Peak - Roland Smith

I just listened to this newest Roland Smith novel on CD, and I really enjoyed it. It's the story of Peak Marcello (yes, his crazy mountain climbing parents really did name him Peak!) who gets into a little trouble with the law over some skyscraper climbing in New York City. Apparently some people don't think imitating Spiderman is such a great idea...

So Peak can either go to a juvenile detention facility or go to Thailand with his dad - who he hasn't heard from, incidentally, in about 7 years. Well, it's not really a choice, is it? So off he goes to "Thailand." Or, actually, to Mt. Everest. Turns out his dad's mountain climbing guiding business is in a little financial trouble, and he intends to have Peak climb Mt. Everest to give things a little jump-start. Peak, you see, would be the youngest person to ever climb Mt. Everest if he makes it. A VERY big if. But a VERY big deal if he actually does make it.

At first I was thinking this was insane. Well, actually I still think it was insane, but I was thinking that it would be impossible for such a young person to climb Mt. Everest and survive. Many grown-ups don't make it. How could a kid do it? Turns out, a very few kids HAVE done it, so I was wrong. Knowing that, I was better able to accept the story, and I thought it was really interesting.

There were many suspenseful moments in this novel for sure, and I think kids are really going to like it. It's been chosen as an Oregon Battle of the Books book for next year, and I'm very excited to announce that we will be hosting Roland Smith as a guest author at our school next February as well. We have several copies of this book, so come on down and check it out!

Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key out tomorrow

Well, I don't know about you, but I'll definitely be going to Powell's tomorrow to pick up Sarah's new novel, Lock and Key. In the meantime, you can ready an interview with here from when she "chatted" with the Readergirlz.

You can click the title of this post or you can paste this link into your browser!

http://www.mitaliblog.com/2008/03/sarah-dessen-chats-with-readergirlz.html

Also, today's the last day to enter Sarah's contest, so don't miss out. See my post from a few days ago on that!

As Sarah always says, Have a great day, everyone!

Teen Reads Contest

5 Lucky winners will win a totebag filled with five free books from TEENREADS.COM! One of them is signed by Meg Cabot!! This contest is running through April 23rd. Age 13 years and older only.

Click on the title of this entry to go to the site, or copy and paste this URL
http://www.teenreads.com/features/grab_bag/contest.asp

Woohoo!

Lionboy Trivia FINAL Question

Posting date: 4/18
Due Date:4/21/08

Question: What special gift from his mother, to be used only in an emergency, does Charlie share with the lions?


Thanks for playing Lionboy trivia! We hope you enjoyed the book and our game!

Lionboy Trivia Question #16

Posting date: 4/17
Due Date:4/19

Question: The Chief Executive claims he wants to find the cure for asthma. Why doesn’t Magdalen believe him?

Stephenie Meyer coming to PORTLAND!!

Tuesday, May 20
Powell's Books presents …guest speaker STEPHENIE MEYER author of the bestselling TWILIGHT series, currently being filmed in Portland!
Doors at 6 p.m.; $26 advance tickets;
price includes a copy of her new novel The Host (not part of the Twilight series)



Tickets available at Ticketmaster, Bagdad & Crystal box offices.
All ages welcome!

Lionboy Trivia Question #15

Posting date: 4/16/08
Due Date: 4/18/08

Question: When the huge snake finally sheds its skin, what’s underneath?

Readergirlz Teen Book Drop April 17th!!!

So somehow I missed this little tidbit, but there's a cool thing going on in jsut a few days from now called Operation Teen Book Drop. Here are the details:

YALSA and readergirlz are partners in Operation Teen Book Drop (TBD). To celebrate April 17, 2008, Support Teen Literature Day, we've organized a massive, coordinated release of 10,000 publisher-donated YA books into the top pediatric hospitals across the country!

We invite you to celebrate Support Teen Lit Day with us. How? Donate one of your own books to your community and join our amazing online book bash: The TBD Post-Op Party.

What To Do Now?

- Download and print the appropriate readergirlz/YALSA/TBD bookplate. Paste it into the book you plan to donate. (http://www.readergirlz.com/tbd.html)

- Leave one copy of your novel, with a TBD bookplate pasted inside, in a teen gathering spot in your community. Place it where the book will be found, taken, and read. (i.e. a coffee shop, the park, your school, a bus stop.) Imagine the fun someone will have when they find your donation! This is the same day all 10,000 publisher-donated books will be dropped in pediatric hospitals across the country, and it is the same day authors and readergirlz worldwide will release their own books into their communities just as you have.

If you're allowed to go on MySpace, here's anotehr opportunity for you. We invite all readergirlz and authors to join our online two-hour book party hosted at the readergirlz MySpace group forum (http://groups.myspace.com/readergirlz), on April 17th (Support Teen Literature Day), from 6-8pm Pacific/9-11pm Eastern. The chat will be in a thread titled "TBD Post Op Party." The readergirlz divas will be giving away books and prizes, and chatting with teens and authors from around the world. We've invited so many authors and girlz you just never know who you might end up chatting with!

Operation TBD has special meaning to the readergirlz divas. After researching pediatric oncology wards for her novel GIRL OVERBOARD, Justina Chen Headley spent a year purchasing autographed YA novels to donate to her local Children's Hospital, specifically because most hospitals do not have comfort objects for teens. Lorie Ann Grover (ON POINTE) and Dia Calhoun (AVIELLE OF RHIA) personally know the healing power of stories during hospital stays, since they both live with chronic illness. Mitali Perkins (WHITE HOUSE RULES) has recently joined the team and is eager to support a readergirlz/YALSA special project.

We all know that books give hope. Together, let's show our love of teen lit and ROCK THE DROP.

Read, reflect, and reach out!

Sarah Dessen contest

HURRY! Click the title of this entry to get the details on Sarah Dessen's first ever contest. It ends April 21st, so no time to waste!

More details on her blog

http://dessennews.blogspot.com

Lionboy Trivia Question #14

Posting date: 4/15/08
Due Date:4/17/08

Question: Find a simile on page 156 or 163.

Lionboy Trivia Question #13

Posting date: 4/10/08
Due Date:4/12/08

Question: Answer all three parts (a)How far is it from Le Havre to Paris? (b)How many locks must be passed through? (c)How long will the boat journey take?

Thrill Ride - Rachel Hawthorne

I don't even know where I heard about this book, maybe from Mrs. Yingling's website out in Ohio, but anyway, I picked it up at the public library and I zipped right through it. It was an easy read, good for spring break which is when I read it. The main character in this book, Megan, is spending her summer working at a theme park far away from home. She's left her boyfriend behind, and he's not too happy about it. Neither is she, but she feels like going away to work is the only way she'll escape her mother and sister's fighting over her sister's upcoming wedding. THAT is driving her mad, so she takes the job.

But what happens when she goes to the theme park? She immediately meets a dreamy older boy who she thinks at first is dating her roomie. Turns out he's her brother, actually, but that almost makes it worse. He was sort of safe when he was off limits, but now that he's available, but she's not, Megan is a little nervous. She doesn't WANT to like him, she wants to be faithful to her boyfriend back home, but this long distance romance business is tricky...

A fun little teen romance that I'd recommend to fans of teen romance like Meg Cabot fans.

StoryTubes 2008 National Contest

6th graders - you have a great opportunity here! Check out this cool contest for kids in grades 1-6. Awesome prizes!!!

StoryTubes is here! From New York to California, kids in Grades 1-6 are talking up their favorite books. You can too!

Along with your parent or guardian, follow these simple steps:

1. Make a 2-minute video about your favorite book [please note: only one child and one book per video];
2. Upload the video to YouTube; and
3. Come to this StoryTubes website and send in the link to your uploaded YouTube video using the online Contest Entry Form.

Beginning April 1, your video becomes part of a national contest!

Voting mania will then begin and happen each week in May! At the end of each week, one lucky contestant will win $500 in books. Their sponsoring organization (school, library or designated organization for home-schooled youth) will receive $1,000 in books.

Four Video Categories:

Hair-Raising Tales
From or For the Heart
Of Heroes and Heroines
Facts, Fads and Phenoms

Tell the story about your favorite book today.

Click the title of this entry to find out more or copy and paste this link into your browser:
http://www.storytubes.info/

Lionboy Trivia Question #12

Posting date:4/9/08
Due Date:4/11/08

Question: Although Rafi hears the young lion’s roar as something terrifying, what does Charlie know about it??

Lionboy Trivia Quesiton #11

Posting date:4/7/08
Due Date:4/9/08

Question: What is Maccomo’s lion tamer whip made of?

Saving Fish From Drowning - Amy Tan

This was our book club book last time, and I enjoyed it, but I didn't like it as much as I've liked some of this author's previous works. It was an interesting premise - it was narrated by a dead woman who was supposed to be on the trip the other people in the book are on visiting Burma and China. Her perspectives on the action and people are pretty interesting. I didn't love the ending, but overall I thought it was a pretty good book.

Lionboy Trivia Question #10

Posting date:4/3/08
Due Date:Monday, 4/7/08

Question: How does Charlie amaze the crowd of circus people?

Lionboy Trivia Question #9

Posting date: 4/1/08
Due Date:4/3/08

Question: What’s a funambuliste and a trapezioriista volante?

