Tag: young adult literature

Friday Fifteen

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Hey guys, guess what? It’s the first Friday of summer! The days might be longer, but the book reviews aren’t. Fifteen words or less, here we go!

1. Harold!: Photographs from the Harold Washington Years by Antonio Dickey (Photographs), Antonio Dickey, Marc PoKempner (Photographs), Ron Dorfman (Editor)
Helped with this one when I was an intern. Really interesting Chicago history, great photographs.

2. I Was a Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block
Read this one a lot in high school. Knew “androgynous” on the SATs because of this.

3. Miss Nelson Is Missing! by Harry Allard
Freaked me out as a kid. Didn’t like the teacher getting “replaced” by someone scary.

4. The Story of the Sea (Childcraft: the How and Why Library #7) by World Book-Childcraft International
Have I mentioned I love the ocean and sea creatures?

5. The Baby-Sitters Club: Friends Forever : The Movie by A.L. Singer, Ann M. Martin
A novelization of the movie based on the book series. Of course I read it.

Summer Reading

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Welcome to summer, everyone! Living in New England, I always feel like summer is a revelation. Trees are green! You can walk outside! You can leave work and it’s still sunny out! Sometimes I forget that a few months ago, I was wrapping myself in scarves and trudging through snow drifts. But I think having the long winter makes me appreciate the summer so much more.

One of my favorite parts of summer when I was a kid was summer reading. Not necessarily school-assigned summer reading, but my own piles of library books. Any book can be a great summer reading book, but why not read books that feel summery in some way? Here are a few of my suggestions for summery reads:

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
With an opening line about the first week of August hanging in the air like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel, you know you’re in for a book that radiates summer heat and tension. I’ve mentioned this before, but Tuck‘s a favorite.

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy (The Penderwicks #1) by Jeanne Birdsall
Who doesn’t want to take a summer vacation with the charming Penderwick family? I still have to read the third in the series, The Penderwicks at Point Mouette; that might have to do go on my summer 2013 reading list.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
Not set only in summer, but barbeque, strong Southern women, and a murder mystery in Alabama feel distinctly summery.

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
All of Dessen’s books have a great, summer-y feel, but I especially like the combination of ridding bikes, summer jobs, and a beach town.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gatsby’s parties feel like they could only happen during the wild summer months. Whenever it’s the summer solstice, I always think about Daisy’s reference to waiting for the longest day of the year and missing it.

Atonement by Ian McEwan
On a hot summer day in 1935, everything changes forever for the Tallis family and Robbie Turner. McEwan really captures the tension of an isolated summer day.

A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle
I love island books, and L’Engle more than delivers the summer goodness (dolphins!) while balancing out major issues like death and grief and hope.

Share your favorite summer books in the comments!

Links Galore

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Lots of great links to get you through the week:

Friday Fifteen

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Happy Friday, everyone! It’s almost Father’s Day, so let’s take a look at the dads of literature in this week’s collection of fifteen-word book reviews:

1. Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
A novel full of heart about a boy, his dad, their caravan, and pheasant poaching.

2. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Gorgeous writing; read this a dozen times as a kid. Tuck himself is heartbreaking.

3. The Chosen by Chaim Potok
Compelling novel with complicated father-son relationships. Love the last scene with Reuven and his father.

4. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Awesome, touching adventure about siblings who cross the universe to save their father.

5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Atticus Finch wins the “best fictional dad” award. Stunning novel all around.

Links Galore

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All the links I’ve been hoarding:

48 Hour Book Challenge Finish Line

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My first 48 Hour Book Challenge is complete and I consider it a huge success. It was so nice to have a weekend specifically devoted to reading. Although I didn’t get as hardcore as many people, I was still really pleased with my results. The books I had in progress are finished and I even added two new books to my pile. The final stats:

  • 13.75 total hours read
  • 1599 pages read
  • 7 books finished
  • 3 cups of tea consumed
  • Extra credit*: 1.25 hours reading time, 154 pages read

The Books

-1I don’t think I had a bad book in the batch. I felt like I had a nice mix of contemporary realism (The Moon and More, The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet, Dirty Little Secrets, and Jellicoe Road), fantasy (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Shiver), and adult crossover (Tell the Wolves I’m Home). I’d definitely recommend any of the above. It also felt really good to finally cross a lot of those off my list–they’d been hanging out on my nightstand for far too long.

For me, this was a great reminder that sometimes you need to put away the phone, close the laptop, and shut off the TV. It’s easy to get sucked into “just one more Tweet,” but that ultimately means missing out on lots of good reading time. I’m going to try to be more mindful of this moving forward, because I loved reading all weekend. It reminded me of being a kid again and holing up in my room with a pile of library books. (You know, in the olden days when we used to have to call people to find out what they were having for lunch or when we couldn’t stream our favorite shows directly to our computers.) Any tweets or blog posts you miss will be waiting for you once you’re done with that chapter.

