Mission: READ

In September, lots of people look forward to the start of the new TV season. I do, too, but I also look forward to the new season of Books & Bites, when students come once a month to eat lunch in the IMC and hear about great new books. Linda from the Normal Public Library and John from the Bloomington Public Library join us to share their favorites, too.

In September, we always talk about current Rebecca Caudill Nominees. You can find the whole list here: CJHS Rebecca Caudill Page. The IMC is a voting site, and gives out prizes for students who read 10 or more Rebecca Caudill nominees. Get the blue brochure from the IMC to keep track of your reading and to see what you can win.

Now, on to the books:

Once upon a time, there was a guy named Christian who lived in the woods with his father, Edric, a troll who found him in lost in the woods. Christian is happy with his life in the forest UNTIL he uses his telescope to spy on the castle and falls in LOVE–with a princess (of course). Now, don’t think this is just a run-of-the-mill fairy tale, or a sappy, lovey-dovey one. The author, herself, describes the book as “part comedy, part love story, part everything-but-the-kitchen sink.” After exchanging p-mails (sent by pigeon) with Princess Marigold and making a gutsy move to meet her in person, Christian gets more than he bargained for–like an evil queen who wants to kill off her own daughter! Read Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris, and you’ll see what I mean.

Next up is one of my favorite books of all time, Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett. Why do I like this book so much? Because it is a mystery that really makes you think and when you get to the end, you’re amazed at all the lose ends the author ties together–some that you didn’t even know were there! One day, Petra, a student at the University of Chicago Lab School, is walking home and finds a note blowing around in the bushes. It says: “Dear Friend:  I would like your help in identifying a crime that is now centuries old.” But the letter is swept away so she can’t finish it. This is just one in a series of weird things that happens to Petra. When a famous painting by the artist Vermeer is stolen on its way to the Art Institute (and a “ransom” note appears in the newspaper), Petra and her friend Calder start noticing coincidences that can’t be just coincidences, and they think they just might be able to figure out who has stolen it. And they just might–by using their wits, their powers of observation, the “magic” of Calder’s pentominoes, and their conversations with people like Mrs. Sharp, who believes that her husband was killed for what he knew about Vermeer… There’s a a cool website to go with the book, and the sequel is The Wright 3, as in Frank Lloyd Wright–and it’s awesome, too.

Mission: Accomplished

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Welcome back to another school year! I hope you had a great summer and found the time to read at least one interesting book.  If you did, I would love to hear about it, as I am always looking for new things to read and to buy for our IMC.

So, if you know of a book I should make time to read, add a comment and let me know.

Thanks!!!!

Mission: Accomplished

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Are librarians ever really on vacation? I am writing this from sunny Mesa, AZ (ok, so it rained this morning, but it will still be 110 degrees today). Yesterday I visited the Dobson branch of the City of Mesa Library to look for a book I must read and review this summer. It was checked out of the Bloomington Library before I left for vacation, and my mom had to go to the library anyhow, so I thought I would look for it.  Success! I will probably read Dog Sense by Sneed Collard on our way to Out of Africa Wildlife Park tomorrow.

Mission: Accomplished

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So far, a ton of picture books to my son and not much else.  I am still working on Stravaganza: City of Masks (see previous post). That doesn’t mean it is a slow-moving book though–I am just moving slowly through it. I have been taking an ISU graduate course called Distance Learning, and I have a number of great ideas for the IMC this fall. Also, I got podcasting equipment with grant funds so we can do book talk podcasts in the fall. I promise I will read more as soon as my class is done (on 7/2).

Mission: Soon to be Accomplished

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We have been out of school for a couple of days now, and doesn’t it feel great?  I must admit that I have already been to the Normal Public Library–I guess I just can’t stay away completely. This reminds me that both the Normal and Bloomington libraries have pretty low-key summer reading programs for teens. You just read some books, let them know, and they have some cool prizes to give away.  Someone participating in the Normal program will even win a computer.

Not sure about what to read?