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

Oh my goodness this is one of the best, best, best books I have read in a long while. I adored Princess Academy, and I think this one is even better. I can't believe its only awards are Best Book of the Year lists. Those are nothing to sneeze at, mind you, but still, no Newbery honor even? Of course I haven't read all of this year's honorees, so I suppose they could be better, but I'm highly doubting it. And oh, happy day, she didn't name this one something with "Princess" in the title, because this book will appeal to boys and girls. The main characters are girls, but they find themselves in a pretty ugly situation, being imprisoned in a tower for seven years and hounded by horrific Khasar. It's quite dramatic and suspenseful, and a totally terrific read. One of those books I'm sad I've read because now it's not out there for me to find anymore. It's amazing!

I've ordered it for the library, but in the meantime you can find it at Multnomah County Libraries.

Love, Meg by C. Leigh Purtill

Someone gave me a pre-publication copy of this book, and while it wasn't an all time favorite, it was a decent read. It has a lot of twists and turns along the way, particularly regarding Meg's SISTER, Lucie. Meg has always wanted a true family, but she and Lucie have traveled around a lot and are pretty much on their own. Until a surprising stranger comes along and tells Meg that it's not true. She really DOES have family back on the East Coast. Meg ditches Lucie and heads back. But sometimes what you wish for really doesn't come true, as nice as it would be, and Meg has to face the music.

This story is really Meg's journey of self discovery, and for that reason I think it will appeal to adolescent girl readers.

Spain or Shine - Michelle Jellen

This is one of a series of books called S.A.S.S.: Students Across The Seven Seas. Teen girls going to study abroad and learn what they can about other cultures and countries. this book was a nice easy read that had some interesting cultural references, but I thought that could have been a little stronger. There is quite a lot of Spanish in this one - makes sense considering she went to SPAIN - but it's always clear form the context or through translation what is being said. I was disappointed that the author chose to put Elena with a family in Spain who all speaks English, and they nearly always speak English with Elena instead of making her practice her Spanish. No wonder she wasn't dreaming in Spanish sooner! One thing I really liked about this book was Elena's self discovery about her ability as a writer, and how she gained a lot of self confidence.

This is what I call a good "beach" book: lite chick-lit for fans of the genre.

Available at Multnomah County Libraries.they

Lionboy Trivia Question #8

Posting date:
Due Date:

Question: According to the Circe diagram, where is the lioncabin?

Lionboy Trivia Question #7

Posting date: Wed., 3/19
Due Date: Friday, 3/21

Question: How did Charlie's genetic modification allowing him to speak cat happen?

Lionboy Trivia Question #6

Posting date: March 17, 2008
Due Date: March 19th

Question: What’s the name of the circus ship and how is it pronounced?

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

This book won the National Book Award and the 2008 American Indian Youth Literature Award (This new literary award was created as a way to identify and honor the very best writing and illustrations by and about American Indians. Books selected to receive the award present Native Americans in the fullness of their humanity in the present and past contexts.), and it is really well done. It's funny and serious at the same time, somewhat depressing but also hopeful. The story is set on the Spokane Indian reservation, and the main character is goofy looking Arnold Spirit who really doesn't love life on the rez, but doesn't know of any other choices, either. And then someone tells him he really ought to try school at the nearby white kids' school in Rearden, and Arnold decides to give do it.

Arnold's choices provide him with some opportunities he would not otherwise have had, but the cost is high. Arnold is basically shunned by most people on the reservation because he's seen as a traitor, and he's shunned by most of the kids at school because he's an outsider. Eventually he finds his way in with a few kids, including a beautiful girl, a star athlete, and a super brainy student. These people, basketball, and his cartooning (which illustrates many of the stories and events of the novel) help him survive high school, the only chance he really has of a positive future.

This novel is a pretty in-your-face look at life on an Indian reservation and inside the head of a teenage boy, and I really liked how it doesn't gloss over some of the difficulties faced by Native Americans but addresses the issues forthrightly, helping to enlighten people outside that culture about the problems they face.

I recommend this book for 8th grade and up.

Before I Die by Jenny Downham

This was an incredibly well written book, but oh, so hard to get through. The title should have been enough to let me know what I was in for, but the depth of this novel was incredible and SO intense. Horn Book, a review journal, said this about the novel, "Downham's impressive first novel is a searingly intimate portrait of a sixteen-year-old facing imminent death" and that is right on. It's so intimate that the pain, for me at least, became real.

Tessa, a 16 year old girl with leukemia, decides that she wants to LIVE with whatever time she's got left, and begins making a list of the ten things she really wants to do before she dies. Most of them are pretty dramatic and not necessarily healthy choices, but she figures she's got nothing to lose, and were I sixteen and dying, I guess I might make some of the same choices. So most of the book is about what crazy thing she's going to try next. But a lot of the book deals with the relationships she has with the people around her, like her parents (divorced), her little brother, her best friend, and her neighbor/boyfriend, Adam. All of these people, like Tessa, are trying to cope with her illness and the idea of losing her, and they all succeed and fail to different degrees at different times in the story.

I lost one of my best friends to cancer, and although she was older, this story reminded me of so many moments during her illness. Things she went through, things I went through, things I saw happen with her family - it was all there in this book. I think Jenny Downham must have lived through the death of someone she loved to have written about it so clearly, so respectfully, so deeply. I could barely breathe by the end.

An incredibly powerful read for mature older readers, this book is available at Multnomah County Libraries.

Lionboy Trivia Question #5

Posting date: 3/13/
Due Date: Monday, 3/17

Question: Who is the composer of “Calliope Music” and what tempo should it be played in?

Lionboy Trivia Question #4

Posting date: March 11
Due Date: Thursday, March 13 by the end of the day.

Question: According to Charlie’s father, what do Africans not eat?

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

Well, I have to admit I didn't actually read this one, I just skimmed it. It really wasn't my thing. It's a little too woo-woo for me. It had some good ideas, but there was too much "stuff" getting in my way to make me want to keep reading, so I just skimmed and sent it back to the public library. Not really like me, I know, but I'm trying not to waste any time in my reading life. there are great books out the waiting for me--- I don't want to spend time on the ones that just aren't for me.

Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet by Kashmira Sheth.

Publish Post


For some reason I'm fascinated with India, so the hands decorated with Mendhi on this book's cover really caught my eye; plus any book with the colors pink and orange on the cover is bound to catch my attention, as you know. This book is set in modern day India and revolves around a family with traditional ideas about arranged marriages. The protagonist, Jeeta, the third daughter in the family, does not agree with the idea of arranged marriages. She wants to be able to have some say in who she marries.

Jeeta goes about trying to have some independence by sneaking around, and this is not really a good way to try and make change. Jeeta knows this, but also feels powerless within her family. Then a crisis erupts with her sister in America, and Jeeta has to take action, even though she knows it has the potential to throw her whole family into chaos. In the end, she saves her sister, and by doing so, convinces her family that perhaps she doesn't need to get married so soon and that maybe even giving her a little say in the situation might not be all bad.

I did enjoy this book, but it wasn't an all time favorite. I'd recommend it to readers with an interest in India and/or romance (not over the top romance, though). Available at Multnomah County Public Libraries.

Lionboy Trivia Question #3

Posting date: March 8th
Due Date: Tuesday, March 11th at the end of the day - Come to the library and turn in your answer for a chance to win free pizza!

Question: Why were cars banned by the Empire?

Lionboy Trivia Question #2

Remember to fill out a trivia ticket with the answer including page number and turn it in to the library to get entered in the pizza drawing.

Posting date: 3/6
Due Date: Monday, 3/10 by the end of the day

Question: What might Charlie have to “arx a cat” for?

Lionboy Trivia Day 1

How to enter the Trivia Contest:

Get on this blog and read the question for the day. Use a trivia answer sheet from your literacy teacher or come down to the library and write your answer on a trivia answer sheet. You must have the page number in addition to your answer. Turn in trivia answer to the library.

All correct entries will receive a ticket in a drawing for a lunch pizza party for the winner and three friends sponsored by Mrs. F-B. There will be two winners.

You have 48 hours from the time the entry is posted to answer that trivia question, so don’t wait around.

QUESTION NUMBER ONE:

Posting date: 3/3
Due Date: 3/5

What exact color bloodstopper lotion does Charlie’s mom ask for and why does she need it?

The Boyfriend List : (15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs, and Me, Ruby by E. Lockhart

This is a hilarious story with really incredible voice and strong character development. I really enjoyed it, although it did make me cringe in several parts remembering some of the heartbreak that IS high school. I got it on CD from the Multnomah County library and the reader was good. She didn't do all the voices like some I've heard, but she definitely sounded like a high school girl!

Ruby is the female protagonist who has gotten herself into some trouble over, you guessed it, a boy. Well, mostly one boy, but there's a whole list of others - literally. And the boy trouble, as you might imagine, develops into a whole lot of girlfriend problems as well. She might take a cue from Bella (Twilight fans, you'll know what I mean) and stick with vampires and werewolves. They're less trouble than boys...Sorry, guys.

