birthdays from January - I think?!

So somehow my system broke down, and I had a bunch of pics on the camera that I think are all January birthdays, but I'm not 100% positive. Not only did my system break down, but also my camera wasn't set correctly - it said I had taken some of the birthday pics on December 29th, and I know full well that is flat out NOT true. So, better safe than sorry I say. If you are getting your second moment of birthday glory, snatch it up. There's too little chance for glory in the world these days. If it was your birthday in January, happy, happy birthday to you! Enjoy these book selections from your friends.

Want to review books for Macmillan?

This sounds like a great opportunity for 8th graders who love to read. You must be age 13 or older to participate, so if you are and you'd like to get some new books to review, read this announcement from the Macmillan website:

InGroup is made up of a bunch of teens 13-18 years old who love to read and review our books, sometimes even before the book goes on sale! If you want to be part of InGroup, sign up now!

Last weekend I started reading Fang, the most recent in the Maximum Ride series on my Kindle. If you've read it, you can imagine how dismayed I was to discover that I only had part of the book and I was left hanging midway through! Luckily, I was able to scrounge up a copy here at the WOMS library this week so I could finish it. As always, there was lots of excitement and action in the story. There were some old characters re-introduced, and a (super cute) new character was brought in as well. Supposedly he's Max's perfect other half. But wait, you ask, what about Fang. HE'S Max's perfect other half, isn't he? Isn't he? And that's exactly what Max is asking herself.

This was not my favorite Maximum Ride book - I thought it didn't have quite enough development - but I wouldn't have skipped it, either. It's true to the series and fans will love it.

Available at your WOMS library.

Rosanne Parry visits!

We had a most amazing author visit this evening at Mother-Daughter book club when Rosanne Parry, author of Heart of a Shepherd visited with our group. She talked about writing, about her book, showed us how to rope...or not...and read to us from her new novel which will be released in March. It was a fabulous visit and we are very thankful that she was able to come and share about her work, especially since she'd already had a long day at another school. Here are some pictures from her visit (and one of the yummy cookie snowmen we had for a treat!). Enjoy!

Book awards announced today

See the full list of book awards which were announced today at ALA here.

Three new books reviewed

The Mystery of the Third Lucretia. A great YA mystery that involves international art and intrigue. Two intrepid young women discover themselves entwined with a man they know is evil, but they're just not sure exactly what he's being evil about. And then they do, and then they're in big trouble. Cannot go wrong in a book where the teen girls are dressing up in myriad costumes and doing a fine job of sneaking around. Plus you can travel the world without actually spending the plane fare. Looking forward to reading the second book with these young women.

Knit Two - the Sequel to Friday Night Knitting Club. I liked this book, but I think I may have actually read it too closely on the heels of book one, as I was a little tired of the characters by the end. Good continuation of the storylines, though. I would recommend it to those who like knitting or, more importantly, people who like stories about strong friendships.

Cheating Death - I don't often read non-fiction, but when I do read it, I often wonder why I don't read it more. this book, by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, was fascinating. It's all about the wonders of modern medicine and of how people who once would have died for sure are now living through amazing technology and through amazing no one knows what or why. It was so intriguing. Incredible reading for adults or older teens who are interested in health and or science.

What do teachers do on vacation

Well, you know I read books, but here are some of the other things your teachers had fun doing over break, too, involving an Xbox Kinect and actual instruments, too.


Enjoy!

Winter Break reading

Well, I've been pretty busy over break, so I haven't gotten in quite as much reading as I thought I would - that always seems to be the case for me, but I have read several books, and I listened to one also. All the books I've read so far are grown up books, but I'm in the middle of a kid one now, and I am loving it.

For my birthday, Mrs. Volz gave me a book called 1022 Evergreen Place by Debbie McComber for my birthday, and I need to especially remember to thank her for throwing me into a series on book # TEN! What?? The good thing is, these books start with a cast of characters list so if you forget who they're talking about you can go back to page one and clear it up. It was a nice, easy read - perfect way to relax after the hectic end of school before break. Then when I was at hte library I saw a holiday book by the same author, so I took it to "give" to Mrs. Volz for part of her Christmas package, but it turned out she already had it, so I read it. It was called A Cedar Cove Christmas. A little too gimmicky, but I always like to read a book set at Christmas around Christmas time, so it fit the bill.

I saw a review recently of Nice to Come Home To, a first novel by by Rebecca Flowers and it sounded interesting, so I checked that one out form the library. I thought it was fine but not fabulous. I think she has the potential to become a really good author, and I think I'll probably read her next book when it comes out.

