Book Blogger Hop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 390
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: I love a good mystery and this one was exceptional!

Blog Hop Friday

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!

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

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

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!!

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

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~)

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

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

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!

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

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!!