One thing I really liked about this novel is how Ruby works through her problems with her therapist and really learns a lot about who she's been and who she wants to be. Because Ruby has some not so enviable qualities at the start. Behaviors she has to learn to curb if she's going to become a really good person. And Ruby is willing to be introspective. She wants to be a good person. It's not easy, though, and sympathetic readers will really feel for Ruby as she goes through these difficulties. The author really makes her into someone you care about.

I really did enjoy this book, but it has a few too many sexual references for me to feel comfortable with having it in the library at school, so I won't be buying it.

P.S. What's up with the E. Lockhart thing? Is the author's name Elephant and it's embarrassing or something? Just tell me your name, please.

Favorite books that are coming out as movies...

Here's the latest I've heard on when some of your favorite hot reads will be out on the big screen!

2/14/08: The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi, Holly Black

3/14/08: Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss

5/16/08: Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

10/08 - City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

11/21/08: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

12/08 - Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Sometime in '08: Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson

Sometime in '08: Cirque du Freak by Darran Shan

Sometime in '08: Eloise in Paris by Kay Thompson

1/09: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

2/6/09: Coraline by Neil Gaiman

11/6/09: Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl

11/09: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

A Great and Terrible Beauty has also been announced, but as of yet has
no release date.

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" lyrics

Find the lyrics to this great song by going to this website:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-lion-sleeps-tonight-lyrics-token.html

Then, come down to the library and perform one or more verses and get yourself a great prize (plus, of course, fame and glory...).

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Mrs. FB

Click Here for details on the Royalty Rules Reading Challenge

The Magic of Ink blog is doing a Royalty Rules Reading Challenge that runs from Feb. 1 - April 30th. Join the fun. Use the link above to go to their site!

Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller - Sarah Miller

If you haven't read a book about Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan before, I think this is a good book to read to learn about them. It's interesting and thought provoking. How does one learn, and what is it that makes things click?

I, however, read this hoping to find a different sort of story about Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan because this was not my first Helen Keller story. But while it was well done, I found it to be the same story I already knew with little additional information, so for me it was just an okay story.

It was interesting that it was told from the point of view of Annie, and I thought the author did a pretty good job of getting inside her head. I was a little disturbed, as a teacher, by her methods, but she had no training and was just trying the best she could, and, in the end, it worked and worked out...but I still wish she'd had some other strategies to use.

This book is available at the WOMS library, although I think you'll have to put it on hold because I'm pretty sure it's checked out.

Big Boned - Meg Cabot

This is the third in a funny light adult mystery series (a la Janet Evanovich) about the former pop rock star turned assistant dorm director turned detective, Heather Wells. I found out right after I read this that Meg Cabot herself used to be a dorm director of some sort herself, so perhaps that was her inspiration. Hopefully the dorm she worked in was slightly less deadly, however. In each installment of this series someone has died, mysteriously of course, in the dorm, and Heather has been at the center of figuring it all out. The mysteries in this series are not very deep or complex, but I enjoy them. Meg Cabot is one write who has the ability to write across the ages, and it's pretty impressive that she does it well consistently.

Coraline movie sneak preview

Nail Gaiman's book Coraline is going to be a movie sometime soon, and in 3D no less. I think it could be pretty creepy cuz that book is pretty creepy. But if you'd like to see a short preview, check out this link to a YouTube video (only if your parents say it's ok for you to go to YouTube). No promises on how long it will be live, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o63NrCIiYEw


And if you haven't read the book yet, I'd highly recommend it. Even kids who don't like to read very much usually enjoy this one!


Enjoy!

Mississippi Jack - L.A. Meyer

Fans of the Bloody Jack series will love this new one, just like you've loved all the other ones, although I have to say I personally am ready for a few things to change. Let me know what you think they might be if you read this one.

In this story Jacky Faber, is back as a ship's captain, albeit a smaller ship and one she got sort of underhandedly like another time I can think of, but this time instead of frolicking on the roiling seas, she's floating down the Mississippi River.

(As an aside - how many of you remember the great feeling of accomplishment you got when you learned to spell "Mississippi"?)

As usual, Jacky has all kinds of wild times on the water. There's excitement and danger and dastardly deeds along with hilarity and kindness and a few stolen kisses. Plus, as with every pirate novel, there's a little swearing, so if your parents would rather you not read books with any swearing in them, this is not the choice for you.

Arrrrrgh, mateys.

The Art of Detection - Laurie R. King

This author one of my favorite adult mystery writers, and in this new novel she actually sort of combines two of her series. One series she writes is about a smart female San Francisco police detective, and one series is about Sherlock Holmes in his later years. This book is a modern day mystery set in San Francisco with the female detective, and the person who's been murdered is a Sherlock Holmes fanatic (dare I say freak!?). This guy's whole first floor of his house has been re-created to look like Sherlock Holmes' house, and he belongs to a club of other Holmes aficionados who get together monthly for Holmes dinners. His job is, well I guess was, to buy and sell Holmes memorabilia for other collectors. And just before he dies he finds something he thinks might be very special. It's a manuscript that just might be an actual Holmes piece. If so, it's worth a LOT of money.

King includes the whole Holmes story , in a different font so as not to confuse the reader, in this novel, and it's very well done

I really enjoyed this mystery and would definitely recommend it.

This looks like fun

Lovers of mysteries, check out this site!

http://echoshawmystery.com/

This brand-new series for teens chronicles the adventures of Echo Shaw, a modern Nancy Drew who uses her love of riddles to solve some very puzzling mysteries. Fun, intelligent storytelling from author Amy Alexander.

Who is Echo Shaw?

Sixteen-year-old Echo Shaw lives in Denver, Colorado. She's like any other teenager, with a few exceptions: 1) Her dad's an Intelligence Research Specialist for the DEA, 2) Her new stepmom used to be a Vegas showgirl, and 3) She's just been roped into working as a counselor at a Canadian summer camp. Oh, and her life might be in danger...


Take a look!

Good Masters, Sweet Ladies - Schlitz

This is the Newbery winner for this year and what a delight to read! It is a very quick read, almost like a picture book even. Many people actually were discussing this book before the awards were given out as a possibility, but most people thought it had too many illustrations, so the committee wouldn't pick it. But they did, and I think it is a really great choice.

The story is a series of short vignettes written to be performed, actually, but certainly they don't need to be performed. Each little vignette takes one character from a fictional medieval town and tells a little piece of his or her story. The stories are interwoven a little bit, but can certainly stand alone. The author also intersperses lots of footnotes - sidenotes in this case, really - explaining medieval terms and roles, which I found to be very helpful. And she has four or five short sections that are non-fiction interwoven into the text as well. Plus there are the awesome illustrations done by Robert Byrd.

This book was written by a school librarian who had students who were really into their study of the Middle Ages. She wanted to write a play for them, but non one wanted a small part so this was what she came up with! SO much fun!

I've ordered it for the WOMS library, but in the meantime, it's available at Multnomah County Libraries. Happy reading!

Award Winners Announced :)

This is a long one, but it has all the awesome new award books listed - the awards were just given out on Monday! Happy Reading - I know I have a lot of new titles on my TO-READ list, that's for sure. :)

The following is a list of all ALA Youth Media Awards for 2008:

John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature.
“Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village,” written by Laura Amy Schlitz, is the 2008 Newbery Medal winner.

Three Newbery Honor Books were named:
“Elijah of Buxton,” by Christopher Paul Curtis
“The Wednesday Wars,” by Gary D. Schmidt
“Feathers,” by Jacqueline Woodson, published by Putnam.

Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children.
“The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” illustrated by Brian Selznick

Four Caldecott Honor Books were named:
“Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad,” illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine
“First the Egg,” illustrated and written by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
“The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain,” illustrated and written by Peter Sís
“Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” illustrated and written by Mo Willems

Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults.
“The White Darkness,” by Geraldine McCaughrean

Four Printz Honor Books were named:
“Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet,” by Elizabeth Knox
“One Whole and Perfect Day,” by Judith Clarke
“Repossessed,” by A. M. Jenkins
“Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath,” by Stephanie Hemphill

Coretta Scott King Book Award recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults.
“Elijah of Buxton,” written by Christopher Paul Curtis, is the King Author Book winner.

Two King Author Honor Books were selected:
“November Blues,” by Sharon M. Draper
“Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali,” written by Charles R. Smith Jr., illustrated by Bryan Collier

“Let it Shine,” illustrated and written by Ashley Bryan, is the King Illustrator Book winner.

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award;
“Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It,” written by Sundee T. Frazier
Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.
“Kami and the Yaks,” written by Andrea Stenn Stryer, illustrated by Bert Dodson wins the award for young children (age 0 to 10).
“Reaching for Sun,” by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer is the winner in the middle grades category (age 11-13).
“Hurt Go Happy,” written by Ginny Rorby is the winner in the teen category (age 13-18).

Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.

Orson Scott Card is the recipient of the 2008 Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring his outstanding lifetime contribution to writing for teens for his novels “Ender's Game” and “Ender's Shadow.”

The Pura Belpré Award honoring Latino authors and illustrators whose work best portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in children's books.
Yuyi Morales, illustrator of “Los Gatos Black on Halloween,” written by Marisa is the winner of the 2008 Pura Belpré Illustrator Award.
Margarita Engle, author of “The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano,” illustrated by Sean Qualls is the 2008 Pura Belpré Author Award recipient.


