LibrarysCat Book List

Book Blogger Hop

2011-08-05T11:45:00.003-05:00

It is time for another Book Blogger HOP! (no idea why there is underlining - can't find it in the code!). And it is a special week because there is a great opportunity to get an eARC of a new book.

So head over to Crazy-for-books and check it out.

Read

2011-08-02T13:18:00.004-05:00

Here in the library we are gearing up for the fall term. We have been creating READ posters for our faculty. This one is mine!

Up A Road Slowly

2011-08-02T11:24:00.001-05:00

Up A Road Slowly by Irene Hunt was one of my favorite Newbery books. And I know why! This coming of age story of a girl who grew up right before I did. It was a world I was familiar with and made my memories of these times just flow back!wbery panel!

The novel takes place in the 60s (I am guessing) perhaps and begins with Julie's mother dying when she was seven years old. Julie is the narrator and finds herself and older brother Christopher shipped off to spinster school teacher Aunt Cordelia's house. Their father just cannot take care of them. Initially horrified, Julie comes to love the life in the country where her Aunt lives. The story follow her growth and development from elementary school in a one room class to graduation from high school and heading to college. While I didn't go to a one room school house - I knew that they existed when I was growing up.

The story is also filled with wonderfully outlandish characters such as her alcoholic Uncle Haskell, the bad boyfriend, the good boyfriend, and a wide variety of girls who can be very nice or filled with pride and envy. Julie navigates her life with these people, learning lessons along the way - happy and sad lessons. In the end, Julie learns that her Aunt usually knows what is best for her and knows that it is through her guidance she is an adult.

Another story line, which is at the heart of the mystery, focuses on Madeline L'Engel's book A Wrinkle in Time and the idea of time travel. Marcus, who becomes a friend to Miranda, has theories on time and space. If one were unfamiliar with L'Engel's book, perhaps this story line might also have some gaps. Of course the simple answer to this problem is to read L'Engel's classic book and start over.

Allison's Book Bag has a great review of the book as well - with some comparisons to Anne Of Green Gables. In some ways, it also reminded me of Little Women. Still I wonder if this book would still have appeal with young girls who might find it too simple.

TITLE: Up a Road Slowly

AUTHOR: Irene Hunt
COPYRIGHT: 1966
PAGES: 197
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I loved this little book.

The Midwife's Confession

2011-04-05T09:54:00.007-05:00

Diane Chamberlain has written a spot-on novel about women and their friendships, how relationships between mothers and daughters evolve, and how even the most difficult things can be gotten through with the help of both.

Tara and Emerson had been friends through college, marriage, and childbirth. They both had daughter's who were born within days of one another and were now best friends as well. The two women were also very close friends with Noelle, someone they met in college. Noelle was the local midwife and her surprising suicide (and the more surprising note they find with her belongings) bring about changes and challenges neither Tara or Emerson could imagine. This novel is part mystery, part female bonding and both are well-charted by the author.

You can visit the author's website for information about this book and other bestselling works. Thanks to publisher Harlequin (Mira Books) and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. I enjoyed the characters and felt they were people I knew. Their heartaches and growth were so true and carefully mapped. And unlike some books, the novel ended just where it needed to end!

TITLE: The Midwife's Confession
AUTHOR: Diane Chamberlain
COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: I read the Kindle version
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I enjoyed this novel with the twists and turns of long time friendships and secrets revealed. Good character development.

Lilly's Wedding Quilt

2011-03-31T12:18:00.009-05:00

Lilly’s Wedding Quilt (A Patch of Heaven Novel) by Kelly Long, is the second novel in this series. Even so, it is not necessary to read the first novel before reading this one. However, you may like this one so much that you want to pick up the first! Lilly Lapp is the local Amish school teacher who is taking care of her Mother as well. Lilly wonders if she will ever wed, especially since she has the man she has always chosen to care for, Jacob Wyse, has been in love with another woman. Lilly is surprised when this other woman marries another man. Due to an accident with her buggy, Lilly and Jacob attend the wedding together. Chance has thrown the two together and circumstances cause Lilly to say she spent the previous evening with Jacob. To protect her reputation, Jacob announces their engagement. But will they fall in love?

As you read the book to find the answer, you will find many Amish customs, foods, and beliefs described.

One facet of the book which I really loved was the author’s treatment of mental illness and how it would be treated in an Amish community. Lilly’s mother was depressed and her treatment plan is as gentle and supporting as one would hope all plans are.

I really enjoyed the book and how the plot was developed. If you like learning about different cultures and romance, the author provides the reader with this and more.

Thanks to publisher Thomas Nelson for providing me with the Kindle version of the book to preview. No monetary payment was provided to write and publish a review, positive or not. Thanks to NetGalley for making it so easy to connect with authors and publishers.

TITLE: Lilly's Wedding Quilt
AUTHOR: Kelly Long
COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: I read the Kindle version
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I really liked this gentle novel and learned a bit more about the culture of the Amish people.

The Dolphin People

2010-12-26T16:05:00.003-06:00

A big thank you to Harper Perennial for the opportunity to read and review this novel. The work was originally published in Australia, where author Torsten Krol lives, in 2006; then in Great Britain in 2008. Krol has another novel, Callisto, published in 2007. Most interesting is the statement on the back cover of the book about the author: Torsten Krol is the author of Callisto. Nothing further is known about him. And, after extensive searching on the Web, it seems that this is true. He is reclusive and many believe the author is writing under a pseudonym.

At any rate, I really liked this delightfully interesting novel. The Dolphin People is narrated by Erich Linden who is a sixteen year old who travels with his mother and younger brother Zeppi to Venezuela. Erich's father has died fighting on the side of the Nazis in World War II. Erich's mother will now marry Klaus, her late husband's brother who has fled to Venezuela to avoid prosecution as a Nazi. And this is only the beginning!

After changing their last name, the new family takes a flight to the interior of Venezuela where they will live. Unfortunately the plane crashes and the four must figure out a way to live with the Amazonian tribe they encounter. The family learns the culture of the tribe via another white man, Gerhard, who has lived with the tribe for many years. To save their lives, the family members pretend to be dolphin people, almost gods who had been expected by the tribe. As time passes, the family must do more and more bizarre things to continue the ruse. I will not spoil the fun by telling you the results!

This novel was reviewed by Anis Shivani in the Huffington Post.

TITLE: The Dolphin People
AUTHOR: Torsten Krol
COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 356
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I loved this fanciful novel, but really enjoyed the political rhetoric as well.

Displaced Persons

2010-12-26T11:35:00.004-06:00

In May, 1945, Pavel Mandl, a Polish Jew recently liberated from a concentration camp, searches for surviving family in the Allied Zones of a crushed Germany. Alone, with no money and no prospects, he trades on the black market to survive. While searching for family members and waiting for a visa to America, he befriends a pair of refugees, Fela and a teenaged boy named Chaim, and soon the trio form a makeshift family. (From the back of the book)

When the war was over and Nazi concentration camps were liberated, survivors were taken to camps for displaced persons where their medical needs were addressed. But Europe, especially Eastern Europe, was in shambles. Survivors searched for family members and, more often than not, found that they alone had survived. The emotional devestation led to years of buried emotions and a feeling of not belonging. Displaced Persons, written by Ghita Schwarz, explores this emotional solitude over decades of survival. Ultimately, the emotions under the surface bubble up and expose feelings unknowingly guiding many decisions.

Pavel Mandl found himself in a British displaced persons camp after the war. He found his place in trading in the black market and joined with two other refugees, living in a small house he took over after the war. Fela, widowed by the war, and Chaim, a teenaged boy, who was willing to work with Pavel in trading in the black market, became each other's family. Ultimately Pavel married Fela and the couple struggled to gather what was needed to immigrate to the United States. They hoped the dream of freedom would erase the pain and struggles they had endured. While the two did make it to New York, they found that the past followed them and while they never discussed their experiences, certainly it was there, between them, between them and the world. Chaim went to Israel where he married Sima. Eventually Chaim and his wife also came to New York and the couples were reunited. Then the world changed.

After the fall of Communism, people wanted to hear about the past. They wanted survivors to speak out about their experiences. Many realized that by discussing their past, they would have to relive them in public. With this private struggle exposed, each survivor tried to find a way to move forward. To see the struggle over forty years and two continents really illuminates how difficult survival was after the war.

To hear the author discuss her novel, visit Book Passage.

TITLE: Displaced Persons
AUTHOR: Ghita Schwarz
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 340
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: This is a very thoughtful book. The novel might be especially interesting to students of history who want to follow the post WWII lives of survivors.

Sunday Sidelines

2010-11-28T06:40:00.008-06:00

This has been a very difficult month and an especially difficult week. My mother died on Tuesday evening (November 23, 2010) ~ she has been ill for about three years, but we have known the end was near for about a month. She was at peace. Now my sister and I are trying to find the same peace. The funeral is tomorrow, so I am hopeful that it will make me feel some better...to officially give her over to God. She was 83 years old and I will miss her every day for the rest of my life.

BBC Booklist!!

"The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here."

Instructions:

•Copy this list.
•Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.
•Italicise the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.
•Tag other book nerds.
•Highlight the ones that you have but haven't read.

So, here is my list (feel pretty good about reading 39 of these great books):

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The King James Bible
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four (1984) – George Orwell
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
Emma -Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The DaVinci Code – Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Dune – Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
On The Road – Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
Dracula – Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Inferno – Dante
Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
Germinal – Emile Zola
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession – AS Byatt
Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Watership Down – Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet – William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Wishing you all a wonderful week ~ with reading and love for your family. Please say a little prayer for me and mine.

Two Little Girls in Blue

2010-11-27T07:08:00.003-06:00

I have to admit that the last time I read a Mary Higgins Clark novel it had to have been 1991 with The Cradle Will Fall which scared me half to death - not necessarily the mystery (SUSPENSE) to read when you have four children alone in a house! So, I was rather surprised when my mother gave me two of these NEW mysteries. I read this book sitting next to my mother at the hospital and was desperate when her room was changed and I, with only 20 or so pages left to read, could not find the BOOK! AHHHHH! I found it a few days later exactly where I left it at my desk at work. Thankful sigh!

Two girls in blue - the twin daughters of Margaret and Steve Frawley - are kidnapped. In an interesting twist, we know who took them from the beginning, we just do not know until the end who orchestrated the kidnapping or why really. And believe me, there are plenty of people who had their own reasons to be the ONE. When the girls are separated, special twin communications help to reunite them...but will it be in life or in death?

TITLE: Two Little Girls in Blue
AUTHOR: Mary Higgins Clark

Blog Hop Friday

2010-11-26T07:32:00.006-06:00

It is Friday!! And time for another HOP! Visit Crazy-For-Books and link up your response to the question, then blog about it on your site, then visit some phenomenal bloggers!

This week's question comes from Sarah who blogs at Writer, Reader, Dreamer:

"What is your favorite book cover?"

One of my favorite book covers is Oh!: A mystery of 'mono no aware' by Todd Shimoda. I really do not think the beauty of this book can be translated to the eye without holding it in your hands. The inside is equally as beautiful with high quality paper and lovely illustrations by the author's wife.

I reviewed this book here (the cover looks more the way it looks in real life on my review page).

Another book cover that I love is What I Loved by Suri Hustvedt. It reminds me of a Dali painting that I also find enchanting.

I reviewed this book here. It was one of my favorites this year.

I am trying desperately to get everything I have read over the last few months reviewed.

Please hop around and see how I am coming along! And I plan to visit as many people on the list because it has been a while since I have participated.

Enquiring Minds want to Know!

2010-11-25T15:21:00.003-06:00

Visit DollyCas to share a little about yourself with other bloggers!

1.What is your favorite vegetable? There are not too many vegetables that I dislike. I love eggplant and squash. I think maybe my favorite though are sweet potatoes ~ can that count. If not, then onions.

2.What is your favorite fruit? My absolute favorite fruits are Queen Anne cherries ~ which are the white cherries only available for a short time here each year. I just eat them up and settle for regular red cherries the rest of the year.

3.Do you grow any of your own fruits & vegetables? No, we live in a rental house. However my sister's family has a Farmer's Market and we often have access to very fresh fruits and vegetables.

The Outer Banks House

2010-11-25T08:59:00.001-06:00

The Outer Banks House by Diann Ducharme came to me via Crown Publishers, a division of Random House. As the name suggests, the setting is the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And the book is filled with the richness of North Carolina history and scenery. Taking place just after the Civil War, the tensions of the post-war South also play a significant role in the development of the book.

Abigail Sinclair, her parents, and her siblings come to the North Carolina shore with Abigail looking toward her marriage in the near future while her father is hoping to escape a plantation that is faltering with the loss of slave labor. The family quickly, if reluctantly, joins in the rythms of the island. Abby is introduced to the island by Ben who is a young man with deep ties to North Carolina life and history. Abby teaches Ben to read and their temperments clash until Abby realized that Ben has much to teach her as well. While she becomes more involved in the lives of ex-slaves living nearby, Abby's father becomes involved in local attempts to put the ex-slaves back in their place.

Of course, Abby and Ben fall in love, struggle, come apart, and come back together. It is actually this part of the book with which I have the most trouble. Perhaps the book follows the tried and true method of plot build up, conflict, and resolution ~ but I just did not find it to be real. Maybe as someone who lives in the South, I did not like the racial undertones of the conflict for Abby and her family. So I enjoyed the book for the descriptive narrative, but not the human interactions.

TITLE: The Outer Banks House
AUTHOR: Diann Ducharme
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 291
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I did not particularly care for this book. I appreciated what the author was trying to accomplish, but it just did not feel true for me. However, the descriptions of the North Carolina shores were beautiful.

Kasey to the Rescue

2010-11-24T20:22:00.006-06:00

Thanks to Library Thing Early Reviewer program and Hyperion for the opportunity to read and review this fascinating family saga. I was so excited to receive Kasey to the Rescue. My husband and I always visited the two small monkeys at our local pet shop. I also love the idea of service animals of any sort.

In this true account, Kasey becomes the service monkey for Ned, a young man who was paralyzed in an auto accident. His mother tells the reader about the accident, her son's recovery in the face of low odds, and how Kasey came into their life as a miracle!

Ned was your typical college student when he was injured in an accident. His mother rushed to his bedside only to hear the words no mother wants to hear - that their child might not make it and will be a quadripilegic if he survives. With a life that was crazy enough to begin with, Ellen Rogers stays with her son through his recuperation and brings him home where he lives in the living room. Recognizing that her son needed assistance and even perhaps a new focus in life, the family explores the Helping Hands program which provides capuchin monkeys for the disabled. This is a remarkable and funny story of the determination of one family to get through tough times with the miracle of a monkey! (I hope you will visit the website above and consider supporting their program).

As a parent, I certainly could identify with Ms. Rogers and her love for her son and her other children shines brightly in this easy to read book. I know the delight of a miracle. My daughter is also a miracle - but from birth. I know the wonder of a life saved. If you don't have time to read this book, try to make time. You can also view a number of interviews and videos online:

Recent interview with Ellen Rogers - at Paw Nation
Kasey to the Rescue website - book website
And even a Facebook page - Kasey to the Rescue

TITLE: Kasey to the Rescue: The Remarkable Story of a Monkey and a Miracle
AUTHOR: Ellen Rogers
COPYRIGHT: November 2010
PAGES: 288
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: If you have a love of animals, you will likely be enchanted by Kasey. If you love the triumph of the human spirit, you will love Ellen, her son Ned and her younger children. Altogether a fascinating story of love and faith and a little helper monkey!

National Non-Fiction Day ~ YEAH!!

2010-11-04T17:39:00.010-05:00

I have always loved non-fiction. I like Holocaust narratives, history, memoirs, cookbooks, and just about any how to do it book. When I was a child, my mother said I even read the phone books. So I thought I would do two things today. I am going to write two reviews on non-fiction books I have recently completed and then tell you a little about a non-fiction book I just loaded on the Kindle and am looking forward to reading.

My dear, dear boss JVK brought me an autographed copy of this book. She stood in line at ALA and I am very glad that she did. The idea is how librarians and cybrarians can help in the organization of what has quickly becomed gluts of information.

One of my favorite quotes is early in the book - the author is speaking of the information explosion that came with the Internet: Information and new forms of information were washing over me in oceans and it was fun to splash in the wake. (p. 17) Now that I have read the Internet back and forth ten thousand times, I am nearly done with the splashing.

Here is the best advice found in the book: Just because librarians like to search for author, title, subject the way they used to in the old card catalog doesn't mean the general public does that anymore. The card catalog is dead, people. Move on. (p.41)

TITLE: This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save us All
AUTHOR: Marilyn Johnson
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 272
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: I laughed and laughed ~ I have lived so many of these moments. Never more proud to be a librarian.

For students of Jewish or European history, it is a well known fact that the Hungarian Jews were the last to be sent through the Hitler killing machine that decimated the Jewish population of Europe. In 1944, late in the war that Hitler was slowly losing, Swedish Raoul Wallenberg, educated in America and a world traveler, found himself with the knowledge that the Jews in Budapest were being rounded up and sent to their deaths. He felt that he must try to save as many people as possible and began to do just that.

Using fake protective passports, Wallenberg saved between 30,000 and 100,000 Hungarian Jews. He set up safe houses and managed to move the hunted Jews to safety. In doing so, he put himself in danger. As the Soviets came closer and closer to the Hungarian capital, they became convinced that Wallenberg was a German spy. After the war, Wallenberg was captured by the Soviets and has not been seen since the end of the war.

TITLE: Raoul Wallenberg: The Man Who Stopped Death
AUTHOR: Sharon Linnea
COPYRIGHT: 1993
PAGES: 145
TYPE: non-fiction, Holocaust narrative
RECOMMEND: This book made me sad - although why it should have more than others, I don't know. I think it upset me because a man who saved the lives of others could not be saved.

This is the personal account of Carolyn Jessop's escape from a fundamentalist Mormon polygamous marriage. I have heard her speak about her ordeal, from the time she was married in her early teens to her life after escape. I expect this book to be very interesting. To make it even better, I am going to read it on a Kindle.

TITLE: Escape
AUTHOR: Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer
COPYRIGHT: October 2007
PAGES: 432
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: I can't really say yet, since I am only starting the book, but I know I will like the topic. And I have seen very good reviews.

All in all, non-fiction remains my favorite genre. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction and I love it that way!!

Adam & Eve: A Novel

2010-09-20T09:37:00.001-05:00

First, I would like to thank William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers for sending me this uncorrected proof. In return, I am providing an unpaid review of the book containing my personal opinions of Naslund's newest novel Adam and Eve. In her two previous novels, Ahab's Wife and Abundance, the author brought a fictional character to life - Ahab's wife (from Moby Dick) and took a real life character - Marie Antionette, into a fictional world. In her latest novel, Naslund wraps her characters around ancient religious symbols and texts - moving from Amsterdam, to Eden (somewhere in the Middle East), to France.

Lucy Bergmann was in Amsterdam when her husband was killed. Shortly before his death Thom, an astrophysicist, had given Lucy his flash drive with the quip that it was the keys to the kingdom. And the kingdom included extraterrestrial life! He could prove it. At this point, I was thinking, oh brother ~ another one of these stories ~ but I persevered! And I loved this book.

The book bounces back and forth in time, but is easy to follow. We meet people who are to help Lucy, like Adam who finds himself adrift from a war he never believed in - adrift in Eden. Alone until Lucy ~ his Eve ~ crashes a plane nearby. Together they look for a case Lucy was carrying ~ holding ancient biblical texts. Lucy and Adam are not the only people searching for them and the two find themselves in the center of a battle between the three main ancient religions.

I was glued to this book from beginning to end. I had to hear what the ancient texts said, I had to follow Adam and Lucy in Eden, I had to know who the bad guys were, and was there a happily ever after? I hope that you will grab this book and spend some time with it. I plan to read it again as soon as I can and check out the author's previous two books as well.

