A week past

Wow-a whole week and no blogging!  It has been an extremely crazy week and I am so happy to have reached Friday.  My computer was missing its power cord (or was it me that was missing it…) for a few days at the beginning of the week as I (mercilessly) left it in Indiana at my friend Barb’s house.  She nicely  mailed it to me even though she is coming to town this weekend.  I got the cord on Wed afternoon and still couldn’t even think about blogging.  I’ve also had a wicked cold which has had me crawling into bed soon after getting my peaceful girl to bed.
Just so you know the week wasn’t a total loss here is a list of all the other things I did get accomplished in my absence:

1. I emailed author, Jeanette Hopkins,who is planning a visit.  This was long overdue as it was dumped in my lap by the early retiring TAG teacher.  I don’t mind having the assignment but was a little behind in all the arrangements.

2. I worked steadily on report cards for two days only to find out they are not do today as I was once told but next week, which (ha, ha) puts me ahead for next week!  We are just required to do a number grade (1,2,3) but it still takes a huge brain process to call up each sweet face.

3. I had a book club meeting on Monday evening.  Speaking of Monday night, here’s how it went down: I left work right at 4:00 so I could run home and charge my dead phone, grabbed a bottle of wine from my very small stash-I was going to need it later.  I picked Japhy up from school for her gymnastics class, arranged with another mom/friend to bring Japhy home, watched her tumble and stretch for 30  minutes (and while my phone was charging, (thanks to the gym for having available outlets) then left to go to book club.  Our book this week was The Help, which I love but read quite awhile ago. My book club read it on my suggestion so I felt the need to be there even though I missed my first second series of yoga!   I fell in bed right after book club ended!  The treats were delicious and the conversation was deep. 

4. Tuesday was my husband’s birthday yet we had a 4:00 funeral to attend and then my husband’s drama youth group met so he did not get home to celebrate until 8:30.

5. Wednesday my mom (mostly) with me picking up the slack (me scrubbing potatoes) after I arrived home from school.  We made my husband a lovely birthday dinner.  She made him a pie for desert and he (needing some much needed quiet time)asked to eat dinner while watching a movie.  My mother agreed but I could tell in her heart she was disappointed.  It was an odd choice of my husband’s but it was his birthday celebration.
5.  Thursday was pretty similar to Monday’s schedule but involved two long appointments with teenage angst son.  Luckily my mom was still  in town to help so my husband and I both could attend  appts. with young son.  We ate dinner on the fly at Jimmy Johns between appts. 

6. I created and uploaded to our server file three lesson plans for my ongoing project with other librarians in my district. 

7.  I received three boxes of brand new beautiful books from Titlewave, which I compare to going to the grocery store: 3 boxes of books=$2,000+.  I am so excited to inventory them and get them out on the shelves.  Because of all other things occuring at work I had to hold myself back from opening them earlier in the week and just immersing myself in the happiness new books bring to me.  Today’s the day though so picture me, in my very brand new back room, luxuriating with new books all around me as I read.

8.  I also worked with my principal to fix a huge crisis-I was denied a personal day to attend the Dalai Lama’s speech on education at my alma mater.  I’ve wanted my whole life to hear him speak and I have the tickets so I was crushed and mystefied as to why I was denied.  We worked some things out but I’m not going to go into detail just yet. 

9.  In the midst of all this craziness I’ve been reading The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen, which I preordered from Powell’s. Yes, I know I wasn’t supposed to buy any new books until I read all the books from my shelves but life is full of exceptions.  The last two days I’ve been reading in spare moments because I’m so interested in this story.  I also have to write reviews for Just Listen by Sarah Dessen and Operation Yes by Sarah Lewis Holmes.

10. I am so happy the weekend is here (almost) never mind that I have guests coming for the weekend.  I plan to make it a stress-free weekend-after I scour my house. 
p.s. my mom gave me a head start-she cleaned my microwave, refrigerator and my oven.  Thanks mom!!

Hope your week has been peaceful!
Happy reading-

Link to local article about our school yoga project.

