Aye yi yi Surrender is another one of those books that has been given an award because adults think it’s great writing for kids. I can’t imagine the average teenager enjoying this book or being drawn to reading this book or doing anything except griping about being forced to read this book.
Surely there are better ways to present schizophrenia to teenagers.
It finally happened. I have finally joined the John Green fan club. Not the real one (if there is such a thing) the metaphorically speaking one. I’ll never gush about him or even blog about him as often as sassymonkey does but every time she does it, I’ll be nodding my head. That’s the kind of John Green fan club I’ve joined. I’m going to nod my head a lot. And anytime someone wants a YA recommendation I will say “anything John Green has written”. The man is a YA genius.
Looking for Alaska was the book that put me over the edge and pushed me into joining the John Green fan club. Until then, I could admit that I liked some of his books and LOVED others (Abundance of Catherines anyone?) but I just wasn’t ready to declare him genius.
I’m ready now.
The man is a genius.
Looking for Alaska Read More »
I am not a huge graphic novel fan but I do appreciate them because they are quick reads. I read American Born Chinese in less than an hour. Liz read it last weekend – twice. It was good. I liked the lesson of the monkey king, so did Liz.
But then again, Liz IS a huge graphic novel fan. And that’s one of the reasons why I selected the Graphic Novel project from DonorsChoose. There’s a lot of value in getting kids hooked on a story through graphic novels. Not all kids are immediate readers. Some kids are visual. And, I have to say, having some visuals when trying to get kids to read Red Badge of Courage is probably a damn good idea. Go donate $1 to the project (or more if you can) – Red Badge of Courage is worth reading and if it takes some graphic novels to teach the story, then I can support that – can’t you?
American Born Chinese Read More »
It took me far too long to read Cinnamon Gardens – too many distractions in my world on top of it not being a page turner. It’s not bad, the characters are pretty darn interesting, it just wasn’t compelling.
I like the dual storylines – the older man, the young girl – I didn’t expect to like the jump back and forth but I did. And, I liked the ending for both of them.
Darn “Now Reading” plug in is not finding books automatically so I have to enter each one and it’s driving me nuts. Boo, I hate it when a plug in stops working.
Back to Octavian Nothing: Pox Party – MT Anderson is excellent, as usual. A little wordy for a YA novel but I think it’s important to BE wordy when you’re talking about these types of experiments. I was a wee bit depressed to have predicted the direction the experiment would take when the “College” landed in financial trouble. Blah.
Considering just how many books I’ve read about slavery… it’s refreshing to see something just a little new and a little different. Now to find time to read the next one.
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Pox Party Read More »
I finished The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, as part of my personal Prinz Award Challenge and of course, it’s been banned. Happy Banned Books Week.
Based on what I know about challenged and banned books, it makes sense.
This is a very difficult book to read – I’ve eaten non-stop while reading it. Every time Virginia eats a piece of lettuce or hurts herself, I feel the urge to eat. Weird.
Good book, but very difficult.
Loved the Ani references. The only thing I didn’t like was Virginia’s list at the end. It didn’t seem quite Virginia-like.
The Earth, My Butt, and other Big Round Things Read More »
I love Colette. I have no idea why I’ve never read the Complete Claudine before. I don’t know why I waited so long. I love, love, love Claudine – even Claudine married and denying Annie. Hah.
Last week TW and I went to the Illinois DMV in Niles and got our Illinois drivers licenses. We had to take a damn written test. And when I say written test, I mean written – as in using a paper and pen. No computer generated tests for us here in the big city suburbs, sheesh. TW missed two multiple choice questions and I missed two road signs. Thank goodness we didn’t have to take the threatened driving test (Threatened because the Illinois DMV info says “possibly a driving test”.)
We walked out with our new licenses and felt a little ill about the whole thing.
To shake off that queasy feeling of being “official” Illinois residents, later the same day we went to the Glenview Public Library and got our new library cards. Having those in our wallets really does make our residency here official. And, it makes us feel like we’re settled (even with boxes still left to unpack.)
I’ve got YA books for the Printz Award challenge waiting for me to pick up at our new library. TW has a pile of books by her bedside and the pressure of having to read most of them within seven days due to a less than liberal check out policy. I can now happily check my library account every day like I used to do in Gainesville. Life is more normal now than it has been for months.
Yay for normal. Thank GOD for libraries.
The only problem with The Coffee Trader is that I felt like I needed to drink coffee through the whole thing. Not a big problem, since I drink a lot of coffee anyway but my cup warmer is not next to my bed so the coffee kept getting cold. That part was annoying.
Other than that, I really enjoyed it. Loved the ending. Happily ever after except…. I love that.
Darn it. There are no dragons in Here Be Dragons. That ended up being ok but for a few moments, I was disappointed. And now that I think about it again, I think a book about Kings Richard and John and Llewelyn the Great that had dragons in it would have been pretty cool. But no, no dragons.
Historical fiction, really long Welsh/English/Norman/French historical fiction. Surprisingly interesting except when it was really slow and dull – luckily that slow dull stuff was easily skimmed so once I got past the first 50 pages, it was pretty smooth sailing. I even stayed up until midnight a couple of nights ago because I couldn’t put the book down.