TITLE: Adam & Eve: A Novel
AUTHOR: Sena Jeter Naslund
COPYRIGHT: September 2010
PAGES: 335
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I found this to be a beautiful book that provoked joy and deep thinking about our place in the universe. A perfect blend of mystery, faith, and beauty.

Sunday Sidelines (And Awards, ~squee~)

2010-09-19T12:26:00.009-05:00

So, today is a special Sunday around our house ~ it is my husband's birthday! He is 42 today and we are celebrating with a special dinner with vanilla cake (with vanilla icing) [his choice, as per our household agreement, birthday person picks cake and icing flavor]!

What a sweet thing to find in my comments today! CMash @ CMash Loves to Read gave me the following two awards:

The Honest Scrap award is given to bloggers who share honest bits of information about yourself. And the Versatile Blogger award is given to a new blog that you think is fantastic. So first, I want to thank CMash for these two awards. It is always nice to know that someone out there is reading what you write and thinks of you. I love reading CMash's posts so I feel very special to receive these awards.

And now for the criteria:
To accept these awards it is required that I share ten things about myself.

1. I have four chihuahuas that I treat like my children ~ I have four of those as well, but they are all grown.

2. My husband is fifteen years younger than I am, we both work for the same library!

3. I have two grandsons and wish that my other three children would get busy and provide me with some granddaughters!

4. I wake up two or three times each night and go outside and read ~ probably not good for my health, but I get some reading done!

5. I have so many books that I have read and not reviewed that I could just cry ~ all of the Outlander series, about four review books from publishers, two from LibraryThing ~ oh, goodness the list just goes on and on! I'm working on it.

6. I love playing all of the Lego games on the Wii ~ sometimes I have to get one of my children to beat a level so I can more forward.

7. I work with young people all day long, and I think it keeps me young as well. Now if some how they could just help me lose weight??!!

8. I traveled to Eastern Europe and absolutely fell in love! I hope that I get the opportunity to return.

9. I have another blog that focuses on Holocaust resources for children. I am really drawn to these books and feel it is important to provide this information to our children.

10. I have really enjoyed getting to know all of the book bloggers out in the blogosphere! What a great bunch of people. Thanks again to CMash!

I would like to pass the award on to the following bloggers, in no particular order:

Crazy for Books

In Which a Girl Reads

Lost in the Library

Peaceful Reader

Reading While Female

If you don't already follow these blogs, you should definitely check them out ~ they are fantastic!

Don't forget LunaNina and the Word Association Game:

1.Mustache :: Pete
2.Person :: of interest
3.Restore :: my health
4.Discretion :: is the better part of valor
5.Lamp :: Lava
6.Pillow cover :: so soft
7.Arousal :: sexual
8.Seattle :: needle
9.ATM :: card
10.Custard :: vanilla

Wishing everyone a Happy Sunday and a wonderful week!

Room

2010-09-18T13:07:00.004-05:00

Jack is only five years old.
He lives with his MA in ROOM.
Everything outside the ROOM is pretend.
ROOM is all Jack has ever known.

But one day MA tells Jack that
There is another life outside of ROOM.
MA has lied to him.
But can they leave ROOM?

If they do leave ROOM
How will they live?
Will Old Nick find them,
And take them back to ROOM?

Will MA's family care
Care that they have been in ROOM
Such a long time
Only to finally reappear?

Can Jack and MA escape from Old Nick?
Will the love between MA and Jack sustain them
Outside the ROOM?

Thanks to Little Brown and Company, I had the privilege to read this fascinating book. Five year old Jack is the narrator and author Emma Donoghue has done a magnificent job in giving Jack just the right voice for his age and experiences. One would think this book, limited in range to one small room and two people, would be flat and boring. Instead Ma and Jack's story is a testament to love and ingenuity. With very little to assist her in her efforts, Ma provides Jack with as many "normal" childhood experiences as she can, using what she has, and providing loving care for her son. Still she knows things have to change. And they do! Ma thinks of a way that she and Jack can fool Old Nick and escape Room. Will they succeed and will they find greater happiness? You will have to read the book to find out!

TITLE: Room: A Novel
AUTHOR: Emma Donoghue
COPYRIGHT: September 2010
PAGES: 321
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I loved this book, as a reader, as a mother and as a child. Fantastic novel!

If my recommendation is not enough, Room is on the Man Booker Prize short list! If you have read this one, let me know how you felt about it!

BBAW - Future Treasure

2010-09-17T19:33:00.002-05:00

I want to hear all about your FUTURE treasures. We’ve been visiting each other and getting to know each other better…now is your chance to share what you enjoyed about BBAW and also what your blogging goals are for the next year!

I have enjoyed every single part of Book Blogger Appreciation Week! From the very beginning with judging blogs from all of the categories to this last little bit ~ and of course every little thing in between. I have found some wonderful blogs which are new to me that have over-filled my Google Friend list, I have given some love to beautiful bloggers who have influenced what I am reading, I have created a monstrous TBR pile of books that I just know I am going to love, and I had the pleasure of interviewing two fantastic bloggers! So how much fun was all of this? T.O.N.S of FUN! Thank you to all of the people who helped to organize BBAW and thanks to all of the bloggers who showed just how much they love books!

My blogging goals for the next year are to try my best to review books immediately after I read them whenever possible ~ and I would even say, to review books that I have read, because sometimes I get so far behind (voracious reader that I can be) that it seems impossible to get caught up, so I just stop like a deer in the headlights! I hope to remember that this is always supposed to be fun. I would like to make even deeper connections with my fellow book-loving nerds and enjoy what we all have to say!

BBAW - Forgotten Treasures!

2010-09-16T08:13:00.006-05:00

Today’s Topic: Sure we’ve all read about Freedom and Mockingjay but we likely have a book we wish would get more attention by book bloggers, whether it’s a forgotten classic or under marketed contemporary fiction. This is your chance to tell the community why they should consider reading this book!

What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt is a wonderful novel that I have not seen bounced about in the blogosphere much. I read the book as part of the Scandinavian Reading Challenge 2010 which you can find at The Black Sheep Dances.

Here is the beginning of my review:

For me, the mark of a great book is one that, while I am reading it, I say to myself "This is the best book I have ever read." Now granted I am prone to saying that with some frequency, but for me, What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt was just such a book. I loved every part of it - the mundane, the excitement, the familiar, the unknown, the art, the critic, the loneliness, the camraderie. This book has everything and then some. The focus is clear as we have a single narrator who leads us through his twenty-five year friendships in New York's art world.

I hope that you will take some time to read the rest of my review which can be found Here.

I found another excellent review of What I Loved at The Public, The Private, and Everything In Between. Beyond this review I didn't find too many others, so I hope you will read this book and post a review ~ and come back and leave me a comment to make sure I read it!

BBAW - Unexpected Treasures

2010-09-15T08:04:00.004-05:00

Book bloggers can be some of the most influential people around! Today we invite you to share with us a book or genre you tried due to the influence of another blogger. What made you cave in to try something new and what was the experience like?

This is an easy question for me. Because of Presenting Lenore and her Dystopian August with promotion and love for the Hunger Game series, I read all three Hunger Game books as fast as I could when Mockingjay was released. I do like YA books, and I love reading her reviews of YA materials - but dystopian novels with strange worlds ~ not my typical read. And I absolutely loved the three books. In fact, I plan to read all three again when I have a bit of time on my hands. Of course, I continue to read Lenore's reviews of other YA books and know that I can trust her judgment! She is my Queen of YA books!!

Table Talk Tuesday

2010-09-14T09:52:00.004-05:00

It is time again for Table Talk Tuesday! Welcome to TABLE TALK TUESDAY hosted by Cheryl at CMash Loves to Read. I missed last week because I had it in my mind that it was Table Talk Thursday - very, very close! OK, so this week is Book Blogger Appreciation Week and that is very exciting, so my conversation tidbits will be about BBAW. But first let me answer CMash's questions.
CMash's conversation tidbits:
1. Do you have any special plans for this week?

I stay super busy most weeks, but this week I am trying to set aside some time to read as many BBAW related posts as possible. This is coming on the heels of what was probably a very successful Blogfest (which I did not sign up for because I am slow!)

2. It's that time of year, do you get a flu shot?

Absolutely - even with the flu shot last year I was one of the lucky Floridians who managed to get the Swine Flu - working in a library, I think we are offered every possible bug every day!

3. What are you reading this week?

I am reading A Call from Jersey by P.F. Kluge - which I love so far.

Now here are my thoughts and questions:

1. I am in love with BlogFest and BBAW - I mean seriously book bloggers are the greatest people. How have you participated? I did an interview with one person for each of my blogs - here are the links: Sophisticated Dorkiness and Age 30+ - A Lifetime of Books
Both are phenomenal bloggers so I hope you will check out the interviews and visit their blogs.

2. Tell me how you found out about BlogFest - did you participate? Do you know any bloggers in real life? How did you meet? I would love to meet with real people just once!

3. Do you ever participate in the Read-a-thons? If yes, how many hours of 24 do you actually read? Do you significant others understand this insanity? I have not participated but I would love to, so I am thinking about Dewey's Readathon.

Hope you have a wonderful week! I've enjoyed my cup and cake with you this morning!

BBAW - Interview

2010-09-13T16:24:00.002-05:00

This is about as much fun as I have had in quite some time - I mean, you get a bunch of readers and bloggers together, and how could it not be fun?!! Today's event is swapping interviews with other bloggers and I knew from the start that it would be delightful.

So without further blathering from me, I am excited to introduce Heather @ Age 30+...A Lifetime of Books. Heather is a very active blogger reading a wide range of books. In 2009, Heather won Best History/Historical Fiction Blog.

1. To get started, tell us a little about yourself. What do you do when you are not reading and blogging?

I’m a wife and a mom and lots of other things so of course my life is crazy busy. Most of my non-bookish time is spent with my 8 year old son Kiddo – boy, does he ever keep me on my toes!

2. I have to admit that I have never listened to an audio book! I see from your blog that you review them frequently. Which audio book should I listen to first so that I will fall in love with the medium?

That’s a really hard question to answer since it depends on your reading tastes. The key to enjoying audiobooks is twofold: to find a book you are ALREADY interested in and then to make sure the narrator is one whose voice you enjoy – that will usually guarantee success. After looking at some of the books you’ve reviewed on your blog I’d suggest two things. First, try out the Harry Potter audiobooks narrated by Jim Dale. Since you’ve read the books and seen the movies, you can compare the experience to both of those. Plus, these are some of the best audiobooks out there in my opinion. Since you also read and enjoyed The Survivor’s Club, my second suggestion would be Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story of Success. I’m a huge fan of non-fiction audiobooks, and this one seems like a good fit for you. Thank you for your guidance and suggestions. Now at least I know where to start!

3. Tell us about the best book you have read that was totally outside your normal choices.

I’d have to say The Horse Boy, by Rupert Isaacson. I don’t generally read memoirs or books dealing with special needs issues, so this was not something I’d have picked up on my own. However, it was an incredibly moving book and extremely well-written. (And it was a audiobook as well!) I’ve been recommending it to everyone since I finished it.

4. I see you are participating in the Lost Challenge? Which lost character are you? Why?

I’m actually one of the co-hosts of the Lost Challenge – which, by the way, is still going on despite the end of the series. :) I’d say I’m probably most like Juliet. I always want everyone to get along and I’m always trying to do the right thing.

5. What three things do you love (reading doesn’t count, or blogging!)?

Watching Kiddo excel at ice hockey and seeing how much he truly enjoys it
Doing family history research, either online or by interviewing family members
Spending time on the beach in the sun and sand, with the sound of waves continually crashing

6. What would the name of your autobiography be?

I Find Myself Interesting … You May Not Agree Now that is funny! I think you are quite interesting!

7. I love the idea of Mom and Son reading. What is the best book you and your son have read?

The one that generated the funniest answers during our Q&A was definitely Diary of a Wombat, by Jackie French. But the “best” book we’ve read together was The Ark, The Reed, and the Fire Cloud, by Jenny Cote. It was a huge book and took a very long time to read, but the story was fun and it was quite a challenge to try to do all the accents in that book!

8. Are you a cat person or a dog person – or maybe a neither person?

I’m a bit of both. At the moment we are without a pet (other than a fish) because both our two dogs passed away over the past few years. I’d love to have cats again like I did as a child but both Hubby and Kiddo are very allergic. And our schedule is so busy that we’re hardly home right now, so I don’t think it’s fair to get another dog just yet. But I’d love to have something furry to cuddle up with each day, be it a dog or a cat. We have three chihuahuas but I long for one cat - I am the one who is now allergic after a lifetime of cuddling!

9. What book should I rush out to buy if I don’t already have it?

You should absolutely get the illustrated version of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown. This is a must read book for everyone.

10. When people visit your blog, what do you hope they leave with?

I hope they are excited about reading and that they find reviews of some books that they haven’t seen on other blogs. And I always hope that they’ll leave with the desire to visit me again! I certainly left with that feeling - I will be back again and again!

Thank you, thank you for talking with me!!

BBAW - First Treasure

2010-09-13T14:26:00.003-05:00

Let’s talk about that first treasure today.
For those of you who participated in BBAW last year, what’s a great new book blog you’ve discovered since last year’s BBAW?
For those you new to BBAW, what was the first book blog you discovered?

Tell us all about this blog and why you love it…why do you keep going back for more?

I have been blogging for about six years, but in February 2007 I found a blog called The Newbery Project while doing some research for work. WOW - people were reading the Newbery Award books, posting a review of each title, AND having discussions about each book. I was delighted - there were other nerds (I mean adult people) who were reading books meant for a younger age group and joining together in a discussion!! My kind of people.

As I read and posted (under Flusi's Posts), I decided I wanted to start keeping track of all of the books I was reading. So I made the move from Diaryland to Blogger and got started. It was a little lonely at first, but over time I started recognizing other bloggers and looked forward to reading their posts. Then along came LibraryThing and I began to join others in discussing books.

Within these two communities I feel comfortable enough to state my mind and I have met some wonderful bloggers who recommend the best books, some I would never have read on my own and, lets face it, some I would never read again! But we are all as different as we are the same and that is what makes the blogosphere go 'round!

Sunday Sidelines

2010-09-12T09:02:00.006-05:00

Welcome to another Sunday Sidelines! I have so much to talk about today. It has been an exciting week and another exciting week will be coming up!

I hope that you will take some time today to visit the blogs who are participating in BlogFest 2010! Over 200 bloggers are offering giveaways on top of the opportunity to visit their wonderful reading blogs. The host, A Journey of Books, has created a tracking site where you can keep up with which ones you have visited. It all ends at 11:59 pm tonight, so start visiting!

Another fun thing I do every week is Unconscious Mutterings, hosted by Luna Nina! It is so much fun to see answer these free association suggestions and go back and see how others have answered. Participation has been down a bit so I hope you will go play her game so that she continues to do this!

Next week starts another big event in the world of blogging. Book Blogger Appreciation Week will be full of wonderful surprises - blogs with awards, interviews with other bloggers - so I hope you will stop by for a visit throughout the week. On Tuesday, I will be posting my interview with Heather J. from Age 30+...A Lifetime of Books. It is oh so exciting!

Blog Fest 2010

2010-09-10T15:49:00.004-05:00

Oh my goodness - BlogFest 2010 has some amazing blogs and some amazing giveaways - you really have to go and visit! I think the best place to start is at A Journey of Books. And it only lasts for two days, so you better get moving - over 250 blogs to visit!

Book Blogger HOP

2010-09-09T20:43:00.005-05:00

This week's question/topic comes from:

Anne @ My Head Is Full of Books

Post a link to a favorite post or book review that you have written in the past three months.

And your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to COMMENT ON THAT PERSON'S POST! Spend some time getting to know each other's blog and writing!

Note: If you have already commented on this person's review, find another one that you haven't commented on! The point is to read a post on their blog that isn't a HOP post! :)

The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly meme hosted by Crazy-For-Books. If you hop on over to her blog, you can find Mr. Linky and link your HOP post to the other 300 who link up every week. It is always fun to see the different books and blogs which are highlighted each week.

My Answer:

I think you might enjoy What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt. I liked it alot and it was outside my normal reading genre. Great question and great challenge!

Cherry on Top Award

2010-09-07T18:15:00.006-05:00

Oh my goodness! The wonderful blogger, CCL at Crazy Cat Lady's Library, gave my blog the Cherry on Top Award. This award is meant to go to "beautiful blogs with that little bit extra!" While I am not sure my blog is beautiful, I always try to give a little bit extra and I really appreciate her sending me this award.

The Cherry on top Award Rules are:

1. Answer this question: If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you, and what would it be?

I think maybe there are two things - one I might change, the other I would definitely change. When I was in college, I had the opportunity to go to Italy and study for two years - completely paid for by a scholarship. For a variety of reasons, I did not go. How. Insane. Is. That?? But who knows, things do and don't happen for a reason. So I might change that.

The thing that I would definitely change would be the birth of my first child - she was born two weeks late in a time when they just did not induce. She had terrible problems as a result and almost died. Her life has been a blessing for me, but I would change that because of the pain it has caused her - through no fault of her own, just that people can be quite mean. Wait, maybe if I am being given power to change things - I would leave my daughter just as she is - a wonderful blessing - and change everyone else!

2. The second thing you have to do is, pick 6 people and give them this award. You then have to inform the person that they have gotten this award.

I have chosen the following 6 blogs to pass this award along to:

1. CMash Loves to Read
2. Caroline Bookbinder
3. Rose City Reader
4. The Blue Bookcase
5. Notes From the North
6. Thinking About Loud

3. The third and final thing is: thank the person who gave you the award.

This is the easy part!! Crazy Cat Lady, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

BAN THIS and BANNED BOOK CHALLENGE

2010-09-03T21:32:00.002-05:00

BAN THIS - check it out!! Visit Donna at Bites to join in this celebration of our freedom to read. If you are planning on posting anything about Banned Books Week on your blog, please visit her and leave a link so others can check out what you have to say.

BANNED BOOKS READING CHALLENGE -

While you are thinking about this very important topic, please visit Steph Sue Reads and join the reading challenge that goes along with Ban This! You should pledge to read seven banned books in seven weeks. You provide a link on her blog and then post links to your reviews and any other information you might have on this one link...anyway, sounds like a great challenge. Here is my initial list:

Go Ask Alice
TTYL
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Olives Ocean
TBA
TBA
TBA

So everyone who wants to show support for librarians, book store owners, publishers, principals, teachers, friends, and readers - sign up now and read some banned books!

Donna also provides this fantastic proclamation and as a librarian I think I should also make the pledge:

Banned Books Week Proclamation

WHEREAS, the freedom to read is essential to our democracy, and reading is among our greatest freedoms; and

WHEREAS, privacy is essential to the exercise of that freedom, and the right to privacy is the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one's interest examined or scrutinized by others; and

WHEREAS, the freedom to read is protected by our Constitution; and

WHEREAS some individuals, groups, and public authorities work to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries of materials reflecting the diversity of society; and

WHEREAS, both governmental intimidation and the fear of censorship cause authors who seek to avoid controversy to practice self-censorship, thus limiting our access to new ideas; and

WHEREAS, every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of American society and leaves it less able to deal with controversy and difference; and

WHEREAS, Americans still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression, and can be trusted to exercise critical judgment, to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe, and to exercise the responsibilities that accompany this freedom; and

WHEREAS, intellectual freedom is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture; and

WHEREAS, conformity limits the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend; and

WHEREAS, the American Library Association's Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year as a reminder to Americans not to take their precious freedom for granted; and

WHEREAS, Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that LibrarysCat celebrates the American Library Association's Banned Books Week, September 25th to October 2nd, and be it further

RESOLVED, that LibrarysCat encourages all libraries and bookstores to acquire and make available materials representative of all the people in our society; and be it further

RESOLVED, that LibrarysCat encourages free people to read freely, now and forever.