I took home Stravaganza: City of Masks by Mary Hoffman and it is a fine fantasy so far. More on that book later…. Sitting on my end table is Red Rider’s Hood by Neil Schusterman, a twisted update of the classic fairy tale.  His first book in the series, Dread Locks, was a fun read. I am also more than halfway through listening to Small Steps (the sequel to Holes) on CD in my car.  It is by Louis Sachar, and there is another book called Small Steps by Peg Kehret which is about her childhood battle against polio (also a good book, but not the sequel to Holes). Anyway, Small Steps is about Armpit and his plans to fly straight after getting out of Camp Greenlake.  He faces some challenges (like X-Ray’s get rich quick scheme) and triumphs (becoming friends with teenage pop star Kyra DeLeon). I can’t wait to see how it ends. And I brought home more books in a laundry basket, but I’ll save those for another post…

If you see me in one of the libraries, be sure to come up and say “hi.” i might even have a good book suggestion for you.  And if you read a good one, feel free to post a comment about it here.

Mission: Accomplished

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With the last Books & Bites of our school year, we have broadened our horizons with books “beyond our borders.” One (of many) great things about books is that they can help us experience a different place (real or imaginary) without having to physically go there. Check out the following titles that can help you do just that:

The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson is on next year’s Rebecca Caudill list. It is part poor-orphan story, part mystery, and all Vienna and its surrounding areas. Taking place around the turn-of-the-century, this book tells the story of Annika, an 11-year-old girl who has been living with three unmarried sibling professors and their servants, Ellie and Sigrid, who found Annika abandoned in a church as an infant.  Although she loves her “family,” Annika has always dreamed of a gorgeous, refined mother coming one day to reclaim her long-lost daughter. And one day it actually happens! Frau Edeltraut von Tannenberg bursts on the scene and whisks Annika away to her family manor.  There, Annika misses her hometown, Vienna, and her old friends, but is eager to start a new life with her mother. 

However, things are not always as they seem.  The von Tannenberg home is in disrepair, many fine furnishings are “out for repair” and there is no money to send Annika’s “new” (and horrible) brother Henry to military school. Then, Frau Edeltraut’s distant uncle dies and leaves her a fortune just at the same time the reader discovers that Annika also inherited a trunk from an elderly friend–a trunk that has since gone missing…Is there a connection and if so, what will Annika do?

Siberia by Ann Halam is a fascinating book about a girl named Sloe who enjoyed a comfortable life in the city until she and her mother were forced into the Wilderness Settlement when Sloe was about four years old. Her mother, once a prominent scientist, is forced to make nails all day and live in a little shack attached to the factory.  But she has a secret–one that she shares only with Sloe. She has a Lindquist kit that she uses to grow tiny animals that then die so she can preserve their “seeds.” Why the big secret?  The animals in the kit are all that are left of the animals on Earth after people have destroyed their habitat–except for the rats, muties, and fur-farm animals that people harvest. When the authorities take Sloe’s mother away, it is up to Sloe to guard the kit and use her mother’s map to get to the faraway, safe city where one day her mother’s friends might help create animals again. Boy, what she has to deal with along the way–including constantly being tracked by Yagin, who may be friend but may be foe. The cold and desolate setting of this novel reflects the state of Sloe’s dystopian world and as the author says, “Siberia…is not a place. Siberia is a state of mind.”

The Convicts by Iain Lawrence is without a doubt an English book. The action takes place in London somewhere around the 1830s. Tom Tin, age 14 , is having a really bad time–not only has his father, a once prominent sea captain, been sent to debtor’s prison, but his mother is half-mad mourning the death of his sister. When Tom tells his mother he will go to sea to support her and pay his father’s debt, she begs him to stay away from the sea and then rages, “I have no son!” On the streets, things get worse for Tom when he gets mixed up with a scavenging blind beggar and bone grubber and when the street boys mistake him for one of their own, the Smasher. When the blind beggar turns up dead, Tom is convicted of murder and must serve time on a horrible prison ship until he is transported to Australia.  The conditions Tom must endure on the filthy ship are stomach-churning, and Tom is constantly in danger as more boys become convinced he is the Smasher and responsible for many a terrible deed. If you like gritty descriptions this is the book for you. It makes me shudder to think how much of this book is based upon fact.

Want to know more about The Star of Kazan, Siberia, or The Convicts? Then check them out and read them yourself!

Mission: Accomplished

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