It's Been A While

With all the snow days we've had around here, you'd think I would have gotten a lot of reading done. But I haven't gotten as much as I wanted. Perhaps it's because I've also been taking care of a growing little boy at the same time. =)

I did read a few things. I read "Swindle" when our book fair rolled around. I wanted to be able to to talk about the book when the second book "Zoobreak" came out. And the newest 39 Clues. I picked a few others that I want to read. One to see if it's just appropriate for my students. It's called "Distant Waves" and the students were very drawn to it. But it did have a "young adult" level on it. So it's on the "to read" pile.

I also read the next book in the Septimus Heap series. I just always seem to enjoy fantasy. I've continued to read books by Mental Floss. One called "In the Beginning" and another called "Be Amazing" have short easy to read, but interesting blurbs that have come in surprisingly handy in various conversations. =) I checked out "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on CD to listen to before the next movie comes out.

I also have added several things to my Audible wish list. Our state Poet Laureate wrote an article about the top ten best books of the decade. There were several on there that I haven't read yet, but have wanted to read. So I have added those on the Audible wish list. Here's the list if you are interested.

1. “Harry Potter” series by J.K. Rowling (Read it)
2. “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown (Read it)
3. “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer (Read it)
4. “Million Little Pieces” by James Frey (Don't really have the desire to read it.)
5. “Freakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Want to read it.)
6. “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama (Want to read it.)
7. “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd (Read it)
8. “My Sister's Keeper” by Jodi Picoult (Want to read it.)
9. “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” by Michael Chabon (Want to read it.)
10. “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini (Want to read it.)

So there you go. That's what I've read and what I will be reading. Hopefully, I'll get some done in the next couple of weeks!

Magyk and Alcatraz

I don't know why I continually start books that are in a series. I tire myself out. I usually can't leave it at just one book. Yet, in the past few weeks, I've started two.

Magyk by Angie Sage is your pretty standard good magic vs. evil magic, mixed up identity fantasy. Although you'd think I'd get tired of these sorts of stories, I enjoyed this book. I'll probably read more of the series. It was a solid start to a series with good character development and enough of the mystery revealed at the end to satisfy, with more promise of story to come.

Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson is a state award nominee for next year. For the first part of the book, I was rather annoyed and irritated with the book. It was so forced, so desperate to be witty and "shocking", it constantly detracted from the story. I kept thinking if Sanderson would just write the story, it would be so much better. Instead, he was channeling Lemony Snickett, trying to convince the reader that Alcatraz isn't a good person and "foreshadowing" bizarre events that he claims are normal. About the end of chapter 11, Sanderson starts focusing more on our main character as he comes to terms with some serious issues in his life. This part was so poignant and engrossing. Chapter 12 continued in that vein and as the story continued, the sarcasm became less and less annoying too. It gave me hope for the future books of the series and made me wonder less why this book was selected for the state award.

I did give in and get a membership to Audible. With the amount of travel time I have, it's been very nice. I actually listened to the last two books rather than read them. And I have another few books that I have to actually read when I'm at home. I've spent far less than if I had purchased those books on iTunes. I saved almost $15 purchasing the membership and the then discounted book. The next question is, do I bite the bullet for the one year membership? It saves a whole lot of money compared to the month by month membership, but if I don't get the month by month during the summer, when I'm less likely to listen to audio books, will that be worth it? Hmmm....

I'm highly enjoying a little bit of useless trivia book at night to relax before bed time. Mental Floss's "In the Beginning" has nice sized bites of stories/trivia that "knowledge junkies" like me adore. I'm thinking about giving up the library copy of it and getting my very own to keep. And some others of the Mental Floss library. If you haven't ever seen the magazine...check it out. It's wonderful! http://www.mentalfloss.com/

I'm off to cheer on my beloved college football team who is playing well at the moment! Hopefully, they'll keep it up!

AASL and good books

I got the privilege to attend the American Association of School Librarians conference in Charlotte, NC. I have had a wonderful time. I'm so excited and jazzed up to take so many things back to my library. It's incredible to dedicate so much time to people who do exactly what you do. My brain is full and I'm a bit on the tired side. But I have read a couple of books recently.