Adopted by Donna at Bites
8/14/10
Connecticut

Adopted by Donna at LibrarysCat
9/3/2010
Florida

Blog Hopping Time Again

2010-09-03T08:14:00.003-05:00

ABOUT THE HOP:

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read! So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start HOPPING through the list of blogs that are posted in the Linky list at Crazy-For-Books!!

The Hop lasts Friday-Monday every week, so if you don't have time to Hop today, go back later and join the fun! This is a weekly event! And go back throughout the weekend to see all the new blogs that are added!

This week's question comes from Sarah Reads Too Much!

Do you judge a book by its cover?

Is this a bad thing? Oh, right, my mother always told me "you can't judge a book by its cover"! Well, then I have to confess that sometimes I do. Especially if I am wandering around the book store with no particular book in mind. I just walk up and down the aisles and - all of a sudden, I am drawn in by a cover! Now I don't just willy-nilly buy the book, I do have sense enough to read a little and decide if it is for me - but the awful truth is that I probably would not have picked it up without the cover.

If you are visiting from the Hop, welcome and I hope you will take a look around. This past week I posted reviews on Knit in Comfort: A Novel and The Eternal Ones. I also participated in a brand new meme - Table Talk Tuesday hosted by CMash Loves to Read.

Wishing you a wonderful Labor Day weekend filled with lots of fun, lots of reading, and of course, LOTS OF HOPPING!

Knit in Comfort: A Novel

2010-09-02T21:26:00.005-05:00

Let me begin this review with thanks to LibraryThing and Avon Publishers for providing me with the opportunity to read this book. Knit in Comfort: A Novel by Isabel Sharpe is one of many books published recently which are centered on a group of women who share knitting as a common hobby. I wanted to love this book, and while I found it engaging enough, I only liked it.

The story revolves around two women. Megan Morgan lives a settled life in Comfort, North Carolina with her husband, children, and mother-in-law. She belongs to the knitting club, Purls before Wine which meets weekly. Even though this is the life Megan wanted, she never really seems content. Needing to supplement the family income, Megan rents out the small garage apartment behind the house to Elizabeth Detlaff. Elizabeth lived in New York City with her boyfriend. In a dream, Elizabeth heard her grandmother tell her to go find “comfort” and she believes that is what she has done! She views Megan’s life as blissfully happy until she sees beneath the surface and realized things may not be the way they seem. And isn’t that true of everyone’s life?

The part that made this story a little more interesting was the introduction of Megan’s stories about her ancestors from the Shetland Islands in Scotland. Fiona, Megan’s great-grandmother, knitted beautiful lace that seemed to tell her story. (This little sample of Shetland Island lace is just one of many beautiful examples I located - oh, if only I could tat lace like that!)
In the beginning, I was more focused on this story until I could figure out who was who. The two stories, Megan’s and Fiona’s, seem to flow together over the course of the book just as Megan and Elizabeth’s stories do.

TITLE: Knit in Comfort: A Novel
AUTHOR: Isabel Sharpe
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 320
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: This was an easy book to read and it kept my attention - bonus twist as you learn family secrets. I didn't love it, but not really my cup of tea.

Table Talk Tuesday - 1st ever!

2010-08-31T10:14:00.002-05:00

Welcome to the first Table Talk Tuesday meme, hosted by CMash Loves to Read. Hop on over to her blog to participate. The goal is to share a cup of coffee or tea and share three tidbits or ask three questions - either things about yourself or things you want to know.

My Three Things:

1. Do you prefer coffee or tea? I love Starbucks coffee on ice. Not a huge fan of hot coffee. I love, love sweet (Southern sweet) tea. Only drink hot tea when I am sick.

2. I love animals. We have four beautiful chihuahuas at our house. Do you have any pets? Or even a pet preference? I used to have cats but somehow I have become allergic, so I am not strictly a dog person.

3. I read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay all in this last week - a little late to the games, so to speak!! Have you read them? Do you plan to read them?

I hope you have a great week and enjoy this little coffee break!

The Eternal Ones

2010-08-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Haven Moore. I's seventeen years old and I live in a town called Snope City in eastern Tennessee. As long as I can remember, I've had visions of another life in New York, a city I've never visited.

My name then was Constance, and I was friends with some members of your Society. I believe I was around twenty years old when I died in a fire in the mid-1920s. (p, 101)

Haven Moore wrote the message above to the Ouroboros Society. She and her best friend Beau decided it was time for her to find out about her past lives, especially since her "spells" are becoming more and more frequent. After seeing Constance's lover on television, Haven runs away to New York to find him. The book becomes a mystery, with psychological twists and frantic escapes. The questions Haven must answer are: Who can she trust? Is the past real? and Can she find love and happiness in the future?

I was a little hesitant at first when I began reading this novel. It seemed disjointed with Haven moving back and forth in time, with other names and other people. Gradually, I really liked Haven and Beau and wanted them to find answers. And I wanted the bad people to be punished. In the end, I was satisfied with the outcome and glad that I had read the book. The strength of the book is that Miller is able to make each character, often the same person but different in time, become real and separate. I also liked the flow of the story, from beginning to end.

I visited the author's website and discovered that she is the creator of Kiki Strike, a young heroine in New York City, which has been very popular. I found a very good interview with Miller at Publisher's Weekly online - Q & A with Kirsten Miller. I would like to thank the publisher, Sleuth Razonbill, for sending me this copy of the ARC of The Eternal Ones. In return, I am providing my honest review of the book.

TITLE: The Eternal Ones
AUTHOR: Kirsten Miller
COPYRIGHT: August 2010
PAGES: 411
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I had a little bit of difficulty getting into this book, but once it got going, I could not put it down. So if you don't like it at first, give it a chance - it will be worth it.

Sunday Sidelines

2010-08-29T09:44:00.011-05:00

So, in my little neck of the woods, it has rained and poured all weekend long. It could not have happened at a better time. I finished The Hunger Games and Catching Fire (both on the Kindle) and now I can start Mockingjay. The only review I allowed myself to read was rather negative, so I am a bit sad because I want it to be as good as the first two. If you have read the final book and would like to encourage me PLEASE leave me a little comment telling me how good it really is! But no spoilers, please.

Please visit Merit Badger to decide which badge you have already earned as a reader or a writer! I read through many of them and have decided that I have earned the Voracious Reader badge:

Sure, writers write. But they should read, too! Earn the “voracious reader” merit badge by giving yourself permission to refill your head with words every now and again.

Since I am always reading two or three books at a time, I think I have earned this one for sure. Visit this unique blog to see which badges you have earned!

1.Bangs :: cut too short
2.Diaper :: change
3.Coffee table :: book
4.Cops :: and robbers
5.Matches :: cigarettes
6.250 :: dollars
7.Hurricane :: Katrina
8.Bad :: news
9.Confirmation :: church
10.Fiber :: One Bar

Unconscious Mutterings is a weekly word association game created by Luna Nina. Visit her blog to play along and see if anyone else matches your answers!!

I have one other question for you today...do you use Intense Debate for your comments, and if so do you like it better than the standard comment management on your platform?

Wishing you a great week ahead.

Blogger Hop Friday - raining and reading The Hunger Games

2010-08-27T10:25:00.003-05:00

ABOUT THE HOP:

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read! So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start HOPPING through the list of blogs that are posted in the Linky list at Crazy-For-Books!!

The Hop lasts Friday-Monday every week, so if you don't have time to Hop today, go back later and join the fun! This is a weekly event! And go back throughout the weekend to see all the new blogs that are added!

This week's question comes from Books Are A Girls Best Friend!

Do you use a rating system and if so, what it is and why?

I do not use a rating system. I usually end each post with the publication information and my recommendation. I always like it when people DO use a rating system - with one quick glance I can see if they liked it or not. I often think about creating one, but haven't yet - then I would have to decide how to rate each book??#@

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. I just finished The Hunger Games and have started the next book, Catching Fire. Don't be like me and wait forever to read them as the first book was really good. I had to stay up way past my normal bedtime last night just to see what was going to happen. I really appreciate all of the reviews and the excitement surrounding these books over the last few weeks. Your words or praise really encouraged me to read the books. Soon it will be Mockingjay time for me. (All on the borrowed Kindle, I might add.)

Have you read them? Did you love them? Which book was your favorite?

Sunday Sidelines

2010-08-22T08:04:00.006-05:00

Good morning and welcome to another Sunday Sidelines!

I reviewed the Kindle and Drive by Daniel Pink this week. I very much liked both!!

It is also time for Luna Nina's Unconscious Mutterings:

1.Leads :: follows
2.Concierge :: tip
3.Thousand :: and one nights
4.Engines :: cars
5.Argument :: constant
6.2006 :: so long ago
7.Knot :: tied
8.F*** :: my life
9.Handsome :: is as handsome does
10.Ridge :: Noth Carolina

I would like to share another website and activity with you this week. It is called Postcrossing and I enjoy it very much! Share postcards with people all over the world. I have been collecting postcards since I was 14 (umm, over 40 years now) and I absolutely love this site. Check it out!!

Check out my review of A Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara, hero of the Holocaust to learn about one of the largest rescues of European Jews during the Holocaust. Another Holocaust review this week is The Good Liar.

I have been doing a lot of reading and hope to get some more posts up soon. But the school year starts tomorrow and I have over seventy students in one class and I am dedicated to establishing a real relationship with each and every one of them (in an online environment) - this involves quite a bit of time. And I expect the library to be very busy as we move into the semester. So we will see where I can carve out reading, reviewing, and posting time!

I would love to hear about your week (grab the logo and leave a comment to your post) and hope you have a great upcoming seven days! !

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

2010-08-21T15:21:00.008-05:00

I don't know what to rave about first, the Kindle 2 (which I have checked out from the library where I work) or Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (the very first book that I read on the Kindle). I am now a huge fan of both and wish that I had known the advantages of both much earlier!

Daniel Pink sets the business world, and our personal interactions, on end. Building on work of various psychologists and economists before him, Pink suggests that internal or intrinsic motivators, provided in the way of autonomy, independence, and freedom for creativity, will garner far more results than extrinsic rewards such as money, awards, etc. This approach has been implemented in many forward looking businesses, such as Google and Tom's Shoes.

Another business where these ideas have made a real difference is the Seattle Pike Place Fish Market. Here is their version:

•EMPOWERMENT - The astounding creativity, productivity and profitability that erupts when leaders are willing to be wholly committed to empowering their employees.
•VISION TO REALITY - Any group of people... anybody... can create a powerful vision and have it happen.
•MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD - making a profound and lasting difference in the quality of life in the world is the true purpose of being in business.

Of course, one part that really engaged me was about how to deal with children. Every parent should read this book. Did you hear me? Every. Parent. Should. Read. This. Book! It could change your child's life. Do you pay for grades, or use a bribe to get chores done? These if you do this, then I will do that rewards can have exactly the opposite effect from what you intended. The section on education really struck a nerve with me.

---too many schools are moving in the wrong direction. They're redoubling their emphasis on routines, right answers, and standardization. (location 3487 on Kindle).

I had four children. Three of them went through the Catholic school system in my town. The fourth (a middle child) went private and public...until he dropped out of school at age 16. He is a smart boy - still is, but he fell through all of the cracks of the public school system. Now all of my children are grown and I work in a Curriculum Materials Library, so I work daily with potential new teachers. It is rather sad. We expect the preservice teachers to be creative, to engage young learners, to teach to individuals. But the reality is that it all boils down to how each child, and therefore, each school does on the standardized FCAT test given yearly in the Spring. The scores already determine schools' standings in the county. Officials tried to tie it to teacher compensation (WHAT?), but that failed when put to a vote. So, we are teaching our children how to take that test, give the same correct answers. We are not teaching them how to THINK! And according to Pink, we are sapping out their internal motivation...something we are all born with and systematically lose as we get older, unless we are left to develop our own internal reward system. Sorry about the little diatribe, but it annoys me to no end. How is education "monitored" in your state or country?

Check out the author's webpage and what people are saying about Drive.

Oh goodness, I absolutely love the Kindle. I am a huge fan of the written word - rather words written on paper...well, more specifically words typed on paper and bound in the form of books. But I did dearly love the Kindle experience. It is so light, the type is clear, it was easy to navigate. And oh so many more wonders! If you are like I was, a doubter, do try one. See if your local or academic library has them for checkout...please do not come to my library to get one because then I will have to give this one up and I do so want to read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and The Hunger Games!!

TITLE: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
AUTHOR: Daniel Pink
COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: who knows, it was on KINDLE!
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: I really liked this book. It put some new ideas into my brain and reminded me about one of my favorite management philosophies at the Seattle Fish Market.

Book Hop Friday!!

2010-08-20T08:29:00.003-05:00

ABOUT THE HOP:

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read! So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start HOPPING through the list of blogs that are posted in the Linky list at Crazy-For-Books!!

The Hop lasts Friday-Monday every week, so if you don't have time to Hop today, go back later and join the fun! This is a weekly event! And go back throughout the weekend to see all the new blogs that are added!

This week's question comes from Libraryscatbooks - Hey, that's ME!

How many blogs do you follow?

I started following people using Bloglines. Then Google Friend and Google Reader came along and I follow some blogs through both of these services as well. Altogether I follow just under 100 blogs. I think I wanted to ask this question to see how many everyone else follows and is able to keep up with over time. I do look through all of the new posts each day, comment on some, and just read others. I am thinking I could manage more and I am waiting on your responses to decide just how many more! Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

Also, check out the Crazy Cozy Box GIVEAWAY 2 at Lori's Reading Corner. It is a chance to win a box full of books!

Book Quiz

2010-08-19T15:16:00.008-05:00

I found this Book Quiz over at Notes from the North and after tracking back through several blogs, I found the original author of the quiz at The Literary Lollipop. The quiz looked like fun, so here goes!

1. Favourite childhood book: Miss Jellytots Visit (published in 1955)
Envious of the treatment her parents give to their guests, a nine-year-old girl arranges to be Miss Jellytot, a thirty-year-old college chum on a six-day visit, but wishes the whole time that she were nine-year-old Katie.

I read this book over and over! As I got older, my favorite book was A Lantern in Her Hand which was about a woman who traveled across the US as a pioneer to live in Nebraska. It was very inspiring.

2. What are you reading right now? Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz and The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia by Mary Helen Stefaniak (both from LibraryThing) and Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink.

3. What books do you have on request at the library? None

4. Bad book habit: Waiting too long to write the reviews which then means I have to go back and read parts of the book over again.

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library? Life with a Star by Jiří Weil and a large number of Interlibrary Loan books - mostly on the Holocaust

6. Do you have an e-reader? The library where I work just got two Kindles, and I think now I have to have one. I love it.

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once? I always have at least two or three going at the same time.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog? I think so, I think I am reading more and perhaps even more focused. Especially for my Holocaust Resources for Children books.

9.Least favourite book you read this year: Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard: A Novel

10. Favourite book I’ve read this year: Although it is hard to decide, I think What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt. This is thanks to Amy at The Black Sheep Dances and her Scandinavian Challenge.

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone? Not sure because I like to read most things - well, not a huge fan of science fiction, but I have read a few over the last few years. And I really want to read The Passage.

12. What is your reading comfort zone? Again, not sure I have one although I prefer good literature and non-fiction.

13. Can you read on the bus? I can read in the car.

14. Favourite place to read: I love to read on the back porch.

15. What’s your policy on book lending? I will lend any book to anyone who asks! Any time, bring it back or keep it.

16. Do you dogear your books? Sometimes.

17. Do you write notes in the margins of your books? Yes, especially non-fiction. The book with the most notes: From Dawn to Decadence: Five hundred years of Western Cultural Life by Jacques Barzun. I loved this book and wrote all over it!

18. Do you break/crack the spine of your books? No

19. What is your favourite language to read? Since it the only language I read well, I think English.

20. What makes you love a book? Different reasons, depending on why I am reading it. I love fiction that takes me away to a different place or time. I like characters that I either love or hate. But I also love non-fiction, especially on the Holocaust years. I like to learn new things - I guess what they both have in common is an emotion that is evoked when reading my favorite books.

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book? If I love it, I hope you will too.

22. Favourite genre: literary fiction, but I will read just about anything.

23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did): Poetry

24. Favourite Biography: I Cannot Forgive by Rudolf Vrba

25. Have you ever read a self-help book? (And, was it actually helpful?) Probably, but I cannot remember. One Christmas, my sister gave everyone The Purpose Driven Life. Not sure I finished it.

26. Favourite Cookbook: Anything Paula Dean or Sandra Lee

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction): I read large numbers of Holocaust books, especially survival narratives, and they are all inspirational.

28. Favourite reading snack: I don't usually eat when I am reading.

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience: I don't know about hype, but I have been disappointed by a few of the Newbery winners.

30. How often do you agree with the critics about about a book? I like most books that I finish. But sometimes I do disagree with the critics - usually when I love a book and they just don't.

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews? I just can't stand it. These books are like babies for the authors and I hate to say anything negative, but I will if I really don't like a book.

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose? Italian

33. Most intimidating book I’ve read: Books don't really intimidate me. Some are just more difficult to read than others.

34. Most intimidating book I’m too nervous to begin: I can't think of anything - maybe War and Peace?

35. Favourite Poet: Pable Neruda

36. How many books do you usually have checked out from the library at any given time? Maybe ten from Interlibrary Loan.

37. How often do you return books to the library unread? Not very often. The only books I really get from the library are Interlibrary Loan books and since they have gone to so much trouble to get them for me, I try really hard to read them.

38. Favourite fictional character: Goodness, I suppose Lisbeth Salander

39. Favourite fictional villain: The man Lisbeth gave the tattoo!!

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation: I'm not picky, whatever I am reading (or maybe nothing since vacations are usually packed with activities).

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading: To be honest, when my children were young (four kids with ten years between the oldest and youngest) I did not read for myself, but I read to them religiously.

42. Name a book you could/would not finish: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. I absolutely hated it!

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading? If I am really intent on reading, nothing will really distract me. Well, maybe the four chihuahuas who insist on fighting over my lap.

44. Favourite film adaptation of a novel: The English Patient

45. Most disappointing film adaptation: I really cannot think of anything other than the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Not because it was bad, but because I wanted every little detail in the film. I wonder how the US version will be??

46. Most money I’ve ever spent in a bookstore at one time: Probably a little over $100 because I had many birthday gift certificates.

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it? Never

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book halfway through? Usually it is because it is boring.

49. Do you like to keep your books organized? I would like to I suppose, but I cannot tell a lie - I just don't keep things organized.

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once they’ve been read? I prefer to keep them, but will give them away if someone asks for them.

51. Are there any books that you’ve been avoiding? I want so badly to read Faulkner, but I just don't have time to concentrate. Maybe I should rearrange that vacation deal.

52. Name a book that made you angry: Black Like Me by John Griffin. When I was 16 (in 1969 - please do not add this up!), I got my tonsils out and my dad brought me this book to read. The author, a white journalist, colored himself black in 1959 and spent time in New Orleans to see if he was treated any differently as a black man. I am sure you can guess the result. I was furious.

53. A book I didn’t expect to like but did: Okay, I did not expect to like the Harry Potter books. I just read them last year. I really liked them alot.

54. A book I expected to like but didn’t: The Good Liar which is one of the first books dealing with the Holocaust that I really did not care for at all.

55. Favourite guilt-free guilty pleasure reading: I read children's books at my little Curriculum Materials Library. Every time I take a break, I take a book outside with me from our display table. This last month they have been about the oil spill or beach animals. I enjoy them immensely and always learn something.

Do you want to take the quiz? Go ahead and post the questionnaire on your blog! Or, feel free to add questions in the comments! This is all in good fun, but I’m always curious to hear about the quirks and habits of other readers! Answer one or all. Leave a note if you do so I can check out your answers.

