Non-Fiction Monday

Here are two book from Netgalley.com that don't come out for a while, but they were both FABULOUS. Lerner Books usually have great stuff, and it's nice to be able to see E-ARCs, since I don't always get a chance to read the nonfiction before I buy it, and it does tend to be on the expensive side.

Havelin, Kate. Dressing a Nation: Hoopskirts, Union Blues and Confederate Grays: Civil War Fashions from 1861-1865.
Nicely broken up into chapters on women's clothing, men's, slaves, soldiers and the emerging fashion industry in general this was a very complete account of what people wore during this time period. No details are missed; underwear, accessories, and even hair styles are covered. Illustrations are copious and well-captioned and sidebars add interest. This is exactly what I have needed in the past (and could not find) when students do projects on clothing during this time period, so I'm thrilled to see it. This series is entitled Dressing a Nation and includes four other titles, all of which come out on October 1. I want them all, especially Zoot Suits and the Little Black Dress, but this is the only title that aligns with our curriculum. Sigh.

McPherson, Stephanie Sammartino. Iceberg Right Ahead: The Tragedy of the Titanic.
There are bound to be a lot of books coming out this year because of the Titanic centennary, including a Gordon Korman trilogy and a Barry Denenberg title, but this was a particularly well done nonfiction title. While all of the facts of the Titanic were presented in a straightforward manner (history, production, staffing, survival statistics broken down by gender and class of passengers), the inclusion of individual stories of passengers gave a poignancy to the book that made me understand why my students are still enthralled with this event even after 100 years. Heck, I even wanted to check out the movie just in order to see a depiction of the ship and the period costumes! This will be a definite purchase and will circulate frequently.

The only problem with the above titles was the fact that they were E-ARCs. They could not be read on my Nook; in order to get the excellent pictures AND have font big enough to read, I had to read them from the computer. This gave me pause about the future of digital textbooks.

Myers, Walter Dean. Bad Boy. (2001)

This memoir is one I've been meaning to read for some time, since my hard core fans of Myers will hunt this one down in the biographies, and I finally listened to it on a recent car trip. This marks the first time I have listened to an entire audio book, but also points out that I am not an auditory learner and had trouble remembering everything in the book. I was particularly struck by the fact that readers who are expecting Myers to be as bad as some of the characters in his book will be very disappointed that he wasn't very bad at all, and by the fact that he ruminates quite a bit about why he liked to read and why he became a writer.

Paulsen, Gary. Masters of Disaster. (2010)
The second book I've finished listening to was this recent Gary Paulsen. Again, I am a visual learner, and while I got a great sense that the boys in my school will love this story, replete with people caroming around on bikes into garbage pails full of dirty diapers, I can't give you a coherent plot descriptions and will have to read a print version. But I am really, really pleased with this new trend in Paulsen's writing toward the humorous. He has quite the knack; we just weren't seeing it with his slightly ponderous survival stories or introspective books about odd people. I've been wary of blindly buying Paulsen because of his older work, but I now look forward to his new titles avidly. Quite an improvement! (And I know a lot of people who think everything he is written is utterly brilliant anway!)

Summer

Yes, I was phoning it in for the past two weeks. Sorry. Between the end of the school year and taking off for a week to D.C. to torture the children, blogging did not get done. Well, it did, but I was posting from the 1"x3" touch screen on my Nook. Fun.

So to celebrate summer, since I didn't get a chance to post my yearly pictures of the overheads worshipping their Overhead God, I'm going to indulge in some Personality Leakage.

My goals this summer are to:
1. Run 100 miles.
2. Read 70 books.
3. Sew 50 crib quilt tops.
Also will need to feed and clothe people, and tend to the garden. Since I just finished cleaning the house on a subatomic level that unearthed petrified sippy cup lids and hair clips my 17-year-old wore to kindergarten, I'm good on cleaning for a while.

The only goal about which I have doubts is the quilt tops. May not happen, although I made a good start today. I challenged my students to read a book a week, which many of them thought possible, but when I challenged the cross country team to run 100 miles, they balked. "But the break is 80 days long. That's just a little over a mile a day." THAT seemed doable. We all need goals, and it is important to understand that when goals seem impossible, many people give up altogether. The first cross country fun run in on July 5; I hope we get a lot of runners to come out!

Of course, the day after I cleaned out years worth of games, papers, unidentifiable kitchen paraphernalia and t shirts in toddler sizes (Youngest is now 4'10"!! Woo hoo!) I was at the thrift store to find Oldest Hawaiian shirts to wear to work and came home with the object at left. Yes! It is a mallard television lamp! Hugely popular in the 1950s. Everyone had one, and if the VCR didn't live on top of my maple 1961 Zenith television console, you bet this puppy would be there. And it was only $1.50. Do you know what these go for on eBay? $55. Uh-huh.


For some reason, the children have decreed that I must now be accompanied by one of them when going to the thrift store. No clue.


Well, that's all the leakage for now. Fresh, new book reviews-- and ONLY book reviews-- on way (I was horrible about visiting blogs as well) with just a tiny goal update. So far, starting today, I'm at
1. 0 miles 2. 2 books 3. 0 quilts
Wish me luck!