Tallahassee Higgins by Mary Downing Hahn is one that I read when I was a kid. I remember loving that book when I was a kid. (I also remember one about a girl who thought that Hitler had fled to Florida and now lived next door to her...but I was getting that one mixed up with this one.) I still enjoy this book today. Tallahassee is such a real little girl and you are rooting for her throughout the whole story. I did have one student stop in the hall and point at it when I was reading it and say, "That's a good book." What better endorsement can you get?

Sent by Margaret Peterson Haddix is the follow up book to Found. I think this series will be very good. It's easy to see how they are going to turned this into multiple books. We understand a little bit more about what's going on with the time traveler's and the mystery isn't as looming in this story. But when the kids, Chip, Alex, Jonah, and Katherine, end up in the 1400's they have to try and save their friends and repair time...all without causing any more difficulties in history. The book had good flow, good action, and transitions easily into a series where the books can focus on where each child came from and include history with a good story.

I also read the book Masterpiece by Elise Broach. It is a state award winner for next year and I downloaded it from Audible. It was entertaining and could get some students interested in art. It doesn't have a lot of depth, but it held my interest and probably will be fairly enjoyable for the kids. I've also downloaded and started Magyk, Septimus Heap book 1. It's my cup of tea...your typical fantasy book with a little bit of humor. I'm enjoying it.

I also have picked up a copy of Born Digital, which was the book that was selected for One Book, One Conference. It peeks my interest, but my brain hurts too much right now to actually read it. =) I have a lot of handouts to read from conference and websites to pour over. They created a wonderful online conference site that you could sign up for that gave you access to every session's handouts. In addition to the wealth of information I gained from the Twitter feed....It will take me forever to comb through it all!

I'm sure I will have more good stuff in the coming weeks. Between everything I've picked up here at conference and everything that will come in for book fair, I'll be picking up a lot of reading. As my brain has officially shut down and we are at the end of the conference, I'm leaving the Blogger's Cafe and moving my body. =) See you all soon!

Lots of books read

I haven't been very good about blogging. I know...shocker. But I have gotten a lot of reading done. =)

Here what I've read in list form:

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Paper, Scissors, Death
The Black Circle by Patrick Carmen (39 Clues)
Tales from the Hood by Michael Buckley (Sisters Grimm)
The Ever After War by Michael Buckley (Sisters Grimm)
Nightmare at the Book Fair by Dan Gutman
The New Policeman by Kat Thompson
Real Pirates: The untold story of the Whydah from slave ship to pirate ship by Barry Clifford
The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket
Courage by Bernard Waber
Woolbur by Leslie Helakoski
The Great Texas Hamster Drive by Eric Kimmel
The Perfect Next by Catherine Friend
The Gentleman Outlaw and Me by Mary Downing Hahn

Sooo...summaries now. The Lost Symbol is another good Dan Brown novel. I don't think quite as gripping as Angels and Demons or DaVinci Code, but still good. Paper, Scissors, Death is a scrapbooking mystery that was just a fun light-hearted read. Despite the whole "death" part of it. The Black Circle brought the 39 Clues closer to its interesting conclusion. I actually had to remind myself what this one is about after reading it weeks ago. So it wasn't terribly memorable to me. The Sisters Grimm books were good, but for some reason I really thought that #7 was the last one. So I was slightly disappointed when I realized there is at least one more book in the series.

Nightmare at the Book Fair is not the best book Gutman has ever written. An attempt to cover multiple genres, it doesn't have good exposition or flow to the story...you can't when your main character is time jumping through every genre ever created. However, I might recommend it to my students as we are studying genre right now.

The New Policeman was bizarre. I think I was expecting a serious book and plenty of the parts of the book were along those lines. However parts of it had quirky details...want to know where all the lost socks in the world go?? The book was also clearly written for Irish audiences and there was plenty of lingo in it that I didn't get. Of course, I didn't realize until the end of the book that there was a glossary at the end. I'm not quite sure if students will be able to follow this book well.

I might have already mentioned Real Pirates and the Composer is Dead. I did get those this summer. The Real Pirates book was perfect for my students about the pirate ship exhibit I saw this summer in Chicago. The exhibit was fabulous and fascinating. And this book brings all of that to the kids. The Composer is Dead is, frankly, a disappointment. I expected wit and a dark sense of humor, but this book is just weird, doesn't explain symphonies well and delivers a poor message. If you don't play music well, you are murdering it. (So give up all you kids learning to play instruments.)

