Library computers not letting me post comments on other blogs! Grrrr....

Here is a comment I wanted to leave on "Bez Says" right after Katie's comment, but for some reason it won't let me so I am posting it here...sorry :(

Regarding Crank....
I have only just started to read, and am having a little trouble adapting to the format as well. I know many of my students have read and liked the book, and even a girl at the YMCA saw me holding it and stopped to tell me what a good book it is. Well, after reading your description, I am having trouble believing any of you! It sounds...hmm...how can I say it...it sounds like a journey I don't want to go down right now! Never thought I'd say this but....I want a happy story! Just reading your blog prepared me for the emotional and disturbing tone of this book...

Yellowstar

So I finished Yellowstar lastnight. Theverse style  allowed me to read easily and fluidly making the book a very easy read as far as actual picking words of the page. It was a very difficult book to read as far subject matter is concerned. Comparing it to Breadwinner, it was fairly simple. Nothing to deep or introspective. The horrors were laid out for what they were. I don't even know what else to say about it, it is just terrible. One thing, it does remind me that we are never safe. one day our lives can be normal, and they next....crazy, but I do truly believe something like this could happen again. But the children, that is the one part I can't get over. i admired all those that hid their children and went through great measures (sleeping in a hole in a graveyard!) to safe them. I could not imagine. I can't see any parent having to deal with that. Walking into the library today, i was in the kid's section with my kids and I saw a book on the return shelf and it was "Children of the Slaughter" a book about children of the Holocaust. I scanned it for Syvia but did not see her name :( I was amazed to discover at the end that they lived in Rochester when they came to America!! That was so exciting to me! and it said her son went to one of the best school district in the country! (RCSD? Maybe in the 70's!) Anyways, good, heartwrenching read.....at least this one had a happy ending...kind of..
Looking forward to starting Crank later!

Disregard last post regarding The Book Thief!

Who would have known that only pages after i posted my last blog my feelings for the book would change dramatically. Now finished with The Book Thief, I have a love for it and a definite saddness inside me that was not there before. Rudy and Liesa both became much more dynamic in my eyes after the one hundreth page, as did Hans and her "mama."

I find it very interesting that  SO many of these YA novels center around a love of stories and reading. Mattie in A Northern Light loves to read and write and is amazed when she is brought into her teacher's library. Miguel, from De La Pena's We Were Here reads and connects and grows by reading canonical books, and even (what is his name? All I can think of is "Little Wolf"...is it Ben?) Deadline has a main character that is inspired by a book. I like the message it sends to readers, that reading books can transform you.

Anyway, The Book Thief is AMAZING! I came to really appreciate the style and the language. But the saddness...oh. my. god. This book offers a perspective not often seen. I really liked when during an air raid, as many families were crammed into a basement, death pondered if these German's, who all gripped each other tight, and attempted to quite the little ones, deserved this fate. Many of them were party memebers, they "heil Hitlered" Should they be punished for the crimes of their countrty? Were they all guilty?
This to me spoke largely about how we group a country and it's people. Just like I mentioned about the Breadwinner, we often hear "Afghanistan" and think terrorist, and we hear Nazi Germany and it's citizens and we think they are all bad. These people suffered too. And as Hans and his wife demonstrated as well as Rudy and Liesa, were human beings. Unlike some of the monsters who were stripped of their humanity.

I had a thought while reading...while thinking of Werner (who each time Liesa brought him up caused me to cry (maybe it's because I have a six year old) while thinking of Max, and his dad, while thinking of the next door neighbor and her two sons, both of whose lives ended tragically, and of cousre, the end, where death pulls the ground out from under the reader, yes, he kept warning us, but it came so fast. the way he described carrying the souls of the children, how Hans' soul sat up to meet him, Rudy...oh my god I am actually crying as i write this! Well, back to my point, as i thought about all this, I had a thought, and it reminded me of The Giver. I'm not sure how many are familiar with that book, but i thought of how much it hurt the Giver to tranfer the memories to the reciever (jonas, and the liitle girl who failed, his daughter) and I wondered if you Dr. Jones, felt bad for having us read that. It contained such Saddness. Utter pain and grief. It defintely hurt parts of me to read it. However, I loved this book and want everyone I know to read it!

The Book Thief: Not Feeling It

I am about one hundred pages in, and I am still not too sure how I feel about The Book Thief..the book, not the girl that death calls the book thief.
The narration feels different...the bold faced captions and announcements every few pages, the distance or detachment rather...death (the narrator) is making me "feel" different and right now I am not sure how I feel about that. I think the a lot of what has to do with the way i feel, and I guess this is a credit to the author, is his ability to make me feel uncomfortable. I feel dirty reading it. I feel gray and drab and just not "good." Maybe that is the point. My heartbreaks for Leisa. I just cannot even get past the fact that she lost her brother and her mother abandons her. I mean, I know her mother's choice was based on what she thought was best for Leisa, but still. Hans, or "papa" just smokes too many cigarettes and I think the constatnt reference to that also makes me feel dirty and stuffy and bogged down with heavy smoke filled air....
I'm liking Rudy and enjoy watching their friendship develop, I think they are good for eachother, but I don't feel that I know him well enough either. So far Leisa has only stole one book, but she is about to steal another. I am curious to see how this book thievery will play out. I'll be back soon with more!