Sunday

Webb, Sarah. Ask Amy Green: Summer Secrets.
Like the first book in this series, Boy Trouble, this is about Amy’s complicated relationship with her extended family as well as her obsession with boys. Seth, her new boyfriend, is off to Italy, her best friend is in Miami, and Amy’s entire family is renting a house on an island near Cork. Amy has to put up with her younger siblings as well as her dysfunctional aunt and cousins, but her vacation is ameliorated by her 17-year-old advice column writing aunt as well as a cute boy.
Strengths: Lovely summer novel, with just enough romance, and a fab Irish setting. So glad this one wa picked up on this side of the pond!
Weaknesses: I can never quite buy that the aunt, Clover, is this big a deal at the magazine, so when the two are sent to Miami to interview a movie star, it stretched my credulity.

Saturday

Milkulski, Keri. Head Games.
This is the third in a series, and I haven’t read the other two because I thought they were more high school oriented. While this one was, it would still be appropriate for middle school.

Taylor is a very tall, very motivated basketball player who cares deeply about her teammates. When the attractive Zach dumps her teammate Kylie and starts to show an interest in Taylor, she is conflicted. He’s cute and she’s flattered, but she should honor her friend’s feelings. Taylor’s social stock starts going up when the students find out that Zach is interested in her, and Taylor uncovers a disturbing bit of information-- the boys’ basketball team is trying to score with as many of the girls in school as possible, and that’s why Zach has moved to to her. There are other things going on as well-- Taylor’s fashionista friend wants her to model fr an upcoming fashion show, things are rocky in Taylor’s family, and Matt seems interested in her, but he also has some secrets.

Strengths: Loved the tight knit teammates on the girls’ basketball team. I will have to buy thi series because I know a lot of girls who will like it. The socal interactions also ring true.
Weaknesses: Too much Facebook mention. I know that this is prevalent now, but you never know-- any book that mentions MySpace is automatically dated.

Guy Friday-- Surviving Southside

Weyn, Suzanne. Recruited.
Kadeem is a good football player but a so-so student, so when a recruiter from Teller college makes a hard play for him to go to that school, Kadeem is flattered. He enjoys hanging out with the cheerleaders, is relieved tht his grades “won’t matter” that much at Teller, and likes the dinners and college visits. When he tells another recruiter about these thins, however, h finds out that they are not according to the recruiting rules. He wants to go to Teller, but if he cooperates with the authorities, will he blow his chances?

Strengths:The Surviving Southside Series is similar to Carter High, but more appealing. The storylines are more mature but don’t get too graphic, and the text is a little harder without being too challenging. The short length is great for struggling readers.
Weaknesses: Slightly didactic in tone.

Fontes, Justine. Benito Runs.
Benito’s close knit family is thrown into chaos when his father comes home from Iraq with post traumatic stress syndrome. Instead of playing soccer with Benny and making waffles on Sunday, he barks orders, makes the children clean the house according to military standards,and is on his guard even in church. Benito decides that the best thing to do is t run away from home to Dallas and start life over, but things do not go well when he attempts a bus trip there.

Strengths: Another Surviving Southside title, this will be good for my students who have had relatives come back from serving in the military. The fans of the Bluford High books will like these as well.
Weaknesses: The book never convinces me that it is a good idea for Benny to run away from home-- it reads like an excuse for bad things to happen to him, but I don’t know that the students will read it this way.

Simon, Charnan. Shattered Star.
Cassie wants to be a famous singer, and is working her way through her high school’s ranks to be the best there, but when an American Idol type competition comes to town, she heads over. Once there, she discovers she is one of hundreds of singers trying out, and she’s late for work. A gentleman who claims to be a talent agent gves her his card, and starts to “recruit” her for his agency, which involves increasingly questionable activities which culminate in an attempted rape.

Strengths: Girls who dream of singing professionally will love this one, and the slightly gritty (no swear words, no graphic descriptions of the attempted rape) story of the unscrupulous agent will appeal to girls who like problem novels.
Weaknesses: This is such a short book, when there could be so much more told about the story!

Barnes, Derek. We Could Be Brothers.
Robeson ends up in after school suspension because someone has tried to cheat off of his test; Pacino is there because he instigated a food fight. The boy behind both of their problems? Tariq. Even though the boys come from very different backgrounds, they strike up a friendship. Robeson’s father is a professor and very invested in the African-American community, even living in a nicer section of a troubled neighborhood. He holds Robeson to high standards. Pacino’s mother also holds her son to high standards, but their life is much more difficult because his father is not in the picture an his mother works two jobs and counts on Pacino to help out with his sisters. When things with Tariq explode, the boys both realize how good both of them have it, and Robeson’s father tries to find Tariq some help.

Strengths: I liked the depiction of community, the strong network of help that the boys have, and the trouble that all of the boys have managing anger and interpersonal relationships.
Weaknesses: Slightly didactic in tone, and I feel like I read this before. Will be buying a copy because I think it is something the readers of Myers’ works will like.

Thursday

Bennett, Olivia. Who What Wear.
ARC recieved from Sourcebooks.
Emma has a complicated life. On the one hand, she is an ordinary middle school student who likes to hang out with her best friend Holly, and on the other, she is the famous fashion designer Allegra Biscotti, whose work has been featured on fashion blogs, who is going to have her collection showcased in the Madison Pop-Up Shop, and who has been asked to design a fabulous Sweet 16 dress for Rylan Sinclaire’s big party. In order to make the charade work, she pretends to be an intern for Allegra, and works with Rylan and the difficult Mrs. Sinclaire to put together a dress for the party at the same time she is working feverishly on the Pop-Up Shop collection. When Holly finds out that Emma never told her she was working as an intern, the two have a falling out, and things are not going well with the other projects, either. Is keeping the secret of Allegra worth all the trouble?
Strengths: Lots of fashion detail, complete with small sketches accompanying the text. The friend drama is real, and the Sweet 16 birthday party is something that will interest some of my students.
Weaknesses: Full disclosure: I’m sitting here wearing frayed Mom jeans I got at the thrift store for a dollar and a t shirt my parents brought me back from Alaska in 1996. I do not care about fashion, so it’s hard for me to imagine that a 14-year-old would spend so much time and money on obsessing about clothing. Oddly, though, I’ve had students ask for books just like this. I just had a hard time believing the whole scenario, in the same way I don’t believe that the girls in The Clique series really dress that well.

