I’m a big fan of relaxing my brain through literature, but my love of genre means that you can’t really fool me much. I recently enjoyed two thrillers–Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica and The Hand that Feeds You by AJ Rich–and while both were well written with fabulous characters and lots of suspense, I couldn’t help but wish that I could read a thriller that didn’t basically end up in the basement with Jame Gumb. In the case of Hand, the very fact of a…
We’ve hit the ground running with my 3rd grader. We read aloud A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, which remains basically one of the greatest books of all time, and it was so fun to experience again it through my daughter. I’ll be reading it later this fall with the 4th/5th graders and I think we’ll have some great discussions about sacrifice, fear, and flaws. The first two books we finished for Sonlight Core D were A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert…
My family belongs to a homeschool coop that meets once a week, and I am so happy to be the book club teacher for our 4th/5th graders and our middle schoolers. We read poetry, do writing prompts, learn about literary devices, and have amazing discussions of books. I just finished reading the first books for each class and I’m so excited to start talking about them with the kids. The 4th/5th graders are reading a book that’s new to me called Ratscalibur by Josh Lieb.…
I like big books and I cannot lie This short story hater can’t deny That when a book comes in At 500+ pages My heartbeat starts to fly This week marked the release of Fool’s Quest, the second book in Robin Hobb’s Fitz and the Fool trilogy. In preparation I re-read Fool’s Assassin, the first book, and I wasn’t just info gathering knowing that Hobb will jump right in without making the reader slog through clunky backstory. I was deliciously swept away by the story,…
Because this week I read Killing Monica by Candace Bushnell and Finders Keepers by Stephen King. The former could’ve used more scary parts, and the latter needed a lot more sex appeal. And it’s pretty clear to me that a mashup of these two authors would make for a pretty fabulous book. On their own? Two pretty mediocre reading experiences. In Killing Monica, a bestselling author decides the only way to self-actualize is to kill off her most famous creation. Or at least that’s the…
Because my idea of relaxing is reading about women in desperate circumstances driven to make choices that aren’t really choices at all because they are WOMEN. Repressive society, nobody understands their inner life, maybe they don’t even have an inner life, and you have to escape your gallant kidnapper while your friends talk shit behind your back and if you’re lucky you’ll end up competing with a prostibot. Or, as Luscious Jackson put it, “When a man knows where he came from he can tell…
I had mad love for Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy back when I first read it. Imagine a dystopia where until age 16, you are “ugly.” Then you get a whole bunch of surgery to become beautiful, and then live in paradise until you die. All parties, no war. Everything is beautiful, and Tally Youngblood can’t wait until her birthday–until she meets Shay, who tells her about the world outside, and asks Tally to escape with her. Tally is a great character–I think she’s more awesome…
I’ve been swimming in the cultural zeitgeist lately, thanks to my wonderful local library which just received much-needed funding to reopen on Saturdays. I was crazy excited to get my hands on Judy Blume’s newest book for adults, In the Unlikely Event, which is set in Elizabeth, NJ in the 1950s, against the backdrop of the actual triad of plane crashes that traumatized the community. Elizabeth is Blume’s hometown, and the book is based on her own emotional memories of living in the shadow of…
I originally bought Abby Hanlon’s Dory Fantasmagory for my older daughter, who liked it at first then lost interest. My younger daughter (turned 5 today) picked it up and had me read the whole thing to her over 2 reading sessions. It’s an absolutely adorable tale of a little girl with a big imagination, and the illustrations are a lot of fun. She has all these imaginary friends and enemies who tend to take over her life and make her do things that her family…
More like I am indulging in a pet genre while researching books to use in homeschool coop next year. I’ll start with YA, and two by Karen Hesse. Letters from Rifka is about a teenage girl emigrating from Russia to NYC in 1919. Great character, wonderful historical detail, and lots of emotion made it a great read. I’d love to read it with the 4th/5th graders but it’ll have to wait because last year we read When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, and there’s too much…