All right, I’ve been reading King Dork for what appears to be twenty-seven hours, but the modern time tracking system I have in my house which I call a “clock” seems to indicate it has only been about three hours. I am just passing page two hundred, which leaves a solid third of the book in front of me. How much type did they cram in each of these pages anyway?
To keep my mind fresh — that being a relative term — after one day of priority reading, I keep changing locations. Even though the temperature is about ninety today, it isn’t humid. And we all know that it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. So, I read on the back porch in the shade for a while. Then I switch to the hammock. Then it’s upstairs to the couch. But after the third hour on this book, I needed a break. Hello, computer.
Please understand, I’m liking King Dork. It is an incredible piece of work. I having been laughing out loud at several lines, not to mention the endless song titles and band names. This is a very funny, very clever book.
It’s just long, and I’m tired and I want to go see the movie Cars with my family, but this weekend is about reading. Apparently, even, reading until you are a little bit sick of it.
When I was nineteen I dated a man who was thirty. He was also the manager and part-owner of the hotel where I worked as a desk clerk for the summer. My parents seemed all right with it, which was surprising to me. I asked my mom why they weren’t upset, and she said that he seemed like a gentleman.
She was absolutely right. He was a gentleman. We enjoyed each other’s company, but he was never pushy. I was smart, funny, attractive, and he liked me. But I knew he liked the idea of me even more. He took me to bars and clubs where we could be seen together. He wanted to have some young girl on his arm, like an accessory. Certainly everyone thought we were sleeping together, but we weren’t. I already said that he was a gentleman.
I liked him because he was smart, funny, and attractive. I also liked the idea of him even more. I liked going to bars and clubs where no one questioned my legal drinking age, because everyone knew him. I liked being on the arm of someone that everyone knew. If it was icky that everyone thought we were sleeping together, I didn’t dwell on it. I knew that he was a player and I wasn’t going to lose myself to him, in any way.
He, of course, dropped me later that summer for someone less smart, less funny, who needed less of a gentleman.
The most important part of the book Stay With Me is not the relationship of 17-year-old Leila and 31-year-old Eamon. But in some ways, maybe it is. Or maybe the theme of a book can be what resonates with you. Or maybe I haven’t gotten quite enough sleep to handle this book. Seventeen is just two years from nineteen, but it seems like such a huge span. High school to college. Just legal to acceptable. Lolita or L.A. Story. What a difference a number makes from her story to mine, or vice versa.
Garret Freymann-Weyr has written a book that is simultaneously about loss and gain. Leila loses her sister Rebecca to suicide. She gains a relationship with her other sister Clare when she lives with her for a year. She loses a relationship with her boyfriend and gains a relationship with an older man. In trying to learn more about the motives of her older sister’s suicide, she finds out how much can never really be known about anyone. In struggling to overcome her dyslexia, she learns how some people can just stop trying.
I had two problems with the book. One, was the use of the name Rebecca for the sister who killed herself. It kept in my mind du Maurier’s haunting Rebecca. Perhaps this was intentional, perhaps not, but I found it distracting. Also it gave me pause that the name of the main character, Leila, was so close to Lolita. Again, intentional or not, I found it distracting. My second problem was that I never understood the fascination with the lost hotels, and exactly what was lost about them in regards to this family. That said, I started this book at 2:00 a.m. and read until 3:00 a.m., so I may have missed something in that early morning hour of reading.
Overall, I loved the book and had to make myself stop thinking about it to start writing about it. Stay With Me is a complex, intense, book that leaves the reader to her/his own judgments about situations, characters, and stories. If it leaves one reflective about one’s own story — whether that be of loss, gain, sisters, boyfriends, struggles, accomplishments — then so much the better.
She was absolutely right. He was a gentleman. We enjoyed each other’s company, but he was never pushy. I was smart, funny, attractive, and he liked me. But I knew he liked the idea of me even more. He took me to bars and clubs where we could be seen together. He wanted to have some young girl on his arm, like an accessory. Certainly everyone thought we were sleeping together, but we weren’t. I already said that he was a gentleman.
I liked him because he was smart, funny, and attractive. I also liked the idea of him even more. I liked going to bars and clubs where no one questioned my legal drinking age, because everyone knew him. I liked being on the arm of someone that everyone knew. If it was icky that everyone thought we were sleeping together, I didn’t dwell on it. I knew that he was a player and I wasn’t going to lose myself to him, in any way.
He, of course, dropped me later that summer for someone less smart, less funny, who needed less of a gentleman.
The most important part of the book Stay With Me is not the relationship of 17-year-old Leila and 31-year-old Eamon. But in some ways, maybe it is. Or maybe the theme of a book can be what resonates with you. Or maybe I haven’t gotten quite enough sleep to handle this book. Seventeen is just two years from nineteen, but it seems like such a huge span. High school to college. Just legal to acceptable. Lolita or L.A. Story. What a difference a number makes from her story to mine, or vice versa. Garret Freymann-Weyr has written a book that is simultaneously about loss and gain. Leila loses her sister Rebecca to suicide. She gains a relationship with her other sister Clare when she lives with her for a year. She loses a relationship with her boyfriend and gains a relationship with an older man. In trying to learn more about the motives of her older sister’s suicide, she finds out how much can never really be known about anyone. In struggling to overcome her dyslexia, she learns how some people can just stop trying.
I had two problems with the book. One, was the use of the name Rebecca for the sister who killed herself. It kept in my mind du Maurier’s haunting Rebecca. Perhaps this was intentional, perhaps not, but I found it distracting. Also it gave me pause that the name of the main character, Leila, was so close to Lolita. Again, intentional or not, I found it distracting. My second problem was that I never understood the fascination with the lost hotels, and exactly what was lost about them in regards to this family. That said, I started this book at 2:00 a.m. and read until 3:00 a.m., so I may have missed something in that early morning hour of reading.
Overall, I loved the book and had to make myself stop thinking about it to start writing about it. Stay With Me is a complex, intense, book that leaves the reader to her/his own judgments about situations, characters, and stories. If it leaves one reflective about one’s own story — whether that be of loss, gain, sisters, boyfriends, struggles, accomplishments — then so much the better.
Finally getting to read Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist was like going to a really hot club. You wait and wait, to find that you’re not cool enough for it anyway. Nick and Norah really have got it goin’ on. I certainly wasn’t that cool as a teen, but nor was I that cool in my twenties when I had the money, independence, and legal ID. I wasn’t ever even a quarter of that cool.I read books about rich kids and I don’t feel all uncomfortable because I wasn’t rich. I read books about shape shifters, and I don’t feel all uncomfortable because I wasn’t ever a hawk. So, why can’t I get past the complete hipness of this book? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.
The book was good. The writing by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan was sharp and honest. It was amazing how well the authors conveyed the feelings of anger and hurt and bewilderment and excitement and everything you can name.