Sunday Sidelines

2010-08-15T10:49:00.006-05:00

Do you ever play the Sunday Luna Nina Association game? Every Sunday, she posts ten words that you should copy and then add the first word, or words, that you think of; then you add your link to hers and you can visit other participants and see what they thought of when presented with the same words. I try to play every week - fun times!

Last Sunday, my husband, my daughter and I went to Atlanta to see a Braves game and to visit the Georgia Aquarium. We drove up on Sunday, checked in to the hotel, took MARTA to Underground Atlanta, and went to the game. We had perfect seats and the Braves won, so it was a blast.

On Monday morning we managed to find our way to the Aquarium, which was magnificent. We spent a few hours wandering through five different exhibits. I think my favorite place was in front of the Beluga whales - they were enormous of course, but so graceful. The otters in the same tank were fairly funny! Here is a short video of the whales in action.

I did manage to get some reading and reviewing done as well. How are you doing this Sunday? What are the highlights of your last week? Have a great upcoming week!

Life in Biblical Israel

2010-08-15T09:23:00.006-05:00

For those of you who read my blog, it will be no surprise to you that I have an interest in Israel and Jewish history. My undergraduate and graduate degrees are both in history, and I also have a MLS in Library Science. So history and reading are central to who I am and the types of things I like to read - in addition to fiction, of course. I maintain a separate blog for Holocaust Resources for K-12 young people.

I am always looking for ways to self-educate on these topics. One great place is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's MIT OpenCourseWare with free access to over 2000 different college level courses. I am slowly working though the readings for the course: Jews from Biblical to Modern Times.

This book is a fascinating look at the domestic, economic, political, cultural, and religious life of the Israelites dating back to the eight century B.C.E. The archaeological records are matched to biblical verses creating a very interesting journey through Biblical history. In particular, I loved the domestic and cultural sections. Life centered around the home, which in many cases was a three-leveled pillared house. The ground level served as a manger for the animals owned by the family. The animals were taken out to pasture daily and the ground floor was cleaned. The head of the household and immediate family slept on the second level. The third level, or roof level, was used for outdoor family activities. Often a number of houses were found together in a family compound.

TITLE: Life in Biblical Israel
AUTHOR: Philip King and Lawrence Stager
COPYRIGHT: 2001
PAGES: 412
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: For an academic text written by historians, this book was very readable and interesting. I am very glad that I was led to it.
SERIES: Library of Ancient Israel

Book Blogger Hop (August already)

2010-08-13T06:49:00.003-05:00

The Book Blogger Hop is a place just for BOOK BLOGGERS and readers to connect and share our love of the written word. This weekly BOOK PARTY is a chance for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read!

So, BOOK BLOGGERS!
1. Grab the logo
2. Post about the Hop on your blog
3. Add your link and start HOPPING through the list of blogs that are posted in the Linky list at Crazy-for-Books!

The Hop lasts Friday-Monday every week, so if you don't have time to Hop today, go back later and join the fun! This is a weekly event! And stop back throughout the weekend to see all the new blogs that are added! There are over 200 links every week!!

In order to add your link to the list, your blog should have content related to books, including, but not limited to book reviews. If your blog does not meet these requirements, it will be deleted from the list.

RULES:

1. Enter your book blog link in the Linky List
In your link, please state the main genre that you review: eclectic, contemp. fiction, ya, paranormal, mystery, non-fiction, etc. Please do not list every genre you review - if you are review a variety, please put eclectic! The Hop gets jumbled up if the title is too long, so please limit to one genre. I will be limiting the number of characters in the title to ensure the Hop doesn't look messy! Thank you!
Example: Crazy-for-Books (literary fiction)

2. Post about the Hop on your blog. Spread the word about the book party! The more the merrier! In your blog post, answer the following question (new question each week!).

This week's question comes from Michelle from Michelle’s Book Blog! (waiting for her blog link!)
How many books do you have on your 'to be read shelf’?

I, too, really do not have a TBR shelf. Instead there are books all over my house - I mean, really, it is out of control. But I rather like it. My real problem is all of the books that I have read and need to review.

I have another blog devoted to Holocaust resources and I get many of these materials from Interlibrary loan, which means I have limited time to get them read and reviewed! I am WAY. BEHIND. So the TBR pile just keeps growing - and will until I get caught up!

Don't Look Back

2010-08-10T19:12:00.009-05:00

Author Karin Fossum has come to be known as the Norwegian Queen of Crime! Don't Look Back is one book in her Inspector Konrad Sejer series - all are criminal detective novels and had I realized her claim to fame, I would have begun my adventures with Inspector Sejer by reading the first in the series, Eve's Eye. (Of course there is the small problem that it is not yet published in English)! I read Don't Look Back as my final book for the Scandinavian Reading Challenge 2010 hosted by The Black Sheep Dances. If you would like to participate, visit her blog.

Ragnhild Album lives in a small village in Norway nestled beneath the Kollen Mountains. On a normal day in this average village, Ragnhild goes missing. Joined by the local police captain, Inspector Sejer is sent to help find the very young girl. Just as suddenly as she vanished, Ragnhild returns. Relieved, the two policemen returned to the station only to receive a phone call from Mrs. Album - Ragnhild saw a girl by the lake, a girl who was naked and not moving at all. So begins the real mystery. Who killed Annie Holland?

Fossum takes the reader on a wild ride - visiting everyone in the small village - characters that leap off the page; surely you know someone just like each one of them. Inspector Sejer, assisted by his younger assistant Jacob Skarre, seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to investigating. But his talent is in getting the villagers to share the secrets they have hidden from their neighbors who thought they knew everything about everyone. But it seems Annie was one of the few who knew things that fermented just below the surface of the town's apparent normalcy. Getting to know who Annie had been before she was murdered, Sejer finds hints of teenage angst, a girl who turned surly almost overnight, abuse, and love. Annie's boyfriend Halvor knew that Annie kept a diary on the computer in his room and he also knew that if he could figure out the password he could help solve the murder. Or was he trying to hide what he knew? Just as I thought I had it all figured out, the answer changed. And that is, of course, the mark of a good detective novel.

Here are links to my other five reviews for the Scandinavian Challenge:

Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
The Beatles by Lars Saabye Christensen

I am thankful that the Stieg Larsson books were so popular here in the US. Without them, and the Black Sheep Dances Challenge, I probably would not have been introduced to these wonderful authors and books.

TITLE: Don't Look Back
AUTHOR: Karin Fossum
TRANSLATOR: Felicity David
COPYRIGHT: 2002 (English translation), original 2002
PAGES: 295
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: This was a book for a thinking person - not a thriller, but a slowly building criminal investigation. I enjoyed it.
AWARDS: Riverton Prize, 1996; Glass Key Award, 1997

Book Blogger Hop

2010-08-06T10:42:00.004-05:00

Visit Crazy-For-Books and Link to the Blog Hop!

Post about the Hop on your blog. Spread the word about the book party! The more the merrier! In your blog post, answer the following question (new question each week!). I have to thank my friend, Lori, for this week's question! I was drawing a blank and she came up with this fab question! If you have a question that could be used in a future Hop, leave it in the comments! Thanks!

This week's question comes from Chelle! Sorry, but I don't have you blog name to link to! Leave your link in the comments and I'll definitely add it in!
Do you listen to music when you read? If so, what are your favorite reading tunes?

2. Visit other blogs in the Linky List! Make new friends! Follow new book bloggers! Talk about books! Rave about authors! Take the time to make a quality visit! Check out other posts and content, make a new friend! Don't randomly follow someone if you never intend on actually following them! No spamming please! (Please do not leave your link and not visit other blogs - it's just not cool and not in the spirit of the Hop!)

ANSWER: I do not listen to music while I am reading because I usually read outside on the back porch!

I also hope that you will visit Shaynie's blog and read an interview that I did with her about my other blog Holocaust Resources! She was so sweet to show an interest in my personal passion. Hope you will hop by!

Book Blogger Hop

2010-07-30T08:50:00.004-05:00

1. It is time again for the Book Blogger Hop - Visit Crazy-For-Books to participate.

2. Post about the Hop on your blog. Spread the word about the book party! The more the merrier! In your blog post, answer the following question (new question each week!). I have to thank my friend, Lori, for this week's question! I was drawing a blank and she came up with this fab question! If you have a question that could be used in a future Hop, leave it in the comments! Thanks!
Who is your favorite new-to-you author so far this year?

2. Visit other blogs in the Linky List! Make new friends! Follow new book bloggers! Talk about books! Rave about authors! Take the time to make a quality visit! Check out other posts and content, make a new friend! Don't randomly follow someone if you never intend on actually following them! No spamming please! (Please do not leave your link and not visit other blogs - it's just not cool and not in the spirit of the Hop!)

My favorite new-to-me author this year is Per Petterson, a Norwegian author, that I first read as part of Black Sheeps' Scandinavian Reading Challenge. The book I read and loved was Out Stealing Horses. Click on the title to check out the review. He has a new book coming out soon which was reviewed by The Black Sheep Dances. It is entitled I Curse the River of Time. I cannot wait to read it!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Think of a Number

2010-07-27T18:26:00.017-05:00

Before I get to my review of Think of a Number by John Verdon, I would like to talk a little about my early reading habits. At a fairly young age, probably before I even understood that Donna Parker was "in Love" with the blonde sitting across the booth from her at the soda shop, I read all of the Donna Parker books. Then I moved on to Nancy Drew mysteries - all of them in rapid succession. I hope that some of you remember these series, if not, check them out! They were great!

Then my mother started collecting the Perry Mason mysteries by Earle Stanley Gardner. I read them all...for years. I developed a selective memory, forgetting who the murderer was, so that I could read them all again. The story lines were very formulaic. Mr. Mason, Paul Drake the detective, and Della Street the secretary always worked out the crime - usually when Mr. Mason was interrogating the witness on the stand. I loved them. Four children and a lifetime or two later, Think of a Number is the first murder mystery that I have read in quite some time. And. I. Loved. It!

Dave Guerney and his wife Madeline are trying to adjust to two things - the first is that Dave has just retired from the NYPD as a star homicide detective and the second is grief surrounding the death of their son years ago. But something interrupts the quiet life they are seeking. Mark, a college acquaintance of Dave's, contacts him about strange letters he has received. The first letter suggested that the writer knew Mark well enough to know what number between 1-1000 he would select - and he did know. The letter writer wanted money, then sent more letters:

How many bright angels

can dance on a pin?

How many hopes drown in

a bottle of gin?

Did the thought ever come

that your glass was a gun

and one day you'd wonder,

God, what have I done?

The rhymes continue to arrive - until Mark is murdered. Then no matter how hard Dave, and especially Madeline, try to stay objective about the clues and the new entanglements of the case, Dave is asked to serve as a consultant for what becomes the search for a serial murderer. Because people all over the state of New York are being found murdered with these strange messages in their homes. The story has many twists and turns and every time I thought I knew what was happening, I found I was wrong! As I neared the end, I could not go to bed until I finished the book - which is a true testament to a thriller.

I would like to thank Crown Publishers for providing me with the uncorrected proof of Think of a Number. While it was not required of me, I like to provide an honest review of ARC books (and I am not compensated in any way). If you want to join in the fun of the book, visit Crown Publishers and think of a number !!

TITLE: Think of a Number
AUTHOR: John Verdon
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 418
TYPE: fiction, mystery
RECOMMEND: I must admit that after years of not reading a good mystery, I really enjoyed this book.

Sunday Sidelines

2010-07-25T18:42:00.004-05:00

So it is Sunday again. It has been an average sort of day, with all of us doing the things we usually do. Are there any ritual things you do on Sunday other than church? When my kids were small we would always go out to my ex-in-laws farm for a big Sunday dinner. That was fun, but no one goes now even though they still live on the farm.

Today I spent time getting caught up on grading since our big trip to Atlanta will be on the weekend before grades are due (sadly I planned that!). Then I spent some time reading and writing a review on Holocaust memoir Isabella: From Auschwitz to Freedom. I finished Adam and Eve: A Novel and should have that review posted here early in the week. I have a few more Holocaust books to review, but that may have to wait until next weekend!

Is there anything that made this weekend special for you? Sunday Sidelines is designed for us to learn something about each other - outside of just our book reviews! I would love to hear about your weekend rituals!

Book Blogger Hop

2010-07-23T09:38:00.005-05:00

Here we are again at Friday's Book Blogger Hop thanks to Crazy-For-Books!

RULES: (in hopes of simplifying things for everyone!)

1. Visit the post at Crazy-For-Books and enter your book blog link in the Linky List (be sure to include how long you've been blogging and what genres you review!).

If you have been blogging 3 months or less, please note that you are a NEW blogger!
If you post about the Hop on your blog, please link directly to your Hop post (don't forget to answer this week's question - see below!).

2. Visit other blogs in the Linky List! Make new friends! Follow new book bloggers! Talk about books! Rave about authors! (Please do not leave your link and not visit other blogs - it's just not cool and not in the spirit of the Hop!)

3. Post about the Hop on your blog! Spread the word about the book party! The more the merrier!

4. In your blog post, answer the following question (new question each week!):
TELL US ABOUT THE BOOK YOU ARE CURRENTLY READING!

Hello and TGIF both for the blog hop and the weekend. I am currently reading Adam and Eve: A Novel by Sena Jeter Naslund. I am really enjoying the book and it has pushed others to the side. As always, I am reading Holocaust books for children (you can check out my reviews for these at my other blog, Holocaust Resources). The book centers on Lucy and Adam, who both find themselves in an isolated Eden somewhere in the Mid-East. Adam is a tiny bit mental, but takes care of Lucy who is carrying information which could change the face of modern religion. I am about half way through the book and things are beginning to heat up! Look for my review sometime in the near future.

In other Florida news, Tropical Storm Bonnie is causing some problems with the oil clean up. And it will potentially rain, and hard, the whole weekend. Sounds like good times for reading!

Hidden on the Mountain

2010-07-21T14:43:00.003-05:00

Deborah DeSaix and Karen Ruelle write children's books. In 2002 the pair took at trip to France where they visited a small museum in the south of France. This visit would result in years of research and personal interviews during which Hidden on the Mountain: Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon was born. I am finding it very difficult to review this important book because each chapter, which contains the story of one child, could be, and also has been, written as a book unto itself. As an avid reader of Holocaust memoirs, I must confess that I had never heard of this refuge for Jewish children. The authors confirm that no children's book has ever been written on this topic.

To assist others who might not be aware of this small area of France, I would like to spend some time on the third chapter entitled "An Isolated Haven: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and La Montagne Protestante" before going on to the meat of the book. The geographic area in question is an isolated mountain plateau in South-central France. Hundreds of years before the Second World War, this area had been a hiding place and refuge for French Huguenots who were persecuted by French Catholics. Ancestors of these Protestants still lived in this area and had a special understanding of the hardships of religious persecution. Fiercely independent, the Huguenot Protestants had a strong sense of right and wrong. They valued their own freedom and respected the freedom of others. They were modest and humble. They beoieved in tolerance and in sharing what they had with others. Every day they read the Bible. and they were committed to living their lives according to what they read. They didn't blindly accept the authority of the government if it contradicted their religious beliefs. (p. 12). After the Germans overtook France, the country was divided into occupied France and unoccupied France which, under the Vichy government, collaborated with the Nazis. In both areas of the country, Jews were rounded up and sent to holding camps and then on to their deaths. And so these often poor farmers and villagers were ready to hide Jews, especially young children, in their homes until they could be relocated to Switzerland or until the war was over. This entire French community of Le Chambon cooperated to keep these children safe, with some offering warnings if a round-up was coming so that the children could be hidden high in the mountains for a day. Today, this beautiful story has been told by one of the Jewish children who was born there - Pierre Sauvage made the documentary film Weapons of the Spirit (the name comes from a speech by Protestant pastor Andre Trocme who urged the parishoners to stand up against injustice in non-violent ways, using "weapons of the spirit" (p. 14)).

And stand up they did, with several thousand children hidden in these mountains. DeSaix and Ruelle interviewed many of these survivors and include their stories as first person narratives in the book. To provide a broader picture of the area and the times, the authors also include chapters, written in third person, of non-Jewish people who lived in the area or helped the children in some special way (many of whom were no longer alive). Each child's story jumps from the pages, with memories often in conflict with that of another child who lived in the mountains during the same time. The authors observe that both memories are correct. Some of the children traveled across countries to arrive in this haven. They traveled without parents or friends. Some came from the nearby camp at Gurs. One thing they all found in Le Chambon was a sense of normalcy - schools, hard work, fun, friendships that continue to this day. What amazing bravery of both the children and their protectors. These stories gave me hope that within us all we have weapons of the spirit and are capable of standing up for what is right.

The history of the area and war, along with the individual histories and memories of the children are enhanced by photographs of the children in their daily activities, maps, a glossary, timeline, and recommended readings. To learn more about this topic, visit The Chambon Foundation and the authors' website for the book.

This review is crossposted at Holocaust Resources which is my blog for Holocaust materials for children and young adults.

TITLE: Hidden on the Mountain: Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon
AUTHOR: Deborah DeSaix and Karen Ruelle
COPYRIGHT: 2007
PAGES: 275
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: I thought this was a hopeful book - people did what they needed to do to save the lives of these children.

Sunday Sidelines

2010-07-18T18:36:00.006-05:00

This has been a different kind of weekend, and therefore, a different kind of Sunday. My mother is 84 years old and she went to the hospital (only about 5 minutes from our house, thank goodness) via ambulance on Thursday afternoon. She has Congestive Heart Failure and COPD, which means that if she catches any kind of bug, it is very easy for her lungs to become compromised. And this time, like the last two hospitalizations, she has bacterial pneumonia. Thankfully, we seem to catch it earlier now that we know what to watch for in her day to day activities. Even so, they usually have to keep her in the hospital at least a week, so my sister and I have been taking turns visiting and helping her this weekend. My dear husband and daughter have been helping as well. I haven't called my sons, who are really too busy to help and after we found out what was wrong, it seemed there was no immediate danger. All that said, I am so tired. So I didn't do too much else this weekend. It will all wait!

So here is some much better news! My daughter is a huge Braves fan and we have not been to a game in about 10 years. So last week we decided we would plan a trip to see an August home game. We originally thought we would drive up, watch the game, and drive home - why? Because of the dogs! Then it just sort of snowballed. My father-in-law arranged an overnight stay for our birthdays (all late August and early September)! Then my sister called a friend and got us Free Tickets!!! Yes! So now that our money is not tied up in game tickets, we are planning to visit the Atlanta Aquarium - which is the largest aquarium in. the. world! So we are so excited. And no we did not forget about the dogs - a good friend called the same day to offer to come by and stay with them, or just check on them if they won't stop their eternal yapping. So our little short vacation has turned into a nice few days trip. Good times, people! Good times!

Book Blogger Hop

2010-07-16T07:50:00.006-05:00

It's the Book Blogger Hop! This week, we're supposed to talk about what book we're looking forward to reading. And my choice is...

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I have read the two previous novels in the series and just cannot wait to read this one. I know, I know - it has been out for.e.ver! It's just that my first two are in paperback so I am holding out for that.

I really did love the first two and read them so quickly that I actually reviewed them together. If you haven't started these check out my review. I hope you get interested. Unfortunately the author died shortly after the books were published, but I read somewhere that there are some unfinished manuscripts that might continue the story. Tied up in legal proceedings of course, so who knows.

If you have read this final book, leave me a post telling me if you liked it as well as the first two. Did it tie everything up for you? Did you learn everything you wanted to learn about the characters? I have not read but a few reviews which seem a bit mixed. If you have no spoilers I would love a link to your review.

I hope you have a wonderful Friday. Although I do not have to go to work today, I will be spending the day with my mother who is 84 years old and in the hospital with pneumonia. I will take a book of course!

Dolphins and reincarnation

2010-07-15T14:44:00.010-05:00

As some of you may know, I work in a Curriculum Materials Library at a University. Our collection is K-12 materials for our preservice teachers to use with their students. So you might wonder what that has to do with dolphins and reincarnation??

