4. Tularosa - Michael McGarrity

For: Adults
Published: 1996
1st in a series
304 pgs.
Rating: 4/5
Finished: Jan. 8, 2009

I don't know why I didn't say this book was a 5 - I really enjoyed the plot and setting, I couldn't wait to read more, it didn't leave any questions or holes, and I totally look forward to the next installment. It was that good. But I can't quite do it...
I think part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was that I traveled through New Mexico during Thanksgiving break, and could visualize the setting very well. I can also take a weekend trip to check out some of the places - I've always wanted to go to White Sands National Monument, which is where half the story takes place.

Kevin Kerney used to be a cop - a good one, a smart one, but was almost killed, and his injuries were major and long lasting. He retired as chief of detectives of the Santa Fe police department and became somewhat of a hermit, taking care of a ranch out in the boonies surrounding Santa Fe. When his ex-partner and ex-friend comes to him and asks him to find his missing son, he does - the young man is his godson. Sammy Yazzi is in the army, stationed and working at the White Sands area, and has been missing for six weeks. The story unfolds, clue by clue. Kerney has made many law enforcemenet contacts through the years, which comes in handy. He ends up spending time on the army post, working with Captain Sara Brannon, smart, clever - and still in the picture at the end of the book. The story includes army artifacts from the 19th century, stolen and hidden by Apaches, and trips in and out of Juarez, Mexico through El Paso (I was in El Paso this summer, so I can picture this, too!)

Lots of descriptions of the high desert. A really good read.

Magic in the Margins - W. Nikola-Lish

A Medieval Tale of Bookmaking
Illustrator: Bonnie Christensen
For: Grades 3-6
Published: May, 2007
Rating: 3.5

I think the story's too wordy in places but I'll have to read it to my 6th graders to get their opinions. The premise is excellent- telling how books were painstakingly handmade by monks during medieval times, before the printing press. This story tells about the drawings that accompanied the text, how they were clever and creative and even humorous. Simon, a young orphan, is taken in by the monks at a monastery, and it falls upon Brother William to educate him. It so happens that Brother William is a master scribe who works in the scriptorium, creating the parchment, quills, and inks before meticulously putting ink to paper.

The overly long story is how Father Anselem, the head of the monastery, won't let Simon actually work on manuscripts until he's able to "capture" mice. This turns out to be a riddle, he does not want Simon to catch the mice, but observe them and capture them in drawings.

There's lots of information about creating books, the people who created them. and the middle ages. Paired with Marguerite Makes a Book (Bruce Robertson) and Illuminations (Hunt, unfortunately out of print), these are three great picture books to emphasize calligraphy and illumination. I plan to use them, along with some calligraphy and illumination lessons, as I teach about the middle ages using the book Good Masters, Sweet Ladies by Laura Schlitz. Fun, fun fun!

The illustrations are coloful, set off by thick red "frames", with - guess - ILLUMINATIONS in the margins.

WELCOME 7th and 8th GRADERS

It's going to be really interesting to see how many of you check out this blog tonight. And even more interesting to see who actually reads what I've written! So here's a challenge. When you come into class tomorrow, write your name on the yellow paper that will be on the bulletin board to the left of the whiteboard. Don't tell anyone else to do this, or why you're doing it, because your chances of WINNING will be much greater! Winning WHAT? Aha, now that's the question. You'll find out.

And don't forget: Tomorrow come prepared with the title and bibliographic information for the book that you're planning to blog about. And don't forget to return any books that you have finished so that someone else can read them or so that I quit bugging you about it (including class reads we're finished with)...

3. Sister Mine - Tawni O'Dell

Audio read by Renee Raudman
For: Adults
Book Published: 2007
Audio Published: 2007 Books on Tape
10 discs (11 hrs. 45 min.)
416 pgs.
Rating: 4
Finished Jan. 4, 2009

This is the third novel written by Tawny O'Dell. Her book, Back Roads, was an Oprah Pick. This was a good story with loads of great characters and a protagonist that was smart and sassy. A very enjoyable read/listen.