The Friday Night Knitting Club was sitting on my shelf for quite a long time, and I finally got to that this week. Loved it! I am, in fact, now reading the sequel to it. The book is chock full of character development which is what I love. I was not surprised at developments throughout most of the story, but I was very surprised by the ending of the novel. I tend to really like books about groups of women who form strong friendships, and that's the whole basis of the book. Plus this book is about women who get together and do something that's kind of a throwback thing, and that's something that I like to do - my friends and I get together and cook and bake and do crafts, too, and it's really fun. I also think it's really important for women to have other women friends. This was my favorite of the books I read over break.

The book I listened to was also excellent. It's a mystery called The Girl of his Dreams. It's set in Italy, and it's a mystery about a young Roma girl who drowns and is found with stolen jewelry on her. Most detectives in that situation, according to the story anyway, would just have chalked it up to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but this detective doesn't. I thought it was really well done. The reader was good, too, with a good Italian accent.

In the next few days I'm planning to finish up The Mystery of the Third Lucretia which is a YA mystery that I'm enjoying quite a lot, and I hope to finish Knit Two which is the sequel to Friday Night Knitting Cub. I've also started listening to The Hunger Games which I know I'll like but so far I'm not entirely thrilled with. Too much dystopian fiction of late, I guess. I want a HAPPY new year!

Hope you've been enjoying the break! See you back at school soon.

Santa came to my mailbox yesterday. Fun, fun!

Yesterday when I arrived home from my last day of school until 2011, I was excited to see a package on the table for me that said Book Blogger Santa Swap on it! This is the second time I've participated in the Book Blogger Santa Swap, and it is really fun. The main reason I like it is because I get to make a connection with a new book blogger, and I love participating in the book blogging community, but the gifts I got were fabulously fun, too.

Laura, from The Calico Critic in Vero Beach, Florida, was my Santa. The beach in Florida is not exactly where I expect to find Santa, but admittedly, she's quite a good one! She gave me a package full of all different kinds of treats. There were homemade cookies with the recipe (super yummy - I broke into those right away), cocoa and a fancy chocolate bar, tea (has she heard I'm always doing the Game On Diet?), bookmarks - I may have mentioned how I'm always losing my bookmarks and now I have a whole dozen of them! - lovely handmade soap, Santa Claus kleenex(who knew they even made such a thing!), and TWO books! One of the books is by a favorite YA author of mine, Andrew Clements, and another is a non-fiction book called The Devil and Sherlock Holmes. So happy to have the next 17 days off to do a bunch o' reading!!!

Laura also gave me ten other books via a post on her blog about some free books being available for Jane Austen's birthday. I downloaded them all to my Kindle. We love that.

I will definitely be checking out her blog in a lot more detail over the break as well.

Hope your Santas are all as good to you as Laura was to me! I was the Santa for Briana over at The Book Pixie blog, by the way, and she has lots of great YA recommendations, not to mention some killer flamingo photos there, so you might want to give her blog a look as well. Thanks to the good folks over at http://holidayswap.wordpress.com/ for setting the whole thing up! I'll be back next year.

Santa stopped by WOMS today!

Prizes were awarded for the fine, fine gingerbread houses the 6th graders designed, and Santa himself came and gave out the prizes! So much fun. I also have to say, these were the best gingerbread houses I've seen in many years of judging. Voting was SO hard! Well done, everyone.

Have a wonderful vacation

Hope you have a wonderful and relaxing break filled with lots and lots of books!

Birthday bonanza!!

Wowza! Who knew there were SO many December and early January birthday here at WOMS??!! Happy, happy birthdays, everyone :-)

Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly

Wow, I just LOVE Jennifer Donnelly. She needs to write a lot more books. This book is a stunner, and it was one I could hardly put down. I read a lot, so it's not unusual to find me with a book in my hand, but I'm not often laying on my bed reading in the middle of the day or going to bed early just so I can read, and that's what was happening a LOT with this book.

The book goes back and forth between a modern day storyline of a young woman who's struggling after the death of her younger brother and the journal of a young woman who lived during the French Revolution. I found both storylines fascinating and loved, loved, loved how Donnelly wove them together. I felt like I was right there in the French Revolution and in Paris in present day, too. And I'd really like to be in Paris right about now, let me tell you.

The character development of this story was incredible, the writing beautiful, the description and dialogue realistic, the storyline compelling. It was just all around great. 100% loved it and highly recommend it. I will b buying it for the WOMS library, but in the meantime, you can find it at the Multnomah county Library.

Happy birthday!

Now doesn't this just look like the perfect book for a birthday girl? I mean who doesn't enjoy a little murder and mayhem on their birthday,right? And there is ice cream... Happy, happy day!

Lots of December birthdays

I was gone last week, so I'm way behind on birthdays! Hope everyone had a great Sagitarrian experience. Enjoy :-)

"It's a book!" a funny little video

You have to watch this. It is hilarious! Enjoy :)

Mrs. FB

We're on the Vision Tour blog!

Go check out the cool write up we got on the Vision Tour blog from Dr. Everhart! Go, go, hurry up now, what are you waiting for???

