Archive for October, 2009
« Previous EntriesMoxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano
Submitted by Book Nut
But She Does Love Being in Rectials
by Peggy Gifford
ages: 7-11
First sentence: “It was just after 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 7, and Moxy Maxwell was still in bed.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
I love Moxy.
I’m not ashamed of this because Moxy is awesome.
Very few books make me laugh, chortle, snort, [...]
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society
Submitted by Book Nut
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
ages: adult
First sentence: “Dear Sidney, Susan Scott is a wonder.”
Copy won in a contest sponsored by A High and Hidden Place
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Sometimes, when I read a book, one word keeps popping in my mind. For this book, the one word [...]
Why there’s been no new posts for awhile.
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
Drone and I both have had that bad flu that’s been going around. We’ve been laid pretty low by it for the last month or so.
Drone did manage to get one post up and I’m working on a very good book that I hope to finish soon and get reviewed.
We [...]
2009 Challenge #6: RIP
Submitted by Book Nut
The good thing about doing one book for many challenges is that you finish them up quicker. I set out to read two books for Carl’s challenge, ended up reading four, and only one of the two I had set out to read.
I had a grand time, though.
The four I read:
1. [...]
Ninth Grade Slays
Submitted by Book Nut
The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, #2
by Heather Brewer
ages: 10-13
First sentence: “Jasik gripped the photograph in his hand and scanned the face of the boy.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
We pick up again with Vlad at the beginning of his freshman year. His one goal over the summer was to call [...]
Library Loot #42
Submitted by Book Nut
I’m still running around like a crazy person this week, and this time (horror of all horrors!), the library got shortchanged. We popped in to return books and pick up my Cybils holds, and threw in a few picture books (and other books) on our way to the checkout counter.
Next week will [...]
Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell in Love
Submitted by Book Nut
by Lauren Tarshis
ages: 9-13
First sentence: “Emma-Jean Lazarus knew very well that the seventh-grade boys at William Gladstone Middle School behaved like animals at times.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
I don’t know, after the events in the first book, if I really, truly expected Emma-Jean to be less quirky. I don’t [...]
2009 Challenge #5: The End of the World II
Submitted by Book Nut
Yahoo! I finished another challenge! This one was hosted by the illustrious Becky, and while I didn’t manage to squeak in under the deadline, I did finish it. (Okay, I thought the deadline was the end of October. Sheesh. That one was my fault.)
The books I read:
1. Life As We Knew It, [...]
Homework Hell, part 2
Submitted by BOOKS ON THE BRAIN
A new day, a new approach.
3:30 pm Tuesday
Me: Ok, better get started on your homework. I don’t want a repeat of last night.
L.: I’m starving. Can I have a snack first? And maybe watch some tv while I eat it?
Me: Snack, yes. TV, no. And if your homework’s not done [...]
Homework Hell
Submitted by BOOKS ON THE BRAIN
The Scene: Monday night, 9:30 pm, after nearly 4 hours of reminding, suggesting, encouraging, pleading, yelling, and demanding that my 7th grader finish her homework.
Me (yelling up the stairs): L., are you finished with your homework yet?
L.: WHAT????
Me: Your homework.. is it done?
L.: (garbled) (something something something) done.
Me: What?
L.: I [...]
The Stand
Submitted by Book Nut
by Stephen King
ages: adult
First sentence: “Hapscomb’s Texaco sat on US 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston.”
This one definitely takes some doing to wrap your brain around. It’s huge (even though I read the “original” version — the one that was published in 1978 — [...]
Sunday Salon: the Zen of Blogging
Submitted by Book Nut
For the first session last Saturday at KidlitCon, MotherReader took us through a series of introspective questions about blogging and our fundamental purpose. I thought it’d be interesting to share the questions, as well as some of my thoughts (from my jotted notes) on them.
