Summer Reading Challenge

Perhaps it's the fuzzy warm feeling from TBF this past weekend* or perhaps it's just where I'm at in life, but I decided I'm going to challenge myself this summer with my reading. By challenge, I mean that I would like to read at least 25 books over the next 13 weeks. I'm doing this in context of Summer Book Bingo. You can find the Bingo Board here if you want to play along.

Also, I plan to incorporate "Books that I Should Have Read Long Ago and Just Sort of Skipped Over". There is quite a few of those. My friend, Jim, set up a challenge for himself last year of "classics that he should have read but didn't". This is my inspiration for this phase of my challenge.

I will blog about the books and the progress of my challenge.

And now for book one of the challenge:

Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed

I completed this book in less than 24 hours because I couldn't put it down. In fact, I stayed up late on Tuesday to plow through as much as I could. Written in the Stars is about Naila, a soon-to-be high school graduate who is forced by her parents into an unwanted marriage. I'm usually not a fan of realistic fiction, but this book was so interesting. Naila is a compelling character. The minor characters were interesting and well-developed. I highly recommend this book.

*I realized as I was writing this that I should do a recap of TBF. It was epic and wonderful!

Reading Tuesday?

I hadn't done a list of what I've been reading for awhile, so here we go!

1. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

I have to admit that I was hesitant about reading it. I heard snippets from the audio book when we were driving to the Genesee Country Village and Museum in the early fall and I really didn't follow what was going on. However, my son was really into the book. My husband read it and liked it. Both of them strong-armed encouraged me to read it. I did enjoy the book; I'm not going to lie. Am I going to read the rest in the series? Probably not. Mark says the next two books are better than the first. Zums says the first was the best book. I'm going to stop at the first one for now.

2. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch
I believe I posted about how my husband bought this book for me because he read the first chapter on Amazon and it reminded him of my stories. I loved this book because, really, Allie's perspective on stuff is a lot like mine. Something about her simple illustrations really enhance the stories.My only criticism about the book was that the chapters were disjointed: one didn't flow into the other. I prefer an arc in storytelling.

3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Okay, I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I did pick it up again over break. In fact, on New Year's Eve, I had the house to myself for an hour and a half. At first, I was paralyzed by the possibilities! What do I do? Do I binge on Star Trek or Supernatural or The X-Files? Do I play Rush loudly and freak out? No, dear reader, I did none of those. I streamed a classical music station on Spotify, made a cup of tea and started War and Peace again. Why? Cuz I'm lame. Seriously, I needed a stretch of reading to get into the book.

I really enjoy reading War and Peace. I like the challenge of figuring out who's who. I am impressed by how Tolstoy crafts his characters.

I am about 50 pages into it. This will be my second attempt to read the book. My friend, Amie, told me that my first attempt got her to read it and she felt it was one of the best books she ever read. Based on that recommendation, I'm back at it!

4. MindSet by Carol Dweck. I have to read this for work. I started to read it over break, figuring that I would assign myself a chapter a week or something like that to get through the book. I was wrong: it's very interesting. Dweck's research is about people can be successful by adopting a growth mindset.

I've been listening to my thoughts as I go through the day and try to assess them as a "fixed" or "growth" mindset.

5. The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
I need to keep reading to recommend books to students. Kagawa is coming to the Teen Book Festival in May. Her books are popular in the library. I'm about a quarter of the way through this book.

So, yeah, I'm basically reading three books at once right now. I'm cool with that, though, as all three are different and I'm trying to keep a book on hand at all times, so I don't get into mindlessly scrolling through various social media feeds on my phone.

Reading Friday

Welcome to another installment of Reading Friday! I read two books this past week:

1. The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski. After reading Rutkoski's interview on the Greater Rochester Teen Book Festival blog, I read the ARC of this novel.*

Kestrel is the daughter of a general. She has the choice either to marry or go into her father's army. Kestrel accompanies her friend, Jess, to the town's marketplace during a slave auction. Kestrel is in a heated bidding war with another person over the slave, who is a young man the same age as Kestrel. She wins him after bidding a large sum of money; hence, the winner's curse. Kestrel is fascinated by the slave, Smith (Arin), and wants to know his background. Smith is guarded about how much he lets Kestrel know about himself--he has secrets.

While I was put off by the cover of the book (how many YA books have covers with young ladies suffering from ennui in fancy dresses?), I really enjoyed this book! I especially like Rutkoski's characters; Kestrel is a strong female character who makes mistakes. Smith (Arin), Kestrel's slave, is headstrong and torn between loyalty and romance. Rutkoski's style kept me reading--I had to know what was going to happen next.

The novel ended a bit abruptly, but I believe this is the first in a trilogy. I'm excited to read the next installment.

The Winner's Curse is scheduled to be released on March 4.

2. A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

I read this book in less than an hour. Linda Sue Park weaves the stories of two people from South Sudan together. One is Salva Dut, the real-life founder of Water for South Sudan. He is one of the Lost Boys of the Sudan in the 1980s/1990s. The other is Nya, a fictional girl living in a Sudanese village in 2008. Nya walks to the nearest freshwater source for her village every day-- it takes her most of the day walking to fetch water for her family. Through the two narratives, the reader is able to see the war in Sudan and how that has affected the Sudanese people over the past 20 years.

Everyone should read this book. I didn't realize how much the Lost Boys struggled during the war. Although I knew that fresh water is a problem for many people in Africa, I didn't realize the extent of the problem. This book exposed me to lives outside my realm of experiences.

Overall, it was an awesome week for reading!

*NOTE: My friend who went to NCTE picked up the ARC at one of the publisher's tables. I am not compensated in anyway for my book reviews on my blog.

