Children’s Literature

Black Juice

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, short stories, Young Adult /

On Tuesday, Prince J said several times — “No more short stories, YAY!” or ” Thank goodness we are finished with short stories!” The boy is not a fan of short stories and I can understand that. Some short stories for kids and teens really really stink. But, some are fantastic.

That sums up how I felt about Black Juice. I loved some of the stories, others I wanted to just sleep through.

The elephants – loved.
Wooden bride – loved.
Yowlinins – loved.
The tar pits – fascinated but not sure I loved it. I’d like to read the book, she should write the short story into a book.

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Surrender

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Don't Read This, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

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.

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Looking for Alaska

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

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.

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American Born Chinese

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Printz Award Challenge /

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?

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The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Pox Party

2 Comments / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

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.

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The Earth, My Butt, and other Big Round Things

2 Comments / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

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.

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Dancing with Elvis

3 Comments / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Women, Young Adult /

We bought Dancing with Elvis ages ago, maybe years ago, at the Gainesville FOLS. (sniff, I miss the Gainesville FOLS. It’s coming again. Soon. In October. sniff. ) TW read it ages ago, maybe years ago, and I never did.

Turns out, it’s a YA book and if I had known that, I might have read it earlier. I thought it was just some fluffy southern chick lit and I am pretty anti-Elvis. (don’t hate me, oh go ahead, hate me – I don’t care.)

It’s a great YA book, only a wee bit of Elvis and an awful lot of good stuff about race and family relationships and, well, just go read it.

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John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth, a Photographic Biography

2 Comments / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Non-Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

So, the last book I read in Gainesville from the very excellent Gainesville library was John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth, a Photographic Biography and to tell you the truth, I didn’t quite finish it before we left town. I had two chapters to go. I might someday grab it from the shelf of a bookstore and finish the last two chapters, but probably not.

It was “OK” but I couldn’t figure out why it was even on the Printz award list. There wasn’t anything outstanding about it – it was just a kids biography of Lennon. Shrug. The photos were nice. The tidbits about Lennon’s childhood and how it all started was sort of interesting. Maybe if I was more of a Beatles fan…?

In other challenge notes, I’m reading Quatrocentro from my “from the stacks” challenge but I feel like maybe I’ve already read it. I’ll know for sure tonight, I think.

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The House of the Scorpion

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

I didn’t think I was going to enjoy The House of the Scorpion very much. We listened to it on audio and that first chapter was a little dry and the voice of the reader wasn’t very compelling. But, I got hooked and really enjoyed it.

What’s also interesting is Liz started listening to it on disk 8, in the car on the way to Lakewood on Friday and when we got in the car this morning to come home she asked if we could turn it back on. I’m sorry she missed the first 7 disks, but maybe she’ll listen to them in her room this week and catch the beginning of the story of Matt, the clone of the drug lord… it really was an interesting story.

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