Nick has been dumped by a girl who shows up at his gig with a new boy on her arm. To avoid a conversation with her, Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes. Norah agrees for her own reasons, and they end up in an electric kiss. The ex-girlfriend leaves the scene, but Norah needs Nick to help her get her drunk friend home. But that isn’t the way the night is going to go for these two, as they repeatedly come together and pull apart against the background of Manhattan. Each with their own baggage and need for connection, they stumble to a way to be together.
Oh, did I mention that the f-word is used, like, a lot. I wanted to have a count of the number of times it was used in all its glorious variations, but I hit nine by the sixth page and just gave up. Page 95 all on its lonesome has an f-count of 26, and the top third of the page was blank. Hey, I like the word myself. Very versatile. But it does make for a more controversial book — i.e., I won’t be booktalking this one to the seventh graders this fall.
Now I’m going to call it a night and try not to dwell on what the f**k I was doing with my pitiful self in my younger years.
A long time ago a friend told me, “It must be such a relief to have cute kids, because then no one has to lie to you.” Of course, the strong emphasis on the word relief is what makes this statement both so funny, and so true.
I use this to introduce the book Happy Kid! by Gail Gauthier, because the author is participating in the 48HBC this weekend, and I can’t tell you how awful I would have felt if I had read her book and it... well, sucked. But no. It was funny, interesting, realistic, and meaningful. I can’t wait to booktalk it in the fall to those brand-new seventh graders.
Kyle is starting seventh grade with some issues. He got into some trouble the previous year, even though it wasn’t his fault, and has drifted away from the few friends that he once had. He tends to be a loner and a pessimist. His mother surprises him with a book titled Happy Kid! which she pays him a dollar a chapter to read. He reads it for the money, but finds that the paragraph-size chapters are influencing him to make positive changes in his life. He begins to suspect that something else is at work here when the book is strangely accurate in predicting what he needs to know next.
All the characters in the book had very authentic voices. The book was humorous, but had a real message to convey in all of the self-help book excerpts. You know, I may have to come back and strengthen this review later, because I don’t feel like I am doing the book justice.
What I am trying to say is, “Gail, it much be such a relief to have written a great book, because then no one has to lie to you.”
I use this to introduce the book Happy Kid! by Gail Gauthier, because the author is participating in the 48HBC this weekend, and I can’t tell you how awful I would have felt if I had read her book and it... well, sucked. But no. It was funny, interesting, realistic, and meaningful. I can’t wait to booktalk it in the fall to those brand-new seventh graders. Kyle is starting seventh grade with some issues. He got into some trouble the previous year, even though it wasn’t his fault, and has drifted away from the few friends that he once had. He tends to be a loner and a pessimist. His mother surprises him with a book titled Happy Kid! which she pays him a dollar a chapter to read. He reads it for the money, but finds that the paragraph-size chapters are influencing him to make positive changes in his life. He begins to suspect that something else is at work here when the book is strangely accurate in predicting what he needs to know next.
All the characters in the book had very authentic voices. The book was humorous, but had a real message to convey in all of the self-help book excerpts. You know, I may have to come back and strengthen this review later, because I don’t feel like I am doing the book justice.
What I am trying to say is, “Gail, it much be such a relief to have written a great book, because then no one has to lie to you.”
I decided, in the spirit of summer reading, to start my 48 hours at the community pool. This may not have been a wise decision.
I began my reading at 4:00 in a lounge chair by the sparkling water. My children are old enough to be in the pool without me, and to actually prefer that I keep my distance, so I was pretty safe in my spot in the sun. I read for an hour and took a five-minute dip.
But then I ran into a new friend, and not wanting to seem rude, I talked to her instead of reading. For like an hour.
When her husband came, I excused myself back to my chair to read for another hour, but then my youngest wanted to eat the dinner they were serving at the pool that evening. “Blah, blah, blah, your needs,” I thought, but it was Chinese food, so we took another break.
Then, after we ate, we had to get back home. I read for another half an hour, before my friend came by to drop off a sleeping bag for my oldest’s slumber party guest. And okay, okay, I talked to her for most of an hour.
On the plus side, I wrote this entry and the one to follow it in about a half an hour, so I can fit in another book tonight.
My goal is to read the teen books that everyone has been blogging about, because I am never as excited to read books that have already been out there, but I want to read them because everyone liked them. I know, it’s a quandary.
So on my list are:
I began my reading at 4:00 in a lounge chair by the sparkling water. My children are old enough to be in the pool without me, and to actually prefer that I keep my distance, so I was pretty safe in my spot in the sun. I read for an hour and took a five-minute dip.
But then I ran into a new friend, and not wanting to seem rude, I talked to her instead of reading. For like an hour.
When her husband came, I excused myself back to my chair to read for another hour, but then my youngest wanted to eat the dinner they were serving at the pool that evening. “Blah, blah, blah, your needs,” I thought, but it was Chinese food, so we took another break.
Then, after we ate, we had to get back home. I read for another half an hour, before my friend came by to drop off a sleeping bag for my oldest’s slumber party guest. And okay, okay, I talked to her for most of an hour.
On the plus side, I wrote this entry and the one to follow it in about a half an hour, so I can fit in another book tonight.
My goal is to read the teen books that everyone has been blogging about, because I am never as excited to read books that have already been out there, but I want to read them because everyone liked them. I know, it’s a quandary.
So on my list are:
- Happy Kid! by Gail Gauthier
- Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, by Rachael Cohn & David Levithan
- Dairy Queen, by Catherine Murdock
- King Dork, by Frank Portman
- Stay With Me, by Garret Freymann-Weyr
- It’s Kind of a Funny Story, by Ned Vizzini
- Bass Ackwards and Belly Up, by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain
- Over A Thousand Hills I Walk With You, by Hanna Jansen
And so it begins. When else will you get the chance to use as an excuse, “I’d love to, but I have to read all weekend.”
Happy reading, everyone!
Happy reading, everyone!
Hello, I’ll be your host for The 48 Hour Book Challenge. The 48HBC charts its history aaaaall the way back to May 28th, and now will be responsible for the neglected household chores of many kids’ lit bloggers. It all began when I discovered I had accumulated forty books in my to-be-read pile. I wondered how many books I could read if I devoted a weekend to the task. And like many bloggers, I did my wondering online. Imagine my surprise when other bloggers accepted the invitation to join in my madness. Will anyone read and blog for 48 hours straight? I doubt it, but nor do I expect it. With the creative and mental energy required for reading and writing, I think it would be extremely difficult to do without breaks, not to mention sleep. I see this less as an exercise of endurance — like a danceathon — and more an exercise of commitment. That said, participants should keep track of their hours spent for that aspect of the contest.