When I have any spare time I read some of our books that are on display so that I can assist students in finding just the right book for their lesson plans. This last month we have had displays on the ocean - always thinking about the oil spill in the Gulf.

So today I read the book Amazing Dolphins by Sarah L. Thomson and it was wonderful to consider all the facts about dolphins that make them such special mammals. The book is a HarperCollins I Can Read! book which is considered a book that can be read with help and is defined as a book with "Engaging stories, longer sentences, and language play for developing readers." The I Can Read! books have been used with children since 1957 - which means I might have even owned one myself!!

As you can see by the cover, this particular book was written with the assistance of the Wildlife Conservation Society. A great deal of factual information is provided for our young readers and I would like to share a few lines with you:

Dolphins in a school help each other. If one is hurt and can't swim, other dolphins may lift it to the water's surface so it can breathe. (p. 19)

Dolphins like to touch and pat each other with their fins. They rub against each other. They may swim side by side with their fins touching as if they are holding hands. (p. 20)

Grown-up dolphins like to play too. (p. 22)

I am going to run right out and purchase a copy of this book for my two grandsons. They are going into first grade and Kindergarten next year and I want them to know how important it is to think about the beauty of the dolphin. And Lord, if I am going to be reincarnated as something, please let it be a dolphin. One more request, please put me somewhere other than the Gulf of Mexico because even though I don't expect to die any time soon, I am pretty sure that the Gulf still won't be safe for me by then. Until then, I will still visit the ocean to try to see the dolphins and smile that at least a few are still healthy and in the Gulf with those of us who grew up with them.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week

2010-07-07T17:08:00.002-05:00

Please make sure that you watch for Book Blogger Appreciation Week which will be September 13-17, 2010 this year. Tomorrow is the last day to register (which will list your blog in a directory and increase your visibility). In addition, you may submit your blog for awards. I am submitting the following five posts for the Best Eclectic Book Blog:

Growth of the Soil

Writing Reviews for Readers' Advisory

Sunday Sidelines

Song's for the Butcher's Daughter

Girl who Fell From the Sky and Forest Gate

Thank you for your consideration.

Beatles

2010-06-27T19:52:00.009-05:00

Beatles by Lars Saabye Christensen was a delightful stroll through the Beatlemania of my youth. Each chapter of the novel is the title of a Beatles album or song and I did not have to try hard to transport back to that year in my life. It was fascinating to view the same time period from a Norwegian perspective. To make the novel even more interesting the perspective was male.

The novel follows four young Norwegian boys from 1965 until 1972. As you might imagine, Kim (our narrator) and his friends Gunnar, Ola, and Seb are obsessed with the Beatles. I was as well during the 1960s! In fact Kim and his friends thought of themselves as the Beatles. They dreamed of starting their own band which would be named the SNAFUs. But, as with many dreams, life got in the way. The four friends changed from boys to men. They smoked, drank, played, fought, fell in and out of love, made a mess of things, and put things straight. We were introduced to their parents, other friends, rivals, girlfriends, and teachers. These boys felt like family. Close family!

I think this is one reason I loved the book so much - reading it felt like being admitted into a secret club, one usually closed to girls. Growing up, I had only one younger sister. Each summer, we went to stay with family in Tennessee. I loved staying with my three males cousins who lived out in the country. They teased me unmercifully as the city girl lost in the country. And we had some fun capers, and like the characters in the novel, more often than not got caught. Still some parts of my cousins' though processes were closed to me. I wasn't quite a member of the club!

Another idea which was prevelant in the novel was the protest against America in VietNam. I lived both sides of the same protest in the United States. I was told that the Communists were going to come take over our country if we did not defeat them in VietNam. When friends died, I wasn't sure that I cared about the Communists anymore. The distaste for what was viewed as American imperialism is palpable in the novel. Somewhat reminds me of the world response to our invasion of Iraq. We may never learn.

The author was born in Oslo in 1953, the same year I was born. He began writing Beatles when he was 25 years old. It is interesting that in 2006 readers in Norway voted this book the best Norwegian novel of the last 25 years.
I found an interesting anecdote about the book in an August 2009 review by Tone Sutterud found in the British The Independent:

Unbelievably, Beatles was almost lost to the world. Having written the entire tome by hand, Saabye Christensen thought it might interest his old schoolmates at most, and carelessly stuffed the script in a suitcase travelling from France. The suitcase got lost, but found its way back to Oslo after a two-week European round trip that took in London. "Which was only right and fitting," the author says. "Now the book has come home, so to speak."

TITLE: Beatles
AUTHOR: Lars Saabye Christensen
TRANSLATOR: Don Bartlett
COPYRIGHT: 2009 (English translation), original 1984
PAGES: 534
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: This was a book that I did not want to end. The characters were so well defined, that I felt they were people I knew. I have seen one reference to two books which have already been written and are untranslated sequels to this book, so maybe I will get my chance to catch up with this fab four! Interesting to see the comparison between times here and in Norway.

Who Am I?

2010-06-21T10:53:00.003-05:00

Who am I? Just for Fun!
If I were a...

I saw this on The Black Sheep Dances' blog and thought it was wonderfully funny. So here are my answers....

If I were a month, I'd be May.
If I were a day, I’d be Sunday.
If I were a time of day, I'd be 11:11.
If I were a font, I'd be Lucinda.
If I were a sea animal, I'd be a dolphin!
If I were a direction, I'd be South.
If I were a piece of furniture, I'd be a Victorian chaise.
If I were a liquid, I’d be crystal clear water.
If I were a gemstone, I'd be a sapphire.
If I were a tree, I'd be a magnolia.
If I were a tool, I’d be a hammer.
If I were a flower, I'd be a tulip.
If I were an element of weather, I'd be rainstorm.
If I were a musical instrument, I'd be a guitar.
If I were a color, I'd be purple.
if i were an emotion, I'd be sweetness.
If I were a fruit, I'd be a cherry.
If I were a sound, I'd be a whisper.
If I were an element, I'd be water.
If I were a car, I'd be a Camaro.
If I were a food, I'd be cream.
If I were a place, I'd be the beach.
If I were material, I'd be brushed cotton.
If i were a taste, I'd be salty.
If I were a scent, I'd be confederate jasmine.
If I were a body part, I'd be feet.
If I were a song, I'd be Imagine.
If I were a bird, I'd be a canary.
If I were a gift, I'd be a book.
If I were a city, I'd be Bratislava.
If I were a door, I'd be open.
If I were a pair of shoes, I'd be barefoot.
If I were a poem, I'd be any Neruda poem.

What are you? Leave us a link!

Growth of the Soil

2010-06-16T08:28:00.011-05:00

Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun and translated by W. W. Worster is an excellent and thoughtful book I read for the Scandinavian Reading Challenge 2010 hosted by The Black Sheep Dances. If you would like to participate, visit her blog.

First a bit about the author. Knut Hamsun (1859-1952) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920 for this book. The review on the Nobel Prize website made sense to me -

Hamsun's work is determined by a deep aversion to civilization and the belief that man's only fulfilment lies with the soil. This primitivism (and its concomitant distrust of all things modern) found its fullest expression in Hamsun's masterpiece Markens Grøde (1917) [Growth of the Soil].

Which leads me to my review of the book. First, I should explain that it has always been a standard silliness at my house that my goal in life is to be a Slovak peasant (and I say that with a sincerity that might be difficult for some to believe or understand, but I think of it as a simple life unencumbered by the rush of daily life here). There would be hard work to be sure, but also a sense of accomplishment in living by one's own hands. So, you can only imagine my delight with this novel.

In the beginning, Isak starts out in the wilderness seeking a place to build a home and till the soil. He is alone and seeks a wife to help him. After some time, Inger comes to him and agrees to be his wife. She was born with a harelip and could not have hoped for a better situation. The two live a long way from a town and together they make improvements to the land and have children. But life is hard in Norway at the turn of the century, especially in the wilderness when a man and woman must work very hard. And things can change very quickly. Things change dramatically when Inger gives birth to a daughter who has a harelip and Inger kills her. She goes to jail leaving Isak and his younger son to take care of the land. The older son has gone to town and is too sophisticated to come back to the farm. While she is gone Inger has surgery to repair her harelip and she returns a little different causing even more disconcerting scenes on the farm. There are other characters who come in and out of the story, but this is Isak and Inger's story of building a life on the frontier in Norway in the early 1900s. I absolutely fell in love with this family.

Just as an aside, there was a small focus on women's issues in this book. Did a woman have to give birth to a baby just because a man got her pregnant? Should the woman be punished if she killed an unwanted, or even disfigured, newborn? How was the man punished?

I find it interesting that it is possible to read this novel online. Click here for the book and an essay by Worster.

TITLE: Growth of the Soil
AUTHOR: Knut Hamsun
TRANSLATOR: W. W. Worster
COPYRIGHT: 2006 (English translation), original 1917
PAGES: 435
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: This was a phenomenal story of a family and the people they knew in the wilderness of Norway. I really enjoyed getting to know and understand the people who worked hard to bring a home into the wilderness and deal with civilization as it came nearer to them.
AWARDS: Nobel Prize for Literature (1920)

Another award, Oh My!

2010-06-08T15:53:00.005-05:00

Thank you so much to Missy B. at Missy's Book Nook for giving me this award. Two in one day - I should play the lottery! This all started as a place for me to keep up with books I was reading - now I feel like I have friends all over the country. And I learn so much from reading about their lives and what they like to read, cook, or _________! (insert your own passion)! It makes it even nicer to have someone send a virtual award!

The Rules for the award are:
1. Thank the person who gave you this award
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason! (in no particular order…) no way to get to 15
4. Contact the picked and let them know about the award.

About Me:
1. I was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida so right now I am frantic about our beautiful white sand beaches. Please don't buy gas from BP.
2. I live with four chihuahuas and wish I had room for another dozen. They are the sweetest animals ever.
3. My husband is 15 years younger than I am (I am a Charter Member of The Cougar Club, too)
4. I love to cook. I wish I had more time to do so. But there are only so many hours in a day.
5. My dream is to own a camper and travel around the US - assuming I ever get to retire.
6. I am a librarian in a very small Curriculum Materials Library on a college campus and I love my job.
7. My dream job would be to work at the US Holocaust Museum.

Now, I am passing this award on to:

Bermuda Onion - She is a phenomenal reviewer of all different sorts of books.

Dawn @ She is too fond of books - They have addled her brain.

The Friendly Book Nook - reviews kids books and many other genres

Reading in Appalachia - posts reviews on Appalachia regional fiction

Girl From Florida - a military spouse with two children, frequently posts the most delicious pictures of Southern food!

Tina Says - an elementary school librarian who reviews books of all sorts

The Three R's Blog - a little bit of everything booky!

Since 7 is a lucky number, I think I will stop now. Obviously I could go on and on, but others already have. So many blogs are spectacular. Thanks again to Missy!

What I Loved

2010-06-08T15:35:00.007-05:00

Although Siri Hustvedt was born in Minnesota, her early life was steeped in Norwegian culture. Her mother had moved from Norway the year before she was born and her father was third generation Norwegian American. Siri's first language was Norwegian and she had her first visit to Norway at the age of five. Her father was recognized for his work with the Norwegian American society and taught the language and literature at a local college. Siri spent her last year of high school in Norway and graduated there. Her novels have been translated in twenty-nine languages. Visit her website for more information about her other works.

Now on to my review of What I Loved. The sole narrator of the novel is Leo Hertzberg who is a middle-aged art historian who teaches at a New York college. Through his memories we meet the other major characters. Because we come to know them through Leo, the novel is character driven with our opinions spinning out from Leo's encounters. Initially we meet Leo's wife Erica who is a writer. Leo's life changes when he purchases a painting by Bill Weschler. Leo befriends the artist, Bill's first wife Lucille, and his second wife Violet - the woman in the art Leo purchased. The two families bond and the novel recounts their intertwined lives for twenty-five years. With Leo, we struggle with what is real and what is really only remembered - altered for psychological reasons unknown even to ourselves. We witness joys and sorrows, loves and betrayals.

My favorite parts of the book however were the descriptions of Bill's art work, especially as they came from an art historian and critic (and beloved friend). Further, Bill's work was influenced heavily by Violet's research - first on hysteria in women in past centuries and second on eating disorders of both men and women. One art exhibit was a series of doors which actually opened into variously sized rooms containing multi-media art scences. One scene showed Holocaust victims starving to death. The descriptions were fascinating and needed to be read slowly to take in all they had to offer.

As you see, this novel provides the reader with multiple levels of scrutiny. There is the physical, the art, the psychological, and even the meta-physical. I plan to read the novel again and again. My favorite passage is near the end of the book:

Every story we tell about ourselves can only be told in the past tense. It winds backward from where we now stand, no longer the actors in the story but its spectators who have chosen to speak. (p. 364)

TITLE: What I Loved
AUTHOR: Siri Hustvedt
COPYRIGHT: 2003
PAGES: 367
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: This was a deep and expansive novel. The stories and remembrances will remain with me for some time and I will return to Leo's story again and again.
AWARDS: New York Times Notable Books of the Year (WON AWARD) 2003
Galaxy British Book Awards (NOMINATED FOR AN AWARD) 2004
Orange Prize for Fiction (NOMINATED FOR AN AWARD) 2003

Premio Dardos Award

2010-06-08T08:14:00.006-05:00

Thank you so much to Kate, from "Kate's Library, for the joy of reading", who has honored me with the Premio Dardos Award. What a nice surprise and one that will keep me thinking for weeks about how to make my site better and more deserving.

"The Premio Dardos is a way to acknowledge the importance of bloggers committed to spreading cultural, ethical, literary and personal values, showing their letters and words."

Premio Dardos means “prize darts” in Italian. I would like to think this means that darts are used to pinpoint blogs that do their best to be honest and specific in their writings. I think my task now is to bestow the honor on at least eight other bloggers.

Presenting Lenore - Wonderfully written reviews of Young Adult books, and of course pictures of her beautiful cats

Black Sheep Dances - Wildly international books are reviewed while she challenges others to join her in a romp around the world

Boston Bibliophile - Intertwining her travels around Boston with beautifully thoughtful and well-written book reviews

Jew Wishes - Weaves all things Jewish with exceptional book reviews of Jewish themed or authored books, and the photography - WOW

Attic24 - From across the pond, she writes with delight about her every day and beautiful life and teaches the world to crochet, one post at a time

Musings of a Bookish Kitty - indepth book reviews and heartfelt interactive questions for her readers, and the dog and cats, of course

Lori's Reading Corner - eclectic mix of reviews, interviews, memes and give-aways; a pleasure to read

We'll Always Have Books - I love the mix of book reviews, recipes, and daily living; delightful

Reading what others write brings a sweetness to my day and the authors create just a few of the blogs that I try to keep up with each day. Each woman has something wonderful to share and it is in the sharing we all learn and grow. Thank you again Kate for this honor.

Dragon Tattoo and Played with Fire

2010-06-06T08:56:00.011-05:00

I read this book, the first in a trilogy by deceased author Stieg Larsson, and while the opinions were varied at the book club meeting, I loved this page-turning adventure. Many did not like the violence, but I felt it served a purpose in exposing violence against women. And at times, it was personally satisfying - when you read it, you will understand - let's just say someone had it coming!

In particular, I fell in love with computer hacker, bad girl, Lisabeth Salander ,who is one of two main characters. She is unique and has a nasty past as a ward of the state. She is on her own now and teams up with Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist who has been sued for slander. Together they solve a decades old murder mystery under extreme conditions. Blomkvist brings out the best in Salander, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

There are other supporting characters who are equally intriguing. When I finished the book, I could not wait to read the second book in the trilogy.

TITLE: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
AUTHOR: Stieg Larsson
TRANSLATOR: Reg Keeland
COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 608
TYPE: Scandinavian ficton, crime
RECOMMEND: I loved it.

Althought this second book had a different feel to it, Ther Girl who Played with Fire, was excellent in its own way. What I liked the best was slowly learning more about Lisbeth Salander. She has been hiding out and spending her secret stash of money for two years since she worked with Blomkvist. But three murders finds her before Blomkvist and she is implicated.

While the first book in the Millenium Trilogy focused on the abuse of women, this book seems to take an indepth look at the sex trade and how women are caught up in this nightmare. Perhaps Salander has too much information. I know that I could not stop reading until the duo figured it out. Sadly, the end of the book finds Salander almost dead with Blomkvist hoping he found her soon enough to save her. I cannot wait until I can run out and get the final book.

TITLE: The Girl who Played with Fire
AUTHOR: Stieg Larsson
TRANSLATOR: Reg Keeland
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 630
TYPE: Scandinavian fiction
RECOMMENDATION: I loved it too!

Out Stealing Horses

2010-04-27T08:37:00.009-05:00

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson is the first book I read for the Scandinavian Reading Challenge 2010 hosted by The Black Sheep Dances. If you would like to participate, visit her blog. I would recommend this book as a wonderful place to start your exploration of Scandinavian literature and, while they cannot count for the challenge because I had read them earlier, here are two other books that I really loved that meet the criteria: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Astrid and Veronika. I enjoyed all three books and am anxious to find my next Scandinavian book to read. If you have any suggestions, please leave me a comment.

Now on to my review of Out Stealing Horses. When I was a teen, I loved Henry David Thoreau's Walden and this book reminded me of how Walden made me think and feel about nature. Even if the story told by Petterson had not been engaging, I would have read on to try to capture that feeling of being one with nature.

The novel begins with Trond Sander, our near seventy year old narrator, working on a cabin in the woods in Norway. He is retired and his wife has died so he chose to leave his life behind and move to a cabin where his nearest neighbor, Lars, brings back memories of his youth with his father. Together Trond and his father visited this same area in the 1940s where they worked with locals to fell trees and float them to a sawmill. The story bounces back and forth between these times and over the course of the novel, the reader is drawn into both.

In the present time, Trond hoped to escape his own life to dwell in peace in the woods and depending only on himself. In the past, the reader learns with Trond that his father is part of a resistance movement smuggling Jews from Norway to Sweden. There are other secrets which I will not share - you will need to read the book to learn them.

In the end, Trond finds forgiveness within himself and welcomes the companionship of his daughter but continues to live in solitude, no longer feeling such pangs of lonliness. I loved every minute of this book.

TITLE: Out Stealing Horses
AUTHOR: Per Petterson
TRANSLATOR: Anne Born
COPYRIGHT: 2005 (English translation)
PAGES: 238
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I loved this book mostly because it reminded me that solitude is not lonely, rather it can be silence for the soul.
AWARDS: British Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2006), International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (2007)

Book Blogger Hop

2010-04-23T07:49:00.003-05:00

Please visit Crazy for Books to add your link! It is a wonderful way to find new book blogs to read. I hope that you will also leave a link for me so I can come visit you if I have missed your link on the original post. Happy Friday to all! Here are the basic instructions:

ABOUT THE HOP:
In the spirit of the Friday Follow, I thought it would be cool to do a Book Blogger Hop to give us all book bloggers and readers a chance to connect and find new blogs that we may be missing out on! So, I created this weekly BOOK PARTY where book bloggers and readers can connect to find new blogs to read, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs that they may not know existed! So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start PARTYING!!

Your blog should have content related to books, including, but not limited to book reviews.

If you start following someone through the Hop, leave a comment on their blog to let them know! Stop back during the week to see other blogs that are added! And, most importantly, the idea is to HAVE FUN!! Back to the top to visit Crazy for Books!

Island of the Blue Dolphins

2010-04-21T10:37:00.005-05:00

I participate in a group blog ~ The Newbery Project ~ where we all read Newbery Award books with the hope of reading all of them one day! If you are a teacher or a mother, you might enjoy reading about these wonderful and historical books.
I remember when my children read Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. It was many years ago but I still remember that my daughter cried while my oldest son tried not to cry. So I remember it as a sad book because a dog dies.