Shae-Lynn Penrose took care of her sister from the time their mother died, right after Shannon's birth. Their coal-miner father was abusive to Shae-Lynn. Pregnant at 17, she raised her son, Clay, to become a decent young man. At the time the story takes place he is 23 and a deputy sheriff, she is 40, retired from being a cop, and driving her own cab in a hick coal-mining town, Jollymount, in central PA. Shannan had disappeared 18 years before, and Shae-Lynn has always thought that their now-dead father killed her. Shae-Lynn's best friend, EJ, is a miner who, with four others, was trapped for four days in a much-televised mine explosion a few years earlier. This is where the story starts.

Shannon turns up in town, not dead, and very, very pregnant. She is cynical and a professional baby-maker, selling her babies as a living. She's on her tenth. Shae-Lynn is dealing with this unexpected arrival, trying to keep up with the three diffferent people who are looking for Shannon (a lawyer, a rich wanna-be mom, and a Russian mobster-type), helping Clay's best friend, Dusty, from hitting the bottom of the barrell, meeting and mothering ex-con, one-eared Choker's kids, Fanci and Kenny, trying to figure out her relationship with EJ AND dealing with having Clay find out the truth about his father - who is really a jerk. Never a dull moment.

I listened to this driving to Maine in the middle of a frigid night in December, driving back to Boston in a downpour, and driving in and around and across Tucson. It was a good one.

Bats at the Library - Brian Lies

For: Kids
Published: Sept., 2008
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Cranberry/Rust

Written in quatrains, AABB:




Another inky evning's here ---
the air is cool and calm and clar.
We've feasted, fluttered, swooped, and soared,
and yet . . . we're still a little bored.

Apparently, once in awhile, the library window is left ajar and all the bat fly in to enjoy a night in the library - reading, playing games, swimming in the fountain, telling stories, getting lost within a tale. The illustrations are dark (it IS night in the library, after all), and the bats are clearly drawn and very unscary (what a great word). This is a great book for library lovers.

The 3 Bears and Goldilocks - Margaret Willey

Illustrator: Heather M. Solomon
For: K-2?
Published: 2008
Rating: 3.5
Endpapers: Dark Orange

A tiny twist on the fairy tale - Goldilocks is more curious than most girls, and is warned by her dad not to rush into places where she doesn't belong. But as she goes far into the forest to play, she comes across a cute little cabin and knocks on the door to see if anyone wants to play with her. She finds the floor covered with bone and cones and leaves and stems, the porridge full of bark and bugs and grass, and the beds made of piles of pine needles and feathers and whatnot. The story is the same, with some added details. The ilustrations are cute - Goldilocks head full of bright yellow curls is adorable and the bears have character. The cover isn't anything that jumps out at you, the illustrations inside the cover are much nicer.

All in all, it's a nice retelling.

Walking to School - Eve Bunting

A Story from Northern Ireland
Illustrator: Michael Dooling
For: School-age kids
Published: Sept, 2008
Rating: 5
Read: Jan. 3, 2009
Endpapers: Deep Turquoise

I've grown up knowing about, but not understanding, the hate between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Supposedly in 2007 some sort of peace agreement was begun. It seems there are always the few who relish the idea of this sort of friction, and do their best to keep it going. That appears to be Uncle Frank in this story.

Allison, a young Catholic girl in Belfast, Northern Ireland, must walk through a Protestant neighborhood to get to school. But the streets are lined with spitting, booing, yelling Protestants who make it really hard for the procession of Catholics to make their way. Allison hates it. On the second day someone pulls at her jacket and a button comes off. It rolls into the crowd and a Protestant girl her own age grabs for it. Allison thinks that the girl wants to triumphantly keep it, but she steps out into the street to hand it back. Allison then turns back and passes her lucky marble to the girl. The story ends:

I stare out of the window. What is she talking about? I don't feel like a hero. All I know is, I met a Protestant girl who was nice. She said she hated this fighting, and so do I. I think we could be friends, if we had the chance. I know we would.
If the grownups would let us.