I’ve selected books fourth grade and up for the 48HBC for two reasons. One, I want to make sure that we all have the same approximate frame of reference for what counts as a book in the contest. An early chapter book isn’t the same as a young adult book, so a contest involving numbers of books and page counts would be comparing kumquats and yams. Two, it’s hard to look at those longer novels and figure out how you can set aside the time to really get into them. Well, here’s the time. And, just to clarify, while I know that there are wonderful picture books that are appropriate for fourth grade and up, my intention was to give participants a general idea of the type of book. I would have said “upper elementary novels,” but then someone would have brought up the Diary of Ma Yan — which is a biography — and then it’s just another kind of explanation.
For those of you who want to show your solidarity, want to play along but can’t give up your weekend, I’ve added a personal challenge aspect to the 48HBC. Over the weekend, you can work on a personal goal and write about how it’s going for you. On Monday, post a summary of what you did and why. Come to my site to sign in that you’ve done your challenge entry so that everyone can come by your way and check it out.
Here are the rules as I see them. You won’t see any real changes, though there may be additional clarification. Here goes:
- The weekend is June 16–18th, 2006. Read and blog for any 48-hour period within the Friday-to-Monday-morning window. Start no sooner than 7:00 a.m. on Friday the 15th and end no later than 7:00 a.m. Monday. So, go from 7:00 p.m. Friday to 7:00 p.m. on Sunday... or maybe 7:00 a.m. Saturday to 7:00 a.m. Monday works better for you. But the 48 hours do need to be in a row.
- The books should be about fourth-grade level and up. Think novels or, say, novel-like. Adult books are fine, especially if any adult book bloggers want to play.
- It’s your call as to how much you want to put into it. If you want to skip sleep and showers to do this, go for it (but don’t stand next to me). If you want to be a bit more laid back, fine. But you have to put something into it or it’s not a challenge.
- The length of the reviews are not an issue. You can write a sentence, paragraph, or a full-length review.
- For promotion/solidarity purposes, let your readers know when you are starting the challenge with a specific entry on that day. Make your references to the 48HBC to this post, since it has the most updated information. When you write your final summary on Monday, let that be the last thing you write that day — so for one day, we’ll all be on the same page, so to speak. It will also give all of the participants a chance to catch up on everyone else’s posts.
- Your final summary should be posted online after 8:00 on Monday morning, even if you finished your 48 hours on Sunday. Include the number of books read, total pages, the approximate hours you spent reading/blogging, and any other comments you want to make on the experience. If you set any personal challenges for yourself, this would be the time to explore them. Writing the summary does not need to count as part of your 48 hours, but it can if you want it to.
- When you finish your summary, check in at my site, in the comments of the post I’ll put up Monday morning.
When everyone has their final entries done, I’ll announce the winners. Though, with the opportunity to blow off everything else to read and write for one weekend, I’d say that we’re all winners.
Ready for a list of participants in the 48 Hour Book Challenge?
The players so far:
Anyone I’m missing? Anyone who now wants to play? Comment below with your link of where you’ll be posting your reviews. I did have a couple of people who were interested, but I couldn’t identify their blog from the information I had.
The final rules and game plan will be posted later this evening. I know, it’s hard to contain the excitement.
The players so far:
- A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy
- Annie’s Books
- Big A little a
- Blog From The Windowsill
- BookMoot
- Cathy the Librarian
- Chicken Spaghetti
- Finding Wonderland: The WritingYA Weblog
- Five Six Seven Eight
- A Fuse #8 Production
- It’s All About The Book
- Jen Robinson’s Book Page
- Midwestern Lodestar
- MotherReader
- Original Content
Anyone I’m missing? Anyone who now wants to play? Comment below with your link of where you’ll be posting your reviews. I did have a couple of people who were interested, but I couldn’t identify their blog from the information I had.
The final rules and game plan will be posted later this evening. I know, it’s hard to contain the excitement.
Oh,
My.
It’s true.
“Listen up,
“I Gotta Book deal!”
Says the great and famous fibber.
Book? The 14 Fabulous Fibs of Gregory K.
Congratulations to a creative, worthy, and hardworking blogger and writer.
Come back this evening for the final information and rules on The 48 Hour Book Challenge. We have a lot of people on board and it’s going to be amazing. All the cool kids are doing it. Are you?
My.
It’s true.
“Listen up,
“I Gotta Book deal!”
Says the great and famous fibber.
Book? The 14 Fabulous Fibs of Gregory K.
Congratulations to a creative, worthy, and hardworking blogger and writer.
Come back this evening for the final information and rules on The 48 Hour Book Challenge. We have a lot of people on board and it’s going to be amazing. All the cool kids are doing it. Are you?
There are times I believe that Fuse#8 and I were separated at birth, and only 10 years and some 300 miles render that theory unlikely. I trust her reviews completely. We tend to like the same things, hate the same things, and have crushes on the same cute, married, children’s book authors/illustrators. We’re simpatico.
I have one, teeny, tiny complaint about Fuse#8, and it isn’t even her fault (not really). She gets the books faster. I know that often they are the prepublished editions, but I suspect that sometimes they are just the regular books that her public library is getting sooner than mine. And since we gravitate toward the same types of books, she reviews them first. Waaaay first.
So long before me, in fact, that you have probably even forgotten that she reviewed them at all. Today, I add my two cents and as I link to Amazon, notice the reviews on the bottom of the pages. The very long, thorough reviews of each book. A little Bird told me that those reviews are worth a second look.
Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything, by Lenore Look, finally made its way to my library, fortunately in time for summer reading. I like Ruby Lu. She’s like the Chinese-American Judy Moody — and so says Megan McDonald, author of the Judy Moody books.
When her cousin Flying Duck comes to the United States from China, Ruby Lu is happy. She loves having her family from China, and Flying Duck has many useful tricks and skills. Among those skills is lip-reading, because Flying Duck is deaf. And in the perfect way kids interpret such things is this line from the book: “Having a cousin from China who was deaf was as good as having a cousin who had a third eye in the middle of her forehead.” At first everything is great, but the strain of having extra people around begins to show. There are arguments. There are bathroom conflicts. There are 911 calls. Ruby becomes her Smile Buddy at school, helping her adjust to the new school. Unfortunately, she helps her a little too much, by doing her cousin’s schoolwork, and ignoring her own. Both of them have to go to summer school. But there is still time for swimming lessons, dead mice, and lots of adventures. The book contains a glossary of important words and pictures of some of the sign language. An enjoyable read for the early elementary kids.