More Thoughts on A Northern Light

I finished A Northern Light and my love for the book persisted all the through to the end. As I mentioned in my previous post, this book really resonated with me because of the realistic descriptions of the setting and the life they live. As I read on, even more resonated. As with De La Pena's We Were Here, there were a few times i had to put the book aside and in awe of what I was reading, because of shock or at the beauty of the words. Mattie's conflict throughout: should she stay and work the farm, staying true to her promise to her mother, or should she go to NYC and attend Barnard and pursue her dream of being a writer, is one that interested me because it is something I myself often think about. (No, I don't work on a farm nor do I have a full scholarship to a school in NYC). I think we talked about this with Deadline? The idea of following our dreams even though it will/may cause pain to those we love. I really connected with Mattie on this. At first I was not too fond of Mattie, and cannot really articulate why, I just felt like she did not understand what was good for her...if that makes sense I guess I was upset that she wouldn't read the letters at first, that irritated me. I was very upset that she was giving up her opportunity...but I understood completely why she felt she had to... Then I thought, if I was characterful in a book...would I like myself? probably not...too stubborn and argumentative...:)
I miss what is good for me because I am too stuck on trying to prove others wrong and proving something to myself.
One of my favorite parts is on page 202 I put a post it in at that part with tons of exclamation points and the words "EXACTLY" This is when Mattie is sitting in her teacher's library and is going on about how books are not "real" enough. She say's "why do writers make things sugary when life isn't that way?...Why don't they tell the truth?" That is how i feel about the difference between Deadline and We Were Here, yes, Deadline did deal with some heavy issues, but it did so in a way that made everything seem as if it had a sugary coating...We Were Here did not sugar coat anything, it was gritty and raw, it held truth. When I read page 202 I loved Mattie. I really liked the way it ended and was pleased with her choice. I can't believe that the couple at the Glenmore was real and I really want to read into it..very interesting and this is definitely a favorite book of mine now!

A Northern light by Jennifer Donnelly

So, yesterday while I was tutoring my student for my LTED 626 class I started to read A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. I paused after reading the first page and just sat there...breathless..I read it again, and I found my eyes nearly welling up with tears. I wanted to call across the desk to my student and tell her "Oh My God! This book is amazing already!!!!" The character is describing the perfect summer day, bringing in so many images, awakening all of the senses, I know first hand exactly how she felt, wanting that day to go on forever. For time to stand still...for a moment to last longer...to want to live inside a moment. i often think about how sad it is that time just keeps on going and all of our good memories happen so fleetingly...I just want to hold on to some...I remember a day i spent at the beach with my son when he was a year old...it was early evening in September and there was something magical about that day. I loved watching him run through the crashing waves chasing seagulls, the color of the sky, the people flying kites, the smells from the grills...everything about it, i remember wishing that I could keep these moments alive forever! (I guess that's what we do when we write, now I just reminded myself of Tim O'Brien in The Things They carried) Anyway, I loved the book from the first page. I love the setting and how she is painting it, i have always loved reading and watching The Little House on the Prairie because of the description of the daily life, preparing and cooking the food, doing the chores, making the clothes...I am not sure why but that type of life has always appealed to me, it just seems so natural, real, and necessary. So needless to say, i am thoroughly enjoying this book. The Hubbard's, The Weaver's, the Loomis's are all so well described I can see this whole town and its people. I have many questions, like how does Mattie get to work at the Glenmore? (right now I am on pg. 135) why does Weaver say he hates the place? (when he is at the Glenmore, he says the place takes away everything beautiful..or something? I don't have the book right in front of me!) I cannot wait to continue reading!!

Big Splash

No lie, I finished this book in less than a day. My feelings are neutral regarding it. It was a good read, and I would tell others to read it, but I cannot rave about it. Definitely entertaining, and its suspenseful nature, or the whole "whodunnit?" quality had me reading until two in the morning. I did tend to laugh when  the kids had conversations about the squirt guns and  such matters and I saw how easily the conversations could be seen being had by men and women three times their age, with slicked back hair, next to a black Cadillac in a dark alley, with some nine mm's and some body bags! I was extremely disappointed when we never found out what was between Mr. Carling and Matthews's mom, AND what happened to Matt's dad. Why give us the clue about the mysterious typed up "code" if he was not going to tell us what it meant???Made me think there must be a sequel! Or maybe we have to figure it on our own... don't know but that upset me! Overall though, I liked it, and I even really liked the character Matt, at first I thought I'd feel about this book the way i did about Deadline, but this never tried too hard to be something it wasn't like Deadline did...

Busy reading!

Ok, so i know it has been a little while since the last time I posted, but I have been busy reading!
I finished Breadwinner and was disappointed. I know it is only part one, but nothing really got resolved, it's like I must read the next one if I want any satisfaction! At Parvana's dad came back....anyway, i really enjoyed Breadwinner, although it was a very simple read (I think the lexile level for it is upper 500's or early 600's) because of the shocking yet real circumstances the individuals live through. It really forces you to think how lucky or fortunate we are in America...so far..(don't mean to sound pessimistic, but with Obama passing NDAA this country seems to me to be fast approaching Big Brother status...)anyway, again...I really related to Parvana because she is strong, and even though so much responsibility rests on her she does her job. She feels under-appreciated, yet proud for what she does. As I said in  a different post, I am doing this book as my guided reading in my other class where I tutor a 12 year old girl. She too really relates to Parvana and so far has made many text to self connections with the feelings Parvana expresses, also, this book is bringing up many questions about government and rights during our tutoring sessions, i think its a good pick!