway and I have done some of that this past year.  But I am really dedicating this year to at least knocking off the big guilt-pullers near my bedside which I feel I must knock off before much more time goes by.

The closest thing I've done to a reading challenge in recent memory is when I took that Children's Lit. class as part of my library degree.  I thought about getting out of the class because I felt like I'd read quite enough of that stuff as a teacher.  It turned out it was more work to get out of it than just take it.  When I saw the syllabus I really had read more than half the books on the list but I was very glad I took it.  It made me read books I would have otherwise passed up and I found a few I quite enjoyed.  That's probably the best thing about these kinds of challenges.

There will be a little of that in my upcoming polishing off of bedside books.  Some gift books I might not necessarily have picked, but from authors I've enjoyed before.  That kind of thing.

What about you?  What are your favorite reading challenges?  I've been thinking about this also because our school does not do AR but some people have been talking about it.  I think if I can come up with some kid-friendly "reading challenges" instead that I might be able to head them off at the pass.  I'd love to hear your ideas...

Be a better reader in 2011

The TBR Dare

One of the things I like about the Comment Challenge

It's actually seeing all these blogs.  Most of the time I just scroll through my reader and only every once in a while jump over to the blogs themselves.

And of course getting to see lots of new-to-me-blogs is always fun.

What about you?

Comment Challenge 2011

I Started to List All of the Children's Book Awards, but Sheesh...

I was wondering this award-giving season, how many children's book awards ARE there?

Newbery (author)
Caldecott (illustrator)
Coretta Scott King (African descent author/illustrators)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (body of work)
Margaret E. Edwards (YA body of work)
National Book Award (author)
Michael L. Printz (YA)
Pure Belpre (Latino/a authors/illustrators)
Scott O'Dell (historical fiction)
Rober F. Sibert (nonfiction)
Hans Christian Anderson (body of work)
Phoenix (given to a book published 20 years previous that missed recognition)
Canadian Library Association Book of the Year
Canadian Governor General Awards (Canadian writers)
Carnegie (British author)
Kate Greenaway (British illustrator)
Pacific Northwest Young Reader's Choice (grades 4-8)

and here's a BUNCH more

This says there are 325! But who knows, really?

More.

Even more and more. (Although I don't know if these technically count as awards.)

Okay, okay, here's someone who has all the State Award lists.

Oh, and don't forget the Cybils!

Here's a bunch for sale.

Okay, I'm stopping for now.  It just goes on and on and on...

The "Franki" Awards!

Today on the always wonderful A Year of Reading blog, Franki posted a list of books she hopes win awards this season.  I figured hey, if FRANKI says a book should win an award, it just got an award!  Why not call it the "Franki"?  I mean there are about a thousand children's book awards.  Why not 1001?

The Frankis for Illustration go to:

Chalk
A Fabulous Fair Alphabet by Deborah Frasier
City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems
All Things Bright and Beautiful by Ashley Bryant
Mama Miti by Donna Jo Napoli
Mirror by Jeannie Baker
Mirror, Mirror by Marilyn Singer
A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Phillip Stead

The Frankis for Writing go to:

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper
Keeper by Kathi Appelt
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord
As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins
Countdown by Deborah Wiles
The Water Seeker by Kimberly Willis Holt
Penny Dreadful by Laurel Snyder

Congratulations Winners!


A Year of Reading

"Books I Hope Win Awards"

Comments Always Welcome

It's that time again.  MotherReader is having her annual "Comment Challenge."  Sign up here and make yourself known to some fun book bloggers!

Final 2010 Reading Round-Up

Happy New Year!

Been away from the keyboard for awhile because those last couple of weeks of school were a bit of a bear and then we went to visit family in Florida and I've just enjoyed catching up on reading.  Some times I just need to consume rather than produce.

I finished Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan which was four-fifths of a great book.  In the reverse of The White Giraffe by Lauren St. John (in which a newly orphaned girl is sent from England to Africa to live with a grandparent), a newly orphaned girl living in early 20th century British East Africa is sent to live with a grandparent in England after a cholera outbreak.  The Dickensian twist is that a greedy couple who have lost their own daughter convince our protagonist to take her place and therefore weasel her way into the grandfather's heart (and his estate) against her better nature.  Like the St. John, the natural beauty of the settings are vividly described and the relationships are strongly felt.  The pace is well done throughout until the final chapters which become more summary that action.

I read the second and third Trenton Lee Stewart Mysterious Benedict Society books, The Perilous Journey and The Prisoner's Dilemma.  I guess this is as good a time to out myself as any.  I read them on my Kindle.  Yes, I got a Kindle back in October.  I'm sure I'll have more to say on that later if you care.  Basically: it's awesome. Anyway,  I was going through books at a good clip and it was getting pricy, so I was delighted to see that I could buy all three Mysterious Benedict Society books as one $10 download!  It was a great way to slow me down and also gave me time to force myself to alternate between some actual physical books on my bedside table.  This is a project I'll still be working on throughout 2011 no doubt, the alternating between my previously bought stack of books (or gifts or loaners) and new Kindle books.

Anyway, I like these books but wouldn't recommend reading them one right after another.  I took a longer break between the first and second one and enjoyed them, but then went right on to the third and wasn't as enthused with it as the other two (though I was pleased with the tone of the ending).  The second one was great, mysterious, adventurous and fun.  The third one took about half way through the novel for the plot to really kick in but the second half was fun.  I will recommend them to a certain kind of student, but if there are more, I won't be reading them.

Between these, I read one of those previously-mentioned physical books: The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman.  This is definitely a middle school aged book, so unfortunately one I can't really recommend to many of my elementary school students.  I do, however, strongly recommend it to everyone else.  I can't say enough good things about this book.  It reminded me of my days reading Paul Zindel in my youth and I hope this finds all the right readers.

To my daughter we finished reading the next Ramona book in Beverly Cleary's series, Ramona Quimby, Age 8.  I'd never realized how connected these are--really one continuous story and how important the economics of the family were to the books.  I can't wait to read the next two to find out how her parents fare in their jobs and schooling as much as I can't wait to see what further shenanigans Ramona gets herself into.  We've just started the next book in Cressida Cowell's series, How to Speak Dragonese.  So far it's as much fun as the others, but quite a shift in tone from the Ramona books!

Ramona Quimby, Age 8

The Schwa was Here

The Mysterious Benedict Society Collection

The White Giraffe

Listening for Lions