There's an AUTHOR'S NOTE that gives a little more information.

The illustrations are oil on canvas, and very realistic. No white. Lovely writing, Eve Bunting can always be counted on to do it right! The illustrations are perfect for her story. This quote comes from the blurb about her on the back flap: "As a Protestant living in Ireland during "the Troubles," Eve Bunting saw prejudice from both religious groups. She say sthis story could have just as easily been about a Protestant child walking through a Catholic area ---"

Brothers in Hope - Mary Williams

The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan
Illustrator: R. Gregory Christie
For: School age children
Published: 2005
Rating: 4
Read: Jan. 3, 2009
Coretta Scott King Honor Award
Endpapers; Evergreen

Written by the founder of the Lost Boys of Sudan Foundation, this story is told from the point-of-view of 8-year-old Garang and is based on true stories. While tending cattle in the countryside, Garang's village was attacked, and all the adults and girls were killed - all the boys were out tending cattle. This happened all over southern Sudan, so that thousands of boys were left alone and homeless. They banded together, taking care of each other, and walked all the way to Ethiopia, where they had heard there were refugee camps. We follow Garang through ups and downs as the leader of a group of 35 boys, all the way to America at age 21. What kept them alive? Each other, determination, faith, a yearning for education -- it is a story of bravery and courage.

The prose is easy to understand, written in the first person, and although not what I'd consider "great" writing, it is good storytelling. The illustrations seem to be thick acrylic paintstrokes, and although not my favorites, do the job well. There are excellent AUTHOR'S NOTES and AFTERWORD as well as a map of Africa with Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya clearly labeled. The Lost Boys of Sudan Foundation was begun in 2000, and I wonder where the boys and the foundation stand now.

Stitchin' and Pullin' a Gee's Bend Quilt - Patricia C. McKissack

Illustrator: Cozbi A. Cabrera
For: Anybody who loves quilts!
Published: Oct., 2008
Rating: 5/Wonderful book
Read: 12/18/08
Endpapers: folky painted quilts-red white, and black on the left, multi-greens on the right.
With INTRODUCTION and informative AUTHOR'S NOTE.

Who Would Have Thought....

For as long as anybody can remember,
the women of Gees Bend
have stitched up quilts ---
to be slept on and under,
sat on at a picnic,
wrapped in when sick,
or covered with while reading
on a cold winter night.

Who would have thought
that one day those same quilts
would be hanging on museum walls,
their makers famous?
Who would have ever thought?

Told in free verse poems using beautiful, gorgeous, figurative language, clever conventions, and WOWZER articulation...

Gee's Bend got the hiccups from
all the excitement
of cameras clicking,
writers scribbling on pads,
people talking breathlessly,
never waiting for answers.

I saw an exhibition of Gee's Bend Quilts last year at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. This book is full of history -- of Gee's Bend, Alabama, of the civil rights movement, of pieces of American history, the art of storytelling, the art of quiltmaking -- all coming togther in the now-famous story of the quilts and quiltmakers of Gee's Bend, Alabama.

Four Feet, Two Sandals - Karen Lynn Williams & Khadra Mohammed

Illustrator: Doug Chayka
For: School age kids (to be able to understand refugee camps)
Published: Sept, 2007
Rating: 4
Read: Jan. 3, 2009
Endpapers: Dirt Brown

Lina and Feroza meet in a refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, after trekking from Afghanistan. When relief workers throw clothing from a truck, each girl finds half of a pair of sandals. Shy at first, they become friends, sharing the sandals, telling each other about their journeys, watching the boys getting lessons in the school tent, then trying out the letters and lessons in the sand for themselves..... A shalwar-kameez is mentioned, as is Ramadan, but this is the story of friendship and survival in a modern-day refugee camp.

Illustrations cover the entire page, no white edges or backgrounds, lots of browns and tans giving the story a real desert/sand/dirt/refugee feel.