Rosy Cole’s Memoir Explosion, by Sheila Greenwald, was a surprise in that I thought it was a early chapter book at first. The book was all right, but I wasn’t sure who it was for. It seems written for 3rd/4th graders, but Rosy is 11 and she has a crush on a boy — and has for two years... actually, now that is sounding more realistic than I thought. She needs to write about someone for class, but she can’t decide who. Then she has the brilliant idea of writing her own story. She goes through the outline for writing her own story, which shows that she needs “Talent, Tears, Turning Points; Romantic Relationships; Confronting Demons; Overcoming Obstacles; Family Feuds; Rising Above Failures; A Never-Before-Told-Secret; Reader Sympathy.” (Before the book is over, we will go through all of these steps with Rosy.) As she tries to convince her friends to write their memoirs, she ends up taking their stories and turning them into a book they would rather not read — especially as it isn’t so much true. Rosy writes the story of how she loses all her friends as way of atonement, and is forgiven.
A Horn for Louis, by Eric A. Kimmel, is a nice read, even if it makes me wonder how much is true. It is the story of Louis Armstrong as a young poor boy who played a tin horn for the junk man, so people would come out with their junk. He played so well on a cheap tin horn that everyone noticed. A gambler even throws Louis a dollar coin for his playing. But when his tin horn breaks, what is Louis going to do? The junk man’s kid finds Louis a real trumpet in the store, but of course there isn’t any money for it. My favorite part of this book was the relationship of Louis to the Jewish family running the junkyard. The integration of a black kid into their family dinners was something most white families wouldn’t do. Some of the Jewish traditions and words are noted, but not overly much.
I knew that I liked Ian Whybrow, but I couldn’t remember why. Especially after reading The Unvisibles. This book is British. Very, very British. Hard to understand some of the expressions kind of British. Frankly, I just found it too much work. The basic story is that a boy, Oliver, finds an old magazine with instructions on becoming invisible. But the magazine is taken by a man who is cheating his father, and Oliver needs to find that magazine to get back to normal. He employs the help of Nicky, a boy who is invisible in his own way, in that he stays under the radar and draws no attention to himself. Oliver uses his invisibility to pull tricks on the teachers who don’t much like him. It is supposed to come off funny, but I sympathized with the teachers who didn’t seem to like him because Oliver was a troublemaker to begin with. However, given all the Britishness of this book, maybe I just didn’t understand. Now, I had thought that Fuse#8 had raved unequivocally about this book, but when I went back to her review, I realized that she also thought the book was very British — she just handled it better. Oh, and it was Ian Whybrow’s Little Wolf’s Book of Badness that I liked so much, I remember now.
And just as final proof that I am two steps behind Fuse#8, here are the notes I wrote on a new picture book that came into my library. Notes that I made, but didn’t format into an entry, before someone beat me to it. See if you recognize the book.
The boy invites the fish to come visit him someday. He puts the note in a bottle, and throws it into the sea. The next day there is a fish in his bathtub and two creepy catfish eating the neighbor’s lawn. The neighbor Sally blows up some blowfish for balloons while jellyfish swoop in to make peanut butter sandwiches. A whale flys overhead like a hot-air balloon. Fish invade everywhere. Chris writes them another note telling them they should live at home. WAPB.
The book? Dear Fish, by Chris Gall. The acronym, WAPB? Weird-Ass Picture Book.
I have one, teeny, tiny complaint about Fuse#8, and it isn’t even her fault (not really). She gets the books faster. I know that often they are the prepublished editions, but I suspect that sometimes they are just the regular books that her public library is getting sooner than mine. And since we gravitate toward the same types of books, she reviews them first. Waaaay first.
So long before me, in fact, that you have probably even forgotten that she reviewed them at all. Today, I add my two cents and as I link to Amazon, notice the reviews on the bottom of the pages. The very long, thorough reviews of each book. A little Bird told me that those reviews are worth a second look.
Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything, by Lenore Look, finally made its way to my library, fortunately in time for summer reading. I like Ruby Lu. She’s like the Chinese-American Judy Moody — and so says Megan McDonald, author of the Judy Moody books. When her cousin Flying Duck comes to the United States from China, Ruby Lu is happy. She loves having her family from China, and Flying Duck has many useful tricks and skills. Among those skills is lip-reading, because Flying Duck is deaf. And in the perfect way kids interpret such things is this line from the book: “Having a cousin from China who was deaf was as good as having a cousin who had a third eye in the middle of her forehead.” At first everything is great, but the strain of having extra people around begins to show. There are arguments. There are bathroom conflicts. There are 911 calls. Ruby becomes her Smile Buddy at school, helping her adjust to the new school. Unfortunately, she helps her a little too much, by doing her cousin’s schoolwork, and ignoring her own. Both of them have to go to summer school. But there is still time for swimming lessons, dead mice, and lots of adventures. The book contains a glossary of important words and pictures of some of the sign language. An enjoyable read for the early elementary kids.
Rosy Cole’s Memoir Explosion, by Sheila Greenwald, was a surprise in that I thought it was a early chapter book at first. The book was all right, but I wasn’t sure who it was for. It seems written for 3rd/4th graders, but Rosy is 11 and she has a crush on a boy — and has for two years... actually, now that is sounding more realistic than I thought. She needs to write about someone for class, but she can’t decide who. Then she has the brilliant idea of writing her own story. She goes through the outline for writing her own story, which shows that she needs “Talent, Tears, Turning Points; Romantic Relationships; Confronting Demons; Overcoming Obstacles; Family Feuds; Rising Above Failures; A Never-Before-Told-Secret; Reader Sympathy.” (Before the book is over, we will go through all of these steps with Rosy.) As she tries to convince her friends to write their memoirs, she ends up taking their stories and turning them into a book they would rather not read — especially as it isn’t so much true. Rosy writes the story of how she loses all her friends as way of atonement, and is forgiven. A Horn for Louis, by Eric A. Kimmel, is a nice read, even if it makes me wonder how much is true. It is the story of Louis Armstrong as a young poor boy who played a tin horn for the junk man, so people would come out with their junk. He played so well on a cheap tin horn that everyone noticed. A gambler even throws Louis a dollar coin for his playing. But when his tin horn breaks, what is Louis going to do? The junk man’s kid finds Louis a real trumpet in the store, but of course there isn’t any money for it. My favorite part of this book was the relationship of Louis to the Jewish family running the junkyard. The integration of a black kid into their family dinners was something most white families wouldn’t do. Some of the Jewish traditions and words are noted, but not overly much.I knew that I liked Ian Whybrow, but I couldn’t remember why. Especially after reading The Unvisibles. This book is British. Very, very British. Hard to understand some of the expressions kind of British. Frankly, I just found it too much work. The basic story is that a boy, Oliver, finds an old magazine with instructions on becoming invisible. But the magazine is taken by a man who is cheating his father, and Oliver needs to find that magazine to get back to normal. He employs the help of Nicky, a boy who is invisible in his own way, in that he stays under the radar and draws no attention to himself. Oliver uses his invisibility to pull tricks on the teachers who don’t much like him. It is supposed to come off funny, but I sympathized with the teachers who didn’t seem to like him because Oliver was a troublemaker to begin with. However, given all the Britishness of this book, maybe I just didn’t understand. Now, I had thought that Fuse#8 had raved unequivocally about this book, but when I went back to her review, I realized that she also thought the book was very British — she just handled it better. Oh, and it was Ian Whybrow’s Little Wolf’s Book of Badness that I liked so much, I remember now.And just as final proof that I am two steps behind Fuse#8, here are the notes I wrote on a new picture book that came into my library. Notes that I made, but didn’t format into an entry, before someone beat me to it. See if you recognize the book.