1. Why are you blogging? Initially — and [...]
Book Review: How To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint by Joanna Yarrow
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
It wasn’t that long ago, really, when no one had even heard the phrase “carbon footprint”. One certainly hears it a great deal these days. But many of us, honestly, have no idea what it actually means. Joanna Yarrow can help with that. Yarrow, who is regarded as an expert [...]
Edible : An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Food Plants
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
Edible : An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Food Plants is a National Geographic book. Slightly less big than coffee table book size. This book has a pretty complete listing of all forms of plant life that the world uses as food or drink in one form or another. Complete [...]
America Unzipped : In Search of Sex and Satisfaction
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
America Unzipped by Brian Alexander is a fascinating look that the changing moral paradigms and sexual practices of the Heartland of Middle America. Things that would and did surprise me a bit. So much for “prevailing community standards” The onset of the Internet among other things has led to a [...]
Review: Two Years, No Rain by Shawn Klomparens
Submitted by BOOKS ON THE BRAIN
Two Years, No Rain by Shawn Klomparens is a fitting book for me to review right now, as the first rainstorm of the year blew through today. After digging out the umbrellas and dusting off the boots it occurred to me that the kids probably wouldn’t fit into any of [...]
There and Back Again: Kidlit Con
Submitted by Book Nut
Oh, my.
I have absolutely no way to even begin to wrap my brain around KidlitCon, or even figure out remotely how to report on it. So, how about a few Book Nut awards?
Most awesome blogger in the whole world for putting this fabulous conference together: MotherReader, of course.
Best announcers: FatherReader and TeenReader [...]
Trail of Crumbs
Submitted by Book Nut
Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home
by Kim Sunee
ages: adult
First sentence: “Let me start by saying where I am.”
Perhaps I was influenced by Corinne’s and Lilly’s reviews of this book. Perhaps if I hadn’t read those, I would still have had the same reaction to the book. As it was, I couldn’t [...]
Sweetness in the Belly
Submitted by Book Nut
by Camilla Gibb
ages: Adult
First sentence: “The sun makes its orange way east from Arabia, over a Red Sea, across the volcanic fields and desert and over the black hills to the qat- and coffee-shrubbed land of the fertile valley that surrounds our walled city.”
This was a buddy read with Kailana — and [...]
Library Loot #40
Submitted by Book Nut
I’ve been really bad lately in getting books for M. It seems the last month or so, she’s been handing me the stack of books back without having read any of them mostly because they don’t sound “interesting.” So, when she came home from the library on Saturday having checked out Orson [...]
Liar
Submitted by Book Nut
by Justine Larbalestier
ages: 13+
First sentence: “I was born with a light covering of fur.”
Review copy sent to me by the folks at Bloomsbury.
The hardest part about reviewing a book like this is not giving anything away. The hardest part about reading a book like this is knowing what to believe.
There are unreliable [...]
No Post Today…..And Why
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
This has been a hectic weekend. Drone has a bad case of the flu and two broken hearing aids. So between tending to hiim, and being sick myself, I therefore didn’t get to the library til today. I have not had to time fully finish the first book. But I [...]
Day 5……Jane Austen Week……Mansfield Park
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
Today’s novel is one I like a lot but have a reservation about, which I’ll go into later in the review. Mansfield Park is included in the book of the week,The Collected Works of Jane Austen by Jane Austen. It’s a fairly long novel compared to the usual Jane Austen [...]
Day 4….Jane Austen Week……….Pride and Prejudice
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
Pride and Prejudice, the most popular novel Jane Austen wrote is included in The Collected Works of Jane Austen by Jane Austen, Penguin Press edition, which is our book of the week. While I enjoy this novel it’s not my favorite and I’m left with mixed feelings every time I [...]
Day 3…Jane Austen Week……Emma
Submitted by The Thin Red Line
Today I’m going to review my second favorite Jane Austen novel, Emma. It’s also included in the book of the week, The Collected Works of Jane Austen by Jane Austen, Penguin Press edition. A bit of trivia, the movie Clueless, was a modern, Beverly Hills update of the plot of [...]