This would be a good discussion-starter in class to get the kids thinking and talking about what's going on in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

2. Hurricane Song - Paul Volponi

A Novel of New Orleans
For: Middle School/YA (Language in a few places)
Published: June, 2008
136 pgs.
Rating: 4
Finished: Jan. 3, 2009

This is, I think, a very important book. Miles has just gone to live with his dad in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina strikes. The highways are clogged, the car breaks down, and they are forced to go to the Superdome to take shelter. What happened inside the Superdome was a nightmare - and reading this story takes you there. The filth, the smells, the lack of food, water, toilet facililties, the death and sickness, the heat, the violence - all from a 14-year-old's point of view.

Miles' father is a jazz musician, his trumpet is his life. Miles' life is all about football. They've never been close. But this book takes us through the changing of their relationship as well as watching what happened instide the Superdome during the raging of Katrina. Wow.

999 Challenge

It was this challenge last year (888 at the time) that first introduced me to book challenges. It's backed by Library Thing, which I've sort of ignored since I started this blog. If ou're not acquainted with Library Thing, check it out, it's pretty cool if you're a book lover.
The website: http://www.librarything.com/groups/999challenge

The 999 Challenge:

1. Pick 9 categories
2. Read 9 books in each of those categories
3. Complete them in 2009.
4. To make it easier ---
The 888 challenge allowed an overlap of 8 books which would fit into more than one category. So for this challenge, you could overlap 9 books, but that's up to you.
5. To make it harder ---
Complete all your books by 9/9/09.

My categories:
1. Anthologies/Collections CHANGED 11-5-09 to EARLY SERIES titles
2. FINISHED 7/09 New Books (2009)
3. Books with an Arizona setting
4. FINISHED 7/09Titles By an Author I've Already Read
5. FINISHED 7/09 Mystery/Thriller
6. FINISHED 7/09 YA Titles
7. Books Related to My Literature Class Curriculum
8. Novels That Take a Contemporary Twist on Mysteries in History (Knights Templar, the real Shakespeare, lost books, maps, manuscripts...)
9. FINISHED Just for the Fun of Reading It

Early Series Titles
1. Ivy & Bean (Barrows) #1
2. Stink (McDonald) #1
3. Miss Daisy is Crazy (Gutman) #1
4. Judy Moody (McDonald) #1
5. Junie B. Jones (Park) #1
6. Mercy Watson (DiCamillo)

New Books (2009)
1. 11 Birthdays (Mass)
2. The Year the Swallows Came Early (Fitzmaurice) 2009
3. Dying to Meet You (43 Cemetery Road) (Klise) 2009
4. Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow (Rollins) 2009
5. Emeline and the Bunny (Hannigan)
6. Tales from Outer Suburbia (Tan)
7. If I Stay (Forman)
8. When You Reach Me (Stead)
9. Wild Things (Carmichael)
FINISHED

Books with an Arizona Setting
1. Mission to Sonora (Cramer)
2. Cowboy Rides Away (Thornton)
3. High Lonesome Road (Thornton)

Titles By an Author I've Already Read
1. Blood Work (Connelly)
2. Mexican Hat (McGarrity)
3. 3 Willows (Brashares)
4. What Happened to Cass McBride (Giles)
5, Loud Silence of Francine Green (Cushman)
6. Every Soul a Star (Mass)
7. Betrayed (Cast & Cast)
8. Rough Weather (Parker)
9. Lawn Boy (Paulsen)
FINISHED

Mystery/Thriller
1. Tularosa (McGarrity)
2. Indigo Slam (Crais)
3. The Watchman (Crais)
4. Say Goodbye (Gardner)
5. Chasing the Dime (Connelly)
6. Case of the Missing Marquess (Springer)
7. Death Assemblage (Miller)
8. Whiskey Sour (Konrath)
9. Gray Ghost (Tapply)
FINISHED

YA Titles
1. My Lost and Found Life (Bowsher)
2. Hurricane Song (Volponi)
3. Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature (Brande)
4. What My Mother Doesn't Know (Sones)
5. What Would Emma Do? (Cook)
6. Bones of Faerie (Simner)
7. Marked (Cast & Cast)
8. Rule of Won (Petrucha)
9. Marcelo in the Real World (Stork)
FINISHED

