Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

I haven't blogged for a month. I am really embarrassed that I have been so bad about posting and reading for that matter. A couple of weeks ago I got the chance to go to Boston for an IB conference. The conference was really enlightening and taught me a lot about the program, but touring Boston was even better! This is a picture of me with the duckling statues in Boston Commons. These statues are of the 8 ducklings and their mom from Robert McCloskey's children's book Make Way for Ducklings. In the book, the ducks return home to Boston Public Garden. The book was originally published in 1941 and it won a Caldecott Medal somewhere along the way. It is a children's book that is still in print today and still a fun read! My new friend here was "feeding" the ducklings, but he said that it was okay if I took a picture with them.

The HHS library has a bunch of new audio books. They are in the format of Playaways which means that the book is loaded onto a small mp3 sort of player. It fits easily into a pocket and was great to listen to on the plane. I listened to Airborn by Kenneth Oppel. It is a fantasy book and different from any other book I have read (or listened to). The audio book has a full-cast audio which means that even though Matt narrates the book, the other characters have different people reading their parts. This makes the book very easy and enjoyable to listen to.

Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the airship Aurora. His father worked on the Aurora before he was killed in an accident and Matt has worked on the ship for several years. It is the only place he feels at home and close to his father.

Matt is on lookout one day and he spots a tattered hot air balloon. The airship rescues the balloon and finds an old man injured in the basket. The man dies a few days later after telling Matt about the creatures he saw in the sky. A year later Matt meets Kate who is a passenger on the Aurora. Kate is the granddaughter of man who died in the hot air balloon and she has come to find the strange animals that her grandfather claims he saw. She and Matt have many adventures include a run in with pirates, a ship wreck and the discovery of the amazingly new flying animals. Airborn is a great book filled with adventure for all!

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Like Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins begins with all the young people between the ages of 12 and 18 joining together where two names will be called: one boy and one girl. These two names will designate who will represent the area in this year's Hunger Games. When Katniss's 12-year-old sister's name is read, Katniss immediately volunteers to go in her place. Thus she finds herself in the ultimate survival game: 24 young people thrown into an arena forced to fight to survive until only one remains. These games sponsored by the Capitol are televised so that all can see who will kill or who will be killed.

Katniss has many survival skills that help her in these games, and she is not afraid of hunger because her family never has enough to eat. But the idea of killing another human being sickens her. Plus one of the contestants is a neighbor Peeta. Katniss and Peeta went to school together and they train together. Soon she discovers that Peeta has been in love with her since they were small children. And Katniss credits him with saving her life when her family was starving. In order to win will she be able to kill Peeta? Is Peeta really trying to kill her?

The gruesome idea behind the Hunger Games adds a desperate component to the novel as you read to see who survives. Once the games begin, it is nonstop adventure and excitement. I couldn't put this book down. I had to know what would happen to Katniss, Peeta and the others in the Hunger Games.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

I love books with strong female characters. I am so tired of stories where the poor defenseless girl has to be saved by the big strong man--ick! It is really thrilling that so many authors today are writing books where the female protagonist learns to solve her own problems. Graceling by Kristin Cashore is a great example of this.

In this fantasy novel, some people are born with "Graces" that provide them talents in various things; for example, a person might be born with a talent in sword fighting or a talent in running. Others can tell that you are a Graceling because when your talent develops your eyes change colors so that you have two different colored eyes. Katsa is a Graceling. Her grace is in the area of killing. Called the Lady Killer, Katsa has been in service to her uncle the king since she was very young. Her job is to threaten, maim or kill anyone who does him wrong. She is feared wherever she travels.

Katsa doesn't want to spend her life killing for King Randa who does things she doesn't agree with, so she forms a Secret Council to help right the wrongs that are happening in the Seven Kingdoms. On one of her secret missions, Katsa meets another Graceling, Po, who challenges her to become her own person. Po is a talented fighter, but no match for Katsa. However, they become friends as Katsa deals with her identity, her womanhood, and who gets to control her life.

Besides having a great character in Katsa, Po is not afraid to admit that she is stronger than him and can beat him in a fight every time. He encourages her to find out who she really is. This discovery is really important when Po and Katsa set off to another part of the Kingdom to deal with a truly evil king who has his own Grace that is worse than anything they could ever imagine. This adventure is exciting and fast-moving as Po and Katsa try to save the Kingdom while running for their lives.

Graceling is a great adventure story, a wonderful love story and a fantastic story of finding one's true identity. It is definitely on my list of 10 top books of 2008.

The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard

I am having lots of trouble getting back into the swing of school. It is 2:30 p.m. now and I am really struggling because I am missing my afternoon nap. I can't believe how easy it is to get into the afternoon nap habit in only 2 short weeks of vacation!

I didn't read too much over vacation, but I did enjoy The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard. This book is the 2009 Big Read book sponsored by the State Library of Kansas. And it is a great book for this purpose with lots of things to think about and discuss. It would be a good book club selection.