Jennewein, James and Parker, Tom S. Ship of the Dead. (Rune Warriors #3)
Dane wants Astrid, the love of his life, back from Valhalla, but even when he steals a Valkyrie’s horse and travels there, she refuses to leave because she has sworn an oath to Odin. Dane manages to steal the Book of Fate from the Norns and hopes to use it to secure her release, but the goddess Skuld demands that Dane also kill Thidrek the Terrifying... again. Thidrek is now an undead draugr, and in order to kill him, Dane must hunt down a dwarf to forge the Blade of Oblivion for him. Thidrek is busy on his own quest, trying to obtain the Ship of the Dead for Hel, the queen of the underworld. Of course, Dane and Thidrek meet up when the ship travels into Niflheim and Hel’s army of the dead is released into the world. After alof this, will Dane be able to reclaim Astrid?

Strengths:A lot of Monty Python-esque humor; I could just envision John Cleese as Thidrek. I have picked up all three of these volumes at book looks. Fans of John Flangan’s The Ranger’s Apprentice series who want something a little funnier will enjoy these, as there is a lot of action and adventure.
Weaknesses: I had to take notes in order to follow the plot, and obviously left out a lot of the twists and turns. All I could think was “Really? Astrid is going to leave Valhalla (where her job is apparently welcoming the newly dead warriors) and live in a Viking hut somewhere folding Dane’s socks and cooking things in a pot over an open campfire? Huh.” Average middle school boy will not have these thoughts!

Wednesday

Boles, Philiana Marie. Glitz.
Ann Michelle’s parents were killed in a car accident, but she was born prematurely and survived. She lives with her upright, music teacher grandmother, goes to a nice school, has nice friends and a nice life. She loves music, and want some excitement in her life for once. It arrives in the form of Raq, awild child who has been brought to Toledo from Cincinnati by her foster parents. Raq also loves music and takes Ann Michelle to a concert, where they catch the eye of Piper, a hip hop artist, and his friends. Thus begins their wild ride-- they are off to Detroit to hear a recording session and make their way to New York City. Dubbed “Glitter” by Piper, in whom she is interested romantically, Ann Michelle doesn’t exactly approve of Raq’s scheming and stealing ways, but is loving being in the hip hop crowd. Glitter knows her grandmother is worried, but is more concerned about staying in the glamorous and exciting world... no matter what the cost.

Strengths: All my nice suburban students will adore this insight into the hip hop world, and while this could have had a lot of drugs and sex, it didn’t. There is a brief mention of Glitter turning down the advances of one of the singers, and Raq does steal, but that’s what they will find interesting.
Weaknesses: I had a hard time following the slang, and I preferred Boles’ Little Divas, but as I said, my students will love this.

Keaton, Kelly. Darkness Becomes Her.
Ari has never fit in at school, with her white-blonde hair and her foster parents who are bounty hunters and let her work with them, so she goes in search of her mother. She finds out information at the mental hospital where her mother committed suicide when Ari was four, and she is given a letter and box of her mother’s possessions. The note apologizes, and tells Ari to run. She does... down to New 2, which is the name for New Orleans after it has been destroyed by several hurricanes and been declared off-limits by the US government. Once in New 2, Ari realizes that she is more like the people here, and that her mother is right-- someone is after her. How can she escape the fate of generations of women in herfamily, all of whom had daughters and died before they were 21?

Strengths: Like the post-apocalyptic New Orleans setting, and the book is fast paced with interesting characters.
Weaknesses: Multiple uses of the f-bomb caused me to lose interest quickly. This book (received at a book look) will head off to the high school.

Tuesday

Kath, Natalie. The Summer I Lost It.
E-ARC from Net Galley, Publication Date 8/1/2011
Kat has always been overweight, but she is inspired by her Aunt Wendy’s weight loss to give dieting a try herself. Her parents can’t afford a “fat camp”, so she tries on her own to construct a plan of diet and exercise to lose weight. She wants to feel better about herself in summe clothes and hopes to attract the attention of the cute Josh. She has support from a variety of people, and makes good decisions about what to eat. She starts running and going to the gym, and finds that her energy level improves greatly. Eventually, she loses the 15 pounds she wanted to (a start), and her parents reward her with a trip to a resort where Josh’s family is also vacationing.
Strengths: The tips on diet and exercise are reasonable and would be very useful to a girl who was trying to lose weight but didn’t know where to start.
Weaknesses: The tone is rather didactic. This is a Stone Arch book, and they tend to be high interest, low lever books, so the writing is more text-book like.