Books Related to My Literature Class Curriculum
1. Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
2. The Iliad
3. The Most Beautiful Place in the World (Cameron)
4. The Corn Grows Ripe (Rhoads)

Novels That Take a Contemporary Twist on Mysteries in History (Knights Templar, the real Shakespeare, lost books, maps, manuscripts...)
1. People of the Book (Brooks)
2. The Book of Lies (Meltzer)
Unf. Venetian Betrayal (Berry)
Unf. Rule of Four (Caldwell/Thompson)
Unf. The Eight (Neville)
3. Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (Howe)
4. Book of Air and Shadows (Gruber)

Just For the Fun of Reading It
1. The Lace Reader (Barry)
2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Shaffer & Barrows)
3. The Rug Merchant (Mullins)
4. Austenland (Hale)
5. Sworn to Silence (Castillo)
6. Confetti Girl (Lopez)
7. Shiver (Stievater)
8. Jane Austen Ruined My Life (Pattillo)
9. Escape Under the Forever Sky (Yohalem)
FINISHED


Repetitions (Can only have 9!)
None yet! ! !

Our Library - Eve Bunting

Illustrator: Maggie Smith
for: kids
published: Aug. 2008
Rating: 4.5 to 5
Read: 12/17/08
Endpapers: lime green

Bright, fun, and RIGHT ON! The illustrations in this book take diffferent forms. Right from the title page (a denim blue book surrounded by a vine of yellow flowers) I looked forward to turning to the next page. Colorfully delightful, perfect for kids AND grownups!

Set in a smalltown, homey library (reminds me of my old Northeast Harbor Library, and even the children's room at the Ellsworth Library - both on the coast of Maine), Miss Goose tells her brightly-dressed skunk, raccoon, squirrel, mouse, rabbit, and porpucupine patrons that the library is about to close forever because it's getting old and worn. So...they check out how-to books and get to work - fixing the roof, painting, and raising money to keep the doors open.

But at every turn, another problem. "We were flummoxed."

Book by book they read and network, finally convincing grumpy grandfather beaver to allow them land in his beautiful meadow so the library can be relocated. Oh the joy of books - reading - and libraries. A great, fun story.

MOVIE: Nothing Like the Holidays

Rating: I liked it a lot
Viewed: Dec. 16, 2008 wtih Sheila
El Con, Tucson
Rotten Tomato rating: 47
Mine: about 80
EW: B (others B- to C+)
mine: B+
Drama
Released 12/12/08
PG-13 (1 hr. 39 min.)
Director: Alfredo deVilla
Freddy Rodriguez, Debra Messing

Freddy Rodriguez comes home from Iraq to spend Christmas with his family in Chicago. These are real people protrayed in real ways, very human people. There are some laugh-out-loud parts and some really poignant places as well. There's a NYC brother and his wife, a sister, an old girlfriend, a cousin, a close friend, and a very interesting set of parents.

(There was one stupid, part - the father let the mother think he was having an affiar rather than let her know he had colon cancer???? Give me a break!)

1. My Lost and Found Life - Melodie Bowsher

For: Gr. 9+
Published: 2006
312 pgs.
Rating: 4/5
Read: Over the Christmas holidays, finished yesterday on the plane home


Ashley Mitchell, a spoiled, popular high school senior gets the surprise of her life when she discoveres her mother has embezzeled money from her firm and left town, leaving Ashley completely alone, destitute, and unprepared. I very much enjoyed watching Ashley's character change and grow and rearrange itself so that she became a survivor and a much nicer person. Set in Burlingame, CA and San Francisco, Ashley sells all the contents of her house, lives in a tiny unheated camper trailer behind a gas station, and gets a job at a coffee shop in SF - all things that she would have previously sneered at/about. She lets down her snobbiness and snootiness more and more, slowly making real (vs. superficial) friends, and discovering what it really takes to survive in life.

This was a really good story, kept me entertained on long airline flights without making my eyes get heavy or my head nodding - -