It is much more than that. This book was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1961. I was only eight years old and I wonder why (or if) I did not read the book. This was published in a time of women's liberation in the United States. I don't know that I would say that liberation is what this book is about, but certainly Karana moved outside female cultural roles as she survived alone on an island off the coast of California.

The book is based on the life of a real woman who lived alone on the island of San Nicolas from 1835 to 1853. She was named Juana Maria by a priest who was with her when she died only seven weeks after she was rescued by George Nidever. She is buried at the Santa Barbara Mission in California. To learn more, click HERE.

In Island of the Blue Dolphins, our heroine Karana stays behind on her island after the Aleuts killed many of the men of her tribe and the others had left on a large ship. She stayed because she could not find her brother on the ship. After her brother's traumatic death, Karana lives alone on the island. O'Dell uses imagery to help the reader visualize how Karana takes care of herself and the island. A strong girl, Karana does what she must do to survive. In the end, she has experienced joy and sorrow on the island. I liked the story and feel the students would as well.

TITLE: Island of the Blue Dolphins
AUTHOR: Scott O'Dell
COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 184
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I would recommend this to Middle School children who are naturalists (no matter what your definition) or for girls who need to learn that they can do anything they wish to do.

Teaser Tuesday

2010-04-20T08:21:00.007-05:00

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is from the book Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (translated from the Dutch by Anne Born):

Outside, the blue hour has arrived. Everything draws closer; the shed, the edge of the wood, the lake beyond the trees, it is as if the tinted air binds the world together and there is nothing disconnected out there. p. 91

This is a beautiful book by Norwegian author Per Petterson (in his former life, he was a librarian!). And stealing horses is not what we think here in the US of A - rather it means to go ride some "borrowed" horses and then, of course, take them back to their home. While many may find this a melancholy book, I find it has a sweet sadness to it that is comforting. I hope to finish the book tonight, so look for a review soon. BTW, thanks to The Black Sheep who is hosting a Scandinavian Reading Challenge - otherwise I would never have found this book. I look forward to reading others by this author. If you would like to participate in the challenge, just visit her blog and sign up. It is only six books by the end of the year and if they are all as good as this one - it will be a snap!

Sunday Sidelines

2010-04-18T06:30:00.011-05:00

Good morning and happy spring Sunday to all. This weekend has been about flowers at our house. It all started because a friend gave us a very small moon flower. We nurtured it in the house forever - not because we had to - because we were lazy, err slow? Anyway, we wanted to see these large white blooms that we heard about - they only bloom at night, so we decided it was time to send this small plant to the real world. And of course this became a production. Here are some photos - hard to believe these five small pots of flowers took us all morning!

The moon flower is the leafy plant in the back of the square planter. We had to put a mini-arbor type thing in the back of the planter because moon plants like to climb. My favorite at this point is the red and white flower in the flower flowerpot. It is really beautiful to see. Maybe next weekend we will be able to do more.

I hope that you will take the time to read some book reviews of Holocaust Resources for children:
Angel Girl - A controversial story

A Family Secret - A graphic novel

And maybe come by and tell me about your week!

Friday and Book Blog Hop

2010-04-16T07:53:00.004-05:00

Crazy for Books hosts a regular Blog Hop and this week it is a Book Blog Hop!!! She provides a Mr. Linky place for everyone to sign in and over the week participants try to visit as many blogs as possible. Perfect way to find new blogs to read...for that matter, a perfect way to find new books to add to our wish lists! Be sure to check it out! And if you are visiting here for the first time, Welcome!

An Unfinished Score

2010-04-14T08:29:00.006-05:00

Let me begin this review with thanks to Unbridled Books for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. An Unfinished Score by Elise Blackwell is the first thing I have ever read that made me wish I had paid closer attention in freshman Music Class! Even so my lack of musical memory did nothing to diminish my enjoyment of this lyrically written and multi-layered novel.

The novel begins as viola player, Suzanne, learns that her lover, music conductor Alex, has died. The drama begins early as Suzanne hears this news over the radio while preparing dinner for her husband Ben and her best friend Petra. Although the adults in her life seem not to notice immediately that something is wrong with her, Petra's daughter Adele who was deaf from birth and loves Suzanne as she loves her mother is more attuned to the nuances of unspoken emotion. Except for Adele, music is what binds this group of people who share a home. As she moves through her grief, Suzanne remembers other losses which led her to Alex and away from her husband and friend.

For Suzanne, the loss of her lover Alex is at the core of who she will be. Even more so when Alex's widow blackmails her to complete a score Alex had begun before his death. The reader reminisces with Suzanne as she remembers her affair with Alex. We also struggle with her as she attempts to complete a score which makes little sense to her, causing her to question what she knew about her lover.

Had I not cared about the characters in the book, I would still have continued reading to experience the emotion of music that is expressed on nearly every page. Not capable of playing an instrument myself, I was mesmerized by the feelings of the composer, player, and listener.

Ultimately to me this is a novel of opposites and how they come together - the past and the future, the composer and the performer, the meaning and the interpretation. The reader is asked to consider these things as the novel comes to a startling conclusion. If I have time this summer, I plan to read the book again with my computer and headphones so I can stop and lister to each composition which is lovingly mentioned by Suzanne, Alex, Ben, Petra, and a wonderful group of supporting characters!

TITLE: An Unfinished Score
AUTHOR: Elise Blackwell
COPYRIGHT: 2009, April 2010
PAGES: 272
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: Music lovers in particular will enjoy this novel, but even without such knowledge it is an enjoyable and quick read

Writing Reviews for Readers' Advisory

2010-04-13T09:19:00.008-05:00

In a clear and concise manner, Brad Hooper shares his expertise in reviewing books, both pre and post publication, in his 2010 American Library Association publication, Writing Reviews for Readers' Advisory. In fact, after reading and studying (yes, I did take notes) his book, I should not have a bit of trouble writing this review.

Hooper begins his instruction by carefully explaining to the reader the difference between reviewing and criticism. Unless we are professional scholars, chances are we will not be writing criticism, rather, we will be providing "an assessment of something new on the market" which is "broader, more encompassing and less specific." (pp. 8-9) Hooper follows this with the two questions any book review should answer: what is the book about? and how good is the book? And of course, the answer to the second question is entirely subjective and should be dealt with in a generous, but honest, manner. (p. 23, 59)

Hooper reminds us of the five elements of fiction and hopes that non-fiction will be clearly about something (if we cannot figure it out, we should perhaps not write the review). To help the reader understand the techniques for writing reviews, Hooper provides multiple examples which are illuminating. Perhaps my favorite tip (and something I have wondered about) is that you should review narrative non-fiction in the past tense because it did happen. Fiction, on the other hand, never really happened and should be reviewed in the present tense. (p. 64)

Anyone who reads and reviews books should study Hooper's book. As the current Adult Books Editor for Booklist, Hooper is certainly well-versed in reviewing and his suggestions for good book reviewing is invaluable.

TITLE: Writing Reviews for Readers' Advisory
AUTHOR: Brad Hooper
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 96
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: I recommend this book to everyone who writes reviews to promote books, whether these reviews are personal or for the library community.

Teaser Tuesday

2010-04-13T08:58:00.003-05:00

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!(make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

And now she hopes that her loss - her mother, her child, her lover - protects her from more loss, the way she hopes Adele's deafness protects her from premature illness. Dues already paid. (p. 95)

This quote is from the ARC An Unfinished Score by Elise Blackwell. If this sounds intriguing, stop by tomorrow for my review.

Unconscious Mutterings

2010-04-12T11:36:00.004-05:00

Habit :: old

Relaunch :: system

Mondays :: blah

Bootstrap :: pull yourself up

Funk :: Mondays

Appreciate :: you

Yay! :: Hooray

Life :: is sweet

Sheets :: need washing

Date night :: What?

Sunday Sidelines

2010-04-11T17:45:00.009-05:00

Welcome to another Sunday Sidelines. It has been a beautiful week in Northwest Florida with spring weather a warm welcome after an unusually cold winter. I managed to take the day off on Friday and my husband, my daughter and I took our two grandsons to Pensacola Beach. It was still a bit too cold to get in the water, although there were some brave souls who seemed to be having fun splashing about in the waves. Instead we walked to the end of the long fishing pier on the Gulf Side and wandered a bit on the Sound Side.

The water was beautiful and fairly calm for the Gulf Side. We did watch four or five people surfing - long boards, because the waves were too small for a short board.

Today we started with yard work...twelve bags full of leaves and still only half done. The leaves are falling faster than we can rake and sweep them up! We had to have the philosopical argument with our daughter who insists putting the leaves in bags is an environmental travesty. Still I suspect our neighbors appreciate our leaves being contained, plus it was faster.

Then this afternoon we all three went to a production of Grease at the University of West Florida. It was a student production and overall quite cute. The music was good and some of the singers were great!

This last week, I finished a few books and should have reviews posted early in the week:

An Unfinished Score - Elise Blackwell

She's So Dead to Us - Kieran Scott

Have a wonderful week!!

Book Blogger Hop

2010-04-09T19:37:00.004-05:00

If you are coming by from the Blog Hop, I hope you will visit often. This is my favorite meme of the week - I guess next to my own Sunday Sidelines which allows us the freedom to talk about anything we want - not just about books. Of course, books are what bring us to the computer. I want to share what I am reading and I want to know what you are reading. And how you like said book.

I also have a specialized book blog called Holocaust Resources where I review K-12 Holocaust resources. I hope that one day educators will use my blog to search for books they plan to use in the classroom with their students. I feel very strongly that this is increasingly important as Holocaust survivors are becoming older and fewer. Please stop by and perhaps you will learn some small something that you did not know about the Holocaust. I always do!

Again, thanks for stopping by!

A Novel Challenge: Scandinavian Reading Challenge

2010-04-08T15:00:00.002-05:00

A Novel Challenge: Scandinavian Reading Challenge

Since I have already read some of the authors, I think this will be a very easy challenge!

Top 101

2010-04-08T09:09:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Rebecca at Just One More Page for making me aware of this Top 101 Booklover's List published yearly by Dymock's. I have highlighted the ones that I am sure I have read. There are a few others that I have read parts of or one of three in a series which I did not highlight. All in all, not a bad list!

1 The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
2 The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
3 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
4 The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
5 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
6 The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
7 To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
8 The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson
9 My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
10 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
11 The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons
12 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
13 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
14 The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
15 Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
16 Magician by Raymond E. Feist
17 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
18 The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
19 Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
20 The Host by Stephenie Meyer
21 Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin
22 Atonement by Ian McEwan
23 The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
24 Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
25 A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
26 Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon
27 Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
28 The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
29 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
30 Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
31 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
32 Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden
33 Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody
34 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
35 The Inheritance Series by Christopher Paolini
36 The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
37 Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
38 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
39 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
40 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
41 Ice Station by Matthew Reilly
42 The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
43 Persuasion by Jane Austen
44 Tully by Paullina Simons
45 Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly
46 Breath by Tim Winton
47 The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare
48 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
49 A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
50 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
51 Emma by Jane Austen
52 The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
53 The Bible
54 Six Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly
55 A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey
56 We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
57 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
58 Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
59 The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
60 The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
61 People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
62 The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
63 The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
64 Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
65 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
66 The Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris
67 Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
68 Five Greatest Warriors by Matthew Reilly
69 On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
70 The Princess Bride by William Goldman
71 The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
72 Wicked by Gregory Maguire
73 Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
74 Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
75 Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
76 Dewey by Vicki Myron
77 Dirt Music by Tim Winton
78 Marley and Me by John Grogan
79 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
80 Dune by Frank Herbert
81 The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
82 The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
83 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
84 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
85 The Road by Cormac McCarthy
86 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
87 The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
88 The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
89 Possession by AS Byatt
90 Finnikin of The Rock by Melina Marchetta
91 No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
92 Graceling by Kristin Cashore
93 The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
94 The Secret History by Donna Tartt
95 Silent Country by Di Morrissey
96 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
97 Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
98 The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
99 Still Alice by Lisa Genova
100 The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
101 Gallipoli by Les Carlyon

Which ones have you read? Leave a link so I can visit your list. Also check back later today to see my review of Hidden Child, another Holocaust book for children - this time it will only be posted on my blog dedicated to these resources...Holocaust Resources.

Clara's War: One Girl's Story of Survival

2010-04-06T15:09:00.003-05:00

Clara's War: One Girl's Story of Survival by Clara Kramer is an amazing story of survival. In addition to surviving with 17 other people in the dug-out basement of a house for 18 months, fifteen year old Clara (at the insistence of her mother) kept a written record of their day to day lives, the fears and sorrows, and the joys. The details of living under such stress are the moments which make this such a compelling story.

As if living under a house in a crawl space dug out with your own hands is not enough, it is incredible who lived above them in the house. Initially the house was inhabited by Mr. and Mrs. Beck who were both German. Before the war, Julia Beck has served as a maid for Clara's family and she convinced her husband, who was known to be anti-Semetic, to allow the families to hide under their house. In addition, the house was inhabited by Nazi trainmen and Nazi soldiers. Many times, the Jewish families lives were saved by only seconds of time - time to hide, time to eat, time to cry. After the war Clara and her family returned to their own home which became a gathering place for the mere fifty surviving Jews of the 5,000 who had lived in Zolkiew Poland before the war. I was stunned, but not terribly surprised, by Clara's statement after her return to life:

From the stories the survivors told us, I realized we had it better than most. (p. 310)

Still, for me, the most poignant paragraph in the book was written in Clara's diary near the end of the war, with the enemy in the rooms above them and the Becks under suspicion:

Tuesday, 9 May 1944. You could think that a person who looks into the eyes of death as many times as we do would get used to it. But it's the opposite with us. The more we are in danger of dying, the more we are frightened. One wants to live no matter what and no matter how. Every day we look death in the eyes and every day has its own history. If at least we had a verdict, a time, how long we will suffer. We are sitting here and we don't even know if it's for nothing. (p. 262)

To continue on day after day, not knowing when it would end - or how it would end had to have been such an emotional strain and yet these 18 people survived. Ultimately Julia and Valentine Beck were honored at Yad Vashem in Israel. The Beck's daughter, Ala, who lived in the house with the eighteen survivors for most of the war came to the service and planted a tree in the Garden of the Righteous. And Clara - she tries still to live her life worthy of the Becks and her sister Mania who died trying to escape the basement during a fire. She considers her work on Holocaust education a large part of her obligation to these people she loved so much.

Harper Collins provides the reader with the following message from the author (this is also in the book):
4/6/2009
To the Readers of Clara's War
Writing this book was like walking out of my kitchen door in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and straight into my home in Zolkiew. Although the events in this book happened over 60 years ago, they have never left me. As with many survivors, I relive them in the present. I am 81 years old, and I am one of the lucky ones. Ever since the day I left the bunker, I have done my best to live a worthy life. I have dedicated myself to the teaching of the Holocaust. The privilege of surviving comes with the responsibility of sharing the story of those who did not. Everything in this book is as I lived and remember it, although I have taken the liberty of reconstructing dialogue to the best of my recollection. I have also used the spelling and names most familiar to me. During the 18 months I spent in the bunker, I kept a diary which today is in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. There was little light and less paper and only one nub of a pencil to write with. I documented as much as I could in my diary, but although I often spoke about my life, the idea of writing about it never occurred to me. Thank you (to my cowriter) for encouraging me and for taking this journey with me back to Zolkiew. And thank you for capturing my life so beautifully on paper. I am so grateful that my great-great-grandchildren will be able to meet those of us who came before.

From my memory to theirs, and to yours—

Clara Kramer
{accessed at http://www.harpercollins.com/author/microsite/news.aspx?authorid=35107&newsid=5447#5447}

And here is a YouTube video made by the author.

TITLE: Clara's War: One Girl's Story of Survival
AUTHOR: Clara Kramer
CO-AUTHOR: Stephen Glantz
COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 339
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: A moving story of heroism and determination.
AWARDS: 2010 Sophy Brody Honor Book

Sunday Sidelines

2010-04-04T07:45:00.007-05:00

Welcome to my Sunday Sidelines. This is just a mish-mash of what I am thinking about this week. I hope that you will leave a comment telling me what you are thinking!

Here is something fun I do every Sunday. It is Unconscious Mutterings hosted by Luna Nina. She supplies the words, you supply the associations. And check out what others are associating!

Philanthropy :: buy a cow

Said :: well

Blanks :: fill in the

Tapas :: Spanish

Orgasm :: Ummmm

Movement :: slight

Detention :: in trouble

Restaurant :: Chili's

Weird :: and strange

Sniffle :: snort

WOW - now what I am really excited about. I am excited about BASKETBALL!! In particular, I am excited about Butler. And that is saying something for me, since my daughter reminded me last night that she had a Duke hat and a Duke t-shirt growing up because I was undeniably a Duke fan. And I won't be crushed if they win the championship, but I am really pulling for Butler. As for the women - well who can win other than UConn. But know I will be watching tonight.

While I am not watching basketball this weekend, I have been sitting at my desk at home grading student projects. Sugar Pie doesn't like to hang without me, so I bought a baby sling and she happily snuggles up in it while I am at the computer. The other three chihuahuas are too big for it and a bit jealous, but that it the perk of being the smallest. She has food in her little pouch and is quite content to sit there as long as I do. Such a little love.

Well, wishing you all a blessed day.

Donna

The Cat with the Yellow Star

2010-04-02T19:33:00.003-05:00

Fate is an interesting thing. I ordered this book from our Interlibrary Loan department without really knowing the story. Of course, I knew it was a Holocaust book for children, but I was wonderfully surprised when I realized that this book was written by one of the Girls of Room 28. (I reviewed this book a short time back.) Room 28 was a room at the Children's Home at Terezin, a holding camp or ghetto in Czechoslovakia. A key element in both books is the children's opera Brundibar. I also reviewed a children's book retelling the opera Brundibar. But back to fate, when I got the book, I flipped through the 40 pages and found a page of photographs - the page looked almost like a yearbook page with fourteen photos of young girls - Handa, Eva, Hanka, Marianne, Lenka, Anna, Helga...I knew them all! It was like seeing photos of friends from middle school. I was elated to know these women through these stories. And very excited to read another book about their blessed experience during the Holocaust.

In some ways, Cat with the Yellow Star, written by Susan Goldman Rubin with Ela Weissberger, is a more intimate look at the experiences of the girls of Room 28. Maybe it feels that way because the words are crafted for a younger audience and therefore feel like a story shared by only a few. I am so thankful that Ela shared her story and photographs with Susan. It was interesting to learn that the women who were caretakers for the girls of Room 28 made sure the children learned their manners and kept clean in an easily overwhelming environment.

Ela starred as the cat in the children's opera Brundibar. She talks, as did the previous author, about the importance of these artistic endeavors for the children of Terezin. I knew that the Nazis had promoted Terezin as a model camp and invited the International Red Cross to view how well the Jewish people were taken care of. I did not know that the children performed their opera for the Red Cross in June 1944. Apparently the Red Cross believed what they saw in 1944. They learned the truth about Terezin when the camp was turned over to them by the Nazis on May 3, 1945. This is when Eva was liberated.

Still this was not the end of Brundibar. Fifteen of the children of Room 28 survived the war and since 1986 they have joined one another once a year to enjoy talking about their lives. Ela continues to hear her beloved opera - performed by children all over the world. After one such performance on December 7, 2003 at the Simon Wiesenthal Center - Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, Ela spoke to the audience:

Sixty years ago we performed this opera at Terezin. Only a few of us survived. I lost many of my friends. But when we were performing Brundibar, we forgot where we were, we forgot all our troubles. Music was part of our resistance against the Nazis. Music, art, good teachers, and friends meant survival. (p. 35)

Holiday House provides a wonderful Educator's Guide for this title.

