Uncategorized – Page 97 – Peaceful Reader

Harry Potter

Just saying that name aloud makes me smile. Did J.K. realize how important that name would be when she put Harry together with Potter and added James and Lily. Having my children spread out in ages a bit has given me the rare treat of repeating my HP love all over again. I was delighted when my 7-year-old broached the subject of reading the first Harry Potter to her. I jumped at the chance, of course. Her desire to start the series came through her older siblings and school chums, who naturally got the fever from their older siblings…and so on…

I remember my own fever of waiting for the delivery of each book, wrapped in brown paper, hiding its magical contents. We attended many HP coming out parties for both books and movies, staying up late to drink witch’s brew and eat Bertie Bott’s every flavor beans. After the first book came out our local mall hosted a HP look-a-like contest and our now 15-year-old, ever dramatic, dressed the part. He didn’t win but we had such a great time talking with the many other participants. Several summer vacations are memorable as we traveled across the country to the sounds of Jim Dale keeping us silent, in rapt attention as he magically read all the parts with perfect detail! Ahhh, the memories!

Peaceful Girl, her dad and I finished the first book soon after our Michigan trip and are almost half way through the second book and we are finishing the first movie as I type. This, for me, as a teacher, is what summer is all about…the fact that I can hold my little ones hand as she watches the Hogwart’s Express take Harry, Ron and Hermione away!

Click for J.K. Rowling’s website.

How about you? How many tmies have you reread any of the Harry Potter books? Do you remember great HP parties?

Library Finds

Been to the library.

Have a whole stack to share.

1. Creamed Tuna Fish & Peas on Toast (2009) by Philip Christian Stead

This one is cute with a great refrain-kids will love to help you repeat it. Wild Man Jack does not like creamed tuna fish & peas on toast so all week long his sweet children ask him “What will you do if Mama Jane cooks creamed tuna fish and peas on toast?” and each time he responds with a new reply. What makes this book really dynamic is the cool layered illustration created by Stead. Click on the author for his funky website.

2. Food For Thought; The stories behind the things we eat (2009) by Ken Robbins.
This is a good resource book with detailed information about apples, oranges, corn, bananas, tomatoes, potatoes pomegranates, grapes and mushrooms. Each food covers at least 3-4 pages with everything from how to eat it, how it grows and its history. The information is interesting but seems scattered to me. About the banana he moves from where bananas grow (Southeast Asia, Africa, India, Central America) to what a Banana republic is (large plantation owner from developed country in charge of poorest pickers), to a discussion about bananas vs. plantains to the healthy benefits of bananas and then jumps to Carmen Miranda becoming Chiquita Banana advertising to slapstick comedy (slipping on a banana peel). While it was jumpy to me I think kids will enjoy the variety of topics and how fast moving it reads.

3. Our Corner Grocery Store (2009) by Joanne Schartz; illustrated by Laura Beingessner.

This sweet book tells the story of Anna Maria, who helps her grandparents at their store. Nonno Domenico and Nonna Rosa open the store promptly at eight and Anna Maria helps Nonno arrange the fruit and vegetables in the front wooden racks. It talks about pricing the produce, the layout of the store and the variety of items they stock. The lunchtime crowd shows the deli side, with everyone picking their favorite meats and cheeses. Both peaceful girl and I noticed how important to the grocery store is to the neighborhood and how they all help each other. This brought back memories of grocery stores of the past but also of city markets I shopped at in Chicago. I can see this book as a great tool for teachers in my school. Click here for an interview with author and illustrator froom Open Book Toronto.

Reading and writing about these three books has made me hungry. Time for lunch.
I hope you check out any of these books at your own library and explore with a child or your own child-like eyes!

Pins and Needles

I saw an acupuncturist on Wednesday and it was a new experience for me. There was a lovely windchime right outside the office door dispelling all the bad chi or at least moving chi around. The waiting room reminded me of a hip massage place with earthy music, chimes and beautiful shaded lamps.