Peaceful Reading…

Wildwood Dancing

Juliet Marillier
(2007)

If you do judge a book by its cover…this one would live up to it.  The cover shows us so much of what you will find inside.  If you look closely you can see the frog, Gogu resting on Jena’s shoulder.
Inside the front cover lies a simple blurb: 

Five adventurous sisters…
Four dark creatures…
Three magical gifts…
Two forbidden lovers…
One enchanted frog…
Cross the threshold into the
Wildwood, and enter a land of magic, daring, betrayal…
and true love.
I already love fairy tales and this is tale is brilliantly written and inspired by The Twelve Dancing Princess, but mixed into the pot is a baba yaga /witch of the forest, an enchanted frog and a little bit of Sleeping Beauty thrown in. 
Let me share two quotes:
I suppose the secret was not completely ours; Gogu knew.  But even if frogs could talk, Gogu would never have told.  Ever since I’d found him long ago, crouched all by himself in the forest, dazed and hurt, I had known I could trust him more than anyone else in the world.        ( p. 1)
and
It made no difference that we had done this over and over.  The sense of thrilling strangeness had never gone away.  Every Full Moon, our bodies tingled with the magic of it.  The lamp shone on the blank wall.  One by one, we stretched out our hands, and the lantern light threw the silhouettes onto the stones.  One by One, we spoke our names in a breathless whisper:
“Tatiana.”
“Jenica.”
“Iulia.”
“Paula.”
“Stela.”                                                                                                                     ( p. 9)
Can’t you just hear the whisper of their voices as they cross over into the Wildwood for a night of dancing among the creatures of the forest.  Find this book at your local library and fall in love with the adventurous tale of Jena, her sisters and her friendly frog.  I now want to read Juliet Marillier’s follow-up book, Cybele’s Secret.  If I trust the cover-it looks just about as good as the first!
***2010 Reading from my Local Library Project***
5/5 peaceful stars
Highly recommended for middle grade/YA/adult readers
Peaceful Reading…

Reading on vacation

I had a lovely Spring Break.  I finished Wildwood Dancing before we left for Chicago (review to come), I read Just Listen by Sarah Dessen on the trip and on the ride home yesterday I got half way through Operation Yes by Sara Lewis Holmes.  It isn’t a massive amount but I did also enjoy my children, see my step-daughter in a play (She Loves Me) at Northside College Prep and visit with one of my oldest friends, Barbara and her lovely family.  Barbara gave me back Jitterbug Perfume, which I had lent her and now I think I might need to go back and reread it as she said she needed a dictionary to read it…

We got home yesterday after picking up the dog at the kennel (which was not the doggie retreat it advertised and unpacked the car from out four day trip.  You would have thought we had the kitchen sink in the station wagon.  There is something about driving that makes our family pack anything we think we might need in that four day period.  I love pulling out the bag of activities my daughter took along but never bothered to use. I love that we carted along Elizabeth, her AG doll, who spent the entire vacation in the car.  I made some comment to peaceful girl about Elizabeth not having a very exciting road trip-never leaving the station wagon-her retort is “She’s a doll, mom!”  Mmmhmmm…a doll who needs her own wardrobe, bedroom set and accessories, interesting! 

I think I’m excited about Health Care Reform passing although I’m not sure.  Yes, I do want health care reform but truthfully, I wish I could have written the bill myself.  It would have said something like this …”If you do not have quality, affordable health care for you and your family then you may purchase health care from the US government public option.  Public Option just gives us a good alternative to the rip-off  insurance companies out there who keep upping the price of insurance with no extra benefits involved.  I would have thrown in something about small businesses using the public option as well because they need to be competitive in today’s market.”  It would have been about a paragraph long instead of the 100 page long document I researched online.  Part A, Part B, Part C…to much filler. 

In other current news I have been listening to The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova, which is 17 discs long.  I love the story and am anxious to get back to listening to it on my drive back and forth to work.  I’ve had to renew it 3 times from the library (an ipod would help) so that both my husband and I can finish it. 

How is your first day of Spring?

Peaceful Reading…

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
~Grab your current read
~Open to a random page
~Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
~Be careful not to give away to much-you don’t want to spoil the book for others.
~Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here is my teasers:

The danced. All by themselves, beyond the farthest fringe of the crowd, they circled and swayed, met and parted, turned and passed.  Even when the steps of their dance drew them apart, their heads turned to look, and look, and look, as if they would drown in each other’s eyes.  p. 75    ~Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier

I love this book.  It is has a connection to The Twelve Dancing Princesses and is very well-written.  I’m on chapter six and have to get back to reading…
ta ta for now.