Stewart, Kiera. Fetching.
E-ARC from Net Galley. Publication date November 8, 2011
Olivia’s living with her grandmother because her mentally ill mother has left home, and things are rocky at school as well. She has an odd assortment of friends that she has met through a board game club at school, but the local queen bee ,Brynne, picks on her mercilessly. After working with her grandmother to train dogs, Olivia comes up with the idea to use the dog training techniques are the whole school in order to allow her goth friend Maddie to run for class president. Most of the techniques have to do with presenting oneself as alert and competent, and the entire group benefits from them. Brynne and Olivia even reach an uneasy truce, and when Olivia is behind Brynne getting embarrassed, and she fights with her best friend Delia, the two start to hang out together. There are lots of changes in loyalties, romances, and both girls have some parent issues to work through. How will the election turn out? And is using dog training on an entire school a good idea?
Strengths: The individual characters, as well as their interactions, are extremely realistically portrayed. Lots of embarrassing incidents are described. The changes that the characters go through work as well. In fact, as implausible as this book seemed at the beginning, it was really good. Talk about “drama”. This will be hugely popular.
Weaknesses: I don’t see a school election having two entire months leading up to it, and there were some other details about school that made me think that the author hadn’t been in a school for a while. But then there are snarky descriptions of self-esteem assemblies that were right on the nose, so I’ll have to forgive the evil secretary!

Monday

Trigiani, Adriana. Viola in the Spotlight.
Having spent the year at a boarding school in the Midwest, Viola is back home in her New York City neighborhood for the
summer. She’s hanging out with best friends Andrew and Caitlyn, as well as Maurice, the son of the English actor who is renting her family’s basement apartment while he is starring in a stage production opposite Viola’s grandmother. Viola has an internship with the lighting director of the play, and still works on her movie making. When her friends from Prefect Academy come to spend time in New York, sh has to decide which is more important to her-- her friends at school, or her life in the city.
Strengths: As in her adult fiction, Trigiani is a master of making one feel IN a place. The people and places are all so vividly portrayed that they seem real. I liked this one much better than the first, which threw me when the ed of the stoy took a paranormal twist. Last weekend I read Brava, Valentina, which I liked very much. Don’t get to read much adult fiction.
Weaknesses: Again, not much action here, but that’s young adult. I’m just not used to reading a lot of it.

Colasanti, Susane. So Much Closer.
Brooke has been in love with Scott for two years... they’ve just never spoken. When she decides to tell him about this at the end-of-year picnic, she finds out that he is moving away from New Jersey to New York City and is too flabbergasted to say anything. Her father also lives in NYC after her parents’ acrimonious divorce, and she decides to move in with him, ostensibly in order to g to a better school but really so that she has a chance of seeing Scott. Amazingly, she does! He goes to her school and lives close by, so they start hanging out. Brooke is sad that her father doesn’t spend more time with her, but makes a good group of friends, gets involved in peer tutoring, is recognized as being brilliant but unmotivated by her teaches, and eventually becomes a less bitter person. She and Scott date for while, but she eventually wants to become more serious, which Scott doesn’t understand, so they break up. Can Brooke decide what to do with her life now that she is no longer obsessed with Scott? What other possibilities... and boys... will present themselves.

Strengths: A good, solid romance novel. I’ve been needing more for my library, since girls will go through one a day, and I’ll definitely have to read other titles by this author.
Weaknesses: Wanted to slap Brooke a little bit for being rather a doormat, but since she improved, it was okay. Obsession with a boy-- it’s a real thing that so many girls go through!

Sunday

Smith, Emily Wing. Back When You Were Easier To Love
Joy isn’t overly fond of Haven High School’s plastic perfection and stereotypical gangs of teenagers, but it was made tolerable by the existence of Zan, her boyfriend who shared her interested in books and alternative lifestyle. So why did he leave? How is she supposed to go on? Why is his best friend, Noah, hanging around her so much? He’s a stereotypical jock and one of the reasons that Zan has left Haven and gone to college in California early. Why didn’t he say goodbye? When she gets a chance to go for a college visit to the school where Zan studies (which is also in the town from which she moved), she takes off with Noah to try to figure out her past... and her future.

Strengths: *Sigh* I love girly romance books. LURVE the cover of this, from the pink Keds to the library step stool. Nothing much really happens in this book. It’s all about the all-consuming, overwhelming feeling of liking someone and having that person not like you back. You wouldn’t think this would make for a riveting read; if this is the case, why are 98% of teen journal entries about this very thing?
Weaknesses:The Mormon angle on this was odd, but not over powering. Led to a few plot twists; just unusual. Oh, and the school librarian was not flatteringly portrayed!

Saturday

Homzie, Hillary. The Hot List.
The number one cause of death in people aged 25-40 is apparently fictional parenthood. In the vast majority of the books I read for the 48 Hour Reading Challenge, at least one parent was dead; in several cases both were. Parents who managed to live through the process of having children inevitably divorced.

Sophie’s mother is dead, and her father is dating a teacher at the school she attends and where he is principal. This teacher has a daughter, Nia, whom Sophie dislikes but who is spending more and more time with Sophie’s best friend, Maddie. After Maddie and Sophie post a “hot list” on the bathroom stall in the girls’ room, the school is all atwitter about the relative hotness of the boys, and soon a similar list is made for the girls. Maddie and Nia make the list; Sophie does not. Sophie starts to spend less time with Maddie and more with Squid, a boy who desperately wants to make the hot list but whose flamboyant geekiness makes this impossible. Sophie tries to help him be “cool” so that she doesn’t have to think about her father dating and her best friend being mad at her. Does the hot list make that much difference? Will Sophie ever make it on the list, or, at the very least, get to talk to Hayden, her nominee for the list?

Strengths: The Mix series is very popular with the girls at my school, and the whole complex issue of changing friendships is something they always like to read.
Weaknesses: Parts of this dragged. Some editing would have tightened up the story and made it a little better.

