It wasn’t obvious at first, because it was just called The Dark is Rising. I didn’t know that the series was called the 2nd book’s title. I thought the table of contents at the beginning was a list of sections in the book.

In any case – the first book didn’t engage me all that much. I will continue with Dark is Rising and see if it gets any better.

I find it slow and a bit cumbersome, actually, especially the dialogue. A lot of description/action is told via the dialogue and I find that annoying. Also, the description (via dialogue and otherwise) isn’t clear. I have a hard time visualizing the setting/scenery/action in my mind. I’m not fond of her writing style.

I”m going to give it another 100 pages and see if I feel any different about it. My expectation was so high for this book and I’m finding myself disappointed.

The division has roughly to do with the genders of the protagonists. I think all of the boys’ books have crossover appeal. I’m not sure that boys could get into Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie,, though–they’re too girly even for some girls!

I, on the other hand, have five bookshelves, not counting the two for horses and programming – and boxes and piles, etc. And I have very few books I have read only once. Many fewer that I didn’t finish.

I looked at the ALA lists, and they seem .. socially relevant. I can see these as a ‘must read’ list, but other than the toddler lists, I can’t see many of the titles getting used again. And the lists were grossly short of references, those things we need to keep handy. Such as dictionary, Bible or other faith-related materials – I also have a couple hymnals. I have some programming books, The Encyclopedia of the Horse, How To Be Your Own Veterinarian (Sometimes), and some Recorder and piano (for the melody lines) music books.

Like you said, I could see borrowing most of those books, but I didn’t see that many that would warrant re-reading enough to buy them. And I think buying books and reading them only once sends a disturbing message to your children, about values, about books, and about the difference between clutter and possessions.

Meng Weng Wong began http://www.pobox.com years ago, I think while still in college. I stumbled on his student ‘books that made me Meng’ once, ten years ago. One of the books really impressed me, ‘Hope For The Flowers’ (Trina Paulas). That wasn’t on the ALA list, nor my favorites C D B and the sequel C D C by Steig. They had none of the Robin McKinley classics (Hero and the Crown, The Blue Sword, Beauty, Deerskin), and left out the Tamora Pierce, Anne McCaffrey, and Mercedes Lackey YA action adventure books. They had at least one book from 1940, yet ignored the ground-breaking YA speculative fiction from Andre Norton. They picked up Bradbury (The Illustrated Man) and skipped Robert Heinlein’s “Have Space Suit, Will Travel” and “Door Into Summer”.

I didn’t see “Curious George”, I didn’t see Jim Kjelgaard’s “Big Red” or “Rufus the Red Tailed Hawk”.

Perhaps theu limited their lists to what is available today in print. Which makes their list a bit of curious effort, since the chance that all the titles will be in print four (4) months from now is slim. And the lists will get steadily more obsolete. Which sends an interesting message to parents, thinking they need to buy their kids these particular books, if the parents want to be *good* parents.

I think I would like to see a breakdown of books checked out more than once by the same person. Books checked out more than twice, over a period greater than a year, would appear to be worth noting. Books checked out a bunch of times could just be an uninteresting class project or popular movie tie-in.

Not that I have any strong feelings, lol!