Courage is a sweet little book about all the different kinds of courage we experience in our lives, from the big kinds like jumping off the high dive to the little kinds like wearing a shirt that's different. I immediately showed it to my guidance counselor and he loved it.

Woolbur is going to be a classic "beat of your own drummer" kind of book and my teachers already love it. The Great Texas Hamster Drive is cute. And the Perfect Nest is a simple story that could be used as a curriculum tie in about eggs and nests.

I honestly haven't finished the Gentleman Outlaw and Me, but I'm really enjoying it. There was a slight concern about a little bit of the content in the book. And the teacher who read it also read another Mary Downing Hahn book that was not appropriate for our grade level...Look for Me by Moonlight. I somehow missed the YA level on that book. So I've pulled the Mary Downing Hahn books I haven't read to double check them. I'm not concerned about the Gentleman Outlaw and Me yet, but we'll see what I think when I'm done.

Next on my "To Read" list: Erratum, Masterpiece, Swindle, and the Journal of Curious Letters, along with probably some of the state nominees for next year. (Masterpiece and Swindle are on the list.)

On a side note, I had considered joining Audible because I had been spending so much on audiobooks through iTunes. I was a little frustrated with their site. You can't seem to read much about them without at least signing up for a free account. Even then, you still can't seem to find a lot of information. I actually had forgotten I had an account and was searching their inventory without logging in and I had seen The New Policeman on there. There were a few other books I wanted too. So I went through a lot of rigmarole and discovered I had an account. I logged in and The New Policeman didn't show up anywhere anymore. After a long conversation with customer service, here's what I discovered. #1) Audible has no care at all for decent customer service. #2) They are a world-wide company and publishers sometimes only purchase rights to books in their own territory. Understandable. This means that some of the Audible's inventory is "restricted by geographic location". #3) Books that are potentially restricted by geographic location are not labeled as such in any way, shape, or form. #4) The reps solution was log in. Then you won't see what's not available to you. My point is that it was false advertising. #5) Audible advertises that they have 60,000 titles available. However, that's a lie because a portion of those are not available in geographic locations. But they won't tell me how many titles could be affected. They claim they don't have those numbers, but it's a business for goodness sake. You can't tell me they don't have those numbers somewhere. All that said, Audible still has the biggest selection of any audiobook deliverer that I can find. And if my understanding is correct, the price isn't that bad if you listen to a couple of audiobooks a month.

Ok...marathon post over. Perhaps in a couple of weeks I'll get sick again and have plenty of time to blog. =) I am headed to our state conference and then to AASL in North Carolina, so I'm sure I will come away with a lot of good ideas from those conferences. Until then...happy reading!!

Poor neglected blog...

It has been over a month since I've blogged, but I have been reading. The start of school slowed me down quite a bit, but finished several books. I read the remaining Children's Choice nominees for this year, both the Intermediate and Primary levels. I read The Road to Paris by Nikki Grimes, The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies, and How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Connor. All fairly enjoyable, but I think The Lemonade War was the best one of the three.

The Road to Paris is about a brother and sister, mainly the sister, who are in the foster care system. Our heroine Paris finally seems to be in a place where she might learn to grow. But there is a chance that her birth mother will come back into her life and A poignant story, the book deals sensitively with what could be a very difficult topic for some children. I have a feeling that some teachers/librarians will critique it as not having enough grit or depth, but every once in a while it's nice to see a more even take on the dramas that might face our students.

Another "realistic" take on suburban life, The Lemonade War pits brother and sister against each other in the race to earn the most money from their lemonade stands. Interweaving financial concepts with sibling relationships, this book entertains while providing ample opportunity to educate.

The predictability of How to Steal a Dog is probably its biggest drawback. Once again dealing with drama and difficulty in the lives of a younger kids, the book progresses as you would expect with the peaks and valleys of a story and redemption at the end. Not at all a bad story, just predictable.

I also finally gave in and started the Twilight series. I've had it on my iPod since January, but I kept holding off because I knew I would get totally sucked in. I did. I read all four books in about two weeks. I did get a little sick of the helpless victim thing, but overall, they're my kind of book. I now have to watch the movie and compare it.

