Spanking Shakespeare

I am not sure what to say about Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner. It is really laugh-out-loud funny, irreverent and borders on obscene in parts. It’s not a book for everyone, but if you are looking for something to make you laugh and don’t mind reading about bowel movements, sex and other adolescent issues, this is a good book for you.

Shakespeare Shapiro is a senior at Hemingway High School where the major project for all seniors is to write a memoir. In his memoir, Shakespeare shares the funniest and most embarrassing moments in his life, from being born on Hitler's birthday ("Whenever I did anything wrong, my father would call me Adolf") to his father's blackmail techniques ("I'm about ten seconds away from telling you things [about our sex life] that will haunt you for the rest of your life," his father cheerfully threatens an 11-year-old Shakespeare). With his dysfunctional family and terrible luck, it is easy for the reader to feel sorry for Shakespeare even as he sinks into bouts of self-pity. However, Shakespeare meets Charlotte and realizes that his life is not so bad after all. Keep in mind that nothing is off limits to Wizner: he pokes fun of bodily functions, sex and religion in this book.

Gray smudges make it look like a teen really slaved over the writing and revising of this book. I even tried several times to unfold the corner that is part of the unusual appearance that makes this book different.

Like I said, this book is not for everyone, but if you enjoy off-color humor, you will enjoy Shakespeare Shapiro. The author Jake Wizner teaches 8th grade English and History, so it is easy to see where some of his humor comes from.

Golden

Rock Chalk Jayhawk! Today is a great day to be a Kansan as the KU Jayhawks won the National Championship last night. With the game going into the overtime, we all stayed up too late watching the ending, so everyone is dragging today. But it is still exciting! Go Jayhawks!

I love fairy tale books. Who knew? I sure didn’t know that I did, but I really enjoyed reading Beastly by Alex Flinn and I just finished Golden: A Retelling of “Repunzel” by Cameron Dokey. And I thought it was a fun read also.

In Golden, Rapunzel’s mother makes a deal with a sorceress that if she does not love the baby just as she appears, she would have to give the baby to the sorceress to raise. Rapunzel is born with no hair and with no hope of ever having any and her mother who is beautiful is horrified and thinks she is horrific looking so she gives her to the sorceress. However, the sorceress has an alternative reason for wanting Rapunzel as her own.

Rapunzel is raised by the sorceress and she has a very happy and content life until they are forced from their home and the sorceress tells Rapunzel that she had another daughter who has been cursed by an evil wizard and locked in a tower. She hopes that Rapunzel can figure out a way to break the curse and free her daughter. What happens is an interesting twist on an old fairy tale. And the fun twist at the end is how Rapunzel gets her long beautiful hair!

Dairy Queen

I know that you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I loved the cow wearing a tiara on the front of this book. It is the reason I picked it up to read it in the first place. So many great books have terrible covers that they don't encourage readers to read them that I really love it when a publisher gets it right and has a great cover like this one.

And Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock lives up to its great cover. Life has been difficult for DJ Schwenk since her father injured his hip. At 15, DJ quits basketball so she can take over the milking on her family's dairy farm. So she is not feeling optimistic about a summer filled with milking, cleaning the barn, and baling clover until a family friend sends Brian Nelson to help out. Brian is the quarterback from a neighboring rival school and his coach thinks that working with DJ over the summer will get him into shape for football in the fall. Brian has looks and brains, but he is a slacker and this causes friction with DJ. However, training Brian for football is the best part of her summer. And everything seems to be looking up until DJ decides that she is tired of living life like a cow. She does everything expected of her. "I just did what my parents told me, and my coaches, and [my friend], and [my dog] even. . . . I was nothing but a cow on two legs." So DJ decides to break her "cow mentality" and do something no one expects: go out for her high school football team. This causes problems with her father who doesn't like anything out of the ordinary, her best friend, and Brian who plays for an opposing team.

Don't get me wrong Dairy Queen is about so much more than football. There are family issues, problems with friends, even a budding romance and of course, cows! This is a great novel for all and even if you have no interest in sports, you will enjoy DJ's story of her 15th summer.

I am looking forward to reading the sequel The Off Season that continues DJ and Brian's romance and tells what happens with her family.