Three Pura Belpré Author Honor Books were named:
“Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life!” by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand
“Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale,” retold by Carmen Agra Deedy, illustrated by Michael
“Los Gatos Black on Halloween,” written by Marisa Montes, illustrated by Yuyi Morales and published by Holt.

Robert F. Sibert Medal for most distinguished informational book for children.
“The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain,” written and illustrated by Peter Sís, is the 2008 Sibert Award winner.

Two Sibert Honor Books were named:
“Lightship,” written and illustrated by Brian Floca
“Nic Bishop Spiders,” written and illustrated by Nic Bishop

Mildred L. Batchelder Award for the most outstanding children's book translated from a foreign language and subsequently published in the United States.
“Brave Story” is the winner of the 2008 Mildred L. Batchelder Award. Originally published in Japanese in 2003 as “Bureibu Sutori,” the book was written by Miyuki Miyabe and translated by Alexander O. Smith.

Two Batchelder Honor Books also were selected:
“The Cat: Or, How I Lost Eternity,” originally published in German as “Die Katze,” “Nicholas and the Gang,” originally published in French as “Le petit Nicolas et les copains.”

The first-ever Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production is Live Oak Media for “Jazz.”

Five Odyssey honor titles were named:
“Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy”
“Dooby Dooby Mo,”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”
“Skulduggery Pleasant”
“Treasure Island”

Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences
“American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China,” by Matthew Polly,
“Bad Monkeys,” by Matt Ruff
“Essex County Volume 1: Tales from the Farm,” by Jeff Lemire,
“Genghis: Birth of an Empire,” by Conn Iggulden
“The God of Animals,” by Aryn Kyle
“A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier,” by Ishmael Beah, “Mister Pip,” by Lloyd Jones
“The Name of the Wind,” by Patrick Rothfuss
“The Night Birds,” by Thomas Maltman
“The Spellman Files,” by Lisa Lutz

ALA awards being announced next week!

Wow, the ALA awards, the big ones like the Newbery, the Caldecott, the Printz, the Pura Belpré, and many more sort of snuck up on me this year. they're already being announced next week. I'm pretty excited about it, but I went trolling through all kinds of blogs tonight looking to see what people have predicted will win, and I've hardly read ANY of them. It's a little frightening. I mean, I'm supposed to be on the forefront of children's and YA lit, and I haven't even read the top candidates of the year? I haven't even HEARD of some of them. Yikes. Needless to say, my hold list at the public library got pretty huge tonight. 28 requests currently...

The good news is, many of the favorites I read about won't win either. The hubbub after the awards is actually usually a lot of fun to read, too. All these librarians and book people going, WHAT??? Who picked THAT book??? They should have picked THIS book!!!! It's pretty funny. Anyway, I'll post all the award books as soon as I hear what they are, and I'll be ordering them for our library, too, so you can be on the forefront of children's and YA lit even if your librarian is a little behind :)

I'm off to read something before I go to sleep. I've got a lot of things to get through...

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy - Ally Carter

The good news is, this is an awesome series. The bad news is, I came to it a little too early. I'm the kind of person who reads a LOT of books (in case you hadn't noticed) and when I find a great series I like to zoom through the whole lot of them. But that's a little tricky to do when the author HASN'T ACTUALLY WRITTEN THEM YET....

Anyway, this is the sequel to I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You, and both of these books are loads of fun. Cami, the main character, goes to spy school, which is pretty much like going to West Orient Middle School, minus all the top secret spy gadgets and wild situations, of course.

Cami and her friends have a lot of exciting adventures, particularly when the boys arrive this year...see it's an ALL GIRLS spy school Cami attends, and when the boys arrive, things change just a teensy bit.

Both stories in the series are hilarious and all around great reads for both boys and girls because while the main character is a girl, all the cool spy stuff will appeal to boys and girls. I highly recommend them and I can't wait for the third one to come out!

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac - Gabrielle Zevin

Sounds like it would be a pretty short book, doesn't it? Get it? MEMOIRS of someone with no memory? Quite an interesting pretense for a book, and one that I really enjoyed. Naomi, resident amensiac, takes a fall down the stairs of her school, and when she comes to she doesn't remember anything for about the past four years, including her boyfriend, her best friend, the fact that her parents are divorced, her very young baby sister....Things before then she remembers, but after that, nothing. I think that would be a pretty strange and disconcerting thing to have happen. It would seem like all the safety you sort of take for granted just in knowing who you are would be stripped away and that would be pretty hard to deal with.

Which is pretty much how it turns out. Naomi faces a lot of struggles in her re-engagement with life. Some things work out really well for her, and others not so great.

I found this book to be funny, surprising but also sometimes predictable, heartbreaking, and really thought provoking. Who would you become if you had it do all over again starting today?

I listened to this on my iPod and I really liked the reading of this novel. I got it at the Multnomah County Library.

Reading can be dangerous...

"I never read without making sure I am in a secure position. I have been like this ever since the age of seven when, sitting on a high wall and reading The Water Babies, I was so seduced by the descriptions of underwater life that I unconsciously relaxed my muscles. Instead of being held buoyant by the water that so vividly surrounded me in my mind, I plummeted to the ground and knocked myself out. I can still feel the scar under my fringe now. Reading can be dangerous."

The Thirteenth Tale
Diane Setterfield
P. 4

I just finished this novel which I LOVED. It is definitely a novel for lovers of reading, mainly grown-up ones. It's a beautifully written piece.

Spud - John Van de Ruit

This book was recommended to me by another library friend who I really respect, but I have to say, when I first started it, I was really struggling getting through it. I'm not sure if it was because the main character was an adolescent boy or if it was the writer's style, or what, but it was just a really slow start. I actually almost gave up on it, which I hardly ever do, but as I kept reading, I got the hang of it, and now I'm even thinking of reading the sequel...although I think it's only out in South Africa at this point, so that's going to be bit of a journey to get it. I'm willing, though, if I can just convince my husband.

On the back of the book a reviewer described it as the Catcher in the Rye of our time, but I think it's much more like A Separate Peace than Catcher. It's set in a boys' boarding school in South Africa and has a lot of references to things more prevalent in South African culture than in ours, but I don't think that will get in the way for most readers. It's another story about the power of friendship, and this is not a topic often deeply explored in boy books, so I really like that aspect of this book.

The book is written in diary form, so it's easy to read little bits at a time, or it's hard to stop reading because you don't have definite chapter ends, whichever way you look at it. You really get a good look inside the mind of an adolescent boy in this book because it's a diary. For me, that was a little TOO much at times, but it seemed pretty realistic.

I probably won't get this book for our library because I don't think many middle schoolers would be drawn to it, but I think it's a great book for high schoolers, particularly boys.

WOMS Giving Tree tags still available

There are still some needs that need to be filled for some of our students. If you're able to help, please take a look at the list of items we still need at the library homepage:

http://westorient.gresham.k12.or.us/~fitzpatrick/

Thank you, and happy holidays!

Extras - Scott Westerfeld

Special thanks to Lauren W. for loaning me her copy of the book so I could have a chance to read it because we haven't gotten it here yet. We will, though, never fear.

This is the EXTRA book in the series by Scott Westerfeld that was meant to be a trilogy, but fans clamored so loudly (or the publishers saw such a good chance to make a huge profit?) that he wrote a fourth book. It's set farther into the future and has a brand new character, Aya, which some fans will enjoy and others won't (aka Mrs. Van der Meer). Gaining social status is the big thing in this book, and people are so fickle you can basically be wildly popular one day and drop off the face of the planet the next. Aya is decidedly low in the popularity rankings, and she is determined to change that. The Sly-Girls clique is her road to fame.

In the process of "kicking" the story of the Sly Girls and their Mag-Lev flying, yep, lots of strange new words and gizmos in this book just like the other three, Aya discovers there may be more to life than just getting famous, but just in case there's not, she decides to go with the fame thing and turns the whole world upside down. Unfortunately, there are some other people (??) who aren't too happy with this choice of hers....

It's a suspenseful story with lots of action and excitement, even a visit from Tally Youngblood. If you liked the rest of the series, you should definitely read this, but I thought some of the language (sense-missing and the like) got a little annoying. For sure it's no Uglies.

Cures for Heartbreak - Margo Rabb

This was a box of kleenex type of book, but really well done. The novel centers around 9th grade girl Mia whose mother was diagnosed with cancer and died just twelve days later. (It's somewhat autobiographical, as the author had a similar experience with her own mother.) This is, of course, heartbreaking and world re-defining, and just as Mia, her sister and her father are beginning to find their way through this new landscape, Mia's father has a heart attack and has to undergo triple bypass surgery. You can imagine how frightening this must be - to have just lost one parent and now to be in danger of losing the other. Poor Mia. Yet this book doesn't make you pity Mia and her sister, you just feel sympathetic. I think this is an important distinction.

Throughout the story Mia is trying to find someone with whom she can share her thoughts and experiences. The things that seem to matter to other girls her age just don't seem to fit, and it is only when she befriends a cancer survivor, who is "kind of cute... despite the baldness and pale skin," that she begins to have someone with whom she truly feels she connects.

This is a sadly sweet story. Lurlene McDaniels fans might branch out here.