Reading Thursday

I've been quiet the last few days. It's not that I don't have stuff to write about--I've been busy reading (my New Year's Resolution) and am involved in projects at work.

I have tried to do posts called "Reading Friday" which give a rundown of what I've read as of late, but I'm inconsistent. *shrugs* It happens. So I am going to do "Reading Thursday" today. Here's a list of the books I've read since my last reading post:

 

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. If you don't read Terry Pratchett, you should. His characters are hilarious, yet they accurately portray human nature. I loved this book!

Croak by Gina Damico.  Lex Bartelby is shipped off to her uncle's house in the Adirondacks after she caused havoc at her school. Could her behavior have to do with a family trait that Lex shares with her Uncle Mort? A fun read. Gina Damico is going to be at the Greater Rochester Teen Book Festival in May.

The Lord of Illusion by Kathryne Kennedy. I'm a sucker for fantasy romances. I read them and then I complain to my husband about them because I get disappointed. While I loved the premise of this book--Elven Lords have taken over England during the Regency era--the plot fell short about 2/3 of the way through. Having said that, I will try another one of the author's books because I enjoy the premise.

Cold Calls by Charles Benoit. Benoit has a gift in writing suspense. I really enjoyed this book because I had to keep reading to see what happens--I kept guessing at what the characters had done and how they would react. Highly recommend for people who like mystery.

So, dear readers, that's my run-down of my reading for the past month.

What are you reading?

Where the ducks go in the winter; or What the Duck?

So, if you are friends with me on Facebook, you may be wondering about my post on Halloween about the ducks in our library. Our library has two duck decoys; one of which I let a student borrow as part of her Halloween costume as Holden Caulfield. This is the story behind the ducks:

A few years ago, part of the senior prank at the school where I work was to put duck and goose decoys on one of the athletic fields. After the prank was over and the decoys were cleaned up, one went unclaimed. After sitting for months in the main office, I adopted him and brought him to the library.

The duck and me. Note the happy face behind us. It was truly a symbol of our brief friendship.

The duck and I were only together for a few days. One of the parents of the seniors came back to claim him.

My friend, Lora, knew of my sadness. For Christmas that year, she gave me a pair of duck decoys. These are the ducks that currently live in our library.

Lurlene McDaniel is this duck's favorite author. What can I say? He is really into tragic teen romance.

The ducks find themselves around the library in different places. The female is currently roosting in the cupboard where I keep the coffee, just to keep teachers on their toes.

Hi, there.

I let the student who went as Holden Caulfield bring the duck home so that she could show her piano teacher her costume. The next morning, she relayed the following anecdote: the student left the duck in her mom's car overnight, as she didn't want to forget to return the duck. Her father didn't know about the duck decoy; when he went into the garage in the early morning, he was upset that there was a duck in his wife's car. Everything was cool once the student the duck was not real.

Little Gremlins on the Prairie, or Totally Judge a Book By Its Cover

Or so I thought when I unpacked this book:

Now, don't get me wrong: Garth Williams is one of my favorite illustrators. In fact, we are reading The Borrowers as a family and I love Williams' drawings of the mice. I grew up with the Little House books and liked how the pictures told the stories of Laura's life.

Maybe this particular drawing is an anomaly. While it looks great at a glance, there is something more sinister about it:

Why are the girl's eyes rolling back into her head? Is she possessed by the kitten? (my theory). One of my coworkers insisted that it isn't actually a kitten, but Gizmo from Gremlins. Was Williams trying to warn us of the impending doom of feeding this creature after midnight because of the havoc it would cause on this small frontier town?

If you want to know if the prediction of the little old man who owned the Chinese curiosities shop was correct and the if the Ingalls family survived the death and destruction of prairie gremlins, I recommend Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Look! Look! Look at my liver!, or Judge a Book By Its Cover

One of the more interesting aspects of being a librarian is weeding the stacks. Over the years, we have found some really interesting books in our library.

Despite the adage that one cannot judge a book by its cover, I assure you that many readers do. Such as this one:

I know that Orson Scott Card has many fans. His other books circulate. This one does not and I'm pretty sure it has to do with the cover. If I were to interpret the story line by the cover, I would guess that some 80s rock star (judging by the dude's hair) is raising a golden liver from a forge.  His body language is saying, "Look! Look! Look at my liver!" And, what's with the kid in the right corner? He seems rather impressed by this feat!

I realize that the fantasy genre lends itself to interesting cover art, but Rick Springfield and the Golden Liver?

Library humor

So, we have these ancient grammar books that we found in a classroom.

 

We still use them with the students. After all, grammar doesn't really "go bad"; that is, it doesn't change.

We opened up one of the books just to gauge the age of the textbooks and how long we had been using them. We found this:

Well played, student. Well played.

Support the Greater Rochester Teen Book Festival!

This is a shameless plug for a cause I hold near and dear to my heart: the Greater Rochester Teen Book Festival or TBF.

This Saturday, October 12, is the Annual Read-a-Thon (or RAT) to support TBF. If you happen to be out and about this weekend, stop at the Barnes and Noble in Pittsford to say hi to the teen readers. Click here to get a voucher. A portion of the weekend's sales at B&N will go to TBF.

A.S. King, author of Please Ignore Vera Dietz and Everybody Sees the Ants will be presenting at 7 p.m., followed by a book signing.

TBF is important to me because I've seen the impact it has on teens. It is an event that encourages teens to get excited about books and writing. TBF is free to attend because of fundraising events like the RAT.

So, dear readers, if you live in the Rochester area, please stop out this Saturday between 4 and 8 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble in Pittsford to support a great cause.

Thank you.