The Book Search

Hoo boy, did it feel like a long slog to get to winter break.  In their wisdom, our district decided our kids should go to school until December 22 and we should have December 23 as a teacher workday.  It's so much fun to have special holiday events, concerts, tree lightings, parties, but wow, the level of excitement and anticipation (which has been building since OCTOBER) was pretty intense.  I was relieved to see at a local retail outlet that we have Valentine's day to look forward to, so thank goodness we have something to keep the crazy level high. But so now, we are back home after a wonderful visit with family and we have some time to relax and finish up projects and READ.  YAY!!!  I told the kids that my goal was to read a book a day all winter break, and frankly, I'm failing at that so far, but I'm hoping to catch up a bit now.  I did get to read a couple of brand new picture books on the plane and they are just terrific.  The first one is ca...

I'm challenging my students to read a book a day during our summer vacation, which started yesterday.  I'm off to a good start, thanks to Netgalley! Today I got to read "Gertie's Leap to Greatness" by Kate Beasley.  Kate's sister, Cassie, wrote one of my favorite books from last summer, Circus Mirandus, and Kate's story is just as good.  It's about Gertie Reece Foy who lives with her great aunt Rae.  Gertie's dad works on an oil rig so he's gone a lot.  Aunt Rae also takes care of a little girl named Audrey who is kind of like an annoying little sister.  Gertie's mom left the family when Gertie was very small and although she lives fairly close by, Gertie doesn't know her.  Gertie is very excited about the new year in fifth grade until a new girl shows up and then Gertie decides to be the best fifth grader ever.  Gertie is such an interesting character with such strong feelings and emotions.   She's more thoughtful than Clementine...

Today was my first day back to school.  I always forget how much stamina it takes to get through a day at school, so this afternoon, I was totally ready for a nap.  Thank goodness my friend, Pam called and teased me into going to the beach.  It was far more refreshing than a nap and I'll probably sleep a lot better! I've been reading a LOT this summer (and when I count how many books I've read, I'm really surprised!  72!  Holy cow!  Did I do anything else?).  I found a couple that I think will be awesome for the start of the year. For the littlest kids, I just read one called "F is for Feelings" by Goldie Millar.  It's an ABC book about a variety of feelings, both positive and negative.  What's really great about this one, is that the sentences are short and both name the feeling and give a situation or describe the feeling.  On top of that, there is beautiful artwork that shows not only the facial expression, but the body language a...

So I've been on kind of kick lately, for no apparently reason, reading books set in England.  One of my friends recommended one of them to me saying it was kind of a pain to read because the author uses so many English slang words, "Why can't she just write in English?", which is pretty hilarious.  But if you want to feel like you're away, it is sort of like speaking another language and yet it isn't! The one I just finished is called "Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith.  Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling who is a bit more famous for another series she wrote, also set in England, called Harry Potter.  Cuckoo's Calling could not be further from Harry Potter but I really liked it.  The main character is a private detective named Cormoran Strike.  He is an Afghan war veteran and is currently breaking up with his long time girlfriend.  He comes from a complicated family (rock star dad, groupie mom, many assorted half brothers...

Oh boy, do I love historical fiction.  I seem to have picked up several this week and all of them about the 1960s.  I read Countdown by Deborah Wiles two years ago and absolutely loved it.  If you haven't read it, it's a chapter book about a girl who is living near a military base in 1961.  Her dad is a military commander and the level of tension because of the political situation is extremely high.  Add to that a crazy uncle (post traumatic stress syndrome, most likely) who is digging bomb shelters, a big sister who is trying to find her way, and boys... it's a complicated story.  What I really like about it is the pictures, and there are a lot of them.  The pictures use graphic images and words from that time period to help you really feel what's going on.  I loved it!  Well, Deborah Wiles has a new book out called "Revolution" and it's also about the 1960s but this one is about the Civil Rights movement and specifically about a community i...

Of course it is a cliche to talk about the power of love, but it's sort of surprising how it comes up as a unifying theme in literature. I read a couple of books this week that made me think about how powerful love is. The first one was called "Iron Hearted Violet" by Kelly Barnhill.  It's about a princess named Violet who is not at all beautiful.  The storyteller describes how in all the stories, the princess is ALWAYS beautiful.  Since Violet is not beautiful (but IS the only daughter of the king and the queen) she starts to question if she REALLY is a princess.  Exciting and bad things happen and Violet figures out who she really wants to be, all based on the power of love.. the love of her father and mother, the love of her people she serves, the love of her friends.  It's a really great story.   It has some interesting artwork... it's almost anime, which I found a bit distracting.  It didn't seem to match the story to me... the story is sort ...

The books I've been reading this week seem to all have a theme of strong girls! My FAVORITE new one is called "Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy" by Karen Foxlee. It's is a wonderful fairy tale that is a very amazing mix of both fairy tale and realistic fiction. Ophelia is a girl who's mom died recently. Her dad is a museum curator and he's currently working on an exhibit of swords. Ophelia's sister is older and beautiful and kind of mad since their mom died. Ophelia is left to her own devices and ends up wandering around the museum. She takes a funny turn and finds a boy who is locked in a room. The boy explains to her that he has been there for 300 years, a prisoner of the Snow Queen and that she should help him and save the world. Ophelia is a person who believes in science and reality so she really doesn't think this is really possible, but she keeps going back to see him and the risks get bigger and bigger. It's very exciting, has very i...