TITLE: The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin
AUTHOR: Susan Goldman Rubin with Ela Weissberger
COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 40
TYPE: Holocaust narrative, non-fiction
RECOMMEND: I learned a lot from this small book and the images included are very interesting. It certainly could be used in conjunction with Brundibar. I really liked this book.

The Lotus Eaters

2010-03-28T14:50:00.005-05:00

Let me begin this review with thanks to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The Lotus Eaters is a beautifully written novel winding through the nightmare that was the Viet Nam War. It takes me back to the summer I graduated from high school. In 1971, the student president visited Paris for Peace Talks and returned in sadness that the war was to continue, even in the strange and different form it had taken.

Soli’s novel is the story of Helen Adams, who is an American photojournalist, trying first to recover what she has lost in Viet Nam – her brother, who was killed. Adams is unprepared for the life she will live in Viet Nam. As she adapts to her new normal, which includes dead women and children as well as suffering on both sides, Helen falls in love with Darrow, a fellow photojournalist who is constantly chasing the next big story. Linh, Darrow’s assistant and a man torn between two countries, becomes Helen’s lover and friend. Soli explores the complex relationship that blossoms between these three people who are experiencing their own inner wars over the span of the novel.

What intrigued me most about this novel is the development of Helen. When she first arrives in Viet Nam, she begs to be embedded with the troops. Her first experience was this:

Her mouth was dry, air scraped the shallows of her lungs, as the reality of where she was took hold. Shivering from the foreign rush of terror, she felt a warm, wet sensation, and burned at the realization that she had peed herself….Nothing had prepared her for the smallness of the moment. The moment to moment boredom. Intellectually, yes, there were people on the enemy side trying to kill them. American men might die, but that was all television stuff. Being on the flat land, pricked by the dying grass, the idea that she herself could be the target of a bullet became real. (p. 92)

Over the years, Helen lost her fear. But of course, the reader wonders what else was lost with the fear. And what was gained. The novel allows for several voices to be heard and Linh’s portrait of both North and South Viet Nam during the war is beautiful and harrowing. In the end, with the war neither won nor lost, Helen wonders as she prepares to leave:

Ten years ago it had seemed the war would never end, and now all she could think, was More time, give us more time. She would continue till the end although she had lost faith in the power of pictures, because the work had become an end in itself, untethered to results or outcomes. (p. 5)

So different from the statement made by Darrow regarding why they were in Viet Nam:

“Sometimes you have to fulfill a promise in order to deserve the love you’re given. Don’t you think it’s a calling to live in danger just to capture the face of those who are suffering? To show their invisible lives to the world?” (p. 89)

Don’t miss this phenomenal book. Reading, Writing and Retirement also has a review of The Lotus Eaters. If you have time, sneak over and read her excellent review. If you are interested in the topic of Viet Nam, I also recommend Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

TITLE: The Lotus Eaters: A Novel
AUTHOR: Tatjana Soli
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 386
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I highly recommend this book as it is beautifully written and carries a powerful message.

Sunday Sidelines

2010-03-28T10:41:00.009-05:00

I have a new meme, Sunday Sidelines. Many of us have blogs dedicated to one thing or another. Reading the many posts by different bloggers, we come to know them. Sunday Sidelines is an opportunity to step outside of the normal blog post and share something that is on your sidelines. If you would like to join in, just leave a comment. I would love to hear from you.

Perhaps it is possible
to be gentle no matter what, to seek not restraint
but surrender entirely, to turn
from the snarling reproach not into the keening
dismissal of hope but to whatever bright
fluttering is next, the bright fluttering
of wisteria petals, a felicitous
phrase, fingers touching
a face. ...
- From "Fuschia" by Charlie Smith

I love this single fluttering of wisteria petals on my back fence. It reminds me that spring is coming. Soon the backyard will be filled with people swimming, sunning, and eating...family time will be tripled. I am anxious for this to begin.

Poem: "Fuschia" by Charlie Smith via PoetryFoundation.org From Indistinguishable from the Darkness. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990.

Cupcake Giveaway

2010-03-28T08:20:00.001-05:00

Click on the photo above for a chance to win Bertie, a beautiful Kitchen Aid mixer or three other wonderful prizes.

The Bread of Angels

2010-03-26T10:36:00.002-05:00

Let me begin this review with thanks to LibraryThing and Doubleday for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The Bread of Angels is a memoir by Stephanie Saldana in which she remembers her year in Damascus, Syria studying Islam, culture, as well as other religions of the world. Trying to run away from herself and her family, her Fulbright Scholarship gave her this perfect opportunity. After a year of running, Saldana finds that she has stopped running away and is running to her future with an open heart and mind.

I would rather not say too much more about Saldana’s story other than the fact that while she is praying in a centuries old monastery, she meets and falls in love with a novice French monk. Away from the monastery, Saldana’s days are spent learning Arabic, studying the Quran, having coffee with Grandfather, and learning how to love herself and her family. The beauty of the book is in her intricate descriptions of places and people that most of us will never encounter. In a post 9/11 world, Saldana navigates the Middle East with some trepidation, but finds that she is as horrified as her new neighbors by the violence that is occurring in Iraq and Lebanon. Visits to the desert monastery are more journeys of the soul than the body and as I read, I longed for the silence of the places she walked – places she met Jesus and Mary. In absolute balance, Saldana met the Jesus and Mary of the Quran as well.

I enjoyed this book from start to finish. Culture and religion and love fill the pages of this memoir and after a bit of time has passed, I might just read this book again.

TITLE: The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith
AUTHOR: Stephanie Saldana
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 303
TYPE: non-fiction, memoir
RECOMMEND: A wonderfully peaceful book to read, even in the midst of chaos.

Teaser Tuesday

2010-03-23T08:33:00.004-05:00

Here is my Tuesday Teaser:

"You had a dream, didn't you?"

"I nod, How did you know?"

He looks out across the railing. "I felt it. I had it too." p. 135

This teaser came from Stephanie Saldana's The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith. Although I have only gotten a few chapters into this memoir, I love the detail provided by Saldana. She offers her experiences in Damascus, Syria as a student of religion. Her humor and honesty are refreshing.

Hershey's Better Basket Blog Hop

2010-03-21T18:29:00.008-05:00

HERSHEY’S BETTER BASKET BLOG HOP RULES

Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.

Create a blog post giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger – you can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want.

Link back to person who gave you an Easter Basket.

Let each person you are giving a Virtual Easter Basket know you have given them a Basket.

Leave your link at BetterBasket.info/BlogHop comment section. You can also find the official rules of this #betterbasket blog hop, and more information about Better Basket with Hershey’s there.

Hershey’s is donating $10 per each blog participating to the Better Basket Blog Hop to Children’s Miracle Network (up to total of $5,000 by blog posts written by April 4th, 2010).

Please note that only one blog post by each blog url will count towards the donation.

My daughter, who is now thirty years old, was born in Pensacola, Florida and she was a patient at the Children's Hospital at Sacred Heart Hospital for thirty days. Without their care and love, she would have died and my life would have been only a shadow of what it has been. Because I believe in the Children's Miracle Network, I am sending a Better Basket to the following people in hopes that they will pass it on:

Holly at Pieces of Me

Girl From Florida

Marie at Boston Bibliophile

Amanda at Stansel Journey

Dawn at She is Too Fond of Books

Wishing you all and everyone who stops by a wonderful Spring and a Happy Easter or Passover.

Friday Firsts

2010-03-21T16:52:00.005-05:00

I have been looking for some good memes to follow and I like this one. I think the first sentence in a book is so important.

Side note - a class I took required that we write a 30 page paper on original historical research that was 95% of our grade. All semester, I researched and read. When it came time to write the paper, I could not get that first sentence on the computer (which mind you was a relatively new thing at our house in the early 1990s). I finally got the best sentence written and was delighted with the prospects of creating a beautiful paper. The computer crashed, I lost my sentence, I cried. I finally wrote another one and made sure to hit save almost immediately.

Fist line: The city teetered in a dream state.

This is the cover of the Advance Readers' Edition which I have just finished reading and will review soonish. The back cover tells me that "As the city of Saigon falls, Helen Adams, an American photojournalist, must leave the devastated country she has come to call her own." So knowing these things, the first sentence drew me right into the book.

Book: The Lotus Eaters by Tatjama Soli ISBN: 978-0312611576

This is the cover of the book as it was published March 2010. I really liked this book although it was somewhat sad and melancholy.

I hope that you will allow me to participate in your meme - I promise to try to get it done on Friday in the future. I look forward to seeing what you are reading.

My Twitter name is LibrarysCat.

The Survivors Club

2010-03-21T12:39:00.004-05:00

Thank you to Library Thing and Hachette Book Group for the opportunity to read and review this fantastically informative book. I feel much better about my potential for survival. My husband and I both took the associated online Survivors quiz - I am a Thinker, he is a Believer. Surely between the two of us, we can survive!

Sherwood has put together a phenomenally interesting and fact-filled book about who survives. And the why certain people survive. Through interviews with survivors world wide in every imaginable situation, this book presents a wide ranging profile of how we too can survive. As I completed the section on flight, I wanted to give the book immediately to my son who will be flying to Chicago next Thursday. Instead I told him about the Plus 3, Minus 8 rule which refers to the first three minutes of a flight and the last eight minutes before landing - these are the most likely times planes crash - and that in the event of a crash, you have about 90 seconds to get out of the plane, so sit within five rows of an exit and make note of where it is.

The book is not meant to frighten people or make for OCD watchfulness in every situation. Rather it is meant to make us all more aware of our surroundings and to know how to begin to act, not react, if danger should arise. I am better for having read this book.

TITLE: The Survivors Club: The Secret and Science that Could Save Your Life
AUTHOR: Ben Sherwood
COPYRIGHT: February, 2010
PAGES: 373
TYPE: non-fiction
RECOMMEND: I certainly want everyone I love to read this book. Once you read it, you will too.

Girl Who Fell From the Sky and Forest Gate

2010-03-13T15:56:00.010-06:00

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow is an amazing book and the winner of the 2008 Bellwether Prize for Fiction. Thank you to Algonquin Books for the opportunity to read and review the Advance Reading Copy.

The Bellwether Prize is given only in even-numbered years and "consists of a $25,000 cash payment to the author of the winning manuscript, and guaranteed publication by a major publisher. The author will collect royalties in accordance with a publisher’s contract. The Bellwether Prize is unique; no other major North American endowment or prize for the arts specifically seeks to support a literature of social responsibility. Its intent is to advocate serious literary fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships. The prize is awarded to a previously unpublished novel representing excellence in this genre." (Description taken from http://www.bellwetherprize.org/info.html) The award was founded by and is fully funded by Barbara Kingsolver, who describes The Girl Who Fell From the Sky as "Haunting and lovely, pitch-perfect."

I couldn't agree more. With multiple narrators, as well as a variety of plots and subplots, we discover what it feels like to be a young biracial girl in Portland during the early 1980s. Rachel begins her story in Germany where she lives with her Danish mother, her black American father and her younger sister. Returning to the United States, Rachel is the sole survivor of a tragedy in Chicago where her mother and sister die. Rachel must learn to live with her Black paternal grandmother in Oregon. To further confuse the sad yet developing young girl, she faces racist attitudes that nearly crush her spirit. Over time, we learn her history and how she will face her future.

Another strong voice in the novel is Jamie - a young black boy who lived in the public housing unit near Rachel in Chicago and actually saw what happened to her family. Jamie faces racial discrimination as well and runs from his mother who is more interested in drugs than her own child.

Both young people develop friendships and relationships that both hurt and help them. I thought it was interesting that the author chose to describe Europe as more accepting of biracial relationships and people in general. And to place Rachel in northern and northwestern cities where typically racism is portrayed less negatively.

In many ways, this is partly Durrow's own story. On her Web site, she relates that she is biracial and faced many of the same questions as the title character when she was growing up in Oregon.

A wonderful book which examines racial attitudes and how far we have to go in mutual understanding in this country.

TITLE: The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
AUTHOR: Heidi W. Durrow
COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 560
TYPE: fiction, based on a true story
RECOMMEND: I loved it.

AWARDS: 2008 Bellwether Prize for Fiction

It was interesting that I received Forest Gate shortly after I completed the book mentioned above. It, too, deals with racial issues, but from a very different perspective. I could not have planned my reading any better and I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Free Press for the opportunity to read and review this first novel by Peter Akinti.

For me, this book was an incredible work of genius. I read the book very quickly and realized only on the very last page that this was a novel. This is a testament to the authenticity of voice, place and character crafted by Akinti. I typically try not to learn too much about a book I am about to read and I honestly thought this was a personal memoir written by two people, together. I was truly amazed when I found that it was not....so what was it?

It begins as the story of two young Black boys, both living in the Forest Gate area of London, England. This is an impoverished area and both boys felt that they had no opportunities in the future - they decided to commit suicide together by jumping off twin towers. One boy lived, the other died. The boy who lived spent time recovering living with the sister of the dead boy. The story is told in alternating chapters with the boy and the girl narrating. The feelings of hopelessness are palpable. Sadly, the suicide attempts are not the worst aspects of the lives of these three young people. And the racist attitudes of the people in their part of London and the surrounding areas are in stark contrast to the European model portrayed by Durrow in the previous book. I suspect this is because human attitudes, good and bad, can be seen in every situation, in every place and time. Hopefully, as we all begin to explore the negative impact of these attitudes through fictional accounts such as these we will slowly begin to move beyond stereotypes and racism.

TITLE: Forest Gate
AUTHOR: Peter Akinti
COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 198
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I thought this was a very thought provoking and beautifully written book.

When You Reach Me

2010-03-13T11:14:00.002-06:00

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead is a fascinating novel with a number of story lines. While I enjoyed the book (and stayed up until 12:30 in the morning to finish it, which speaks volumes), I wonder if the seconday story lines will be understood by young readers who might not have previous knowledge to support full interest. Certainly it appealed to the Newbery panel!
The novel takes place in 1979 and is narrated by twelve year old Miranda, who lives with her mother. Miranda experiences the pains of growing up while a mystery surrounds her. Miranda's mother is excited about being on the $20,000 Pyramid, a television game show which was popular in the 1970s. Along with her mother's boyfriend, the family helps the mother practice for the show. This story line might be an unknown for young people today.

Another story line, which is at the heart of the mystery, focuses on Madeline L'Engel's book A Wrinkle in Time and the idea of time travel. Marcus, who becomes a friend to Miranda, has theories on time and space. If one were unfamiliar with L'Engel's book, perhaps this story line might also have some gaps. Of course the simple answer to this problem is to read L'Engel's classic book and start over.

I liked this book. I didn't love it. The writing and tone were good and I wanted to get to the bottom of the mysterious notes. Overall, When You Reach Me should hold broad appeal for the age range Grade 5-8, which is where we have placed the book in our collection at the library.

TITLE: When You Reach Me

AUTHOR: Rebecca Stead

PAGES: 197

TYPE: fiction

RECOMMEND: A slightly off-kilter book for middle school students - should spark good discussion

38. Letter to My Daughter

2009-12-30T11:04:00.006-06:00

Thank you to Random House Publishing for the opportunity to read and review the Advance Reader's Edition of Letter to My Daughter by George Bishop. I read this book in just one reading and found myself transported to my own teen years. The scenarios painted by Mr. Bishop were amazingly on target and interestingly intuitive as this was a female story from start to finish.

The book is one very long letter from a distraught mother to her fifteen year old daughter. The two had a fight which ended with the mother slapping the daughter and the daughter leaving the house without telling her parents where she was going or when she was coming back. Haven't we all been there on one level or another? The mother then waits for her daughter to come home and writes her a letter telling her about her own adolescence.

The letter takes the reader back to the late 1960s and the VietNam war. And the angst of being in love for the first time. Beyond the basic story, the author leads the reader to think about the war and the effects on young men who were there. In addition, I thought about the legacy we leave our children, in spite of our best efforts not to repeat mistakes of our parents.

This was a very short book, but I tore through it - needing to hear the entire history of the mother as well as the fate of the daughter. This is a fascinating debut novel and I look forward to more from Mr. Bishop.

TITLE: Letter to My Daughter
AUTHOR: George Bishop
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 126
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I am very happy to have read this work and would recommend it to my friends.

Dogs, Books, and things

2009-12-10T12:22:00.012-06:00

My sweet Sugar Pie Then:
My sweet Sugar Pie Now:

I am so excited! I am going to be off from work for the next three weeks. Can you even imagine? The way the holidays fall and my need to use up some leave before I lose it created this little holiday miracle. So I have a few things in mind for my vacation:

I really want to work on my Holocaust Resources blog by reading and reviewing as many children and young people Holocaust books. If you have a personal favorite that you have read or used for teaching about the Holocaust, please leave me a comment so I can try to locate a copy here at the University or nearby bookstore.
For once, I would like to complete reviews of ALL of the books I have read this year. With my husband at work for the first week I am off, maybe I will have some success.
Spend time with Sugar Pie and my sweet Annie and Lulu. Best dogs in the world, with Sugar Pie possibly the smallest dog in the world.
Crochet some scarves for all of the females in the family - sorry boys, working on a pattern for you! It's not like I am coordinated or anything.

I wish you all happy holidays and hope to hear from you!

37. Yellow Star

2009-12-10T09:56:00.001-06:00

Jennifer Roy first learned her Aunt Syvia's Holocaust story almost fifty years after Syvia had been liberated from a Nazi camp, one of only twelve Jewish children who survived the Lodz Ghetto in Poland. Ms. Roy knew immediately that she wanted to tell the story to others. After a number of attempts, she decided to write the story in first person verse. She states:

When my aunt recounted her childhood to me, she spoke as if looking through a child's eyes. She made her experiences feel real, immediate, urgent. In the poetry of a survivor's words, this is Syvia's story. (p. n/a)

This memoir in verse is divided into five distinct parts, based on time periods during the War. The author provides brief historical facts about the period as it pertains to her aunt's family and other Jews in Poland and all of Europe.

The author provides free downloads for educators. Pre-Reading, Language Arts, Social Studies, Art/Music, Math, and Discussion Questions. Although our library has the book listed as Grade 4-8, I think that most portions of the book could be read to or by even younger students. The free verse is beautiful and true to the young girl who lived this life from age four to ten. While the story is often horrifying, I believe it is a story we all need to hear. Here is just a small sample of the story:

Yellow

is the color of

the felt six-pointed star

that is sewn onto my coat.

It is the law

that all Jews have to wear the

Star of David

when they leave their house,

or else be arrested.

I wish I could

rip the star off

(carefully, stitch by stitch, so as not to ruin

my lovely coat),

because yellow is meant to be

a happy color,

not the color of

hate. (pp. 7-8)

Ultimately, the yellow stars on their coats help in the rescue of Syvia and her family. What a wonderful tribute to one child's Holocaust narrative.

TITLE: Yellow Star
AUTHOR: Jennifer Roy
COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 227
TYPE: poetry, Holocaust memoir
RECOMMEND: Excellent book

36. Shalom Bayis with a Twist of Humor

2009-11-09T17:36:00.005-06:00

Thank you to Gefen Publishing House and LibraryThing for the opportunity to read and review Shalom Bayis with a Twist of Humor: 7 Tips to a Healthy Marriage by Joe Bobker.

While I am not Jewish, I really enjoyed the Jewish references in this merry little guide to marriage. The author divides his freely given advice and jokes into seven different "C" categories: Comedy; Communication, Conversation; Common Sense; Compromise, Causation; Caring, Compassion, Courtesy; Commonality, Compatability, Commitment; and Camaraderie, Companionship!

The most important gem provided to the reader by Mr. Bobker can be found in the Foreword - it is that the secrets to a happy marriage are quite obvious to all of us and, unfortunately, just as obviously forgotten soon after wedding vows are spoken. All in all, a very funny read and thought provoking read.