After my paperwork was complete I was lead to one of those small cubicle rooms with more lovely music and a massage style table and it was heated!! I only found that out after I disrobed and put on an odd hospital-like gown and was able to lay down on that bed-hard and skinny but warm with nice cotton covers on it. Tara Anderson-the acupuncturist-(who by the way, was much younger than I expected!) came in and we chatted about my back and how I felt in general. She asked if I wanted to see the needles she would use and of course, I said yes. They are tiny and soft, more like a flexible pin. She quickly moved around me dabbing alcohol (i think) on particular parts of my body and she started inserting the needles at my scalp-a little pinch, yes!) but those were the only ones that bothered me.

Tara continued around my body from my head she put a few in my hands, my stomach and down my legs. She said they need to stay there for 20-30 minutes, she flicked out the light and left me to meditate or sleep. I couldn’t feel the needles while I was laying there and I kept waiting for some amazing flash of brilliant color but nothing psychadellic happened. The massage table was toasty warm and I think I did fall asleep for a few minutes. Then the nurse aide came in, removed all the needles, zip, zip, zip, and after I sat up, she gave me a quick little back massage. I am walking a little easier even though I still have some aches and pains. I did make another appointment for Monday evening because, even though I’m anti consummer and don’t really buy into programs (other than yoga), I felt it was a positive. I liked that it was a whole experience similar to a massage and unlike chiropractic appointments, which last all of 5 minutes. So thumbs up for acupuncture!!

Devil on My Heels

Joyce McDonald

(2004)

262 pages

Young Adult

I have a blogging friend who has read so many, many books that when we go to the library she is really good about going down the stacks and pulling out random books (books you might not otherwise take one look at) and asking (telling) you to read them. I generally listen until my stack gets too high and she is always right. The last time we were at the library she told me I just had to read McDonald’s Devil on My Heels and I loved it!!

Fifteen-year-old Dove narrates this historical fiction/coming-of-age tale and her story begins like this:

Lately I have taken to reading poems to dead boys in the Benevolence Baptist Cemetary. They don’t walk away before I have finished the first sentence, like most of the live boys I know. When I read to them, their eyes don’t wander to something, or someone, more interesting. I can pretend these boys are listening. I can pretend they hear me. (1)

Dove is studying poetry with her English teacher, Ms. Delpheena Poyer and she continues:

On Friday afternoons like this one, right after seventh period. I head straight for the cemetary. I like to sit beneath the Austrian pines in the cool shade, reading lines from Tennyson or Wordsworth, listening to the trees making up their own poems. Soft words in the language of wind and pine needles. (1)

See that’s all on just page one…Dove is a great character, innocent to the ways of the world but savvy enough to know that “live boys” don’t appreciate great poetry. Her mother passed when she was a four-year-old and she lives with her father on an orange grove in Benevolence, Florida. Her days are spent hanging out with her friends, going to school and trying to feel older than she is. It hasn’t been that many years past that she was tearing around the orange grove with Gator, a young African-American grove worker and Chase Tully, a grove owner’s son. Things are beginning to change for Dove…
Both Gator and Chase are still important to her and are critical in helping Dove see how the groves provide a working environment one rocky step up from slavery. It’s a slow realization that things are not as easy going as her life has been in the past as she gets used to the idea that the local KKK group is rearing it’s ugly head again as the workers are blamed for random fires started in several groves. Delia Washburn, Dove’s housekeeper since the death of her mother, also provides answers to old mysteries involving her dead husband. Inbetween trying to figure out the meaning of all the local fires, Dove tries to put out the fire burning inside her every time Chase looks as her now. Yep, things have really changed for Dove! McDonald provides several great twists as Gator, Chase and Dove avoid the KKK and run from those they love in order to save their friendship! I recommend this book for middle and young adult as well as all adults interested in great writing. 5/5 stars

Other reviews here:

Read this
Maxson Middle School
Joyce McDonald’s website

***counts for 2010 Support Your Library Reading Challenge***

Tomorrow I’ll try to answer all burning questions about my acupuncture appointment!!