I really love reading dystopian future books. I loved the Hunger Games and Divergent, which were both made into movies. But I find that I don't really like the movies as much as I like the books. The pictures in my head are scary enough... I don't need ones on a big screen to scare me more! I just finished one that I had never heard of, but was available for the Kindle from my local public library (always a good thing, free books). It was called SYLO by D. J. MacHale. It's the story of a boy named Tucker who lives on an island off the coast of Maine. He and his parents moved there 5 years ago from the mainland because his dad was downsized from a corporate job. Tucker believes that you shouldn't really work too hard because in his experience, hard word doesn't really pay off. He also feels like he doesn't really fit in because most of the families on the island have been there for generations and he moved there only 5 years ago. A series of really stra...

One of the "it" books this year for middle grades is called "Rump" by Leisl Shurtliff. It's a chapter book with the back story of Rumplestiltskin, how this little guy learns to spin straw into gold and why he wants a baby (it's not as creepy as you think). It's a great story filled with interesting characters and great writing and good lessons about believing what "everyone says", the power of our choices, and what is destiny. I really liked it. I thought it would be great to pair with Paul Zelinsky's version Rumplestiltskin (and there is a Reading Rainbow episode based around it!). It would also be great to compare with a story like The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by John Scieszcka and any other version of the Three Little Pigs or if you wanted to go bigger, compare it to the Wizard of Oz and Wicked. Here's book trailer about it. I really love fairy tales and there are some great ones out there that you might never he...

Today I went to the public library in our community and they are amazing! Today was the first day that many of the summer camps started and they were ROCKING it. They had at least three groups of kids doing lessons, getting books, reading, working on the computers, WOW! I was impressed! Thank goodness our community supports reading in this way! I was looking for books on some lists I've been looking at and although  I couldn't find any of the books that I was looking for (MAN!!),I did find several really great ones that I hadn't read before. I read two by Mo Willems, who you know is a big favorite of mine. I got to read "Listen to my trumpet" which is hilarious. Piggie has a new trumpet and she wants Gerald the Elephant to listen to her. She is making loud noises and Gerald tries hard to be positive. It has a really great ending. I also read "Time to say please" which we don't have at our media center, but I think we really need to get it...

Yesterday, I looked at one of my favorite websites for finding kids books, The Non-Fiction Detectives. Louise and Cathy work really hard at reviewing great non fiction books for kids and they do an AWESOME job. Click here if you want to check out their blog. So I was looking for some of the books they suggested. Of course, it's never that easy to just go to the bookstore and find the exact 12 books you were looking for (they only had a few of the ones I wanted) and there were several that caught my eye that I didn't even know I should be looking for so here are the best ones I saw today. The first one was "Eye to Eye", by Steve Jenkins. Steve Jenkins is a great author. He wrote another book that I really liked called "What do you do with a tail like this?" "Eye to eye" is a similar kind of book that focuses just on animals eyes. You can find out a lot about different kinds of eyes and how eyes have evolved. The pictures are really beautiful too. ...

Today I went to the new Boca Raton library.  It is a beautiful facility and they have a great selection of books.  It was a pleasure to go and do some reading there.  I got to read some biographies today and they had some I hadn't read before.  My favorite one was called "Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable life of Bass Reeves" by Vaunda Michaux Nelson.  It's about a law man named Bass Reeves who started his life as a slave but ended up a famous sheriff.  It was a great story with lots of interesting details about Bass (who could shoot straight with both hands and was pretty tricky about arresting bad guys).  Here's a book trailer about it. The second one I read was "To Dare Mighty Things: The Life of Theodore Roosevelt" by Doreen Rappaport.  I love the way Doreen Rappaport writes biographies.  She weaves together a story of the person's life, along with quotes from their own writing or spoken words in that is visually pleasing as well as ...

So summer vacation has officially started and I've already been to the beach twice.  I also seem to have found the two sea lice that were at our beach (if you don't know what sea lice are, imagine small beasts that go to the places your bathing suit touches and leave an itchy red welt-if you have chiggers where you live, imagine getting them in the ocean).  Thankfully, there were only two and I have a great remedy for them (it's a gel called Sting Stop) so it's all good. And speaking of all good, Pete and I are settling into the summer vacation thing.  I checked the shelves of our school library before I left and I wanted to know why some of books are never getting checked out.  So I brought a few home and that's the beginning of my reading list.  Today I'm reading The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman.  I read the Chaos Trilogy by Patrick Carman a couple of years ago and really loved it.  This one is sort of slow at the beginning but I'm abou...

So summer vacation has officially started, YAY!  And I finished my first book today!  It's called An Abundance of Katherines by John Green.  John Green also wrote the much more famous The Fault in our Stars  which is coming out as a movie soon.  He has such a great voice as an author.  His characters are so interesting.  In An Abundance of Katherines , the main character, Colin, is a child prodigy, who is worried that his giftedness is fading.  When his girlfriend, Katherine, breaks up with him, he falls into such a funk that his best (and only) friend, Hassan, demands that they take a road trip.  It turns out that Colin has only ever dated Katherines and as he struggles to make sense of this latest break up, he turns to math to help him predict how all relationships will progress.  Along the way, he and Hassan end up in Gutshot, TN and make some new friends.  It's a really fun book to read, but it has quite a bit of (what mig...

Are you up for a challenge? I am! I’m challenging myself to read a book a day AGAIN this summer. It’s been a lot of fun in the past and I hope you’ll join me! Here’s how it works: Step 1: Read a book every day. It can be any kind of book, picture book, novel, non-fiction, whatever works for you. It can also be an average. I like reading novels but I KNOW I’m not going to be able to read a novel every day (there are only so many hours in a day and there’s other stuff to do besides read!). So I can also picture that I’m going to spend at least one afternoon at the local library and probably at least one bookstore reading picture books. So if I read three books in one day, I can take two or more days to read my chapter books. Step 2: Share what you’re reading with someone else. I’m going to be writing here on the blog about what I’m reading and I’m bringing my friend, Pete the Cat, along for company. You can make a list, write a book, make a video, post it on facebook, you decide! Step...