Duchessina : A Novel of Catherine De'Medici - Carolyn Meyer

Carolyn Meyer has written another of her great YA historical fiction pieces, this one focusing on Catherine De'Medici. I have to say that while it was well done, it didn't have the appeal for me of Mary, Bloody Mary or Beware, Princess Elizabeth. Set in the 16th century, this story takes us through the young life and marriage of Catherine. It tells the story of the political turmoil of the time which forced Catherine to go from being a pampered duchess to having to live in a convent where not everyone was nice to her and times were certainly difficult. I thought the most interesting parts of this story dealt with Catherine and her cousins, one of whom was her first true love, quashed, of course, by the Pope who had political and famly ambitions, not love, in mind. A well done piece of historical fiction for fans of the genre.

Adult mysteries - Seventh Sacrament & Heartsick

Recently I read two adult mysteries, a new one from a great series I've been reading, and the other for my book club.

The Seventh Sacrament by David Hewson. This novel is part of the Nic Costa series that I got hooked on a few years ago. They're all set in Italy, which I love, and the plots are sufficiently detailed and complicated to keep adult readers engaged. This wasn't actually my favorite of the series, however. There was too much flashback for my taste. It seemed like they were really catering to people who hadn't read the previous book because this was a follow-up to it. I had read the previous book, and I really didn't want to re-read it. That might have just been the time I was reading it though. My dad was in the hospital and so I was a bit distracted.

Heart Sick by Chelsea Cain. This is my book club pick for the month, and it is quite a story. For sure an adults only story because it's a serial killer mystery. It is not horribly graphic, but enough that it's not for kids. This was written by a local author who I'll get to meet this week and it's set in Portland which is fun! Well, it's kinda fun, but now I'm kinda creeped out driving by some of the places she talks about...Apparently she did a lot of research before writing this book, so I'm very interested to hear about that process. She got a contract for three books in this series, so I'm eager to hear about the plans for the future as well. If you like a suspenseful read and you're a grown up, I'd recommend this title.

Lush - Natasha Friend

I thought this was a really good book, but it deals with the difficult topic of an alcoholic parent, so it's not for every reader.

Sam's father is a good guy...when he's sober. But when he's not, it's no fun, and 13 year-old Sam has to deal with him. She's getting pretty desperate to talk to someone, but she doesn't really want to share this part of her life with her friends, so she reaches out to an older girl by leaving notes for her in a library book where she's sure the girl will find them. This begins an interesting exchange back and forth of letters between the two, with a bit of a surprise when the author of the letters comes clean.

Sam's family is forced to make changes when her father's drinking leads to a dangerous situation at home, and Sam needs to figure out how to deal with her anger, both towards her father and towards her mother, who was in heavy denial about the problems her dad's drinking was causing.

Luckily, I was never in Sam's shoes, but I know some people who were, and growing up in an alcoholic family can be very difficult. I think Natasha Friend does an admirable job of presenting the issues sensitively but accurately and will open some great discussions.

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt.

This book is by the same author as Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy which if you haven't read, you really must.

Anyway, I really, really loved this book. I think I liked it more than some other people will because I used to be an English teacher before I became a librarian and there are many funny references to English teachers in there. There are really so many funny things in this book, and the English teacher jokes are just one part. You've got to figure that if the main character is named Holling Hoodhood, the author has some kind of sense of humor.

This is poor Holling's story, who since he's not Catholic and not Jewish, like EVERY OTHER kid in his class, has to stay at school on Wednesdays when everyone else goes to Catechism or Hebrew school. And if that's not enough, he has to stay with Mrs. Baker who he assumes hates him. He's actually really quie sure of it when she makes him start reading Shakespeare, but it turns out Shakespeare isn't half bad, actually. In fact, when it comes right down to it, Shakespeare's pretty cool. Imagine! Playing a part in a play where he has to wear yellow tights with feathers on his bum, however, not so cool.

This book also has a serious side, as it's set during the Vietnam war and deals with a variety of war-related issues.

This is one of the top books I've read in a while! We'll be getting this title soon.

Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah.

I liked this book a lot. It's a book about an Australian-Palestinian-Muslim girl who decides, at age 16, that she wants to wear the traditional hijab, the Muslim headdress, as a symbol of her faith. This may have some serious repercussions for her in the form of prejudice, and Amal, who's very concerned with all the typical teenage issues, is worried. It's a serious book on the one hand, because Amal is making a big decision, but it's also pretty funny a lot of the time.

It's not often you find a young adult book where the main character is talking about his or her faith, and I liked finding a book about something new. It also provided some good background understanding of Islam, which I don't know too much about. I always think it's good to learn more about other religions and cultures because it helps to promote understanding.

I highly recommend this book and will be buying it for our library soon. Right now it's available at Multnomah County libraries.

What my Girlfriend Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones.

This was a quick read because it's written in poetry form! It's a sequel to Sonya Sones's What My Mother Doesn't Know. Sonya Sones is really great at getting inside the head of an adolescent, and she does it pretty well here, too.

The narrator of this novel is Robin Murphy, social outcast and boyfriend of the beautiful Sophie. As a grown-up, I found this novel to be sort of sad. I felt really bad for Robin and for Sophie because they are treated really badly by pretty much everyone. But there were many, many funny things, and many sweet things in the novel as well. I loved that Robin had a whole different persona at his art class where his reputation didn't precede him, and that he could see beyond his present situation.

If you liked Sonya Sones' other books, this one will not disappoint.

The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.

This book is the sequel to the very fun Dairy Queen which I read last year. DJ Schwenk is, if you can believe it, a girl on her high school football team! And she's really good, too. I would so have loved to play football in high school. It's one of my favorite sports. Anyway, she's got a lot to deal with, as you can imagine, being a girl on the football team and all. And not only that, but her boyfriend is the star quarterback of the rival high school's team, so that's another big problem. Well, in some ways it's a problem, and in some ways it's the best thing ever.

DJ also lives on a farm and has to help her father out with the farm a lot. Farm life is difficult and non-stop, so there's always something that needs doing, and her father's health isn't the greatest, so DJ's had to pick up a lot of the slack. And then the world sort of comes crashing down when DJ gets hurt on the football field jeopardizing her chance at a basketball scholarship - something her parents say she's really going to need if she wants to have any chance of going to college - and her brother gets hurt really badly playing college football and DJ's the only one who can really go take care of him.

It's a book with a lot of heartbreak in it, but a lot of hilarity and love in it as well. As usual, not as good as the first in the series, but well worth the read.

Some grown up books

I've been interspersing my kid books with some grown up books, and here are a couple I read recently.

The Kabul Beauty School : an American woman goes behind the veil by Deborah Rodr is a non-fiction work that chronicles the story of a woman who went to Afghanistan to do some aid work and ended up opening a beauty school to help Afghani women gain some independence through a career. It's a fascinating story of life from a view Americans rarely see. Highly recommended.

Cane River by Lalita Tademy is a historical fiction work that examines the lives of five generations of women of African heritage from their days as slaves through the Civil War and into the period when they were (supposedly) free. It's quite interesting. I can't even imagine how those women could go on some days. The fear and despair must have been incredible. Either that or they were just so numb they couldn't even (or didn't even) allow themselves to feel. It was also an excellent read that historical fiction fans would enjoy.

Accidentally Engaged by Mary Carter. This was a fluffy grown-up book. I wasn't looking for something deep, just something I didn't have to think much about when I was reading, and this one fit the bill. I can't say it was all that good, but it did have some very funny parts in it and at the end I wasn't sure which way the main character was going to go, so that's a good thing.
This book was an ok read, but I don't really recommend it.

The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella. This was a total bubble gum book that I picked up in the airport when my plane was delayed recently and I just wasn't into the other book I brought with me. I have to say I was a little nervous about it because I really didn't like the one Shopaholic book I read of hers. This one was typically predictable, but a perfect airplane read. If you just want a funny, quick read, this is a decent choice.

Teen Read Week Oct 14-20!

The library has several fun activities going on for Teen Read Week:

Make a comment on this book blog, get a prize. Be sure I know who you are by writing your first name and the initial of your last name. Your comment can be about anything reading related. What's the best book you've read this year? How do you like the Playaways? Did you see The Seeker movie? How does it compare to the book? Make a suggestion to someone about a great book. I look forward to hearing great comments about books from all of you!

Other fun things...

The first 100 students with NO overdues who check out a book outside of class time will get a pencil. The library will be open both lunches on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and before and after school.

Try the Teacher Matching game – match teachers to a favorite book of theirs. First twenty-five students that complete the sheet with 75% (or more) accuracy will get a prize. All students with 100% accuracy will get a prize and be entered into a drawing for a $5 coupon at the book fair. Due date: Monday, October 22.

Enjoy Teen Read Week!

More great news for Twilight fans...

So today I'm messing around on the Internet and I decide to just do a quick check of when Stephenie Meyers 4th book in the series is due out. 1/2 hour later, I'm still scrolling through her site, seeing that she and I share a bunch of the same favorite books, wondering if I should or shouldn't buy the Edward Cullen fan club shirt, looking at the FAQs (are you kidding me, someone actually asked her if this story is autobiographical -- did they READ it???), an on and on. And then I finally got to the place where it talked about her next novel (due out fall 2008) and I saw there was ANOTHER ONE!!! Of course I had to check it out.