What’s your teaser for the day?

Peaceful Reading~

Peaceful Reading…

Picture Books

Peaceful Girl and I have read 5 fantastic picture books recently. 
Our rundown in no particular order:

1.  Front Porch Tales & North Country Whoppers (2007) by Tomie DePaola:  This is a homegrown book just waiting to be read aloud.  The language is fun and sleepy little girl was begging for more as we  made our way through the 10 little folk tales and tall tales.  Her favorite was “Big Gertie and Love at First Sight” which begins:  If ya are ever in Weston, Vermont, and ya drive north through the village on Route 100, you’ll come to the Greendale Road on yer left.  The beginnin’ part is paved, but as soon as ya git to the unpaved part, you’ll be drivin’ into the Green Mountain National Forest. 
Once you there you meet the lumberjacks and their cook, Big Gertie, who is “BIG and TALL and BIG-BONED and is a distant cousin of the Bunyon family.  Big Gertie is a good cook but overworked and the lumberjacks find a great way to help her.  Fabulous pictures add to the tales as well.

2. A Young Dancer; The Life of an Ailey Dancer(2009) by Valerie Gladstone, photographs by Jose Ivey:  This book followers a beautiful young dancer, Iman Bright, an Ailey student.  Iman balances dance with school work and violin lessons.  Easy-to-read so young readers will love discovering all it takes to be a well-rounded dancer.  The photos are often full page spreads, giving the feel of being right there with Iman.  Alvin Ailey Dance site.

3. Budgie and Boo (2009)by David McPhail:  I love David McPhail’s The Teddy Bear and always enjoy using it as a read aloud at the library.  Kids really relate to this very compassionate tale.  This new one has two fantastic characters, Budgie is a bear and Boo is a bunny.  They both love to garden; Boo grows vegetables and Budgie grows flowers.  This one’s message is simple; isn’t it wonderful to have a special friend! 

4. Imogene’s Last Stand (2009) by Candace Fleming, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter:  This is the cutest elementary historical fiction book with a very high-spirited heroine.  Imogene has always loved  history and works hard to clean up the Liddleville Historical Society so others can come and visit.  Instead, the mayor decides to raze the historical house and Imogene fights back.  Full of spunk, Imogene teaches the whole town a lesson is what’s really important. 

5. Fancy Nancy; Poet Extraordinaire! (2010)by Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser: Peaceful Girl has told me a few times that she is “beyond” Fancy Nancy and has moved on to other reading materials.  Hmmm, that is until her grandmother brought her this one!  See little girl loves poetry, thanks to her amazing 1st grade teacher.  This one brought out all the stops as the other Nancy books do with all that wonderful word play focused on creating poetry.  I think come April I might have to create my own Palace of Poetry in our library!  Fancy Nancy has her own website-click here!

All 5 picture books rate
 5/5 peaceful stars
Highly Recommended-Elementary
Peaceful Reading…

Manly Man Award

Jana from Milk and Cookies; comfort reading and Adventures in the Library bestowed upon me a manly award.
I’m supposed to answer some questions about the manly side of myself. Here goes:
Tell a couple of things about yourself, the name of your favorite guy book, your favorite sports moment, favorite MANLY MAN movie, favorite manly music, and your Favorite Food With No Nutritional Value.

1. I never liked pink or glittery things, until I had a girl and she is a glittery, pink and purple kinda girl. Now its a bonding choice.
Along life’s journey I’ve had quite a few male best friends, truly great guys, even though my husband claims technically young men and women are not really able to be best friends.  I think he is implying something about my guy friends but I choose to ignore his innuendo.

2. My favorite GUY book is probably The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.

3. My favorite sports moment is way back in time when the Twins won the World Series and I was right there, waving a Homer Hanky.

4 Manly Movie: Troy–Brad Pitt is manly to me. Lots of sword play!

5. Manly Music: Nirvana, Guns n Roses.

6. Manly food:  Cheetos, movie popcorn and potato chips, on occasion.

I’m passing this Manly Man Award to:

Jim at TeacherNinja
Julie at Turning the Pages
Mr. H. at SMS Guys Read

To those of you I passed this along to you can pass along if you’ d like, or just accept and post your answers on your blogs! Thanks so much for the award guys!!