The Reinvention of Edison Thomas

Jacqueline Houtman

2010

This is the story of Eddy; short for Edison because of a crazy old family tradition. He even has an uncle named Beckett Thomas. I immediately fell in love with Eddy. He’s charming throughout this difficult journey of self-discovery. When the story opens Eddy is competing at the Drayton Middle School annual Science Fair. He comes in third and is mad, disappointed that he won’t get the chance to compete in the regional science fair. It is easy to tell from his behavior at the fair that something is a little different about Eddy. He is affected by loud sounds and has a hard time processing events that occur around him. As Eddy’s story unfolds we never do get a full description of what causes his anxieties but we do learn what brings them out. He doesn’t like loud noises, he doesn’t understand common euphemisms, his social skills are low and his speech pattern is more robotic than pre-teenager. He is incredibly smart and loves to tinker around with used parts, trying out a variety of inventions. When the crossing guard is let go from the intersection closest to school Eddy becomes obsessed with the dangers this could cause to young students.

Many of his strong points make him a “geek” at school and because of his social skills he has a difficult time figuring out who his friends really are. Two of the bigger themes in this book are bullying and friendship. These themes play out as as Eddy tries to figure out why his old friend Mitch sends him such mixed signals. Eddy does make some real friends who can appreciate all of his good points while gently guiding him through the few little things that cause him trouble. Most of the characters were well-written by Houtman except the school principal and the therapist Eddy sees at school. They both annoyed me. I thought it was ridiculous that the principal didn’t realize he was being played and Tiffany, the therapist, didn’t have great follow-through with Eddy. I kept thinking this must be her first year as a therapist!

But I loved Eddy and was happy to see him begin to understand the true meaning of friendship and to cope with Mitch’s behavior.

Perfect Quote:

The last page of the pamplet appeared in his mind. He began to recite the speech he had prepared. “I may not be as popular as you-“

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Mitch as he found what he had been looking for in his locker and closed the door. “The square root of 1,225 is 35, but do not change the subject. I may not be as popular as you are, but I am a human being-” Eddy T. (152)

Mitch, who is a very believable bully, goes on to make fun of Eddy but what I love about this quote is it took me reading it twice to get it!! I love these little bits of subtle humor. This book would be a great read-aloud for its many themes including its wide use of common euphemisms. The author is a scientist and does such a good job of adding in random bits of essential information, which would make a cool student project-to collect those facts highlighted and study them! I recieved this from The Picnic Basket.
5/5 stars
elementary fiction

20 Questions-I answered them all…

(My kids playing by Lake Michigan)

Rebecca at Lost in Books hosts 20 Questions and I was featured waaay back on June 24th-right in the middle of my Michigan camping vacation. Read my answers to her interesting questions by clicking here. Her questions really made me contemplative about how everyone comes to reading from different places but how similar we all become with our faces tucked behind a book.

5 Titles

As promised here are snippets about the five books I read in bed while laid flat with the pinched nerve in my lower back. These are all books from my own shelf, required reading from exact same reading challenge hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea and they all needed the same qualities-easy to read, low level of comprehension needed so I could understand it in my vicodin swirly, twirly brain as I napped and read and napped and read.

My feel-good-five

Home to Italy by Peter Pezzelli: A friend gave this to me last summer with the warning that it was easy fluff reading and she was right. Sweet story though about Peppi exploring a new life in Italy after the death of his beloved wife, Anna. He moves back to the same village he grew up in and stays with an old friend who runs a candy factory. Peppi meets the old friend’s daughter and Italian sparks fly!! 3/5 stars

Never Change by Elizabeth Berg: Myra Lipinski (what a classic name) is a fifty-one year old self-proclaimed spinster who almost happy with her quiet existence. As a visiting nurse she is assigned a new patient who she knows from high school. Chip Reardon was the bmoc (big man on campus) and Myra adored him (along with the rest of the class, I’m sure) now she has a chance to meet him on her level as he becomes her patient with a brain tumor. This one actually had some amazing life lessons. 4/5 stars Click on the author’s name above-she has a website worth exploring.

