The weather was definitely frightful this past week. The ice storm kept us home from school for 3 days and then 8 inches of snow kept me in the house for most of the weekend. It was a perfect time to catch up on some reading. In fact, the first day I didn't have electricity so there wasn't much else to do. Thankfully I had a gas fireplace to keep me warm and a kerosene lantern to read by. I curled up by the fire and read most of the day until the power came back on. I was one of the lucky ones who was only out of power for a day. I know that several places in town were out until Sunday--that made it almost an entire week without electricity. I would not have made a very good pioneer because I was pretty whiny after only a couple of hours without my modern conveniences.
I used this opportunity to catch up on the James Patterson books. I really enjoy his books. They are filled with suspense and keep me on the edge of my seat wondering what will happen next. I just finished Double Cross the latest book in Patterson's series about Alex Cross. Alex is a psychiatrist who works with the Washington D.C. police department and the FBI. He profiles serial killers. Double Cross is about a serial killer who they call the DC Audience Killer because he likes to kill in front of a audience. The first murder involved throwing a popular mystery writer off a balcony into a crowd of people. From there his murder become even more gruesome and more public. To make things worse, Kyle Craig who Alex Cross had put in prison in a previous book has escaped from prison and is seeking his revenge against Alex Cross and anyone else who had something to do in his capture. Each chapter has a new twist and turn.
Patterson isn't for everyone, but I really like his short chapters--usually only a couple of pages long. The books read quickly and like I said are filled with action and suspense. However, they also tend to be pretty graphic in their violence.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Another Vampire Book
Glass Houses by Rachel Caine is another vampire book. What makes this book different is that the vampires are not the good guys like all the other vampire books that are out right now. In Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, Edward, the vampire, is good looking, kind and nearly the perfect man and so many vampire books portray vampires in that manner. However, in Glass Houses which is the first book in The Morganville Vampires Series, the vampires are vicious and scary and not desirable at all!
Claire's parents send her to Texas Prairie University because they think that the town in small and the school is safe. Claire immediately gets on the wrong side of Monica, the leader of a gang of popular girls. They push Claire down the stairs and threaten to kill her. Claire is frightened and moves out of the dorm into the Glass House with three strange roommates: Eve a Goth girl, Michael who sleeps all day and Shane who left Morganville and returned under strange circumstances. From Eve and Shane, Claire learns that the town of Morganville is controlled by vampires and it is not safe to be out after dark. Somehow the Glass House has protective powers and they are safe inside. Claire with her talent of upsetting the wrong people has a vampire join Monica and her gang in threatening her and what happens is nonstop action as the reader discovers all the strange happenings in Morganville and the Glass House.
The downside of the book is that it is part of a series and although it solves the immediate problem, it ends in a place that makes you have to read the next book. We have three of the books in the series in the library.
Claire's parents send her to Texas Prairie University because they think that the town in small and the school is safe. Claire immediately gets on the wrong side of Monica, the leader of a gang of popular girls. They push Claire down the stairs and threaten to kill her. Claire is frightened and moves out of the dorm into the Glass House with three strange roommates: Eve a Goth girl, Michael who sleeps all day and Shane who left Morganville and returned under strange circumstances. From Eve and Shane, Claire learns that the town of Morganville is controlled by vampires and it is not safe to be out after dark. Somehow the Glass House has protective powers and they are safe inside. Claire with her talent of upsetting the wrong people has a vampire join Monica and her gang in threatening her and what happens is nonstop action as the reader discovers all the strange happenings in Morganville and the Glass House.
The downside of the book is that it is part of a series and although it solves the immediate problem, it ends in a place that makes you have to read the next book. We have three of the books in the series in the library.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Vampires
Vampires are such a big deal right now. In the library we can’t keep vampire books on the shelf. In fact, there is even a show on TV on Friday nights. I can’t think of the title right now, but the vampire main character is easy on the eyes!
