Fantasy, fantasy!

Finished McCaffrey's Dragondrums, and feel that I can now finish off the series (what I have of it) without taking the entire summer. It is confusing to figure out the order that the books go in, and they are challenging reads.

I wish that I liked Dennis McKeirnan's Iron Tower Trilogy better, since he visited Blendon years ago and lives locally (I think), but when I opened up the book and saw the map of the imaginary kingdom, my heart sank. When I read the Foreward, I knew I was sunk; he wanted more books like LeGuin and Tolkein, and he succeeded admirably in creating a series (Dark Tide, Shadows of Doom, The Darkest Day) that showed an intriguing world, a good fight against evil, etc.

Now might be a good time to mention that it took me until I was 32 to finish all the Tolkein books, and then only because I was pregnant and ill and didn't have the energy to do anything else. I don't like fantasy as a general rule, so this was hard going. It will be fabulous to hand to my 8th graders who claim to have read everything, however.

Also read through Sam McBratney's The Ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane (1988), and decided that it's just too young for the students. It was good, but at this age the students want ghosts who cause major mayhem and shed a bit of blood. Think I'll send it to the elementary school, where it should get more use.