Turns out, Stephenie is hoping to write the Twilight novel over again, but this time with Edward as the narrator. How cool is that? And how cool is this??? Here' a link to the whole first chapter of that book ONLINE!!!

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/otherprojects_midnightsun.html

Gotta go, got vampires to read about!

EFB

Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine

I had never read this sweet little story, but after I read the dark Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister for my book club, I was looking into other Cinderella stories, and this title popped up. Did you know Cinderella stories have been told for thousands of years? I didn't. I mean I knew they'd been around for a long time, but thousands of years??

This is a somewhat traditional Cinderella story, with mean stepsisters, a Cinderella figure worked to the bone and covered in ashes, a pumpkin coach, and a handsome prince. But there are differences. One new twist that I really like is Ella has a magical book that I haven't heard of in any other Cinderella stories (tell me if you have). When other people (or elves) look at it, it's pretty much like a regular book. But when Ella looks at it, it will show her people or conversations or letters or whatever, that involve other people in her life. For example, when she gets sent off to finishing school with her nasty wig-wearing stepsisters, she has letters from her best friend the cook, Mandy. Sometimes she sees letter written by those nasty stepsisters to their mother, or letters from their mother to them. It's a bit of a way to spy on them. And she hears from the prince. This books comes in quite handy for Ella.

The story is a little bit different than other versions in that Ella knows the young prince long before the ball and is friends with him...or is it more? She knows him so well that she must hide her face when she goes to the ball. This is actually similar to something that happened in the Confessions tale, although the reasons are a bit different.

And the enchantment of the title is also different from other versions. In this re-telling, Ella HAS to follow any order. It's a "gift" bestowed on her by the not so delightful fairy, Lucinda. Lucinda has a bad habit of bestowing this type of gift, and throughout the story we see her making a mess of many a person's life through her "gifts."

I would definitely recommend this book to readers, and I've heard the movie is good, too, so perhaps a trip to Blockbuster is in my future :)

Happy reading!

EFB

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

This was my book club book for this month, and it is not one of my favorite books, but I did like it better as I got further into it than when I first started it. It's a revisionist tale of Cinderella, and what I really want to do now is watch the video of the real Cinderella so I can see the differences. I haven't actually read or seen Cinderella for many years, but I am pretty sure this one is significantly different from the original. I need to go to Mr. Massey's and borrow his daughter's videotape of it!

I'm interested to see what others in the book group thought of it because it was really popular, and I'm not sure why...

I wouldn't put this at the top of your "TO READ" pile...

Shackleton's Stowaway - Victoria McKernan

This YRCA novel was a fabulous story! It's a historical fiction piece based on the 1914 journey of explorer Ernest Shackleton to Antarctica where he was hoping to cross the continent. Eighteen year old Perce Blackborow stowed away on that boat, but what he was envisioning as a grand adventure was not exactly how things turned out. Their ship, The Endurance, wasn't actually able to endure, and after getting trapped in the ice, it eventually sank, forcing the crew into three small lifeboats in the middle of nowhere in horrible weather conditions. The story is dramatic and suspenseful, as well as bordering on horrific in some places. I found this to be a fascinating read about exploration in a part of the world where even now it's extremely dangerous and difficult, let alone nearly 100 years ago!

I would highly recommend this novel.

We Read for the Record!

Mrs. Gardner's 6th graders did a FABULOUS job with their Reader's Theater presentation of The Story of Ferdinand today as part of the Jump Start “Read for the Record” campaign. We were part of a group hoping to get a world record for the most people reading the same book at the same time. Hopefully we got the record. The sixth graders performed for the kindergartners in Mrs. Stinson’s class.

You can see some photos from our event here:

Jinx - Meg Cabot

Now this is the kind of Meg Cabot I like. Funny and a little suspense and GREAT voice. Much better than the other Cabot book I read recently. It’s not her best ever, but it is good.

This story is about a teenage girl who has grown up with the nickname "Jinx" because the night she was born there was a power outage and ever since then her string of bad luck has seemed to continue. She's hoping that will change when she moves to New York to live with her aunt and uncle, but when she arrives and no one is there to meet her, it doesn't look too good.

It also doesn’t look good when her cousin, someone she thought was a nice person, doesn’t seem to be too thrilled that she’s here...and that’s putting it nicely. Her cousin Tory is convinced that she has witchcraft powers inherited from their great-great-great-great-grandmother and she’s convinced Jinx does, too. Jinx refuses to join Tory’s coven, further irritating her cousin who, despite Jinx’s dire warnings, turns to black magic to try and get what she wants.

As in many Meg Cabot books, there’s also a cute boy and a little bit of romance, but that’s not the overriding theme in this “bewitching” novel.

Enjoy!

Check out the Maximum Ride blog!

OK, this morning in the car I started listening to the new Maximum Ride book and they said Fang had his own blog. I wasn't sure if it was just part of the story or if it was real, but I checked it out, and it was for real (well, ok, sort of for real, since Fang is, after all, a fictional bird kid...). It's quite cool. If you're a Maximum Ride fan, I'd highly recommend perusing it.

http://maximumride.blogspot.com/

And if you're a Maximum Ride fan you'll also be interested to know that on the blog I read they're going to make these books into a movie! They're looking for a writer - anyone interested?

Enjoy

EFB

Queen of Babble in the Big City - Meg Cabot

I've read nearly every Meg Cabot novel that's come out, and usually I really like her work. This one, however, one of her books for grown ups, left me flat. This story is about a young woman who wants to design wedding dresses, so she moves to New York to chase down her dream, and about the only thing I really liked was that at the beginning of each chapter there were all these different style/design tidbits about wedding dresses (with drawings), and I thought they were pretty interesting. But I thought the main character was pretty flighty and shallow and the plotline didn't really draw me in. I wouldn't recommend this particular Meg Cabot novel, but you can't hit a home run every time, so I'll cut her some slack beause she really is a fantastic novelist.

Artemis Fowl The Lost Colony - Eoin Colfer

I listened to this book on CD and it was really great because the author is Irish and so the reader they chose is Irish, too, and who doesn't love an Irish accent? I'm always so impressed by all the different voices these narrators can do. I can really tell which character it is after a while just by the voice.

I really like Artemis Fowl books, number two is my favorite, but I'd gotten just a little tired of them, so I was really happy that Eion Colfer put a new twist in this one - a rival for Artemis who's his own age AND a girl. Her name's Minerva and I, for one, think she's pretty fabulous. And so does Artemis (this whole puberty thing is really throwing him off).

This book has all the usual magic and fairies, but things are heating up in this one because a time tunnel is unraveling and if it does, there could be some serious consequences for both the human AND fairy worlds. It's really exciting and by the time I was near the end of the book I was once again inventing places to go in the car just so I could hear more of the story.

A really good story and a great narration of it on CD.

Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich

I blame Mrs. McBride for getting me hooked on this series :)

This is the thirteenth novel in Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, and these are just great, easy reading, fun and funny mystery books for grown ups.

If you are a mystery fan who is not afraid to laugh out loud, you should snuggle up with Stephanie this fall and be entertained. These are not deep, frightening, highly developed or intricate mysteries, but I love them. And then there's Ranger and Morelli. Wow! I'm not sure how she does it, but Mrs. McBride and I will continue to live vicariously through her as long as we can.

When's the movie coming out???

Romance books - Dream Factory and Girl at Sea

Dream Factory is kind of an interesting premise. All these kids who've just graduated from high school go to work at Disneyworld for a summer because the regular WDW workers are on strike. So it's a little bit of an inside look at Disney World which was kind of interesting. You don't really think about the fact that Cinderella marries the prince twice a day or more every day, and it's always the same people, and do they even like each other? Would they kiss for real? And it's pretty hot in Orlando, but do you really think about how it smells inside those costumes? And who washes them? And how often? Of course you have to take it all with a grain of salt because it is, after all, a novel, not all facts, but there are a lot of WDW facts in there, too. Ever wonder how all the plants stay so green? Where do they keep those hoses? You just don't see them laying around...

Brad Barkley + Heather Hepler wrote this book, and like in Scrambled Eggs at Midnight (which I thought was better than this) they write in alternating chapters from a boy's point of view (Luke) and then from a girl's point of view (Ella). This is, at it's heart, a romance novel, but there's enough other action, some deeper issues, and some very amusing characters, to make it appeal to more than those who revel in the romance genre. I thought it was a pretty good quick read.

Girl at Sea is by Maureen Johnson who wrote Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes which I believe I blogged last school year. This book is also at its heart a romance, but it has as much to do with Clio's relationship with her recently divorced parents and her feelings about that as it does with romance. Clio is a high school junior who is pretty bitter that her father left her and her mother, so when she finds out she's going to have to spend the summer with him, never mind that it's on a yacht in ITALY!, she's not exactly jumping at the idea. Plus it will mean she doesn't get to work a the art store with her mad crush Ollie. When she gets to Italy, she doesn't make it easy, and in fact, she definitely makes it difficult, but the secrets are getting to her and she feels like everything is spiraling out of control.