The Virgin of Small Plains is a book set in the Kansas Flint Hills written by a Kansas author. The book is about a Cold Case from 1987. It is a very cold case in fact: Rex and his brother and father are searching for calves during a blizzard when they find a dead bloody girl in the snow. They take the body to the town doctor who with the help of the town sheriff destroys the girl's face so she cannot be identified. She is buried in an unmarked grave and people claim that "the Virgin of Small Plains" can perform miracles. People come from all around to be healed by her.

Mitch is dating the doctor's daughter Abby. Sneaking out of her room in the middle of the night, he is hiding in the supply closet when the dead girl is brought in. He sees the seemingly respectable men covering up the crime and recognizes the girl. He hurries home and tells his father about what he has seen and his father quickly packs him off away from town instructing him to never talk about what he has witnessed.

The book takes place 17 years later. Mitch has never returned to Small Plains and Abby has never gotten over it. In another blizzard, Abby sees Mitch's mother running through the town cemetery and then finds her frozen to death. This brings back the death 17 years earlier and Abby decides that she must know what happened to the virgin and who she really was.

This book is told through a series of flashbacks and several different characters' points of view. It is a great mystery to find out who the virgin is and what happened to her on the snowy night years ago.

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

I loved Impossible by Nancy Werlin! It is part fairy tale, part romance, part adventure--what's not to love?!

Lucy's mother is crazy. She went crazy after having Lucy at age 18. Lucy has lived with her foster parents and has a normal perfect life until her mother returns. Lucy's mother lives as a bag lady and follows Lucy around singing the Simon and Garfunkel song "Scarborough Fair." You know the song, "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme..." However, her mother has a slightly different twist on the lyrics to the song.

Since her mother has returned, Lucy knows that something is going to happen and it does. Lucy's prom night is a disaster complete with a rape, a death, and a pregnancy. And suddenly, Lucy is like her mother, going to have a baby at 18. But Lucy discovers that something is really strange. Not only did her mother have a daughter at 18, but her grandmother did and so did her great-grandmother and so did her great-great-grandmother, and after the baby was born, they all went crazy. With the help of the boy-next-door Zach, Lucy finds a letter from her mother and discovers that the women in her family are cursed and the song is the key to breaking the curse. Zach, her foster parents, and Lucy must work hard to complete the tasks and break the curse before the baby is born and Lucy slips into madness.

Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Girls, have you ever felt like you live in a male dominated society? Do you think that boys get more attention in class than you do? Do you feel like you always do what your boyfriend wants to do and he never does what you want to do? If you have these feelings, then The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart is the book for you.

Frankie Landau-Banks is a sophomore at Alabaster, an exclusive boarding school, and she dates one of the most popular senior boys at school. Frankie is smart, clever and very ambitious, but everyone underestimates her. Her boyfriend thinks she is "adorable" and her family calls her "Bunny Rabbit." But Frankie knows that she is worth more than just being "cute." Her father brags about the great friends that he made when he attended Alabaster and that he belonged to a males-only secret society. Frankie wants to have the experiences her father talks about and she wants to be more to her boyfriend than "arm candy." So Frankie uses her computer to infiltrate the Loyal Order of Basset Hounds and makes the members do what she wants. She comes up with some elaborate schemes and hopes that the male members of the society will see how ingenious, creative and superior she is. Of course, this is complicated even more when she learns that her boyfriend is the leader of the Basset Hounds.

This novel is filled with word play which adds to the humor and the fun of the book. But seriously, readers must consider what drives Frankie to make the decisions she makes and what all girls need to do to find equal footing with their male counterparts.

Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances

I love Christmas stories. I love watching hokey Christmas movies on TV and I love reading Christmas stories! Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle is a fun collection of 3 interrelated Christmas stories.

As I have said before, I adore John Green. He could write a recipe and I would be dying to read it. So when I saw this book, I had to read it since it combined two of my favorite things: Christmas stories and John Green.

On a very snowy Christmas Eve in Virginia, a train gets stuck in a snow drift. Jubilee is traveling to her grandparents' in Florida, Jeb is trying to get home to his girlfriend and a group of cheerleaders are going to a competition. When the train gets stuck, Jubilee (called Julie) gets off the train and walks to a nearby Waffle House. Jeb and the cheerleaders follow shortly. In the first story, "Jubilee Express," Julie is upset about leaving her "perfect" boyfriend on Christmas, however, at the Waffle House, she meets Stuart who rescues her from cold and cheerleaders as they brave the snow to make it to his house for Christmas. In "A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle," Tobin undertakes an epic journey through the storm to the Waffle House where there are cheerleaders waiting to play Twister. Through a series of adventures, Tobin begins to see his best friend, The Duke, in a different light. Later that night, Tobin and Duke visit the nearby Starbucks where they meet up with Addie in the final story "Patron Saint of Pigs." Self-absorbed Addie who works at Starbucks needs some time to come to terms with the fact that she cheated on her boyfriend Jeb who then stood her up on Christmas Eve. Thus the stories come full circle back to Jeb and the train in one really nice book about romance, hope and Christmas!