I do have to read the newest 39 Clues quickly and get it back into my library, as there is a wait list starting for it. But I'm also going to indulge a bit. I'm an avid digital scrapbooker and occasionally enjoy reverting back to my paper scrapping days. A fellow colleague and scrapbooker gave me "Paper, Scissors, Death" to read. It's a "Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-n-Craft Mystery". It's started off decently, we'll see where it goes.

In case anyone cares, Valerie Hobbs read the post about Sheep. I was totally stoked to have an author read my blog post and comment on it. That's going to go on my bulletin board next to my pictures of Jon Scieszka, Mo Willems, and me!

I promise to not be such a stranger...course...it always seems like I'm saying that. =)

At the Movies

I went and saw Harry Potter today. I thought it was very good. I had meant to jog my memory before I went and read the Spark Notes or something, but I didn't get to it. I know the movie diverged from the book to some degree, but I couldn't tell you for sure how at this point, it's been far too long since I've read it. It did make me want to re-read the Deathly Hallows before the final two movies come out for that.

I have to say, I was perturbed that there were so many commercials on before the movie previews. The first ten minutes was commercials for cars, video games, lemonade, and more. At least it used to be just ads on the screen that you could ignore. (I know...I know....the point is to get you not ignoring them anymore...I get it.) Then the previews finally started. By the time the actual Movie got underway, it was twenty-five minutes past the starting time. And I just think that stinks to add a half hour on to your movie experience. If the movie time says it starts at 10 a.m., I don't begrudge five...even ten...minutes to to watch some previews, but twenty-five minutes is sincerely pushing it. (O.k. End of that rant.)

What I really wanted to talk about are the previews that I saw. Bearing in mind that I was at a movie that was based on a book, I'd like you to examine this list:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Where the Wild Things Are
Sherlock Holmes
The Frog Prince
Percy Jackson - The Lightning Thief
Fame
G.I. Joe
Despicable Me

*Cue Sesame Street Music* One of these things is not like the others....

Only one preview that I saw today was NOT a book or t.v. show first. That was Despicable Me, and I have to tell you, I wasn't that thrilled by that preview. So I couldn't decide whether to jump up and down that so many good books seem to be made into good movies, or be sad that some kids won't have a unique and original experience with these books, or be disappointed in the general lack of creativity that apparently has hit Hollywood writers, or be suspicious that there is some audience manipulation going on in an advertising sense. What do you think? (Hmmm...they're at a movie about a book, let's show mostly book related previews....)

On the definite plus side, several of these look very, very good. Where the Wild Things Are is a big stand out. It looks like it will have adventure, heart, and all the right sentiments on top of amazing CGI integrated with real actors. I was relieved to see Percy Jackson as a live action film, instead of the cartoon I expected after receiving the cartoon trading cards as a promo. Sherlock Holmes looks like it might just be pretty darn good...of course, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law help that cause a little. The Frog Prince introduces Disney's first African-American princess and I'm sure will become a smash hit like Disney movies usually are. GI Joe and Fame are what they are. Didn't really get my interest piqued too much, but I did get a few giggles out of the GI Joe preview.

In the end, we'll see how they stand up against their original versions. As we all know, the movie is never as good as the book!

Sheep by Valerie Hobbs

It's been a month since I last posted and I'd love to say that I read more, but unless you count college assignments, a couple hundred page program for a national conference, and my Facebook updates, I've only read one thing. I think I'm on a bit of a downward swing now. Still have some big assignments coming to grade, but I don't have board meetings and national conferences to go to now either!

"Sheep" by Valerie Hobbs is another state children's choice award nominee. It was a quick and easy read and I enjoyed it for some not too heavy, not too light kind of reading. In many ways, it reminds me of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (by the way, I met Kate DiCamillo and got her autograph on several items). Our main character, however, starts off as a much nicer creature than Edward. After being separated from his family, our collie travels the open road experiencing some of the joy and pain that is life. The question for the reader is, will he finally find both love and a home in the end? A perfect book to put in the hands of kids who love dogs, and especially reluctant readers who love dogs, I'm willing to bet that "Sheep" will be at the top of the voting results in May.

I've started reading "How to Steal a Dog" and still have a couple other children's choice nominees to plug through before I get to read the fun stuff I brought home from the new arrivals at school. Hopefully, I'll also get Overdrive to cooperate with me and I'll be able to listen to one on my iPod in the car. Say a quick prayer to the technology gods for me. =)