I thought this book had just a little bit too much that was not believable to make it a great story. I can usually suspend disbelief, but there were just some things in here that were too over the top for me. I'd give it three stars as what I call a beach book - a great book when you don't want to think too much, you just want to be entertained.

A Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon 1845 - Linda Crew

Linda Crew is an Oregon author who wrote one of my very favorite YA books called Children of the River. It's awesome. This book turned out to be just as good.

This is the story of Nahum and Sarepta King and their family, one of whom is the narrator, Lovisa, one of their teenage daughters. This is a real family who set forth for Oregon from Missouri, but since there were not many documents about this particular family, most of the details are made up. However, even though they're not real details about these people, they're very historically accurate. The events are things that DID happen to people on the Oregon Trail.

What I liked about this novel was how real Linda Crew made the characters in this novel feel for the reader. I felt like these people were friends of mine when I was finished with the book. I found myself fearful during stressful situations, of which here were many. When people died, I cried. When they survived, I cheered! I was so relieved when they finally made it through the Meek cutoff, although it did not happen without a high price.

This book is a fabulous look at the Oregon Trail, of how difficult this journey to Oregon was and why the people who undertook it were willing to sacrifice everything they had to begin a new life in the West. I am so glad they came here, but I am even more glad that I just get to read about it and don't actually have to DO it becasue those people had to be way tougher than I ever even though of being!

Down the Rabbit Hole - Peter Abrahamson

I just liked the title on this one, plus it mentioned Sherlock Holmes on the cover AND it's a mystery, so I had to read it. It was so much fun. Typical kid super sleuth solves a mystery that's been puzzling grown-ups because she really puts her mind to it. There's lots of action and suspense all written in an easy, enjoyable style.

Ingrid, the main character, finds herself embroiled in a murder when she inadvertently leaves her soccer cleats at the home of "Cracked-Up Katie" who is murdered the same night. Ingrid didn't know Katie well, in fact she had only been in her house because she'd become lost, but she liked her, and she can't believe someone would have murdered her! Even worse, she can't believe HER soccer cleats are at the crime scene. Not to mention she's sort of dating the police chief's son, which makes things a little tricky. Add school, Ingrid's acting career, and some strange goings on with Gramps, and you've got quite a story.

I'd highly recommend Down the Rabbit Hole, the first in the Echo Falls mystery series.

Award winners - Copper Sun by Sharon Draper and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Copper Sun won the Coretta Scott King award and is a story of a young woman taken from her home in Africa and brought to the US as a slave. As with most slavery stories, it is difficult to read because slaves were treated so badly by most people. They were not considered human beings at all, and it's very disturbing to read about the awful things that were done to them. This book is not very graphic in most areas, but even inferring what is being spoken about is hard. That being said, I think books that discuss difficult issues are powerful, and this book is no exception. I would definitely recommend this book, especially to 8th graders who will be studying the Civil War this year.

American Born Chinese is a graphic novel (parents, we used to call these comic books, they're just longer now). There are three sort of different strands to this book - a Chinese fable, Jin Wang, a young man who's trying to fit in as a Chinese American and struggling with racism, and Danny whose very stereotypical Chinese cousin comes to visit him every year. It's a little confusing how these things fit together, but they are tied together nicely at the end. I have to say I'm not big graphic novel fan myself - I'm really into characterization and creating relationship with characters which I personally just don't get with this genre, but it's a well done graphic novel and fans of the genre are sure to love it AND learn from it. 7th grade and up for this one.

Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer

I've been waiting and waiting for this book, but at the same time, I was afraid I'd be disappointed, so I almost didn't want to read it. I am so glad I did!

This is the third book in a series (there is supposed to be one more) - the first two are Twilight and New Moon. These are vampire books set in the present in Forks, Washington. Twilight is the best vampire book I've ever read, and New Moon just really didn't match up to it when it came out. This book, however, may have surpassed it. The characterization, the most important element for me personally, in this series is incredible. Stephenie Meyer has created vampires and werewolves that a reader cannot help but believe in. The action is also intense and non-stop with several surprises.

This is a can't-put-it-down full box of kleenex ending, so be ready. I only had a sweatshirt and the whole sleeve was soaked.

A MUST read series for vampire fans.

See previous entry for a link to an interview with the author.

The Linnett Bird - Linda Holeman

Linda Holeman is the author of Search of the Moon King's Daughter which is in our library and is awesome.

This book is one of her novels for adults. I read another book by her earlier in the summer and really enjoyed it, so I decided to give this one try. It's set in England and India in the late 1800s, and it had very interesting parallels with my book club book for July, An Inconvenient Wife. I have to say that I definitely take my freedom as a woman for granted, and reading these books really reminded me of that. It was disturbing to see the depth of dependence on men women had and the lack of control they had over their own lives. This book was very suspenseful, and although the first fifty pages or so are really bizarre, it's worth it to finish it because a lot of interesting and surprising things happen.

Will you believe it - 10 books in a week! 4 OBOB books

We went camping in the Wallowa mountains, and since I'd just been released from my brace for my broken ankle, I wasn't out doing a lot of hiking. Mostly just hanging out by the lovely creek that ran next to our campsite reading. It was awesome!

Several of the books I read are on this year's Oregon Battle of the Books list, and I enjoyed them

Code Orange by Caroline Cooney is a suspenseful book about a boy who's just doing his homework (for once) and might have just landed himself in the middle of a bioterrorism nightmare. Or not. He's not sure.

The Kite Rider (NOT the Kite Runner) by Geraldine McCaughrean is a story set in ancient China that had great action and suspense plus some history. Good read.

Cages by Peg Kehret. I have to say I really didn't want to read this one, but I ended up being pretty impressed with it. It had a good message and was an easy read. It's about a girl (I think she's in 9th grade, but maybe 8th) who makes a bad choice and gets caught. Notice there is a picture of a dog on the cover...and you know what that probably means.

Eleanor's Story - Eleanor Ramrath Garner. This is a WWII non-fiction memoir about an American girl who lived in Germany during the war and how difficult things were during that time. It's a different approach to the time period from most WWII books I've read. It was pretty interesting.

I've now read 13 of this year's BOB books, and I have to say, it's an excellent list. I'm looking forward to getting our team together for the regional competitions! It will be open to 6-8th graders. Keep your ears open for more info.

The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan

This is one of the Oregon Battle of the Books books, and I am going to be recommending it right and left this year. It's so fabulous! This is book one in the story of Percy Jackson, who just may be your next Harry Potter. Well, he's no Harry Potter, but if you're as sad as I am about the end of the HP series, this series may help fill the void. You see, Percy is a direct descendant of a Greek god, although he doesn't know that at first.

The novel's premise is that something has been stolen from Zeus, and Percy has to help get it back. This is a true quest/journey novel, and all the 7th and 8th graders out there better be able to tell me that always in a journey novel we have... say it with me ...obstacles to overcome. And when you're dealing with Greek gods and goddesses and their descendants, those can be some pretty significant obstacles.

The book is full of non-stop action and excitement, prophecies and power. I think it's pretty cool how Rick Riordan has brought the ancient mythology into the modern time period and woven them together so easily. Well, probably not so easily, but so smoothly would be a better term maybe. The one thing about this book that will make it challenging, is that there is no glossary of the Greek gods and goddesses (big mistake leaving that out if you ask me, which clearly they did not...), so I'm thinking about a way to help with that - maybe a bookmark or something. It could be a little confusing if you didn't know who all the Greeks were.


I really, really liked this book and I discovered there are two more in the series that have already been published, so I went out and bought them this week as well and they'll be in the library come September!

Happy reading!

So Totally Emily Ebers - Lisa Yee

This is the third book Lisa Yee has written in a sort of trilogy. I say sort of trilogy, because unlike many trilogies, this series can be read in any order. I'd actually call them companion books more than a trilogy.

The three books are Millicent Min, Girl Genius; Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time; and now the Emily Ebers book. They all take place during the same time period, but they're told from each character's point of view, which are decidedly different. All three are decidedly funny, but Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time is the funniest.

Emily's story is written in short letters from Rancho Rosetta, California to her father who is living on the East Coast and touring again with the band he was in a long time ago, the Talky Boys. Since Emily can't send her letters while her dad's on tour, she puts them all into one journal which she says she'll send him when he's done with his tour. Emily's parents have recently decided to divorce, and many of her letters are about her feelings about this. If your parents or your friends parents are getting a divorce, I think this would be a really great book for you. If it's your parents, I think you will really relate to Emily and perhaps learn some things from her about going through such a tough thing. If it's your friend who's going through a divorce of their parents, I think you might get some good perspective about what your friend might be thinking and feeling, and how you might help (mostly, probably by being there and listening).

Although Emily's parents are getting divorced, this book still has lots of laughs and some really great lessons about the importance of honesty in friendship.

I really have enjoyed this series, and I think you will, too!

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation - M.T. Anderson

OK, This book won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature AND a Printz Honor, and to be honest, I really don't get why. I mean, it was sort of eerie and interesting, but I didn't really enjoy it. And if you look back at the rest of my posts, you'll see that doesn't happen that often. The language and syntax in this book are really quite unusual and bizarre, and it took me at least 50 pages to get into the swing of it. And even then I didn't necessarily like it. Unless you're a VERY strong reader with a really good vocabulary, I think this book would turn you off immediately for that reason alone. This book is set during revolutionary times and I also think that you need quite a bit of background knowledge about that time period for this book to make sense because there are a lot of events which require inference. We have this book in our library, but it's not going to be one I recommend to very many readers, award winner or not. I think older high schoolers would enjoy it more.

