Once again, Sassymonkey recommended a great book – one that she can’t get at her library, even though she’s Canadian and it’s a book filled with Canadian girls’ voices. I really liked the pieces they selected for the book – nice well-rounded selections. Not all miserable. Not all happy. Just right.
Buy this one for your teen daughter (unless she’s 14 and swears she hates poetry, then just buy it and leave it lying around – she might just read a wee bit if you aren’t watching.)
I finally finished The Last Olympian. That took for freaking ever. Crazy since I really like Percy Jackson and his friends (and family.) Can I just say, I really liked the end? I did! I liked the end of this book and the end of this particular series. Now onto Riordan’s new series… I’ve heard it’s better than Percy Jackson… I find that hard to believe.
The beautiful new Glenview Public Library is nearing completion. We will be closed Sunday, September 5 through Friday, October 8 while we move. During this period, neighboring libraries will welcome Glenview Library patrons. Join us for an opening celebration Saturday, October 9, 1-5 pm.
I won’t even be here for the grand opening – I’ll be in San Francisco for BlogHer Food.
Hyper.Ventil.Ating.
I’m hyperventilating – for real Read More »
Once again, I have to give Sassymonkey credit for recommending a GREAT book. Sisters Red was AWESOME! Retelling a fairy tale is tough but Jackson Pearce did a beautiful job with Rosie, Scarlett, their woodsman and their wolves. Brilliant work. Brilliant storytelling. I’ve always been a fan of Little Red Riding Hood – but forget that, just tell your kids the story of Rosie & Scarlett instead.
How the heck did I miss M is for Magic? I mean I know I’m not the biggest Gaiman fan in the world (I like him but I don’t go crazy or anything) but I do tend to read new releases by “big” children’s fiction and YA fiction authors pretty quickly. Still, I missed it and was glad I happened to see it on the YA shelf the other day. Great short stories. I did indeed laugh out loud several times. And I learned what a “gonk” is, so that was cool, too. That’s what I like about Gaiman, I always learn something new while being entertained.
I wasn’t going to read My Name is Mary Sutter. TW said it was really good but still… my TBR list is long… and I hadn’t really heard anything about the book. But, when I realized I couldn’t extend the checkout period because the book has holds, I thought maybe it was something I should really read – it’s very rare that I can’t extend a checkout period at my library due to holds on a book. So, I started reading it… and could not put it down. I read until after midnight last night and if it had been a Friday or Saturday, I’d have just read it straight through.
I wasn’t thrilled with the Mary/Jenny/Thomas triangle – that felt a little too Little Women-like for me, but it ended up working out just fine. Lots of unhappy endings, which is as it should be about a novel set in the Civil War period. Poor Dorothea Dix gets the shaft in this story, but that works too.
My Name is Mary Sutter Read More »
So Need is about Faeries? And Were? Who knew? For some reason I thought it was just a regular old teen trouble novel. Silly me.
It wasn’t quite as good as Holly Black’s faeries but it was darn good. The dialogue was good. I like to be able to laugh while renegade faeries are trying to steal the faerie princess away from the evil faerie king who doesn’t really want the princess – just her mother.
I think I might have just given away the whole book. Oops. Read it anyway, it’s fun. I stayed up long after midnight to finish it last night.
Or maybe I’m just a wee bit prejudice since Zara is a Charleston girl.
It’s been a Holly Black weekend. I like those kinds of weekends.
I will admit to being nervous about White Cat. It isn’t about faeries. Even though I’ve read Black’s short stories, which weren’t all about faeries, I was still a little concerned that I might not like her non-faerie work as much – or enough. Wrong.
The curse work was really interesting. And as usual, her characters are fascinating – even the most minor of them.
Damn Stephenie Meyer. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner was good. Really good. I hate it when I don’t want to like something and then I do. I sure wish Eclipse had ended differently. I liked Bree. And Diego. And Fred.
If you’ve read the other Twilight books, you should read this one. You won’t be sorry.
I knocked out all of the shortlisted poetry books from the Cybils list last night:
African Acrostics
The Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry
The Monsterologist
Red Sings from Treetops
The Tree that Time Built
I enjoyed The Monsterologist quite a bit. Quick, amusing, great illustrations. African Acrostics was excellent, a nice way to expose kids to a different kind of poetry. The best thing about the Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry is it’s just another Bill Martin Jr book and they all kind of read the same to me. Red Sings from Treetops almost put me to sleep but I soldiered on to my favorite of the bunch…. The Tree that Time Built.
The Tree that Time Built comes with a CD, which I haven’t listened to yet – but I have high hopes for it. The book itself was more than I expected. Poems from great poets. (Langston Hughes, D.H. Lawrence, Mary Oliver, Christina Rossetti… I could go on, but you get the picture….) A brilliant mix of science, nature and poetry with excellent footnotes that are interesting and don’t feel like something I’d skip over because it’s just boring.
Cybils Children’s Poetry Read More »