The boy invites the fish to come visit him someday. He puts the note in a bottle, and throws it into the sea. The next day there is a fish in his bathtub and two creepy catfish eating the neighbor’s lawn. The neighbor Sally blows up some blowfish for balloons while jellyfish swoop in to make peanut butter sandwiches. A whale flys overhead like a hot-air balloon. Fish invade everywhere. Chris writes them another note telling them they should live at home. WAPB.
The book? Dear Fish, by Chris Gall. The acronym, WAPB? Weird-Ass Picture Book.
Now I’ve mentioned before my surprise that the search “what wine goes with spaghetti” in Google brings up my blog. My blog. On books. I responded to this phenomenon by adding the answer, “It’s Red,” to the entry title so people wouldn’t have to look any farther for the answer. The poor people already thought my blog could help them on this topic. I had to do something.
Generally, searches that bring people here are pretty ordinary.
But not today. A new favorite: “is it good to shave your eyebrows?” It’s only been used once so far, but hopefully my answer in that entry helped. I was firmly against eyebrow shaving for any reason.
A strong favorite contender: “mo willems married.” Yes, he is. Oh yes, he is.
Generally, searches that bring people here are pretty ordinary.
But not today. A new favorite: “is it good to shave your eyebrows?” It’s only been used once so far, but hopefully my answer in that entry helped. I was firmly against eyebrow shaving for any reason.
A strong favorite contender: “mo willems married.” Yes, he is. Oh yes, he is.
When I was a new mom, I couldn’t read any book where the baby dies. Since I wasn’t reading much those days anyway, between working full-time and taking care of a fussy baby, I let my sympathetic friend serve as a screener for me. It was she who coined the phrase “Dead Baby Free.” As in, “You’ll like The Rapture of Canaan, and it’s completely Dead Baby Free.” It later became just the intials “DBF,” and was used as such: “Angela’s Ashes was great, but not DBF.”
Now my girls are more grown up, and while I still prefer books that are DBF, those that aren’t no longer send me into crying fits. But those books where the mom is dead, now those touch a nerve.
It has long been a staple of fairy tales that the mom dies. You know, Cinderella, Snow White, etc. And Disney took those stories on and kept it up with Bambi, Herbie the Love Bug, etc. Then teen books got in the game. My favorite by Sonya Sones even makes fun of the trend with One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies.
So, I picked up Pieces of Georgia and by the second page, I realize that the mom is dead. Bummer. But the book was thin and in verse, so I knew I could finish it fast and that was enough incentive for me to read it.
Thirteen-year-old Georgia has lived without her mother for six years but is still considered “at risk” by her middle school. Her school counselor gives Georgia a journal and encourages her to use it to ask her mother the questions she wants answered. With the journal, Georgia begins a time of discovery about herself, including her love for art. She also begins to look at her relationship with her friend, a rich girl that lives nearby, and finds that money isn’t everything. It sounds very predictable written out that way, but I did enjoy the verse and Georgia’s discovery of herself as an artist.
But for the next month, at least, I’m going to need my books to be Dead Mom Free.
Now my girls are more grown up, and while I still prefer books that are DBF, those that aren’t no longer send me into crying fits. But those books where the mom is dead, now those touch a nerve.
It has long been a staple of fairy tales that the mom dies. You know, Cinderella, Snow White, etc. And Disney took those stories on and kept it up with Bambi, Herbie the Love Bug, etc. Then teen books got in the game. My favorite by Sonya Sones even makes fun of the trend with One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies.
So, I picked up Pieces of Georgia and by the second page, I realize that the mom is dead. Bummer. But the book was thin and in verse, so I knew I could finish it fast and that was enough incentive for me to read it.Thirteen-year-old Georgia has lived without her mother for six years but is still considered “at risk” by her middle school. Her school counselor gives Georgia a journal and encourages her to use it to ask her mother the questions she wants answered. With the journal, Georgia begins a time of discovery about herself, including her love for art. She also begins to look at her relationship with her friend, a rich girl that lives nearby, and finds that money isn’t everything. It sounds very predictable written out that way, but I did enjoy the verse and Georgia’s discovery of herself as an artist.
But for the next month, at least, I’m going to need my books to be Dead Mom Free.
Okay, I rarely do this. In fact, I may have never done this, but I am directing attention away from myself and to another worthy blogger. Now what could this blogger have done to garner this response from me? What possibly could it be?
Fuse#8 met Mo Willems.
Fuse#8 met Mo Willems and used me as an opener.
Fuse#8 continues to be cooler than I will ever be.
Check out her encounter.
Fuse#8 met Mo Willems.
Fuse#8 met Mo Willems and used me as an opener.
Fuse#8 continues to be cooler than I will ever be.
Check out her encounter.
I am going to be big about this and admit that much of my lack of promptness is my own fault. First of all, I often think that I can fit in one more thing before I leave. I’m usually incorrect in this assumption. Second of all, I am chronically disorganized, which leads to a last-minute search for the right shoes, the lost books, or my car keys. I am usually successful in this search, but not particularly quick.
But the third reason that I am always late is bigger than me. I believe in my heart of hearts that I’m somehow cosmically doomed. I believe this because while I generally run into the more mundane delays — like bad traffic, broken signal lights, and slow drivers — I am plagued with other instances that cannot be normal.
This past Wednesday I was going to the government offices for a meeting with a member of the library administration. The offices are about 15 minutes from my house. I prepared early so that I would have plenty of time. As I found myself ready at 8:45 and my appointment wasn’t until 9:30, I worked on a blog entry. I mean, I can’t get there half an hour early, can I? So no problem.
I wrote until 9:00, signed off, and made my way out the door. Just as I was grabbing my keys from the kitchen table, the phone rang. I saw that it was one of my mommy friends, and concerned that she might need kid assistance, I picked up the call. She didn’t need me to pick up her child, but we did have some Girl Scout information to share. But I had to go, so we didn’t talk long, and I left the house by 9:05. No problem.
Except that when I got to the government offices, most of the parking lot was taken over by a county festival that was going on that weekend. I searched for a usable parking lot and then walked farther than usual to the building. But I still had enough time if I just walked a wee bit faster. No problem.
I got inside the building and to the stairs... and realized that I couldn’t remember if the library offices are upstairs or downstairs. If I went directly to the office, I’d still be on time for my appointment.
I chose downstairs. The office is upstairs. I arrived two minutes late.