Guy Friday- Revolutionary Guys

Hughes, Pat Raccio. Five 4ths of July.
From 1777 until 1781, the Revolutionary War changed Jake Mallery’s world beyond recognition. This book chronicles one day, July 4th, in those years. In the first year, Jake and his friends are enjoying the new holiday—eating oysters and diving in the sea. Jake fights with Hannah, who is much too pushy for an indentured servant girl. Jake and his friends know that the British are causing problems, but are glad to be patriots. In the second year, Jake fights with his overbearing father about showing up at the muster before he is 16. After his father beats him, he happens upon a man being tarred and feathered by the patriots and being accused of being a Tory. The man is the father of one of his friends. By the third year, the situation with the British has gotten to the point where they attack East Haven, and after a long fight, Jake and his friend Tim are captured and put onto the Bonhomme, a ship that they are on until Tim is killed in a battle. In the last chapter, we see Jake being sheltered in a Tory household after his escape from the ship. Once he admits to his hosts that he is a patriot, they send him on his way home to see his father, and Hannah, who has indeed waited for him.

Strengths: This is an interesting way to show the events of the war and their impact on a boy not much older than my students. It’s full of action and adventure. Readers who like Paul Dowswell’s Powder Monkey trilogy (and that was oddly popular this year in my library) will like this one.
Weaknesses: I felt like I was missing some details, skipping from year to year, but most of the gaps were explained.

Calkhoven, Laurie. Will and the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863.
In June of 1863, the small town of Gettysburg is atwitter when they realize a battle will be coming their way. Will, who would dearly love to join the army as a drummer boy, thinks that it will be an exciting adventure. When the Rebels arrive, however, he realizes that it is more serious. The blacks in town are rounded up and subjected to ill treatment; this angers will, who rushes at a soldier, allowing a few of the blacks to escape. He is on the verge of being sent to prison, but the young soldier who is supposed to take him, Abel, befriends him instead. Will takes Abel to his house to feed and clothe him. As the battle draws closer, Will’s sisters are sent to a farm outside of town, although Will’s mother refuses to leave. Soon, fighting is going on, and Will gets drawn into the action when a man shows up at their house wounded, but needing to get a message to the general. Historical notes, as well as a time line, add a lot to this historical account.

Strengths: I liked that this was from the point of view of a resident of the town who was at the periphery of the fighting. I will definitely look for Daniel and the Siege of Boston, and hope that there is also a WWII title.
Weaknesses: The title, and the cover, make this seem rather young. This would be good for my boys who like to read about war, and while I’m sure that 4th graders would pick this up avidly, it might take some convincing to get my 8th graders to read it, which is a shame.

Thursday

Brian, Kate. The Book of Spells: A Private Prequel
When Eliza is sent to The Billings School for Girls in 1915, she is glad to be away from her overbearing mother, and plans to read what she like and dress how she pleases. She finds a friend in Catherine, who also likes to read, but runs a bit afoul of Theresa Billings when she sets her eye on Theresa’s fiancé. But there are other things afoot at the school—the girls find a Book of Spells, establish a coven, and start to learn magic. They have fun with this for a while, until one of the outings into the woods leads to tragedy. Magic isn’t as good an idea as the girls originally thought.

Strengths: Love Kate Brian’s realistic novels like Lucky T and The Princess and the Pauper, so this was a little different. It will be popular with the girls who like paranormal romances. The cover is similar to others in this genre, so it will be picked up quickly.
Weaknesses: Since this is a prequel, I got the distinct impression that I was somehow missing something. Think I read a Private novel, but can’t really remember.

Howe, James, ed. 13: Thirteen Stories that Capture the Agony and the Ecstasy of Being Thirteen.

A variety of authors and experiences are represented in this compilation. Meg Cabot discusses friends who grow apart as the grow older. Alex Sanchez explores what it is like to be attracted to another boy. Carolyn Mackler relates the tale of a girl who sets off a frenzy in her school by stealing a picture out of someone’s locker. All of the story revolve around the concept of personal identity, and how difficult it is to be 13.

Strengths: It was interesting to read the biographical notes and see pictures of all of the authors at 13. The stories should make students feel that really, there are so many different types of 13-year-olds that any way they are is okay.
Weaknesses: Short story collections are a tough sell. This was sent over to my school from the high school, where they thought it was too young. Even the Sanchez story is okay for middle school.

It's been a bad week for boy books...

Stanley, Diane. The Silver Bowl.

When her father sends Molly off to the Castle Dethemere to by a scullery maid because he can no longer afford to feed her, her mother, who has seen visions for years, gives her a necklace made by her grandfather and warns Molly of danger to come. Things go well at the castle; the work is hard, but Molly quickly moves up to the position of silver polisher under the watchful eye of Thomas, and makes a good friend in another servant, Tobias.

All is not entirely well at the castle. Rumor has it that the family is suffering under a curse, and when Molly is polishing a silver bowl one day, she can see visions of horrors that will befall the royal family. These come to pass; the king and the eldest prince die, and the next son is attacked by mysterious silver wolves at his sister’s wedding. Alaric, the youngest son, manages to escape with Tobias and Molly, and they head off to the abbey where Molly’s brother works. Can Molly, with her alarming visions, manage to figure out the source of the curses and keep Alaric safe so that he can reclaim the kingdom from his cousin, Reynard?

Strengths: Stanley does an excellent job describing a medieval world of royalty, servants, and intrigue. That’s not always something I want to read, but her style makes it interesting. Bella at Midnight was the favorite of one of my students last year.

Weaknesses: I don’t have quite as many readers for medieval books, but they come in waves.

Galante, Cecilia. Willowood.