An Inconvenient Wife - Meagan Chance

Well, this is certainly something I hope my husband never calls me, that's for sure! I read this for my book club, so it's a grown up book, and I don't think many middle schoolers would like it, but for wives especially, I'd highly recommend it. All ten of the women in my book group loved it, and we had so much to talk about. It's set in the 1880's and the main character is a society wife who has some serious emotional issues. Enter a newfangled doctor and let the events unravel. It's suspenseful and surprising, appalling and thought provoking. A fabulous novel, and I'd highly recommend it to book clubs.

Eclipse - Stephanie Meyer author interview

For those of you who loved Twilight and New Moon, you'll be very excited to hear that book three in the series, Eclipse, is now out. There's an interview you can watch with Stephanie Meyer on Amazon if you're interested. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/5646:5463

Happy reading, and don't let any vampires bite you...

Hummer loves Harry Potter 7

Even my cat Hummer was getting in on the fun of reading Harry Potter 7 when I brought it home last week. (I think he may be enrolled at Hogwart's for night classes or something - I'm not really sure where he learned to read...)

I can't say much about the book except that it must be read, if it hasn't been already, by all Harry Potter fans. I'm afraid I'll give something away if I say any more...But if you have finished it, I would LOVE to talk with you about what you thought about this final installment. I'm pretty sad it's the last one.

If you want to watch a cool trailer for the book (never have I seen a trailer for a BOOK before!), try this link (it doesn't give anything away):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG9yBlhXbLI

I will say that I bought four copies of the book for the library and I bought it on CD for the library, too. So if you haven't had a chance to read it yet, it will be waiting for you at WOMS on the first day back See you there!

4 weeks in Costa Rica = 14 books for me :)

Usually when I go on vacation I really don't get much of a chance to read, but with four weeks to spend in Costa Rica, I could see birds, monkeys and lizards in the morning and spend my afternoon lounging around reading. It was awesome. We had a really great time on our trip - I'll post some pictures when we get back to school, and I read some really great books, too. I also read some not so great ones, but when you're doing the trade a book at your hotel, you've gotta take what you can get.

The best books I read out of the fourteen were (most of these are grown up books that I doubt middle shcoolers would like, but your parents might enjoy them).

•The Bookseller of Kabul (a depressing but very interesting book about Afghanistani culture)
•The Memory Keeper's Daughter (thanks, Ms. Fulsher)
•Longitude (fascinating non-fiction about how they learned how to measure longitude)
•When the Emperor Was Divine (about Japanese internment camps in WWII - it's in our library, and if you like historical fiction, I'd recommend it)
•How I Paid for College (by very funny Portland author Mark Acito)
and
•The Moonlit Cage (one of the free exchange fabulous finds!)

In just my Costa Rica trip I spent about 62 hours reading, so I think I've got my reading road trip taken care of! Hope you're finding some great things to read this summer also! If you need new (or more) forms for the reading road trip, go to this webpage http://westorient.gresham.k12.or.us/~fitzpatrick/Summerreading07.html

Multnomah County Reading program starts today!

If you didn't already sign up at school, you can go to your local branch to sign up starting today. Materials for people who signed up at school have been given to teachers at WOMS, so they should be delivering them very soon if they haven't already. Happy reading!

Anahita's Woven Riddle - Meghan Nuttall Sayres

Phew! I'm finally caught up. I've been reading a lot lately, but I haven't done the best job of writing my review right when I read the book and they sort of got piles up. But I saved the best for last. I LOVED, loved, loved this story.

This story is set in 19th century Iran and revolves around the nomadic family of Anahita, who is, herself, like many in her community, a weaver of rugs. As is typical of her people, when she was 15 years old, her father said she needed to get married. I cannot even imagine! He also told her that there was a rich and powerful man, one who could affect the welfare of her people in important ways, who had asked for her hand. This rich and powerful man is also quite old and not kind, and Anahita really does not want to marry him.

Anahita tries and tries to think of a way out of her situation, and finally she decides to ask her father if she can create a riddle inside of her weaving and hold a contest to see which man can guess the riddle and its answer. She says she could not be happy with a man who did not enjoy riddles, and since this is one of the joys she and her father share, he eventually consents to her contest, even though it may, and indeed does, cause some problems.

There are several men who vie for her hand, and their stories are woven through Anahita's story in clever ways, person by person. As I read about each one, I found myself rooting for that one. Then when I'd read about the next, I'd be rooting for him. Except the old khan, I never wanted him to win. In the end I was torn between tow, but I think the better choice was made, and not without some tension and excitement.

This was fabulous, beautifully written story. I would highly recommend it to readers of all ages. It is on the order list for the WOMS library, so you can look for it there in the fall, or go to your local branch of the Multnomah County Library now.

Twisted - Laurie Halse Anderson

I'd read some reviews for this book and was excited to see that a young adult author whose work I really enjoy had a new book coming out, particularly one from the male point of view, so I was happy when it finally came to my turn on the library hold list. I was not disappointed, and this book will definitely appeal to both girls and boys.

Tyler Miller has never been a popular boy, and so he creates a plan that he thinks will turn him around...a little graffiti painting on the school ought to do the trick. That is, unless you drop your wallet at the crime scene and are apprehended and assigned to community service the judge. Oops.

There is a bright side to his manual labor, however. Tyler turns into a pretty studly lookin' senior with lots o' muscles. Enter Bethany Milbury. She's cute, popular, and the girl of Tyler's dreams. And she's diggin' him. things are going well for Tyler. Until he makes a big mistake and shows up at a party where there is a lot of drinking and other bad things happening, and he gets accused of a crime that happened there. He did NOT do it, but it's difficult to get other people to believe that. This is an important lesson in how one bad choice can follow you around for a long time and make things pretty miserable for you in ways you never imagined. In making a choice about how to deal with everything that's happening, Tyler considers suicide as one of his options.

This is a book for mature, older readers because of the content, but it is another book from this author that really makes readers think about many important issues, and I appreciate that there is someone out there addressing these things for young adults.

The Higher Power of Lucky - Susan Patron

this was the Newbery medalist this year, and I really enjoyed it, although I personally did not like it as much as I liked the Honor book Rules by Cynthia Lord. this was a sweet and also a little bit sad story about Lucky, age ten, who lives in a TINY desert town under the guardianship of her father's former girlfriend. Got that? Her mother died, and her father wasn't ready to take on parenthood full time, so he asked his former girlfriend to come over from France to take care of Lucky. And this was quite lucky for Lucky, indeed. Brigitte loves her very much, although it is sometimes difficult for Lucky to realize this. She lives in fear that one day Brigitte will decide she's had enough and return to France, leaving her all alone.

In order to try and cope with her fears, Lucky, who overhears parts of Alcoholics Anonymous and other various "Anonymous" meetings by sitting outside the hall where they have them and putting her ear up to a hole in the wall, attempts to search for her Higher Power. She's not really sure what that means, but it sounds hopeful. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Lucky encounters a giant duststorm and one tiny tennis shoe that throw her whole plan into chaos.

This short book packs a bunch of life's lessons into a small package and is a good read. This book is available in the WOMS library.

In Real Life: Six Women Photographers - Leslie Sills

If you've read my bio, you know that I also have a portrait photography business, so I was very interested to read this book about six women in the field, some of whom I've heard about and whose work I've admired, and some of whom I've never even heard of. the artists were Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Carrie May Weems, Elsa Dorfman, and Sindy Sherman.

My work focuses primarily on people, although I do a little landscape work, but these women have a very broad range, and so it was interesting to read about a variety of approaches to photography and an array of possibilities out there that I don't normally thin about with photograph. Imogen Cunningham, for example, likes to focus on natural objects up really really close, looking at textures and patterns. I do that sometimes, but often if I do, it wasn't really my intent. Dorothea Lange and Lola Alvarez Bravo were recording events to enlighten people. One as an activist, one as a historian.

I liked how this book was put together with lots of pictures interspersed with a good amount of text. Some photography books are really heavy on photos but without much information about them, and sometimes that's ok, but often I want to know more, and this book gave me that.

If you're interested in photography, as a hobby or a career, you can learn a lot from this book, and I'd definitely recommend it.

Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult

This book was hard for me to read as a teacher because it was about a school shooting, but it was very compelling and I was reminded of some things that teachers need to think about. Peter, the main character in this story, the school shooter, was a teenage boy who all his life was teased, humiliated, and bullied at school. This does not justify his going into his school and killing ten people and injuring many more, but it does help explain it. And the adults around him did not give him the help he needed. It was really sad - for Peter, for the families who lost children in the shooting spree, for the other students who were there, for the whole town that lost its feeling of safety. There were very few good outcomes, although there were some.

Picoult is a fabulous writer - her novel My Sister's Keeper was a senior division young Reader's Choice nominee - and like this one, both had shocking endings. I would not recommend this book to middle schoolers because it is too raw and too real. I would recommend it to other educators and adults. Available at Multnomah County Libraries.