In the past year, the following have occurred when I have tried to allow extra time to get somewhere. This can’t be normal.
But the third reason that I am always late is bigger than me. I believe in my heart of hearts that I’m somehow cosmically doomed. I believe this because while I generally run into the more mundane delays — like bad traffic, broken signal lights, and slow drivers — I am plagued with other instances that cannot be normal.
This past Wednesday I was going to the government offices for a meeting with a member of the library administration. The offices are about 15 minutes from my house. I prepared early so that I would have plenty of time. As I found myself ready at 8:45 and my appointment wasn’t until 9:30, I worked on a blog entry. I mean, I can’t get there half an hour early, can I? So no problem.
I wrote until 9:00, signed off, and made my way out the door. Just as I was grabbing my keys from the kitchen table, the phone rang. I saw that it was one of my mommy friends, and concerned that she might need kid assistance, I picked up the call. She didn’t need me to pick up her child, but we did have some Girl Scout information to share. But I had to go, so we didn’t talk long, and I left the house by 9:05. No problem.
Except that when I got to the government offices, most of the parking lot was taken over by a county festival that was going on that weekend. I searched for a usable parking lot and then walked farther than usual to the building. But I still had enough time if I just walked a wee bit faster. No problem.
I got inside the building and to the stairs... and realized that I couldn’t remember if the library offices are upstairs or downstairs. If I went directly to the office, I’d still be on time for my appointment.
I chose downstairs. The office is upstairs. I arrived two minutes late.
In the past year, the following have occurred when I have tried to allow extra time to get somewhere. This can’t be normal.
- Dressed nicely for a school visit, I exited the house on a hot day. My cat — who at 12 years old and 14 pounds is neither young nor spry — managed to slip out through my legs as I was leaving. Knowing she was too old and too fat to stay outside on that scorching day, I spent ten minutes trying to capture her as she slipped between the bushes and I struggled to keep my shoes and skirt clean.
- After running over an object in a parking lot, I worried that my car’s tires were punctured. But they held up overnight, so I drove my kids to school and got ready for work. When I came back to drive to work, one tire was flat. I called my father-in-law for help and then, with fixed tire, drove to work.
- Getting ready to pick up a friend for a Girl Scout event, my oldest yelled up to report that my cat had caught something outside. As I was coming to investigate, the cat entered the foyer with said caught thing in her mouth. I spent five minutes herding the live chipmunk back outside and another five calming down both daughters.
I’m sure that I am supposed to like Specials by Scott Westerfeld. Everyone else seems to. But hey, I hated Tulane even before Fuse #8 made it cool to bring down the bunny book, so maybe I’m just one of those people. I had three problems with Specials. The first is what we might call a personal problem. I am terrible with series. I retain almost nothing from the books I read. While this makes it easy for me to jump from book to book quickly, it makes reading the books in a series months or years apart just about impossible for me. In fact, I usually avoid series as they are starting so I can pick it up later. When they have the three books, I’ll read through them all one after another.
For me, reading Specials was like walking into a movie halfway through. And not some family movie, either, more like walking into The Usual Suspects. (Who is Keyser Söze? What’s going ON?) I was halfway through Specials before I could remember significant plot points from Pretties — and I still needed to ask two teenage girls at my middle school booktalking session what happened at the end of Pretties. So I am a series loser.
I am going to attribute that problem mostly to me and not to the book — though maybe a little more back story would be nice. However, I found the second problem that I couldn’t buy the over-the-top action in this book as compared with the others. I mean, I already have to buy into the idea that every sixteen-year-old gets an operation to become pretty. Okay. I have to buy into the idea that the powers that be want to keep everyone bubbleheaded so they can regain control. Okay. I have to buy into the idea that they can remake a person from the bones up to be a Special. Okaaaay, you’re starting to lose me. Now I have to buy into the idea that this Special can do all the things — and not to give anything away, but there are lots of things — the book would have them do. Okay, you lost me.
I liked Uglies because Talley was average, her strength was internal, and her skills were her own. I liked Pretties because she had to think her way out of her own predicament, and the action was good. In Specials it is all about the super technology, and I didn’t like it.
The third problem with the book is a minor detail that loomed big for me through the whole book. In changing the Cutters, they were given razor-sharp fingernails and teeth. Does anyone else see just a practical problem here? I mean, sometimes I tear a fingernail a tiny bit, brush hair back off my face, and leave a little scratch on my forehead. What would I do with razor-sharp fingernails? And don’t you think those razor-sharp teeth might chafe a little on the inside of your lips? Every time the teeth or fingernails were mentioned, I was annoyed for the next few pages.
Retractable razor-sharp fingernails, now that might be cool. If only I could pick them up at Wal-Mart.
I have a few personal goals for today.
Are you following my analogy here? Or is it the title that is tipping you off?
When I proposed The 48 Hour Book Challenge, I said that there would be prizes for number of books read, amount of time spent, and... something else. I’ve let it gel in my brain, and I’ve come up with the something else.
I want to offer A Chair, A Fireplace, and A Tea Cozy my thanks for leading me down this path.
On her site, she suggested that you could look at participation as you would a marathon — in other words, reaching your personal goal. Maybe that is plowing through your stack of early chapter books, maybe it is finally tackling that one very long book, or maybe it is writing that perfect book review that finally establishes the connection between Holden from The Catcher in the Rye and the farmer in Click, Clack, Moo.
On Monday, June 19th, write up your goal and experience and I’ll judge it — most subjectively, I might add. For number of books read, and amount of time spent, you have to be a full participant and read fourth-grade books and up. Them’s the breaks. But I hope this opens the challenge up to kids’ lit bloggers, supporters, and book lovers who might not otherwise be able to participate. If you don’t have a blog, A Chair, A Fireplace, and A Tea Cozy has offered space to post and so has Books-A-Plenty .
The final rules will be posted on Thursday night, June 15th. I’ll update them to include the personal goals award and to add page count as a tie-breaker for number of books read. I originally wasn’t going to use page count, because it seemed to involve math. But then I remembered about the invention of calculators, and it seemed like it might be a useful tie-breaker if two (or more) people read the same number of books. There will also be more specifics about how to let me know that you participated, since I can’t just cruise the Internet all day hoping to stumble upon you. Stay tuned.
- To relocate the snowboots from the foyer closet.
- To replace the snowflake placemats with something summerlike.
- To remove the sweaters from my dresser drawers.
Are you following my analogy here? Or is it the title that is tipping you off?
When I proposed The 48 Hour Book Challenge, I said that there would be prizes for number of books read, amount of time spent, and... something else. I’ve let it gel in my brain, and I’ve come up with the something else.
I want to offer A Chair, A Fireplace, and A Tea Cozy my thanks for leading me down this path.