I just received a new series in the library. It's called The House of Night series. They are written by a mother/ daughter team from Tulsa, Oklahoma and the books are set in Tulsa so it feels kind of local to me. I have an aunt who lives in Tulsa, so I know about several of the different places they go in the book. There are two books in the series so far. The first one is Marked and the second is Betrayed by PC Cast and Kristin Cast.
Marked takes place at the House of Night which is a school where people go to become vampires. Once a teenager is marked with a blue half moon on his/her forehead, he/she must move to the House of Night in order to survive. The days are reversed and they attend classes at night and sleep during the day. They learn of the vampire culture and about what happens to them as they change from a fledgling to an adult vamp. The change is difficult and painful and many do not make it through the several years it takes to completely change from human to vampire. The story is told through 16-year-old Zoey Redbird’s point of view. Zoey has never fit in the human world and she welcomes the move to the vampire world. However, Zoey sees that one of her classmates is misusing her powers and she must do something about it. This book is fast paced and fun to read, but like all vampire books, there is some suggestive language and sexual content
I just received a new series in the library. It's called The House of Night series. They are written by a mother/ daughter team from Tulsa, Oklahoma and the books are set in Tulsa so it feels kind of local to me. I have an aunt who lives in Tulsa, so I know about several of the different places they go in the book. There are two books in the series so far. The first one is Marked and the second is Betrayed by PC Cast and Kristin Cast.
Marked takes place at the House of Night which is a school where people go to become vampires. Once a teenager is marked with a blue half moon on his/her forehead, he/she must move to the House of Night in order to survive. The days are reversed and they attend classes at night and sleep during the day. They learn of the vampire culture and about what happens to them as they change from a fledgling to an adult vamp. The change is difficult and painful and many do not make it through the several years it takes to completely change from human to vampire. The story is told through 16-year-old Zoey Redbird’s point of view. Zoey has never fit in the human world and she welcomes the move to the vampire world. However, Zoey sees that one of her classmates is misusing her powers and she must do something about it. This book is fast paced and fun to read, but like all vampire books, there is some suggestive language and sexual content
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Thanksgiving
This is our last day of school before the Thanksgiving break. It seems like with the pressures of Christmas, Thanksgiving is a holiday that gets skipped over. We go from buying candy for Halloween to buying Christmas gifts. In fact, I was in a store the other day looking for Thanksgiving napkins and all they had were Christmas ones. The lady at the store said that they didn’t get any Thanksgiving stuff this year because it is not a big commercial holiday. I guess that it another reason to really like Thanksgiving. And without paper napkins, I guess that I will have to be more environmentally conscience and use cloth ones. It is really nice to take a little time and think of all the things that we have to be thankful for: family, friends, a home to live in, food to eat and football to watch on TV.
A Swift Pure Cry by Soibhan Dowd really made me think of how easy my life is and how lucky I am. Everything’s been wrong in 15 year old Shell’s life since her mother’s death. Her father’s drinking keeps him out of work and the family rooted in poverty. Shell must care for herself and her younger brother and sister. Shell becomes an easy target for Declan, a boy in her school, who gets her pregnant and then runs away to America. Shell has no one to ask for help and the events that fallow are heart-breaking. However, when the police in town find a dead baby’s body suspicion falls on Shell and she has no family and no skills to deal with the investigation. The mystery surrounding the baby and its parentage make for a good read.
Because this book is based on true events that took place in Ireland in the 1980s, it is even more horrific and really rips your heart out in some places. However, the way Shell and her family survive is both a tragic and hopeful story.
A Swift Pure Cry by Soibhan Dowd really made me think of how easy my life is and how lucky I am. Everything’s been wrong in 15 year old Shell’s life since her mother’s death. Her father’s drinking keeps him out of work and the family rooted in poverty. Shell must care for herself and her younger brother and sister. Shell becomes an easy target for Declan, a boy in her school, who gets her pregnant and then runs away to America. Shell has no one to ask for help and the events that fallow are heart-breaking. However, when the police in town find a dead baby’s body suspicion falls on Shell and she has no family and no skills to deal with the investigation. The mystery surrounding the baby and its parentage make for a good read.