Thanks so much to Ms. Yingling for hosting this year’s challenge! (Also, major props to her 30 hours of reading time. Holy cow!) And high five to everyone else who spent the weekend

*If you didn’t see yesterday, the extra credit was from not having finished Jellicoe Road in the allotted 48-hour period but not being able to stop reading because of all the feelings.

Update #6: 48 Hour Book Challenge

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I managed to fit (most of) one final book in during the 48 Hour Book Challenge. I got to 8pm (exactly 48 hours in) and was still about a hundred and fifty pages away from the end of my final book and couldn’t stop (SO GOOD) so I’m throwing a little in as extra credit. Onto the stats!

photoUpdate #6:

  • 2.25 minutes reading time (13.75 total hours read)
  • 265 pages read (1599 pages read)
  • 1 cup of tea (3 cups total)
  • Extra credit: 1.25 hours reading time, 154 pages read

The Books

Review #7: Oh my gosh, guys. Jellicoe Road. This one has been on my shelves for a while and why didn’t I read this sooner? Seriously, it gave me all the feels. The writing is gorgeous, the characters are compelling, and everything weaves together beautifully. There were so many small moments and images that made me tear up–Fitz climbing the tree over and over again, Narnie explaining why she couldn’t move in the car, learning how Taylor chose her name. It’s a beautiful book and one that I want to immediately go back and reread. It’s full of sadness and hope and love, and I think this was the perfect book to end the #48HBC on.

It’s getting late so I’ll do a real summary of the challenge tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m going to sit here and feel and the feelings.

Update #5: 48 Hour Book Challenge

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First new book complete!

photo-1Update #5:

  • 3.5 hours reading time (11.5 total hours read)
  • 390 pages read (1334 pages total)
  • 0 cups of tea (2 cups total)

The Books

Review #6: I loved Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races and The Raven Boys so I was excited to finally dive into Shiver. When it first came out, I avoided it, thinking it was just another paranormal romance trying to bank on the success of Twilight. Wow, I could not have been more wrong. Sure, the paranormal romance aspect is there, but Stiefvater’s writing is stellar. She’s deeply concerned with character and, as a result, Grace and Sam feel like real people, not romantic ciphers. (And honestly, even the romance is some of the best I’ve seen.) The plot is exciting and never feels like Stiefvater is just throwing in complications for the sake of it. A friend described Shiver as a kind of fairy tale, and it definitely has that vibe in the best way possible. I can’t wait to read the sequels!

Update #3: 48 Hour Book Challenge

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Plowing through my “mid-read” pile this afternoon. Glad I can finally put these back on the shelves!

photoUpdate #3:

  • 1.5 hour reading time (6 hours total)
  • 196 pages read (697 pages total)
  • 0 cups of tea consumed (2 cups total)

The Books

Review #3: I was a little less than halfway through Dirty Little Secrets when I picked it up for #48HBC. It’s one I’ve meant to read for a while, since it deals with a big family secret and a mother with some emotional/mental problems (in this case, hoarding). My heart broke for Lucy through this one, as she feels a strange hope in getting to move on with her life if she can just clean out the house. Omololu manages to make Lucy’s mom into a real person, not just someone defined by her hoarding, and I liked those glimpses of her outside of the house (at work, as a child). I also liked that crush-worthy Josh Lee is revealed to be dealing with his own family problems; I love that “everyone has secrets” theme and it’s one I tend to use in my own work. The ending felt a little rushed for me, and I would have liked a little more of an emotional build there, but overall a great read for anyone interested in YA contemporary family drama.

photo-1Review #4: I was almost at the end of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and so glad to finally finish this one. It’s a tome, so even though I started it a while ago, I’d inevitable leave it at home and take another book with me. Then I’d want to finish the other book and, well, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell suffered for it. But it’s an excellent novel–fake British history plus magicians is a winning idea, and Susanna Clarke gets the tone perfectly. I loved seeing the various plot threads eventually come together, and the ending is surprisingly bittersweet.

Update #2: 48 Hour Book Challenge

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photo-1A little reading this morning, followed by brunch (you need coffee and biscuits for a book challenge, right?), followed by more reading. I managed to finish the second of the books I was in the middle of. Onto the stats!

Update #2

  • 1.5 hours reading time (4.5 hours total)
  • 136 pages read (501 pages total)
  • 0 cups tea consumed (2 cups total)

The Books

Review #2: I had already been about two-thirds of the way through Tell the Wolves I’m Home when I picked it up again for #48HBC. It was one of this year’s Alex Award winners, and I can see why–June’s a rich and compelling narrator, who’s navigating adulthood in the middle of losing her favorite person in the world, her uncle Finn. I remember feeling a lot like June at that age, as she feels like part of her is slipping away when she has a harder time pretending she’s in the middle ages. I was also really impressed by the character of Greta, her sister, whom I expected to just be the kind of obnoxious, wordly older sister. Instead, Greta is a complex character who desperately wants to connect with her younger sister and doesn’t quite know how. Overall, an excellent look at love and grief and jealousy and reconciliation. It’s beautifully written and quiet, which is the kind of book I’m drawn toward.