On her site, she suggested that you could look at participation as you would a marathon — in other words, reaching your personal goal. Maybe that is plowing through your stack of early chapter books, maybe it is finally tackling that one very long book, or maybe it is writing that perfect book review that finally establishes the connection between Holden from The Catcher in the Rye and the farmer in Click, Clack, Moo.
On Monday, June 19th, write up your goal and experience and I’ll judge it — most subjectively, I might add. For number of books read, and amount of time spent, you have to be a full participant and read fourth-grade books and up. Them’s the breaks. But I hope this opens the challenge up to kids’ lit bloggers, supporters, and book lovers who might not otherwise be able to participate. If you don’t have a blog, A Chair, A Fireplace, and A Tea Cozy has offered space to post and so has Books-A-Plenty .
The final rules will be posted on Thursday night, June 15th. I’ll update them to include the personal goals award and to add page count as a tie-breaker for number of books read. I originally wasn’t going to use page count, because it seemed to involve math. But then I remembered about the invention of calculators, and it seemed like it might be a useful tie-breaker if two (or more) people read the same number of books. There will also be more specifics about how to let me know that you participated, since I can’t just cruise the Internet all day hoping to stumble upon you. Stay tuned.
I’m coming up on the six-month mark for my little-blog-that-could. I know, it feels like longer. Much, much longer. It’s exciting to have made a place for myself in the kids’ lit blogging world. I think leading off this 48 Hour Book Challenge is ultra cool, and I can’t believe the interest and support in it (update on that tomorrow, btw).
I like reading kids books and reviewing them; however, my own favorite posts are not reviews. They are just writing. Funny writing, I hope, but not really, so much, kid book reviews. Many of you fine folks weren’t with me at the start. Many of you have just tuned into the blog, in... let’s say, the past few days. So, quite likely you missed my blogging highlights.
Today is my birthday, and for my birthday, I am about to do something very indulgent. I am going to point you to my favorite posts that few of you ever saw. Plus a bonus connection to the Mo Willems posts that you probably did see, but they’re still among my favorites, so on the list they go. Take a trip down memory lane with me through the past six months.
I like reading kids books and reviewing them; however, my own favorite posts are not reviews. They are just writing. Funny writing, I hope, but not really, so much, kid book reviews. Many of you fine folks weren’t with me at the start. Many of you have just tuned into the blog, in... let’s say, the past few days. So, quite likely you missed my blogging highlights.
Today is my birthday, and for my birthday, I am about to do something very indulgent. I am going to point you to my favorite posts that few of you ever saw. Plus a bonus connection to the Mo Willems posts that you probably did see, but they’re still among my favorites, so on the list they go. Take a trip down memory lane with me through the past six months.
- January: “Why I Never Get Anything Done”
- February: “The Shroud of the Thwacker”
- March: “Guys, Its About Time”
- April: “The Coolest Mom, The Smallest Weasel, and That Bitch, The Tooth Fairy”
- April: “I Vacuumed a Bee”
- May: “The Mo Willems Experience”
- May: “Mo? Is That You, Mo?”
- June: (Hey, give me time. It’s just the beginning of the month.)
There are times when it is good to have children.
You may be thinking that I am referring to a time when my youngest hugs me tightly and declares that I am the prettiest mommy ever. Or when my oldest comes home with yet another perfect spelling test.
Yeah, those times are good too.
But what is great about having kids is when you read a book about kids, and you can say with authority, “That would never happen!”
That is how I felt when I read the second page of Lois Lowry’s Gooney Bird and the Room Mother.
The second page is where the entire class of second graders look up the word ennui in their dictionaries. First of all, I have to accept the premise that even Gooney Bird uses the word ennui in a sentence. I can be pretentious, and I never use it. I am going to give the author that. But having an end-of-the-year first grader who still needs to sing the alphabet song to remember if O comes before U, I cannot buy that a room full of second graders could look up the word ennui in the dictionary. No way.
And if that weren’t enough, at the end of the book, Gooney Bird is giving a speech using lots of big words, and the second graders are behind her calling out the meaning just after she says it. My fourth grader couldn’t even use Dictionary.com that fast, so no way. No way.
I liked the first book of Gooney Bird Greene. She was precocious, but not unbelievable. She had a bit of that Pippi Longstocking thing going on. Sure, she was unusual and ahead of the class, but overall it made sense. Her adventures weren’t that unusual, it was her storytelling that made the adventures sound exciting. The first book was about telling a good story.
In this book, she goes to the library to request dictionaries for her whole class. They can’t help her, but they call in a rich patron and let her pitch her idea to him. He loves her moxie and buys dictionaries for everyone. No way.
The Gooney Bird I liked wasn’t overly pretentious and precocious, she just told a good story. And in doing so, taught the class (and the reader) how to tell a good story. I miss that Gooney Bird.
You may be thinking that I am referring to a time when my youngest hugs me tightly and declares that I am the prettiest mommy ever. Or when my oldest comes home with yet another perfect spelling test.
Yeah, those times are good too.
But what is great about having kids is when you read a book about kids, and you can say with authority, “That would never happen!”
That is how I felt when I read the second page of Lois Lowry’s Gooney Bird and the Room Mother.The second page is where the entire class of second graders look up the word ennui in their dictionaries. First of all, I have to accept the premise that even Gooney Bird uses the word ennui in a sentence. I can be pretentious, and I never use it. I am going to give the author that. But having an end-of-the-year first grader who still needs to sing the alphabet song to remember if O comes before U, I cannot buy that a room full of second graders could look up the word ennui in the dictionary. No way.
And if that weren’t enough, at the end of the book, Gooney Bird is giving a speech using lots of big words, and the second graders are behind her calling out the meaning just after she says it. My fourth grader couldn’t even use Dictionary.com that fast, so no way. No way.
I liked the first book of Gooney Bird Greene. She was precocious, but not unbelievable. She had a bit of that Pippi Longstocking thing going on. Sure, she was unusual and ahead of the class, but overall it made sense. Her adventures weren’t that unusual, it was her storytelling that made the adventures sound exciting. The first book was about telling a good story.
In this book, she goes to the library to request dictionaries for her whole class. They can’t help her, but they call in a rich patron and let her pitch her idea to him. He loves her moxie and buys dictionaries for everyone. No way.
The Gooney Bird I liked wasn’t overly pretentious and precocious, she just told a good story. And in doing so, taught the class (and the reader) how to tell a good story. I miss that Gooney Bird.
I think I am a good booktalker. I qualify this statement with “I think” after seeing too many American Idol auditions in which the kid proudly states that he is the best singer in the world. Invariably, we then see him mangling a popular song. So, I will not fall prey to that overconfidence. This would be a great post for some of my peers at work to comment and back me up on my booktalking ability. I’m just sayin’.
I like booktalking. I like having a captive audience. I like having a “reason” to read the books. I like that the kids greet me in the library by saying, “You came to my school!” It makes me feel like an American Idol.