Life in the city is much different for life in the suburbs for Lily, especially since she has had to leave her best friend. Lily’s single mother works a lot, so Lily spends a lot of time with Mrs. Hiller, a neighbor who keeps an eye on her and introduces her to the Pet Palace, where she meets Bernard and his son Nate, who has Down Syndrome. School is difficult as well. Lily’s teacher is an unpleasantly demanding person who turns a blind eye to the exploits of the mean Amanda, who goes out of her way to make hurtful comments to Lily and another girl, Gina. Lily’s biggest problem, however, is that she doesn’t know why her father left right after she was born. Will things ever get better for Lily?

Strengths: Galante has made a good choice in all three of her books with characters who live in the city under difficult circumstances. Not all students are suburban and well-to-do. The daily struggles of Lily’s family will interest students.

Weaknesses: This was unrelentingly sad. While Lily had a good support system with Mrs. Hiller and Bernard, I just didn’t finish the book with the thought that Lily would ever be happy. There’s a little hope, but just not enough for me.

Library Note: And I have decided that the hoo ha over the Wall Street Journal article "Darkness Too Visible" is more than I can take. I just read 300 student surveys about the type of books students wanted; TWO wanted problem novels. Maybe YA readers do want really, really depressing books, but my students want mystery, action and adventure, spies, and books where things happen. Problem novels serve a very small subset of my population. My own daughter is one of them, and I've let her read a bunch of things, like Rainfield's Scars, but that's different: she's my daughter and I can have the needed discussions with her about upsetting topics. I'm not going to have books with sex and bad language and dismal situations that aren't somehow positively dealt with in the school library and hand them to students when I get an average of THREE MINUTES PER WEEK with each child.

Skateboarding books. Somebody write some of those. Keep the language clean, but throw in some domestic abuse, disordered eating, and dead parents if that's what it takes to satisfy your muse.

The Last Day of School.

Kirby, Jessi. Moonglass.When Anna’s father takes a job as a lifeguard supervisor in the same beach community where he met her mother, Anna is disappointed about changing schools and leaving her friends, but hopeful that she will learn more about her mother, who drowned when Anna was seven. Anna meets Ashley, who encourages her to be on the cross country team; Tyler, with whom she has a sweet romance; a friend of her mother’s, and some other local residents who all help her come to terms with the convoluted details of her mother’s death.

Strengths: NOT a paranormal romance, which is what I thought it would be because of the cover. Instead, a very nice realistic romance that involves cross country. A good romance book, right up there with Fifteen, Girlfriend Material, and Along for the Ride. The characters are varied and full of depth. The cross country details are wonderful!
Weaknesses: A bit of drinking, but used in a cautionary way, since one of the girl’s sisters left a party drunk and was killed.

Bauer, Joan. Close to Famous.
If Foster’s father hadn’t been killed in Iraq, her mother wouldn’t have dated Huck, an Elvis impersonator who was so crazy that Foster and her mother run away from their home with just a few possession and come to Culpepper, West Virginia. In that small town, they meet a number of people who help them get back on their feet: a couple who let them live in an Airstream trailer for free, the owner of the local hardware store who hires the mother, the restaurant owner who sells Foster’s cupcakes and muffins for her, and an aging Hollywood star who hires Foster and realizes that while she is an excellent cook, she needs a lot of help with her reading.

Strengths: Cupcakes on the cover and lots of details about baking. Cast of characters (which Bauer does so brilliantly, as in Rules of the Road) succeeds for me even though they verge on quirky, which I normally hate.
Weaknesses: Somehow, the Elvis impersonator former boyfriend didn’t work for me, but he has a relatively small part.

Library News:
Check out the anniversary giveaway at From the Mixed-Up Files. I really rely on their monthly round-up of just published titles; try as I may, there are always many books I manage to miss.

There are still nine overdue library books, which is not bad considering that the grand total of books we checked out this year was 35,475. Not bad for a collection of just under 11,000 books in a school of 620.

In other vaguely amusing news, I was voted "Biggest Rebel" at our staff end-of-year dinner. Think I'll change the name of this blog to "Rebel in a Polo" or perhaps "Rebel with Permission".

Stupid Fast

Herbach, Geoff. Stupid Fast.Felton has always been a squirrely, little kid, but one spring he finds that he not only has grown a ton, he has been able to channel his energy into running and is amazingly fast. He is recruited for the track team, where he meets some boys who encourage him to play football. Over the summer, he trains for that and gets even bigger, but everything else starts falling apart. His best friend is away for the summer, and Felton is running his paper route and has met the piano playing prodigy who is renting his house. They develop a romance, but something is terribly wrong with Felton's mother. Even though Felton's father committed suicide ten years ago, his mother was holding everything together, but now she isn't cooking or cleaning or even leaving her room. This affects Felton's brother, too, who stops playing the piano and burns all of his clothing. Despite his success on the football field, Felton's sports career isn't going well either, because some of the other players resent his abilities and take it out on him. When everything falls apart, on whom can Felton count?

This comes out on June 10!

Strengths: This is a masterfully written book that perfectly captures the vibrating energy some teenage boys have. You can FEEL the hormones coursing through Felton's veins and completely understand his need to run, run, run. The romance is good, too, touching on a delicate matter in a fairly sensitive way. I love that the girlfriend confides in her father AND tells Felton that the two discussed the matter! This is definitely a problem novel-- when things fall apart, they fall apart in a big way, but there is a hopeful sense of humor and a strong support network to take care of Felton, his brother and his mother. Really, really good book.
Weaknesses: The first f-bomb I could excuse, as it heralded the mother's descent into mental illness. The second and third made me nervous. By the time I got to the section where there were five uses on about three pages, I was just ANGRY. I want to have this book on my shelves, but I'm not going to. A huge number of the check outs in my library are personal recommendations. The students know I read all the books. Should I be responsible for every single word in every single book? Maybe not, but I feel I am. My students trust me. I am not comfortable handing them books that use words that would get the students expelled. GAH!!