The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by e.l. konigsburg: My favorite book in my pre- teen years was From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I reread it two years ago to make sure it truly was good and I still loved it. Because I loved her other books I picked up this one publishished in 2007-a time far removed from my pre-teen years. This story, while different, gave me a little deja vu feeling as I read (maybe it was the vicodin) Amedeo Kaplan is new to town and looking for a friend and a mystery. He wants to find something that means something; a discovery noone else has made. He finds both as he meets William Wilcox, William’s mother and Amadeo’s neighbor, Mrs. Zender and what they find dates back to Nazi Germany and the artists that were forbidden by Hitler. 3.5/5 stars

The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank: Okay I had deja vu reading this one also but I think it was because I had read parts of it years ago. This is a work of fiction that reads more like a hilarious memoir. It tells the nonlinear story of Jane Rosenal, first as a teenager befriending her older brother’s older girlfriend to her own affair with an older and famous editor in New York, and all told with incredible wit! The part that affected me most was her relationship with her father and his illness which took me sweepingly back to my own father’s pneumonia. Curious about what Bank has written more recently, I came up with Shop Indie Bookstores“>The Wonder Spot, published in 2005. 4/5 stars

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen: I grabbed this one off the shelf because I knew I could rely on Dessen to take me away and it did. Abandoned by her alcoholic mother, Ruby is hoping to stay under the radar for a few months until her 18th birthday liberates her. She keeps it all balanced until the dryer breaks and the landlord comes to fix it and turns her in to social services. Social Services sends her to live with her next living relative, her sister, Cora, who left the house 10 years ago without looking back. Cora and her husband, Jamie, have money and provide Ruby with a much easier life. This new life shows her things are not always as they seem even in the nice part of town. Dessen’s books are a joy to read because she has a good grip on the dynamics of a teenager, from which great characters are born. I’ve read almost all of her collection with just two left; The Truth about Forever and Along for the Ride. 4/5 stars

I love how books can sweep you away into someone else’s life and your own life can be forgotten just for a few moments of reading-I needed that last week so a deep thank you to books and the beautiful shelf near my bed so they could be close at hand for easy grabbing!! I hope in this list you maybe find a title or an author to try…

Two week recap

I started July off with a bang of reading and high hopes of lots of blogging to go together. Alas I’ve been sideswiped with this awful back problem, which contradicts how I usually feel (young and healthy compared to old and restricted to certain activiites). You know like, “Oh, Eunice I don’t think I can do that anymore…you know, my back…!! I worked with a chiropractic friend for two weeks with only limited improvement and I now have an appointment on Wed. for acupuncturist. I’ve never tried acupuncture and am fairly excited about this and pray it will help.

In the meantime I have to get caught up on the amount of books I’ve read compared to the amount of blog posts. My solution is to write a snippet about each one here for you today. I have a ice pack at my back so I can sit up and type.

Here are the books I finished during our Michigan trip:

Maggie’s Door by Patricia Reilly Giff: This is the companion to Nory Ryan’s Song, which describes Nory’s life in Ireland during the potato famine. Maggie’s Door describes her journey from her small, empty village to the bustling, crowded docks where she will take a boat to Brooklyn, NY-her older sister’s door-safe from the poverty and starvation of Ireland. I love this author and enjoyed this sequel and plan to read Water Street as well. Perfect historical fiction for elementary audience. 5/5 stars

Shop Indie Bookstores“>Oh. My. Gods. by Tera Lynn Childs: Cute cover made me buy it awhile ago and it was a cute story but the dialogue was over-the-top for me. Phoebe’s lives in Los Angeles, has two best friends, loves to run and misses her dad, who died 6 years ago. Her mom comes home from a vacation with a new fiance, Damian, from Greece and her mom plans on moving there and expects Phoebe to go with her. Phoebe hates it, then loves it because of hot guy, Griffin and well, she does love running along the beach. Think Shop Indie Bookstores“>The Lightning Thief for older Valley Girls. Yes, I plan on reading the sequel, Shop Indie Bookstores“>Goddess Boot Camp. 3/5 stars **reading from my own shelves challenge**

Shop Indie Bookstores“>Serena by Ron Rash: This book will make my top ten list for the year. This is the brutal tale of Serena and George Pemberton who build a timber empire by falling trees thoughout the Appalachian Mts in 1929. Serena, new to the mountains, is a force to be reckoned with and she scared me. Weaved into their story is a young woman who worked at the timber camp and is the mother of George’s illegitimate son. This truly is a page turner and I plan to read more of Rash’s books because his writing fully captured my attention. 5/5 stars

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next batch of books-my laying in bed with an ice pack reads!!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

by Alan Bradley
(2009)
370 pages

I’ve been getting a great deal of reading done as I try to relax and heal my back. It’s not easy for me to lay around all day but I’m having a fantastic time finishing so many books. Cleaning my house will just have to wait.