TITLE: Shalom Bayis with a Twist of Humor: 7 Tips for a Healthy Marriage
AUTHOR: Joe Bobker
COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 213
TYPE: self-help
RECOMMEND: very funny but useful approaches to maintaining a happy marriage

33, 34 & 35: Harry Potter 5, 6, 7

2009-11-02T20:37:00.010-06:00

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a very interesting book which served to set the tone for the last two books in many ways. After the Tri-Wizard Tournament in the previous book, Harry alerted Dumbledore the Lord Voldemort had returned. Many of the wizards do not not want to believe this and in fact there is a reason why - many of them support Lord Voldemort in his efforts. In an attempt to thwart Voldemort's plans, Dumbledore reassembles the Order of the Phoenix - a group sworn to protect Harry. But Hogwarts itself is under seige - Dolores Umbridge has been appointed in Dumbledore's place to run the school. She will not allow the children to learn about the dark arts, so Harry begins to teach them himself. And thank goodness, the skills of each pupil will be needed in the end, when the world finally believes that the Dark Lord has returned.

TITLE: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling
COPYRIGHT: 2004
PAGES: 846
TYPE: fiction, Children's literature
RECOMMEND: I enjoyed this book.

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore leads Harry through memories of the past in which Harry learns who Voldemort really is and perhaps even why he is the way he is. This understanding is necessary as Voldemort and his Death Eaters and dementors are terrorizing muggles and wizards alike. Throw a little boy-girl tension into the mix, and you have a very lively book. A bit darker than previous books, almost as many questions are posed as are answered. Friendships and betrayals rule the day. And as all the world must have known, someone important dies at the end of the book.

TITLE: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling
COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 672
TYPE: fiction, Children's literature
RECOMMEND: I loved it.

The final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is an exciting yet rather sad book. Almost every question is answered in a most satisfactory manner. The three friends - Harry, Ron, and Hermione - set off to find all the pieces of Voldemort. The three must solve mysteries, fight for their lives, and still find time to love one another and others who are important to their future lives. Does goodness triumph over evil?

I have heard that the last book will become two separate movies. I can completely see that since so much happens in the book. I cannot wait to see the final film installments.

TITLE: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling
COPYRIGHT: 2007
PAGES: 759
TYPE: fiction, Children's literature
RECOMMEND: I loved it.

31 & 32: Two Holocaust narratives

2009-10-11T19:18:00.010-05:00

The author who compiled these diaries states that this is the first book of this type from this time period. She introduces the diaries with a rather difficult statement:

Perhaps it is so painful to think about the impact of the war on children - particularly their mass executions - that we have not wanted to read about it, even when that has meant refusing to hear from the children themselves. Maybe it was as much as we could bear to designate Anne Frank the representative child of the Holocaust and to think, then, only of her when we thought about children in World War II. But, in some ways, Anne Frank was not representative of children in the war and the Holocaust. Because she was in hiding, she did not experience life in the streets, the ghettos, the concentration camps, as it was lived by millions of children throughout Europe. (p.xiv)

The diaries, written by children from age 10 to age 18, are arranged chronologically by the age of the child youngest to oldest. The countries represented are Poland, Holland, German, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Lithuania, Russia, Belgium, Englan, Hungary, Israel, and Denmark. The children wrote these diaries from many different locations and situations. Many wrote from the time they moved from their loving homes to a ghetto or a hiding spot. One young boy hid in a cupboard for five year, while another lived and died much like Anne Frank. Many of the children died at the hands of the Nazis in concentration camps, with only these written words somehow surviving to tell their stories. Others survived and published their stories so the world would know.

Selected by the School Library Journal Best Adult Book for Young Adults 1995, this book is a phenomenal resource for those interested in Holocaust history. Because it covers such a wide range of experiences, I think it could be used in middle and high school as a teaching aid with individual children, or small groups, reading the passage and providing their own expression of the child's experience. Some may argue that middle school age children are too young to read these diaries. The author addresses that beautifully:

To turn our eyes away and refuse to see, or to let children see, what prejudice and hatred lead to is truly to warp our collective psyche...The children teach us, by sharing their own direct experience of oppression, that nothing is more valuable than human freedom. This lesson alone is reason enough to read, and to encourage children to read, these diaries. (p. xx)

TITLE: Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries
AUTHOR: Laurel Holliday
COPYRIGHT: 1995
PAGES: 401
TYPE: compilation of Holocaust diaries
RECOMMEND: Excellent book

The second book that I read containing Holocaust narratives Anthology of Holocaust Literature edited by Jacob Glatstein, Israel Knox, and Samuel Margoshes is probably for the young adult or adult student of the Holocaust. Many of these writing have never been translated to English or published in the English language. Therefore, for many of us, this would be the first time to read these personal experiences. The book is arranged by topic: Occupations, Actions, Selections; Life in the Ghettos; Children; Concentration and Death Camps; Resistance; and The Non-Jews. It is possible to read the experiences of multiple people who found themselves in each situation. While some author's names may be familiar, such as Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank, and Primo Levi, other authors' names are representative of the people who did not live and shared the same past during the War.

In the Introduction, the editors provide the reader with many definitions of anthology and the various reasons why they have collected these specific Holocaust writings. For me, the most important reason is as follows:
There are many faces to courage, and the will to hope, to maintain the simple dignity of daily existence on a human and humane level, to forge the chain of cultural and spiritual continuity from generation to generation, to cherish children by handing on to them the legacy of their people - to do all of this in the midst of peril and deprivation and omnipresent enmity, is a species of fortitude that borders on the sublime. (p. xx)

To be so strong in faith and hope - to continue in the face of darkness. This is what I tried to glean from each person's personal journey as they were translated in this book. Many of the readings begin and end out of the blue, no real beginnings and no sure end. Often I found that I had to read the entry more than once to grasp the setting and events. Again the editors remind us to consider the following as we read:

One can imagine what it must have cost them to tell their story, to recall the facts and details, the total and terrible drama. Yet it is a story that they could not reporess and relegate to the archives of their own private memory - not for history's sake, nor for their own. (p. xxiii)

This book reminded me of a unique and humbling experiene I had as a graduate student. A friend of mine knew a woman who was hospitalized with congestive heart failure. She was able to come home but was very afraid that she would soon die. She had been at Auschwitz and had never told anyone her story. She did not want to die without telling someone and my friend mentioned that I had an interest in studying Holocaust narratives. I went to her home and she told me her story. The impact hearing her, reliving her fear through her words, and knowing the strength it took for her to say them to me - it is something I will never forget. She did not have to share her story with me, a virtual stranger, but she did and I will be forever grateful.

The following words were found inscribed on the walls of a cellar in Germany where Jews hid from the Nazis:

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love even when feeling it not.

I believe in God even when He is silent. (p. 340)

Next time I sing that song at my Catholic Church, it will hold far more meaning for me. I thank the editors of this volume for bringing it, and the other readings, to my attention.

TITLE: Anthology of Holocaust Literature
AUTHOR: Jacob Glatstein, Israel Knox & Samuel Margoshes eds.
COPYRIGHT: 1977
PAGES: 395
TYPE: compilation of original source materials from the Holocaust
RECOMMEND: Excellent book

30. Family Sentence

2009-10-09T09:15:00.007-05:00

Thank you to Beacon Press and LibraryThing for the opportunity to read and review the uncorrected proof of Family Sentence: The Search for My Cuban-Revolutionary, Prison-Yard, Mythic-Hero, Deadbeat Dad by Jeanine Cornillot. This is exactly the type of book I usually enjoy - as I tend more toward non-fiction and biographies in my personal reading tastes. In addition, I know a little something about the loss of a father with my own father disappearing during the Korean conflict when I was only two. So I was a bit surprised that I did not particularly like this book.

Jeanine Cornillot was only two years old when her Cuban father was arrested for anti-Castro revolutionary activities and imprisoned in Miami. Jeanine went to Philadelphia with her Irish-American mother and brothers where they lived in poverty and confusion regarding their blended cultural heritage. To further complicate matters, Jeanine spent her summers in Little Havana with her Hispanic relatives. Still this sounds like something I would enjoy. The problem was the whining! As the author sought to sort out her family problems, she whined and complained and whined. Or that is how the writing sounded to me as I read. I just never felt her pain; never mustered up what should have been natural empathy. I did learn some things about the culture of Little Havana, but ultimately I had to force myself to finish the book.

TITLE: Family Sentence: The Search for My Cuban-Revolutionary, Prison-Yard, Mythic-Hero, Deadbeat Dad
AUTHOR: Jeanine Cornillot
COPYRIGHT: October 1, 2009
PAGES: 220
TYPE: biography
RECOMMEND: Not my favorite although it does provide some insight into the Cuban-American culture

29. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

2009-10-08T19:08:00.005-05:00

Thank you so much to William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers for sending me the advance reader's edition of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind [creating currents of electricity & hope] by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. This is the most wonderful story of how the hopes and dreams of one determined young boy changed the lives of many.

William Kamkwamba was just a young boy in a small village in Malawi. His family, like most of the villagers, were poor farmers and could not pay for William to continue his education beyond the elementary level. While William was discouraged by this, he ventured to the very small library in the elemntary school which had only three floor to ceiling shelves of books. He read science and physics books learning about windmills and decided to try to make one in hopes of creating enough electricity to power one light bulb so he could study after dark. He later hoped he could help his family through one of the many droughts and famine which affected his own family and the other villagers. Often having only mouthfuls of food each day, William went throughout the junk yards and nearby small town looking for parts to use in creating his windmill. His family and friends thought this was certainly strange behavior and while they loved him, they had little faith in his success. But using the most rudimentary equipment, William was successful and built first one windmill at his home and then a second windmill at the elementary school. Visiting the school, Malawian officials sought to meet the young man who was so dedicated to his own learning. Ultimately William was placed in an upper level school and also invited to attend a TED Global Conference. Finally meeting with other inventors and scientists at this conference, William was introduced to a multitude of knowledge - Google for one, but more importantly William stood with other Africans who were also inventors and he was pround of his heritage and continent.

The author maintains a website which provides opportunities to support his education, his family, and his village. I cannot think of a more worthy cause.

TITLE: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind [creating currents of electricity & hope]
AUTHOR: William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
COPYRIGHT: September 29, 2009
PAGES: 347
TYPE: biography
RECOMMEND: Unbelievable, belongs in every school library - from elementary to college; and should be read by all who think hope and dreams don't have great power!

28. The Smell of Humans: A Memoir of the Holocaust in Hungary

2009-10-05T19:17:00.003-05:00

The Smell of Humans: A Memoir of the Holocaust in Hungary by Erno Szep and translated by John Batki covers only one small period of time and life as it was lived by only one man of fifty. The war was nearing its end and the bulk of Hungarian Jews had already been deported. In October 1944, Szep , a sixty year old Hungarian Jewish poet, and 49 other older men were rounded up by young Arrow Cross Youths. Just days before Governor Horthy declared a unilateral cessation of hostilities - for which he was deposed. The Germans and their Hungarian allies used these last Jewish men to dig and build an earthworks around their city of Budapest to protect the city from the oncoming Russians. Szep was released on November 6 when the Russians reached the perimeter of the city and managed to live while many others did not. This is a story of only 19 days. But we learn many things from the attitudes of the author, his eye for details, and the brilliance of his thoughts. I would like to share a few passages that struck me as very important to the understanding of his writings:

A man's biography consists of his thoughts. Everything else that happens to me is something alien. As we slipped and slid around in that mud the work was slowed down, providing an occassion for more conscious reflection. We are always thinking about something, although we may not pay attention to our thoughts. Now, writing ten months after the events, I cannot recall a speck of what I had been thinking then. But I do remember trying to recall the thoughts of that day on the march back. And I was unable to recover a single snippet of what my mind had dug up during that day. Thoughts sink into forgetfulness as quickly as rain into the earth. (p. 130)

With bombs falling all around the area where the men slept and worked, Szep wrote about his feelings:

I saw, not for the first time, that one did not fear death in its immediate presence. Thinking stops at such times. Within seconds a process of shutting off takes over within the brain, so that the mind (and, we might say, the soul) rejects, refuses to acknowledge all the horrors accosting us. There is a beautiful wisdom in this built-in self-defence. (p. 142)

Much like shock perhaps. Or the disbelief that something so horrible could happen. I have often hoped that people faced with these tragic endings might believe to the end that there is truth and beauty just on the other side of the river or hill. And then be surprised by death, maybe bewildered. And sanctified. I have often said that while I do not want to die, I am in no way afraid of death. So many people have faced it before me and in less gentle ways perhaps, that I should follow them with delight in our spiritual reawakening.

TITLE: The Smell of Humans: A Memoir of the Holocaust in Hungary

AUTHOR: Erno Szep

TYPE: memoir Holocaust

RECOMMEND: a work of great interest

27. Songs for the Butcher's Daughter

2009-09-29T18:35:00.006-05:00

Songs for the Butcher's Daughter by Peter Manseau was mesmerizingly wonderful. I am so thankful to other bloggers who reviewed it which encouraged me to pick it up. The story is told in two voices and two time periods. It is a story of love and loss, beauty and truth, and faith. It is an old man's memoirs and a young man's thoughts and dreams. The voices and stories are alternated between an old Jewish man, Itsik Malpesh, who has written his life story via the Yiddish alphabet and a young Catholic man who, through translator's notes written as he translates Malpesh's story from Yiddish to English, interjects his own story and problems.

Malpesh's story begins in 1903 in Bessarabia, follows him through the two world wars, and to Baltimore where the collaboration begins between the two men. The younger man is a college graduate with a degree in religions and languages. He has recently learned to read Yiddish and comes to meet with Malpesh. This is the great coincidence of the book and holds the wonder of both men's stories.

The writing in this novel is excellent and I was delighted with the format. Because Malpesh described himself first as a poet, writing love poems for a woman he never really knew, the writing in the novel includes many of his songs for the butcher's daughter, who was present at his birth. The author includes Jewish culture from the "old country" as well as descriptions of the immigrant experience. Additionally, the lives of both men shelter some wonderfully interesting characters which Manseau presents to us in a fullness that brings both worlds into sharp focus.

While I found myself loving both men, I was drawn to the younger man in this novel. Like him, I am Catholic. Also like him, I am drawn to Judaism - the history, the culture, the beliefs, by an unknown force. The translator's life was in some way changed by his interaction with a faith not his own, and I believe that mine is as well. I loved this novel. The focus on languages and hope uplifted me even in the face of sadness.

This is author Peter Manseau's first novel. You can listen to an interview with the author at NPR. Songs for the Butcher's Daughter was the winner of the National Jewish Book Award for fiction and the Sophie Brody Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Jewish Literature. The novel was shortlisted for the Mercantile Library First Novel Prize and was recognized as one of ABC Australia's Best International Books of the Year. You can visit the author's website as well.

TITLE: Songs for the Butcher's Daughter

AUTHOR: Peter Manseau

PAGES: 370

TYPE: fiction

RECOMMEND: Best book I have read in some time! Please do give this book a chance.

26. Saving What Remains

2009-09-26T10:44:00.003-05:00

Saving What Remains: A Holocaust Survivor's Journey Home to Reclaim her Ancestry by Livia Britton-Jackson is a remarkable voyage through the bureaucratic entanglements and emotional upheavals experienced by the author as she returned to post-war Communist Czechoslovakia to locate and retrieve the bodies of her Jewish grandparents who had died more than fifty years earlier. Her husband Len, who did not speak the languages of the country, stood by her side and helped as she navigated through all of the necessary bribes and steps to successfully taking their bodies to Israel. Her determination is remarkable and through her efforts a monument to the past shared lives has been created for all of her family. While this book only touches on the author's Holocaust experiences, the emotions of Britton-Jackson certainly remind us of the past and remind us to mind our futures.

TITLE: Saving What Remains: A Holocaust Survivor's Journey Home to Reclaim her Ancestry

AUTHOR: Livia Britton-Jackson

PAGES: 196

TYPE: non-fiction, biographical

RECOMMEND: Read as a wonderful tribute to your own family

25. Sacred Hearts

2009-08-22T13:54:00.002-05:00

Side note: I was diagnosed with the Swine flu on July 15th and was sick as a dog, so to speak, for two weeks. Because I was so weak that I could barely get out of the bed, I read probably ten books. I am now in the process of getting the reviews done for all of these books. Having not taken vacation days or sick days in years, it was nice to read. However, I wish you all well as the flu season approaches. I would not wish those two weeks on my worst enemy!

Thank you to Random House Publishing for the opportunity to read and review Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant. I found myself completely caught up in the life of the 16th century Italian convent. In the beginning of the novel, the reader feels much like young Serafina, a noblewoman who was to become a novice against her will – confined with wildly individualistic women who were all the same, nuns with vows of obedience defining their every movement – at least on the outside. As the reader comes to know these women, each has her own personality and difficulties. Serafina longs for her lover and fights against the ebb and flow of the convent. Suora Zuana, the convent’s medicine creator and dispenser, is charged with calming and nurturing the young girl who is none too happy. The nun in charge of the nuns-in-training feels a sense of jealousy over Zuana and Serafina’s relationship, not to mention the closeness of Zuana to the Headmistress, who must ultimately answer to God and men for all of the convent’s triumphs and failures. I enjoyed this book immensely. The twists and turns of convent life were amazingly drawn by Dunant. She gave voice to women who did not always have a voice in their own time.

TITLE: Sacred Hearts
AUTHOR: Sarah Dunant
COPYRIGHT: July 14, 2009
PAGES: 400
TYPE: historical fiction
RECOMMEND: Fascinating and engrossing

24. Oh!: A mystery of 'mono no aware'

2009-08-20T19:37:00.006-05:00

Oh!: A mystery of 'mono no aware' by Todd Shimoda, and beautifully illustrated by Todd’s wife, is a phenomenal experience. The copy I received from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program was the final production copy. When I held the package in my hands, I wondered why in the world the package was so heavy. Even its arrival created a mystery! I opened the package and held one of the most beautiful books I have ever had the pleasure of seeing – and I work in a library. The cover design is a delight and the pages inside are silky like a fine art book. The chapter dividers are textured to match the beautiful artwork which adds to the story. I could not wait to see how the internal story would hold up to the external package.
I was not disappointed in any way. Shimoda’s story follows Japanese American Zach Hara, a young man who leaves his mundane job and part-time girlfriend in the United States to travel to Japan, hoping to find any emotion within himself. Zack seeks his ancestral past and in the process begins to teach English in a town close to the Aokigahara Forest, which my husband immediately recognized as the place where many people have gone to commit group suicide. Zach’s world becomes wrapped up in one of his students – an elderly gentleman who attempts to help Zach find emotive feelings by focusing on the theory of mono no aware - which might be loosely translated as the sadness of beautiful things. Turning page after beautiful page, the reader is treated to poetry written by Zach, again enhancing the story. Zach becomes immersed in the mystery of his grandfather’s life, the mystery of the disappearance of a young girl, and the mystery of why people commit suicide in groups. Ultimately I think he feels deeply. The writing is exquisite and the last page is as much a joy as the first. I could not put this book down and when I was done I was certain that I understood 'mono no aware'.

The author discusses the evolution of the book on his blog. He also shares how the artwork for the book was chosen. My favorite quote I have seen about this book is from NPR: Oh! was selected for National Public Radio's summer reading list. NPR reviewer Lucia Silva called it "a triumphant kick in the pants for anyone who doubts the future of paper-and-ink books." I could not agree more – this was a phenomenal experience and at the end all I could say was OH! And three weeks later, I am still thinking about it and can’t wait until my friend finishes it and we can talk about it and find our own emotions play all over the pages. Exceptional read!

TITLE: Oh!: A mystery of 'mono no aware'
AUTHOR: Todd Shimoda (beautifully illustrated by Linda Shimoda)
COPYRIGHT: June 1, 2009
PAGES: 310
TYPE: fiction, self-discovery of emotion within
RECOMMEND: Another even more stunningly beautiful book that I cannot forget.

Blessings,
Libraryscat