Today I booktalked to seventh graders. The middle-school booktalking always looms large on my schedule. I prepare about 15 booktalks to cover a day at the school. And when I say “prepare,” I mean that in the vaguest sense of the word. I never write anything down. I never rehearse. I usually have at least four books I do on the fly. I like to keep things fresh. I put most of my effort — again, a word I use loosely — on my first sentence, my hook. And this is what I will share with you today, my favorite “hooks” from today’s booktalking sessions. You are on your own to set up the book.
“All teenagers under the age of 16 are ugly. [Long pause.] That is the premise on which the book Uglies is based...”
“How well do you really know your mother? You’ve lived with her forever, but what do you know of her life before you came along? [Malibu] Carmie knew her mom as someone who was always depressed and tired, but one day...”
“Is anyone going anywhere special this summer? [Let a few kids answer.] Anyone going to another country? [Let a few kids answer.] Well, in Monsoon Summer, Jasmine finds out she is going to India for the summer, not that she wants to...”
“I have a pen. And in the time it takes me to tell you about this pen, I will have earned the money to have paid for it. So, I can keep it, or I can give it away. [Here I give someone my $0.10 Bic pen.] It’s not important. But if I had to go without much food for two weeks so I could save the money from the family food budget to buy a pen, it would be very important to me. That is one of the things this girl does to further her education in this biography, The Diary of Ma Yan.”
“Does anyone know how the ancient Egyptians prepared bodies for mummification? [Let someone explain if they want.] Basically, they’d stick a long hook through the nose, swish it around in the skull, and let the brain drip out like a strawberry milkshake. [Lots of ewwws.] Then they made an incision in the torso and pulled out all the guts and vital organs. Think you would want that done to your body? Well, this man donated his body to science so modern day scientists could try to replicate the techniques of the ancient Egyptians. And this is just one of the things you’ll read about in Mummies: The Newest, Coolest, and Creepiest from Around the World.”
And this is my favorite. The best booktalk I have ever given, often without telling a thing about the book.
“You’ve all heard of book banning, right? Sometimes adults will believe that a book isn’t appropriate for a school or public library and will fight to have it removed. Generally, it’s the content of the book that is in question. But this is the first time I have ever heard of a movement to have a book banned based entirely on the title. I know it’s based entirely on the title because I read the book, and it’s very innocent. There is nothing inappropriate in this book. The author writes a blog, and she’s surprised that someone would move to ban it, because she knows that there is nothing inappropriate in this book. Now, do you want to know what is this title that is so destructive to today’s kids? [Here’s the reveal of the book.] Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love.” (After the kids went wild about me saying the word “sex” in school, I told them the premise of the story. Sometimes I talked about this book right to the bell, and revealed the title just before the bell with no further explanation.)
Feel free to use these intros in your own booktalking — though I am going to see if I can copyright the Sex Kittens booktalk.
I like booktalking. I like having a captive audience. I like having a “reason” to read the books. I like that the kids greet me in the library by saying, “You came to my school!” It makes me feel like an American Idol.
Today I booktalked to seventh graders. The middle-school booktalking always looms large on my schedule. I prepare about 15 booktalks to cover a day at the school. And when I say “prepare,” I mean that in the vaguest sense of the word. I never write anything down. I never rehearse. I usually have at least four books I do on the fly. I like to keep things fresh. I put most of my effort — again, a word I use loosely — on my first sentence, my hook. And this is what I will share with you today, my favorite “hooks” from today’s booktalking sessions. You are on your own to set up the book.
“All teenagers under the age of 16 are ugly. [Long pause.] That is the premise on which the book Uglies is based...”“How well do you really know your mother? You’ve lived with her forever, but what do you know of her life before you came along? [Malibu] Carmie knew her mom as someone who was always depressed and tired, but one day...”“Is anyone going anywhere special this summer? [Let a few kids answer.] Anyone going to another country? [Let a few kids answer.] Well, in Monsoon Summer, Jasmine finds out she is going to India for the summer, not that she wants to...”“I have a pen. And in the time it takes me to tell you about this pen, I will have earned the money to have paid for it. So, I can keep it, or I can give it away. [Here I give someone my $0.10 Bic pen.] It’s not important. But if I had to go without much food for two weeks so I could save the money from the family food budget to buy a pen, it would be very important to me. That is one of the things this girl does to further her education in this biography, The Diary of Ma Yan.”“Does anyone know how the ancient Egyptians prepared bodies for mummification? [Let someone explain if they want.] Basically, they’d stick a long hook through the nose, swish it around in the skull, and let the brain drip out like a strawberry milkshake. [Lots of ewwws.] Then they made an incision in the torso and pulled out all the guts and vital organs. Think you would want that done to your body? Well, this man donated his body to science so modern day scientists could try to replicate the techniques of the ancient Egyptians. And this is just one of the things you’ll read about in Mummies: The Newest, Coolest, and Creepiest from Around the World.”And this is my favorite. The best booktalk I have ever given, often without telling a thing about the book.
“You’ve all heard of book banning, right? Sometimes adults will believe that a book isn’t appropriate for a school or public library and will fight to have it removed. Generally, it’s the content of the book that is in question. But this is the first time I have ever heard of a movement to have a book banned based entirely on the title. I know it’s based entirely on the title because I read the book, and it’s very innocent. There is nothing inappropriate in this book. The author writes a blog, and she’s surprised that someone would move to ban it, because she knows that there is nothing inappropriate in this book. Now, do you want to know what is this title that is so destructive to today’s kids? [Here’s the reveal of the book.] Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love.” (After the kids went wild about me saying the word “sex” in school, I told them the premise of the story. Sometimes I talked about this book right to the bell, and revealed the title just before the bell with no further explanation.)Feel free to use these intros in your own booktalking — though I am going to see if I can copyright the Sex Kittens booktalk.
Have you ever worried that you would throw a party and no one would come? Well, I have to say, I was a little hesitant to throw down a challenge and see who would come. But I laugh in the face of hesitant. I scoff, even. Thus I find myself with a tidy little list of participants in the 48 Hour Book Challenge.
The players so far:
I’ll put up an updated post of players next Friday, and the final rules and information on Thursday, June 15th. There’s still time to join in, so nudge your book-blogging friends and neighbors. And, of course, notify the press, because this is on, baby.
The players so far:
- A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy
- All About The Book
- Big A, little a
- Blog From The Windowsill
- BookMoot
- Bookshelves of Doom
- Chicken Spaghetti
- Esme’s Book-a-Day Plan (possibly)
- Fuse Number 8 Production
- Jen Robinson’s Book Page
- MotherReader
- Original Content
- Outside a Cat
- Wands and Worlds (possibly)
I’ll put up an updated post of players next Friday, and the final rules and information on Thursday, June 15th. There’s still time to join in, so nudge your book-blogging friends and neighbors. And, of course, notify the press, because this is on, baby.
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