Thanks for playing along!

Peaceful Reading…

An Unfinished Angel

Sharon Creech
(2009)
Synopsis:  In the ancient stone tower of the Casa Rosa, in a tiny village high in the Swiss Alps, life for one angel has been the same, well, for as long as she (or he?) can remember.  Until Zola arrives, a determined American girl who wears three different skirts all at once.  For neighbors who have been longtime enemies, children who have been lost, and villagers who have been sleepily living their lives: hold on.  Zola and the angel are about to collide.  Figs start flying, dogs start arfing, and the whole village begins to WAKE UP.  Zola is a girl with a mission.  And our angel has been without one- till now. (from jacket flap) 
My thoughts:  It took about a chapter to let yourself get into the mind of the angel as she is the narrator and talks in an unusual speech pattern but the tale is wonderful.  Through Zola, the angel learns of a band of children, all living in an abandoned shack.  Zola’s constant refrain of “you have to do something” is one to be reiterated over and over in our own lives.  Slowly the village wakes up long enough to see the common good.  Like Anything but Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin this book would make a great read-aloud for elementary students to show empathy.  How can we each help the world, whether in our own neighborhood or on a larger scale to DO SOMETHING!  Creech demonstrates how, within each one of us, lives an unfinished angel that bears listening to.
A quote:
“Angel!” Zola says.  “We’ve got to get busy!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Are we telling anyone about the children? And then what? What if someone takes them away to an orphanage? That’s where they were, Paolo says. A bad orphanage.  But not in this country.  And then they lived in ditches.  Ditches! What’s the plan?
“Plan?” She is expecting me to have a plan?
“What’s next?”
“Next?”
“Angel! Are you having a hearing problem?”
And she goes on, “When should…” and “What time will…” and myself is woozy sleepy and I want to go lie down  in the pasture of the goats.  p. 86
The angel and Zola are enduring characters and I easily related to both sides (what is the plan?) and the pastoral setting of the Swiss Alps are lovely.  I could easily list quote after quote because once you get adjusted to angel-speak:
First, I tell you that I am in peace with the birdies and the froggies and the toads and the kittens and the puppies and the lizards, all of those creatures, just like I am in peace with the mountains and the trees and the flowers, but let’s not get too mushy.  I tell you that so you know that I am not like the peoples who hate everything and complain all day short or long.  Those peoples are sad.  p. 39
You can’t help but love this exquisitely crafted tale of getting out of our own comfort zone!
5/5 peaceful stars
Highly Recommended for all living beasts
Peaceful Reading…

Ooh-La-La-Spring Break

Okay, this is where I would like to be spending Spring Break.  It looks relaxing.  I would have a book in my hand, of course.  Instead we are heading into Chicago-still exciting-but not a pool with real palm trees!  I have a stack of books in front of me to review so I guess I should start there.

I started reading gossip of the starlings by Nina de Gramont one morning at the breakfast table.  I was riveted…didn’t want to go to school (rarely happens) and I continued to read long after my granola was gone.  I tucked it into my school bag and headed off for the day, hoping to read a few more chapters over lunch. 

 The story:

As soon as Catherine Morrow transfers in to Esther Percy School for Girls, Skye Butterfield
chooses her as her friend.  Even though Catherine is at Esther Percy to turn over a new, clean leaf, she allows Skye to take control.  Catherine has the connections and Skye has the typical  burning desire to try it all.  Skye’s father is a famous senator and even though, she loves her father, she can’t help but see all the hypocrisy surrounding their family life.  This mixture of feelings pulls Skye in all different directions and seems to steer her down the continual wrong path.  Catherine introduces her to coke but its Skye who needs to keep doing it and who discovers a variety of other drugs along the way.  She also gets several teachers in trouble and has an affair with her English teacher. 