Because this book is based on true events that took place in Ireland in the 1980s, it is even more horrific and really rips your heart out in some places. However, the way Shell and her family survive is both a tragic and hopeful story.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Football Books
I love football. And it is a great time to be a football in Kansas with the Jayhawks having an undefeated season! Our high school football team is also undefeated. We are playing tonight for the State semi-finals. Needless to say, lots of people of thinking football!
I have read several good football books lately. Right now I am really enjoying Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. I have always enjoyed Grisham’s crime novels like The Firm and The Client, so I was worried that I wouldn’t like his straying from what he does well. But so far, it is really fun. It is about Rick Dockery who is a third string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. However, in the game before the Super Bowl, Rick finds himself in the game and panics. He blows a 17 point lead in less than 11 minutes and the citizens of Cleveland run him out of town. Rick ends up in the hospital with a concussion from a huge hit on his last interception and Browns fans storm the hospital trying to find him. The description is really funny. Rick decides that isn’t ready to give up the dream of playing professional football yet, so he begs his agent to find somewhere he can play. And that is when he finds himself in Parma, Italy playing for pizza! Actually he gets paid unlike many of the other players on his team who play for the love of the game—and pizza.
The amazing part of this book was that a league like this really exists in Italy. They are a bunch of guys playing American football in a place where football usually means soccer, where hundreds of thousands of people show up to watch the World Cup, and where they can only have 3 Americans per team. And one is almost always the quarterback. I am anxious to see what happens to Rick. The book is humorous and the football scenes are well written—I can almost feel the hits as I read.
We have received several new nonfiction football books this past month. The Blind Side: evolution of a game by Michael Lewis is waiting for me to finish Playing for Pizza. It is the story of University of Mississippi football player Michael Oher and it explores the rising salaries of the offensive left tackle in the NFL. I guess that the blind side in football is the left side of a right handed quarterback where defensive linemen can inflict serious damage without being seen. So one key to a safe and effective passer is a good offensive left tackle—one of the more unglamorous jobs in football. In the book, Oher goes from being raised by a crack-addicted homeless mother to being adopted by a wealthy family. It is a fascinating story even without the football.
Another book that I have been browsing when I have time is The Physics of Football: Discover the Science of Bone-Crushing Hits, Soaring Field Goals, and Awe-Inspiring Passes by Timothy Gay. It is really interesting as it looks at the science behind hang time and sweet spots and turf. I have just read sections of it, but it really makes me think. Of course, that’s just my being nerdy again.
One more book I want to mention is another that I just pick up when I have time. It is called The Football Game I’ll Never Forget: 100 Stars’ Stories. It has 100 of the greatest football players of all times writing about the games that they remember most. It has chapters by Joe Montana, Frank Gifford, and Brian Sipe. It is a fun, colorful book of football history.
I have read several good football books lately. Right now I am really enjoying Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. I have always enjoyed Grisham’s crime novels like The Firm and The Client, so I was worried that I wouldn’t like his straying from what he does well. But so far, it is really fun. It is about Rick Dockery who is a third string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. However, in the game before the Super Bowl, Rick finds himself in the game and panics. He blows a 17 point lead in less than 11 minutes and the citizens of Cleveland run him out of town. Rick ends up in the hospital with a concussion from a huge hit on his last interception and Browns fans storm the hospital trying to find him. The description is really funny. Rick decides that isn’t ready to give up the dream of playing professional football yet, so he begs his agent to find somewhere he can play. And that is when he finds himself in Parma, Italy playing for pizza! Actually he gets paid unlike many of the other players on his team who play for the love of the game—and pizza.
The amazing part of this book was that a league like this really exists in Italy. They are a bunch of guys playing American football in a place where football usually means soccer, where hundreds of thousands of people show up to watch the World Cup, and where they can only have 3 Americans per team. And one is almost always the quarterback. I am anxious to see what happens to Rick. The book is humorous and the football scenes are well written—I can almost feel the hits as I read.
