links for 2008-11-12

Daily Dose /

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First Part Last

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

First Part Last was not the typical black city kids get pregnant story. Yes they’re black and they live in NYC but they’re not into drugs or alcohol, they’re not super poor, they’re smart kids who take classes like “Brit Lit”. And the 16 year old father raises the baby… but it doesn’t happen the way you’d expect.

** gotta close comments, the spammers won this round.**

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Keesha’s House

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

I was nervous about Keesha’s House. It’s a tiny little book – poetry. Ugh. The Printz poetry selections have not been bad but they haven’t been great. This one… great. One of the best Printz Award books.

These are amazing stories and I’d love Frost to write a book featuring each one of them. An entire series about the kids in (and around) Keesha’s House. Or maybe Joe’s story, that would be good too.

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The Nymphos of Rocky Flats

2008, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

aye yi yi just typing the title of this book leads me to worry about all of the porn spam I’m going to get. Don’t be surprised if you stumble in here and find comments closed on this post…

It was good but maybe not as good as the third book in the series, the Undead Kama Sutra. Once again, there were a lot of characters – I’d hoped that we would get a bit more background on some of the ones who appear in the third book, but we didn’t – we just got the dirt on Odin (which was helpful!) And we got a tiny glimpse of Carmen.

What was confusing to me was Felix’s feelings about “feeding” in this book – they didn’t gel with his behavior in book three. It took a long time to get all of that resolved and explained but that’s the price you pay for reading books in a series out of order.

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links for 2008-11-07

Daily Dose /
  • On Taking My Husband's Name | BlogHer
    I don't remember questioning whether or not I would take my husband's last name when we got married. I didn't question it as I didn't question whether or not I would go to college — it was just what you did. And I think I also romanticized the idea of sharing a name with my husband, like that act alone would somehow make us closer than living together and sharing our lives would.
    (tags: marriage feminism patriarchy)
  • Tutorial: Using StumbleUpon | BlogHer
    Remember way back in 1994 and 1995 when you actually surfed the 'net? You could start out at one page and end up in a completely different spot and nothing was actually related. You were just surfing and following along. These days I sometimes find I miss that randomness. Thanks to Google Reader I check the same sites every day. There are days, though, when I want something fresh and new. Something I haven't seen before. Those are the days I Stumble.
    (tags: stumble stumbleupon socialbookmarking melanienelson blogher chilihead)

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Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

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

I really really liked the characters in Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. I did not want the book to end the way it did.

I wanted them to live in Mrs Cobbs house.
I wanted them to head off to the territories.
I wanted them to start a great baseball team, the way baseball ought to be played.
I wanted them to hang out with some more whales, but not THAT way.

I wanted a lot of things to happen in this book – but most of those didn’t happen. Still… great book. Probably greater because those things didn’t happen.

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