My thoughts:

After the initial thrill of reading I was disappointed in the overall topic.  I got tired of Skye running the show.  I got tired of Catherine constantly accepting and excusing her friend’s behaviour.    Catherine, in this same, drug-filled year, is attempting to place at the National Horse Show and hold on to her own friends and family.  There were parts of the book I enjoyed and while I see it as probably pretty accurate boarding school behaviour (any high school for that matter) I found it to be too over-the-top, which made me just want to shake Catherine-hello-can you just say NO, just once.  I enjoyed the relationship between John Paul and Catherine-good young romance but beyond that I found nothing to connect to in the story. 
Confessions of a bibliophile review

2.5/5 peaceful stars
YA Fiction
Peaceful Reading…

Fairy Tale Fridays

Tif talks books, for a few weeks now, has a new meme going, Fairy Tale Fridays and I’ve been a reader and  a commenter even but not a participant.  This week I’m inspired though for two reasons. 
1. I’ve started a major fairy tale unit with second grade students 2. I have a new version of Stone Soup I’ve wanted to explore. 

The Real Story of Stone Soup
(2007)

First things I look at:  beautiful cover  and very interesting author/illustrator names.

Second:  Inside artwork and a fair amount of text.

Third: I read the story, savoring the wonderful way the pictures not only compliment the story but tell their own story as well.  You won’t get the full, “real” story unless you investigate the fabulous illustrations. 

It begins:  “It all began when I hired those troublesome Chang brothers to help me on my fishing boat.  Nice boys, but lazy and, I’m sorry to say, somewhat stupid.”  (okay, the word stupid used in reference to a person is a huge no-no in our house so red flag but luckily, by the end of the story, we know the Chang brothers are the opposite of stupid so it works for me.)

Uncle sleeps in the boat while the Chang brothers do the fishing and right about lunch time Uncle shakes himself awake.  They land on an island and without a soup pot proceed to make soup using rocks, unless you watch the pictures closely.  The pictures reveal the true method and shows their boss as the bumbling, complaining and lazy person he is.

(where you can listen to a young girl read the story as well!)
(where I found several other book titles to add to my wish list)
Now that I’ve explored it, and enjoyed it I have to wonder why there isn’t an award sticker of any kind on the front of this book…it is that good!
Peaceful Reading…

Anything but Typical

Nora Raleigh Baskin
(2009)

This little book is not an easy, lyrically-written bit of prose, but in this case, that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. 
Jason Blake is an autistic 12-year-old living in a neurotypical world.  Through Jason’s narration experiences are relayed, both past and present, giving a very real look at how difficult it is to be “different” in our world. 

This is a perfect quote to understand a day in Jason’s life:

     School doesn’t always go very well.  It is pretty much a matter of time before the first thing of the day will go wrong. 
     But today I’ve gotten far.  It is already third period.  Mrs. Hawthorne is absent and so we are going to the library instead of art class.  This is a good sign.  You’d think art class would be one of the easiest classes, but it’s not.  I mean, it’s not that it’s hard like math, but it’s hard like PE.  A lot of space and time that is not organized.
     Anything can go wrong in that kind of space.
     But  not in the library.  There are computers in the library.  And books. And computers. Keyboards and screens and desks that are built inside little compartments so you don’t have to look at the person sitting next to you.  And they can’t look at me.
     When we get into the library, somebody is already sitting in my seat, at my computer.  At the one I want.  Now I can’t breathe.  I want to log on to my Storyboard website.  I was thinking about it all the way here.  I have already had to wait so long.  I don’t know.  (p. 3-4)

His discomfort is palpable, his anxiety rising as the librarian tries to direct him to another computer, which does not work.  Eventually the young girl using the computer is talked into giving up the computer but only after she has made Jason feel horrible.  It continues:

     I feel off balance, like I am going to fall.  I need to shift my weight back and forth, back and forth, rock to stabilize myself.  I can feel my chance to use my computer getting further and further away from me.  There isn’t even enough time left in the period.  I might not get to log on at all, even if this girl does get up.  A hundred little pieces threaten to come apart. (p. 8)

Lucky for Jason his parents are supportive and understanding and he has one friend, Aaron, who is nice to him at school.  I loved this book because it gave me true insight into what it is like for an autistic child to live in for one moment, one day, every day, weeks rolling into months and years and the answer is its not easy.  I put this on my last order for the year, switching out a Babymouse, to purchase this one instead because I believe it will make a great read aloud for 3-5 grade students to hear and open up to the idea that, while Jason is different, many of his feelings are ones they have as well.
Another great review here at Abby (the) Librarian. and another from Tina at Books are my thing.  Nora Baskin’s site-click here.  I will definetely look for more from this author.

5/5 peaceful stars
Recommended for elementary / middle grade fiction
Peaceful Reading…