We have received several new nonfiction football books this past month. The Blind Side: evolution of a game by Michael Lewis is waiting for me to finish Playing for Pizza. It is the story of University of Mississippi football player Michael Oher and it explores the rising salaries of the offensive left tackle in the NFL. I guess that the blind side in football is the left side of a right handed quarterback where defensive linemen can inflict serious damage without being seen. So one key to a safe and effective passer is a good offensive left tackle—one of the more unglamorous jobs in football. In the book, Oher goes from being raised by a crack-addicted homeless mother to being adopted by a wealthy family. It is a fascinating story even without the football.
Another book that I have been browsing when I have time is The Physics of Football: Discover the Science of Bone-Crushing Hits, Soaring Field Goals, and Awe-Inspiring Passes by Timothy Gay. It is really interesting as it looks at the science behind hang time and sweet spots and turf. I have just read sections of it, but it really makes me think. Of course, that’s just my being nerdy again.
One more book I want to mention is another that I just pick up when I have time. It is called The Football Game I’ll Never Forget: 100 Stars’ Stories. It has 100 of the greatest football players of all times writing about the games that they remember most. It has chapters by Joe Montana, Frank Gifford, and Brian Sipe. It is a fun, colorful book of football history.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Funny Books
We just finished finals last week and are starting new classes this week, so things are pretty quiet in the library. We did have some researchers in this morning looking for information on Rock and Roll stars from the past. It was fun to search through the books to find facts about The Jackson Five and Ritchie Valens and others…I’m not sure what the teacher is going to have them do with their information, but musical topics sound like fun to read about and research.
I think research is always fun—guess that makes me a real nerd. Reading should also be fun. And there are a string of books that are funny and really fun to read. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar is one of these funny books. In this book, Scott is trying to navigate his first year in high school by avoiding being hit in the back of the head on the bus, being relieved of spare change by upper classmen and falling into the category of the lowest of the low. While trying to survive at school, Scott’s home life is also changing when he discovers that his mother is having a baby! Throughout the book, Scott writes advice for his new sibling who he affectionately refers to as “Smelly” and “Fluid-dwelling piece of protoplasm.” Scott’s adventures and his views of the world are sometimes laugh out loud funny!
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is another funny book. Colin has always dated girls named Katherine and he has always gotten dumped by them—19 times to be exact. So after high school graduation, he and his friend Hassan leave Chicago on a Road Trip where he tries to get over the latest Katherine and prove that he can mathematically prove the success of relationships with future Katherines. Hassan is the hilarious sidekick and Colin is the ultimate nerd and together they are hilarious!
I think research is always fun—guess that makes me a real nerd. Reading should also be fun. And there are a string of books that are funny and really fun to read. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar is one of these funny books. In this book, Scott is trying to navigate his first year in high school by avoiding being hit in the back of the head on the bus, being relieved of spare change by upper classmen and falling into the category of the lowest of the low. While trying to survive at school, Scott’s home life is also changing when he discovers that his mother is having a baby! Throughout the book, Scott writes advice for his new sibling who he affectionately refers to as “Smelly” and “Fluid-dwelling piece of protoplasm.” Scott’s adventures and his views of the world are sometimes laugh out loud funny!
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is another funny book. Colin has always dated girls named Katherine and he has always gotten dumped by them—19 times to be exact. So after high school graduation, he and his friend Hassan leave Chicago on a Road Trip where he tries to get over the latest Katherine and prove that he can mathematically prove the success of relationships with future Katherines. Hassan is the hilarious sidekick and Colin is the ultimate nerd and together they are hilarious!
Friday, November 2, 2007
Keturah and Lord Death
It is a marvelous Friday afternoon. It is finally becoming fall here and the trees are changing colors and starting lose their leaves. What a wonderful time of the year! And on Fridays everything seems brighter and better...especially in the fall when I am ready for a weekend filled with watching football and reading good books.