Languishing on my pile since last summer was Alan Bradley’s novel and winner of the Debut Dagger Award, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. I’m done now and so happy to have finally read it.

Synopsis:

In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

(from GoodReads)

My thoughts:

I’m not a huge fan of mysteries because well, they often scare me too much. This one was more of a thoughtful mystery with a very entertaining heroine. Flavia is a rule breaker, a curious adventurer who doesn’t really listen to anyone else but her own instinct. Harriet, her mother, was killed in a mountaineering accident when Flavia is just one yet the connection between mother and daughter is strong. She doesn’t understand her two sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, who lay about reading and weeping all day long and her father has never fully recovered from his wife’s death and spends his day moping about the house as well. Flavia seems to breathe new life into her family as she races about on Harriet’s old bike trying to fit all the odd clues together.

My favorite quote:

Closed? Today was Saturday. The library hours were ten o’clock to two-thirty, Thursday through Saturday; they were clearly posted in the black-framed notice beside the door. Had something happened to Miss Pickery?
I gave the door a shake, and then a good pounding. I cupped my hands to the glass and peered inside, but except for a beam of sunlight falling through motes of dust before coming to rest upon shelves of novels there was nothing to be seen.
“Miss Pickery!” I called, but there was no answer.
“Oh, scissors!” I said again. I should have to put off my researches until another time. As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
No…eight days a week. (57-58)

I love any great quote that highlights the library and the use of the word “scissors” as an explicative makes perfect sense!! There is a second Bradley book featuring Flavia de Luce, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag #2-the title is interesting and I know Flavia will shine again.
4/5 stars
adult mystery fiction

Other reviews here:

FyreFly’s Review
Stainless Steel Droppings

My back is still pinched and my thoughts are scattered but as this is a book that counts for Reading from my own shelves challenge I wanted to write my thoughts out and pass the book on. My chiropracter’s wife wants to read it so I’m happily passing it on at my appointment tomorrow morning.

The Travel Game

by John Grandits; illustrated by R.W. Alley
(2009)

I love this book!

Opening paragraph: My family owns a tailor shop. It’s on the first floor at 857 Broadway in the city of Buffalo, which you can find on the globe next to Lake Erie in the state of New York in the country of the U.S.A on the continent of North America.

Tad, our wee main character, describes the tailor shop and how the suits are made and how each family member has specific tasks to accomplish at the shop. Tad likes helping out at the shop but is enticed one day after lunch to play a favorite game with his Aunt Hattie. They use a globe and a book: 1001 Pictures from Around the World by George P. Smithers to begin globe-trotting. Aunt Hattie says: “Okay, you close your eyes, and I’ll spin the globe. Then you put your finger down, and that’s where we’ll go.” (15) When Tad points his finger down he’s landed in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean and so Aunt Hattie takes her turn. This next time they land in Hong Kong. They use 1001 Pictures from around the World (which, by the way, is not a real book, I checked) to research Hong Kong and what it looks like. You can’t travel to some place and not have an idea of what it might look like since Tad admits he’s never been outside of Buffalo. Aunt Harriet uses her vivid imagination and story-telling skills to help Tad visualize their exotic destinations.

This book is a must-have for my library in the fall and I have tons of ideas on how to use it. I plan to read it to 5th graders as an introduction to research and world geography. It will also work for discussions on imagination, community, family and visualizing. The illustrations are detailed and add to the coziness of the book. R.W. Alley is the same illustrator as There’s a Wolf at the Door written by his wife, Zoe B. Alley.

Highly Recommended
5/5 stars
Picture Book
Author website-John Grandits
Illustrator website-R.W. Alley

Other reviews:

Katie’s Literature Lounge (she has an activity created to go along with this book)
Tasha at Kids Lit