Get a $15 gift card for WOMS from Borders!!!

Give a gift to wOMS and get yourself a book, bagel or latte!

On Dec. 4 and Dec. 5, any Borders customer making an in-store purchase, whether of a book or a bagel or a latte, will receive a $15 gift card to donate to a public school of choice through DonorsChoose.org, an Internet-based charity. Anyone purchasing the book "Waiting for 'Superman': How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools" will receive a second $15 card.

Happy birthdays!

Well, we had one birthday before Thanksgiving that didn't get posted, and then we had a whole PASSEL of them after the break! So happy birthday to all of you, and I hope those of you viewing get some great reading ideas from all these suggestions!

Cheers!

Bring a parent to book fair, get a prize!

CONFERENCES ARE CANCELLED FOR TODAY, But I think we'll be there from 12-8 tomorrow, so come on out and buy a book or fifty. See you in the gym!

Scarlett Fever - Maureen Johson

This is the sequel to Suite Scarlett and I liked it more than I liked the first one. In the first one Scarlett, daughter of parents who own an old, somewhat tired hotel. Scarlett's brother is an actor, and in book 1 she fell for his friend Eric and hard! It really got to be pretty boring because it was all Eric, all the time. Me I got kind of tired of it.

This book was much fresher. There was still a little too much obsessing about Eric, but the story went i some other directions as well. There were a couple of larger subplots including one about Scarlett's scheming younger sister, a cancer survivor, and another about Scarlett's older sister with an ex and then not at all ex boyfriend who none of the family really likes. There was also Mrs. Ambrose, an eccentric old woman who in the first book came to stay at the hotel and who took Scarlett under her wing as her assistant. Scarlett continues on as Mrs. Ambrose's assistant in this book even though she has moved out of the hotel.

There are some very funny scenes in this book, and I liked it. It's not one of my top ten of the year, but it's a good, easy read. Available at the Multnomah County Library.

Tel Me a Secret -Holly Cupala

17 year old Rand has been living with the death of her sister for the last five years. her sister who was the wild one. but now Rand herself is pregnant, and life isn't turning out like she thought it would. Not at all. Rand is determined to keep her baby, against the wishes of her parents who force her to give up her dream of art school and start working in order to support the baby if she's going to keep it. The novel is fraught with tension and anxiety, mystery and fear. It's a really intense piece of writing which I appreciated very much as a reader but cannot say I really enjoyed. One does not enjoy reading about pain, and this novel has more than its share.

Rand's life takes a lot of twists and turns and definitely has more downward spiraling than up, but towards the end Rand seems to begin to find her way and others around her find their way along with her. I'd recommend this book to high school students because I think they would appreciate it more than middle schoolers.

Available at the Multnomah County Library.

Audio Book Challenge 2010 - UPDATE

You know how I like to book challenges that I can complete, so I've chosen this fun one as one of my 2010 challenges. It's an audiobook challenge, and as an ipod junkie, I think this one is pretty do-able. Especially because I can pick my own level. I'm going for addicted, although I just might be close to obsessed...

It's being run this year by Royal Reviews, and here are the rules:

With most of us having IPods or MP3 players these days listening to audio books has become an easy activity. Personally doing housework, driving the kids to school or sitting waiting for soccer training to finish has never been more enjoyable.

Challenge Guidelines:

1. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate.
--Non-Bloggers: Include your information in the comment section.

2. There are four levels:

-- Curious – Listen to 3 Audio Books.

-- Fascinated – Listen to 6 Audio Books.

-- Addicted – Listen to 12 Audio Books.

-- Obsessed – Listen to 20 Audio Books.

3. Audio books only.

4. You can list your books in advance or just put them in a wrap up post. If you list them, feel free to change them as the mood takes you.

5. Challenge begins January 1st thru December, 2010. Only books started on January 1st count towards this challenge.

6. When you sign up under Mr. Linky, put the direct link to the post about the Audio Book Reading Challenge. Include the URL so that other participants can find join in and read your reviews and post.

I'm hoping as an added bonus, this challenge will help me with my fitness goals, too, beacuse I can walk and listen, which I do a lot. Want ot join me in the Audiobook Challenge? Click on the link above to go to the Royal Reviews site and sign up!

Now I need to figure out what my first book will be...Watch for updates here!

UPDATE 9/27/10: I am up to 10 audiobooks so far, and I think it will be no problem at all to get to the 12 I wanted to listen to by the end of the year! Yeah :)

The 10 I've listened to so far are

Maisie Dobbs Among the Mad and The Map of Love and Death; Little Bee; Peace Like a River; The 19th Wife, Lucia, Lucia; The Reformed Vampire Support Group; Change Up; Marcelo in the Real World; and Little Brother.

Update 11/17/10 - I made it!!!
#11 and #12: Her Fearful Symmetry,
The last summer of the Death Warriors