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt is a wonderful book. I started reading it because it was a finalist for the National Book Award this year. The first chapter is really strange and I wasn’t sure that I was going to finish it because I am a firm believer that life is too short and there are too many books for me to waste time reading something I don’t enjoy. However, I am really glad that I continued to read. I guess there is something to be said for sticking with a task until you finish it. Because I would have missed out on a great book had a quit reading after a page or two.
In this book, 16 year old Keturah gets lost in the woods and after several days is confronted by Death. In the book, Death is characterized as a “severe, but beautiful” man wearing a black cape and riding a black horse. Keturah is not ready to be taken by Death so she tells him a story, refusing to tell him the ending unless he lets her live another day. He grants her wish if she promises to return the next day with an ending to her story. The story she tells is about a young woman looking for her “one true love,” so Death agrees that if she finds her true love by the next day he will let her live. What transpires is a delightful story filled with romance, adventure and the supernatural. And the ending is truly surprising. It seemed so predictable until the last couple of pages. I can see how this book became a finalist for the National Book Award.
Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt is a wonderful book. I started reading it because it was a finalist for the National Book Award this year. The first chapter is really strange and I wasn’t sure that I was going to finish it because I am a firm believer that life is too short and there are too many books for me to waste time reading something I don’t enjoy. However, I am really glad that I continued to read. I guess there is something to be said for sticking with a task until you finish it. Because I would have missed out on a great book had a quit reading after a page or two.
In this book, 16 year old Keturah gets lost in the woods and after several days is confronted by Death. In the book, Death is characterized as a “severe, but beautiful” man wearing a black cape and riding a black horse. Keturah is not ready to be taken by Death so she tells him a story, refusing to tell him the ending unless he lets her live another day. He grants her wish if she promises to return the next day with an ending to her story. The story she tells is about a young woman looking for her “one true love,” so Death agrees that if she finds her true love by the next day he will let her live. What transpires is a delightful story filled with romance, adventure and the supernatural. And the ending is truly surprising. It seemed so predictable until the last couple of pages. I can see how this book became a finalist for the National Book Award.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Graphic Novels
We just finished putting the new display out in the library—several new graphic novels. I don’t really understand the popularity of graphic novels. Some of them seem…sort of…graphic??? I read somewhere that 40 percent of material printed in Japan is in the graphic novel format. I guess everyone from children to the elderly read them. I’m having trouble imagining that…guess that I need to travel to Japan and see it for myself…
I did read one graphic novel that really stuck with me. The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a wordless graphic novel. It is filled with absolutely beautiful pictures showing a man who travels to a distant land and tries to make a life for his family. It is reminiscent of the late 1800s in some ways, but it is also interspersed with futuristic images and strange creatures. The Arrival received many awards and nominations in Australia. I’m not sure that I understood it completely, but it was timeless in the way it portrayed the immigrant spirit surviving in a foreign land.
I haven’t quite figured out manga yet…just can’t make myself read from back to front and right to left. I keep getting lost on the page because I revert back to the American way of reading. However, we have several fun new manga (hope I’m using that term correctly) graphic novels. Sorcerers and Secretaries by Amy Kim Ganter and The Plain Janes by Cecil Castelluci (really liked Boy Proof) both caught my attention. Neither was particularly deep, but fun reads!
I did read one graphic novel that really stuck with me. The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a wordless graphic novel. It is filled with absolutely beautiful pictures showing a man who travels to a distant land and tries to make a life for his family. It is reminiscent of the late 1800s in some ways, but it is also interspersed with futuristic images and strange creatures. The Arrival received many awards and nominations in Australia. I’m not sure that I understood it completely, but it was timeless in the way it portrayed the immigrant spirit surviving in a foreign land.
I haven’t quite figured out manga yet…just can’t make myself read from back to front and right to left. I keep getting lost on the page because I revert back to the American way of reading. However, we have several fun new manga (hope I’m using that term correctly) graphic novels. Sorcerers and Secretaries by Amy Kim Ganter and The Plain Janes by Cecil Castelluci (really liked Boy Proof) both caught my attention. Neither was particularly deep, but fun reads!
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