On top of that, there is an article in the Wall Street Journal that has everyone up in arms-- is YA too dark? Yes, yes it is. And not only that, a lot of authors need to realize that cleaner language might result in more sales.

Watson, Renee. What Momma Left Me.
Serenity is living with her very religious grandparents in the wake of her mother’s death. The adjustment is hard for her and her brother Danny: new school, new church, and new rules. Things improve when she makes friends with Maria and enjoys a church retreat, but the truth about her mother’s death eventually comes out. Her abusive, drug dealing father killed her mother, ran away, and later killed himself. Serenity deals with her loss by writing and confiding in her friends, as well as refusing to let her grandmother teach her to cook, since Serenity’s mother hoped to train to be a chef. Danny deals with his grief by running with the wrong crowd and trying to earn money in dangerous ways that eventually lead to a tragedy.

Strengths: I liked how Serenity had a strong network of support to get her through troubling times. The neighborhood in which she lives is a tough one, but she is able to make good choices. The characters are very well developed.
Weaknesses: I could have done with the inclusion of poetry, and there was a lot of religion, but it was done in a natural way. Also, girls are not going to expect a book with a cake on the cover to be this dark.

Jensen, Melissa. Falling in Love With English Boys.Catherine is super bummed because she has to move to London because her mother is studying the life of a girl, Katherine, who kept a diary in 1815. She does a lot of whining in her blog until she meets the daughter of a local shopkeeper and starts to hang out with her friends, and also meets Will, a very cute descendant of Katherine’s. Alternating chapters point out the similarities between the two girls: both love to shop, hang out with friends, and obsess about boys. Perhaps London will not be so horrible after all!

Strengths: Very nice romance, as well as fantastic travel description. Will takes Catherine sight seeing all through London. *Sigh* Can I read it again? (I'd be able to-- older teen daughter snagged this, read it, and asked to keep the copy I got at a book look because she adored it. Since it was paperback, I said she could.)
Weaknesses: Really? Complaining about being in London? The historical bits were interesting, but seemed a little less than authentic—they had that ring of trying to bring modern sensibilities of independent girls to a previous time where that sort of girl was probably very rare. The modern bits more than make up for that, at least after Catherine stops whining!

Finish Line!

My final two books were:

Mullin, Mike. Ashfall.
Perera, Anna. Guantanamo Boy.

This makes for a grand total of:

35 hours, 33 books.

My favorite has got to be Geoff Herbach's Stupid Fast, but it is not really a middle school book. Sigh. Would have to then go with Stewart's Fetching. The Nook worked perfectly fine for reading, although it is hard to write reviews of digital copies, because I never remember character's names, and it's harder to flip through the pages. I'm glad mine doesn't have an LCD screen, because I did a lot of my reading on the porch and the sunlight would have caused problems.

The only thing left in my TBR pile is Apothecary, mainly because the box it came in is emblazoned with Coming October 2011! It was hard to get overly motivated.

Hope everyone had fun reading! I look forward to this every year, but when it is over, there's still laundry to do.

Sunday, heading into final stretch

Wow. And here I've been bragging that my teenagers allow me to sleep; 17-year-old was out until 11:00 and up at 5:00 a.m. Sigh. It's harder to read when I am tired! From 5:00 a.m. until noonish, I read:


Webb, Sarah. Ask Amy Green: Summer Secrets
Herbach, Geoff. Stupid Fast
Mikulski, Keri. Head Games.
Havelin, Kate. Hoopskirts, Union Blues, and Confederate

Surviving Southside Books
Barnes, Derek. We Could Be Brothers.
Simon, Charnan. Shattered Star.
Weyn, Susanne. Recruited.
Fontes, Justine.Benito Runs.
Jasper, Rick. Thaw
Duke, Shirley. Unthinkable

(Note to self: Helps to hit the "publish post"button.)

Saturday, bedtime-ish

Read the following while walking the dog, having endless cups of tea, and asking my children if they have studied for exams. Continued to listen to Myers' Bad Boy, which I think he narrates while hanging out laundry, suckering tomato plants, and doing other things that were impossible while holding a book.

Stanley, Diane. The Silver Bowl.
Galante, Cecilia. Willowood.
Brian, Kate. The Book of Spells.
Bennett, Olivia. Who What Wear.
Hughes, Pat Raccio. Five 4ths of July.
Calkhoven, Laurie. Will and the Barrle of Gettysburg.
Jennewein and Parker. Ship of the Dead. (Rune Warriors #3)

Visiting blogs!
Howe, James. 13.
Homzie, Hillary. The Hot List. (Will finish up after posting this.)

That's from 1-11 pm, which will put my total hours at about 24.

Saturday, noonish

Here's what I read this morning, after sleeping in until the hedonistic hour of 6:00 a.m.:

Doeden, Matt. Prince William and Kate: A Royal Romance.
Stewart, Kiera. Fetching.
Colasanti, Susane. So Much Closer.
Kath, Nathalie. The Summer I Lost It.
Keaton, Kelly. Darkness Becomes Her
Boles, Philiana Marie. Glitz.

Plan to spend an hour visiting blogs. Yesterday should have been 7 hours, since reading the paper doesn't count, and today I will have had 7 as well. (6:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.)