Last Kiss

Last Kiss by Jon Ripslinger is a good mystery novel. Lisa Wells had it all--beauty, intelligence, wealth, athleticism, popularity and a promising future. But Billy O’Reilly knows how unhappy she really is, how lonely she really feels and how trapped she is by her ultra-controlling father. No one knows about the secret relationship Billy and Lisa have been having. He has been sneaking into her bedroom for the last several weeks. But the relationship has gone sour. Lisa is back to dating her “father-approved” boyfriend and making plans for college. However, Lisa begs Billy to come and see her one more time. But the next morning, Lisa is found dead and Billy is the prime suspect. What follows is a good mystery as Billy and his friend Windy turn into amateur detectives in order to clear his name and discover what really happened to Lisa.

Love, Meg

I have been terrible about not reading lately. I hadn’t read a book since Spring Break. Last week was the National Junior College Men’s Basketball tournament here in town and my house was filled with family. So between school all day, basketball all evening and playing cards all night, I didn’t get anything done. But it was a fun week. This week I am trying to get back on schedule.

I was tired this week, but it was great to have my family around. The book Love, Meg by C. Leigh Purtill is all about family. Meg is 15 years old and the only family she has ever known is her sister Lucie. Lucie is always looking for something better so she and Meg move around a lot usually once or twice a year. So Meg is used to finding new friends and then moving and having to start all over. The latest move has been to Hollywood where Lucie has a new boyfriend and maybe a decent job. Meg has just started Hollywood High School when she comes home one afternoon and meets Lucie’s brother Lonnie. Lonnie tells Meg of a family she didn’t know existed and turns her world upside down. Meg feels that Lucie has betrayed her by hiding her family from her and she moves to New York to find out what it is like to have a family.

Dragon's Keep

It is always hard to get back into the swing of things after Spring Break. And it is raining this morning so that doesn’t help. I went to Natchez, Mississippi for the week. Natchez sits on the Mississippi River and the weather was really nice. I was disappointed when I got back to Kansas and it was cold. I heard that it was nice several days last week. Maybe with the start of spring on Thursday, we will start to get some warm weather.

Natchez is a neat town that time seems to have forgotten. In 1850, there were more millionaires per capita in Natchez than anywhere else in the US. The town was surrounded by huge cotton plantations and the town was filled with huge antebellum mansions. Each spring these mansions are opened for public tours. They are fabulous. I am a Great Plains girl—born in Oklahoma and raised in Kansas. My ancestors came to the plains in covered wagons, so they didn’t bring much with them. However, the people who settled in Natchez had furniture shipped from Europe. And it is still sitting in these antebellum homes where the people still use some of it today. It is incredible—a real eye opening experience. I felt like I had walked back into the time of Gone with the Wind!

I thought that I would get some reading done over the break, but with traveling and touring, I didn’t get much read. I did finish Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey. The great magician Merlin prophesied that the 21st queen of Wilde Island would “redeem the name of Pendragon, end war with the wave of her hand, and restore the glory of Wilde Island.” Rosalind is born to be the 21st queen of Wilde Island. Her parents have high hopes for what she will accomplish. However, Rosalind is born with a dragon claw in place of the ring finger on her left hand. Most of her life is spent trying to hide this deformity and find a cure, so that she can marry. When she is 17, Rosalind’s father goes to war to help England and hopefully make a match with the King’s son. But Rosalind is captured by a dragon and her life is changed forever. How will she fulfill Merlin's prophesy?

As I have said before, I am not crazy about fantasy books, but this is a good book. I enjoyed reading the adventures with the dragons and Rosalind’s search to be free from the dragon’s curse.

The Appeal by John Grisham

I was excited to see that John Grisham was returning to writing books about lawyers and trials when I read The Appeal. I loved The Firm and The Client and A Time to Kill—all fantastic books about trials and lawyers set in Mississippi. I enjoyed some of his other books; Playing for Pizza was fun and Bleachers was good, but those books don’t compare to his legal thrillers.

The Appeal is about a trial in Bowmore, Mississippi where Krane Chemicals has dumped a lot of toxins in the soil and contaminated the ground water. The people of Bowmore have a higher cancer rate than anywhere in the US, in fact, it is 17 times higher. There are so many people who have cancer in the county that it has gained the nickname “Cancer County.” Jeanette Baker lost both her husband and son to cancer and she is suing Krane Chemical for their deaths. Wes and Mary Grace Payton have risked everything to represent her case because they believe that Krane Chemical should pay for what it has done. At the beginning of the book, the jury rules on the Baker case and then the entire book is about the appeal. And what the huge multi-billion dollar company will do to get out of paying for what it has done to the city of Bowmore.

Of course, like all of Grisham’s books, many of the legal and political practices make me angry! But I really enjoyed this book! And I am glad that Grisham has returned to what he does best!