Am listening to Walter Dean Myers Bad Boy while doing silly things like getting dressed.

Friday Evening

So far, so good. Have not lost the knack for walking the dog around the neighborhood while reading, which is something that I haven't done for ages. Helps abate the wooziness that besets me if I sit for long periods of time.

What I've read so far (and will post reviews later):
3:30-4:00- Newspaper
4:00-5:00- Falling in Love With English Boys
5:00-6:00-What Mama Left Me
6:00-7:00- Close to Famous
7:00-8:00-Moonglass
8:00-9:00-Back When You Were Easier to Love
9:00-10:00-Networking, reading blogs
10:00-11:00- Viola In the Spotlight (planned)

And yes, this is pretty much how fast I read books. These were all fairly short; around 300 pages. This is going to be pretty much a girl book fest since that's what is in my pile!

7 and 1/2 hours is enough. I'm not giving up sleep!

The Starting Line

Have Falling in Love with English Boys in my hand and intend to read it as I walk the dog. Starting at 3:35 p.m. on Friday, June 3rd. Off to link at Mother Reader. And my pile is awfully small compared to Charlotte's, but I do have 11 books on the Nook and three on MP3!

Guy Friday-- The Boy Who Howled

Powers, Timothy. The Boy Who Howled.

Callum has been raised in a wolf family with a father who wants to eat him and a mother who thinks he tastes nice and salty. When he gets a chance to reenter human society after his mother finds some clothing at t a camp sight, he gets some help from a wealthy woman and ends up at a school for gifted children-- but nobody notices he's not supposed to be there. The class is working on an endangered species project, and while Callum's human language is steadily improving, he still has a lot of misunderstandings. (Humans don't prove their superiority by stealing food to impress people!) A series of coincidences reveal some of his past, but also allow him to be reunited with his wolf family.

Strengths: This would be fun for grades 3-6. The writing is humorous, the story largely school based, and the relationships between Callum and his new friends, and Callum and his new family, are well-developed.

Weaknesses: For my students, anything involving wolves needs more blood, attacks, and action. This is slightly young, especially with the cartoon cover.

More wolfish books:

Di Toft's second Wolven book, Twilight Circus, comes out on November 1. LaFevers' Werewolf Rising is a good one for outdoor adventure.

Library Notes: Finished inventory, and when I finalized it, had 800+ lost books. Looking at the list, I realized that they weren't lost, just didn't scan properly. Grr. Ended up with 36 lost, including 8 that should be on the shelves but aren't, including a copy of Skeleton Key and (*SOB*) Here There Be Dragons. Still, this is a much smaller number than in years past. Down to 45 overdue books with three days of school left. Tomorrow is general cleaning, filing, tidying, and calling home for all the overdue books. Fun!

Cold Case

Leonard, Julia. Cold Case.

Oz's mother and older brother try hard to keep the family restaurant in business, so when Oz finds a customer dead in the refrigerator, he is worried.To make matters worse, the murdered man was a reporter who wrote an article about Oz's father, who worked at the Los Alamos lab, sold federal secrets, and then died of a heart attack. Since Oz didn't know any of this, and his brother is arrested for the murder, Oz and his friend Rusty try to follow a few clues to find out both what happened to Oz's father and who murdered the reporter. Will the people they seek help from solve the case... or hurt them?

Strengths: Solid mystery with a few unusual elements-- a New Mexican setting with the Los Alamos lab, cooking (something a lot of my boys are interested in), and intrigue. Liked that the whole book took place over just a few days. Definitely purchasing this one for fall.

Weaknesses: Students won't understand chapter numeration in Roman numerals. A tad generic. The cover and title aren't great, and I didn't quite connect with the main character or the location. Still, I will be interested in what Ms. Leonard writes next. Perhaps something set in London with spies and a mystery would be a bit snappier.

Schreiber, Ellen. Once in a Full Moon.

This is the first book in a new series, NOT one in the Vampire Kisses series!
Celeste lives in the very segregated Legend's Run, where she hangs out with her boyfriend, Nick and ponders the division between the Eastside and the Westside/Riverside. She meets the hot new boy, Brandon, when he saves her from being attacked by wolves, and instantly feels a connection with him that she does not feel with Nick. The two tiptoe around their attraction long enough for Celeste to realize that he is somehow involved with the werewolf lore swirling around Legend's Run and that he (not to give too much away, here) is *gasp* a werewolf himself.

Strengths: This is another swoony romance that the girls interested in the paranormal will LOVE. Breathless kisses, sighing longing-- it's all here, wrapped up in the whole werewolves-are-so-hot-they-are-burning-up thing. Very atmospheric, too.
Weaknesses: On a purely personal level, this sort of book irritates me. Celeste's whole existence gets wrapped up in her romance, and we hear the same thing over and over again, sort of like the whole fashion name dropping and "oh, I want to be a vampire" schlock of Vampire Kisses. I'll probably have to order two copies of each of these titles, the way I've had to order at least that many of the former series. Even though I really don't like these, I have to remember the penciled note on the card pocket in one of the titles, written very carefully by a student: "You are lucky to read this book." *Sigh*

Evil Plan for the Day: Complete inventory. That's scanning 11,000 books. Would be easier if the Panther would talk to the computer; apparently I haven't used it all year and crucial software is not installed. Dang. I hate it when it's 5:30 a.m. and I already feel behind. I want to get this done today so that tomorrow I can work on book orders for next year, clean up the back room, and harass students who have not yet turned in books. That will mean calling at least 50 homes!