Skeleton Stories

I am trying very hard to find out if the spooky story that Bruchac tells in Skeleton Man and The Return of Skeleton Man.  It is such a good, spooky story!   Both of these books are!  Good, good, good! 

The Odd One

I know I am odd in my ambivalent feelings for Stephen King.  Some people who have written critical comments about Gwendy's Magic Feather say that it isn't good because it is written by Chizmar and not King.  For me, I think it seems as if it is written by King alone!  I have been much more disappointed with King than Chizmar, though I do admit that I have enjoyed a lot of King's stuff.  I am just saying this reads like one of King's boring titles.  And there are many of those, too!  I liked the first one a lot!  And I know, I know, King is credited with the main authorship of that one...I'm just saying. 

I Never Liked Math

Until I attempted Math for Toddlers and Preschoolers at work.  Then everything changed.  I started reading about early math and the ways in which our first math experiences color the attitudes we have about math as we grow, and the success we have with it.  Good early math experiences mean good math experiences later.  I wonder if that is true for science.  Because I DO  NOT like science, but I wonder...if I had had good early science experiences would that be different.  Would I have like The Third Mushroom more?  Probably.  As Jennifer L. Holm is an author I very, very much enjoy.  This is the sequel to The Fourteenth Goldfish.  Which I really enjoyed. I just couldn't get into this one as much as the first but I still recommend it, because I know it was just me and science!

Aurora

I really didn't like Aurora.  At all!  Not one tiny bit!  I felt that her attitude was just terrible!  I mean, man, she just bugged me the whole time.  The only thing is, I loved So B. It and I love Sarah Weeks and I love this story so I couldn't give this less than five stars, but man...I would NEVER want to meet Aurora!  Haha!  Well...now that I look at the cover...and what it all means...and yeah...okay...Aurora, I do like you.  Soof. 

Too Wild

I did love The Wild Robot.  But for me, it would have been a great stand-alone.  The Wild Robot Escapes is the sequel and I hope that will be it.  But for people who really enjoy a lot of descriptive action scenes, this might be much more enjoyable.  At first I really liked it but then it just seemed to go overboard with the action scenes.

Wish there were more, but maybe not...

The War I Finally Won is a sequel to The War that Saved My Life and I loved it.  I love Ada and Susan and the whole story and I wish I could read more about them, but I wonder if this is just one of those things, like it is better to have this one be the end?  Would a continuation of their stories just be cheesy?  Unnecessary?  I am the wars are over and wow, what an ending.  What a great, great book.  The ending was absolutely perfect.  Just wonderful.  I loved this book. 

Dexterish

The Killer Instinct books, which are two, Killer Instinct and Killer Within are a bit like the Dexter books.  I read them a million years ago, but I remember really liking them.  I have never seen the show though.   In this case the person with murderous instincts is a teen female with a complicated family.  The thing I found really icky about these was the sex.  I mean, I am totally not a prude.  I really am not.  And the language didn't bother me and I am not the kind of person who thinks that violence is fine but any kissy-lovey stuff is wrong, but the graphic nature of the sex seemed...I don't know...misplaced?  It just didn't seem to me that someone of this age, even someone with serial killer potential, would be that versed in the terminology and so forth!  It just seemed weird.

It Does Damper the Holiday Mood

I'm not obese anymore.  I'm not overweight any more.  I am actually in the BMI range, if you can believe it!  It took three years, but yeah, I am there.  I wonder if David Levithan would like me now? It doesn't really matter, because that guy from my church told me long ago, "One only wants the respect of those whom one respects."  And after all of the drivel that Levithan has put out fat-bashing from one side of his mouth and talking about diversity from the other side, I just can't really care about this guy's opinion.  So I know that my attitude toward The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily was prejudiced.  Something that Levithan wouldn't admit to me regarding fat people, even in our Facebook messages, back and forth.
Still, apart from not liking Levithan, this book just really didn't do much for me at all.  I love Rachel Cohn.  But even my love for her just couldn't make up my distaste for Levithan, or maybe, honestly, it just was that the book wasn't that great.  I just want to be honest!

I Wish I Could-- MAYBE

Reading minds.  I don't know.  At first I think OH YES!  I would LOVE to be able to do that.  And then I think, no way!  Think Twice is the sequel to Don't Even Think About It, by Sarah Mlynowski, one of my favorite authors.
A lot of the kids are losing their telepathy and reacting to the loss in a variety of ways.  Good stuff.  Very enjoyable and funny and great as always, from Sarah M.  Read the first one, first though!

Hard Not to Give 5 Stars to GP

Field Trip is the sequel to Road Trip, books written by Gary and his son, Jim Paulsen.  Here is a Q and A with father and son! This is more than a "dog story."  And NO DOGS DIE, by the way!  And it is more than a funny story, though it is funny.  It is another one of those Paulsen-magic-books-that-have-a-lesson-but-in-no-way-preachy-in-fact-you-don't-even-know-there-is-a-lesson deals.  Because I don't think Paulsen writes to teach a lesson.  I think he just writes about life and life just teaches us lessons.  And we learn from them sometimes and sometimes we don't.  Great stuff.  Really.  Thank you, Paulsens.

ABC

I am not a HUGE Michael Jackson fan.  I like his music, I do.  I just am not nuts over him the way I am say, Judy or Tupac.  I'll Be There, the book, gets its name from the Jackson Five song, I'll Be There.    It is by Holly Goldberg Sloan who wrote one of my most favorite books, Counting by 7s.  This is a story of a very mental ill father who has stolen his sons away and caused them to live a basically homeless life with no schooling, no clothing, no food.  They have had to fend for themselves and live in fear their whole lives.  Sam is an older teen who attends churches on Sunday for the music.  He hears a girl sing and instantly feels drawn to her.  She is a pretty bad singer and throws up, outside the church, right after her solo where he comforts her.  The two get to know each other and fall in love.  The sequel, Just Call My Name is also a very good book and totally different from Counting by 7s.  Very intense books.  I really did like it though.  A lot.  

Emma Jean Again!

I had wanted to read Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree ever since I read the second one, and sadly, I guess the last one, since there hasn't been one since 2009.  Emma Jean is a very different kind of girl, who doesn't mind being different.  She knows she is and she is okay with that!  She is very academically smart.  She kinda reminds me a little bit of that Sheldon guy on that one show about the guys who all live together...what is the name of that?  Big Bang Theory!  In this book Emma Jean tries to be very helpful and her quirky ways get up making a little bit of trouble!

Wow

Again, another Paulsen that just blew my mind.  Sarny is the name of the book and the name of the young woman we met in Nightjohn.  She is telling her story at the age of 94, I think...from a nursing home, in the 1930s.  Talking about the past and all of its pain and joy.  We find out what happened to her when the Southern army was defeated and how she walked nearly all the way to New Orleans to find her children who were sold to someone else.  Sarny goes to work from a woman named Miss Laura who reminded me a bit of Willie from Out of the Easy and I loved her just as much.  What a book.  A must-read for all ages.  Horrible and beautiful. 

I Gave in!

I had said for years that I would never read Hate that Cat, just because of the name!  I love, love, love kitties and just couldn't imagine reading a book with a title like that!  But then, Creech book after Creech book...I knew I had to read it. And I am so glad I did.  I read Love that Dog so long ago, I had forgotten that Walter Dean Myers is mentioned in it.  And you know how I love Mr. Walter Dean Myers!
I both listened to and read this book and I highly recommend that. 
It was neat to be reminded of the poetry of William Carlos Williams, of The Red Wheelbarrow fame!  I thought it was pretty funny that the boy writes about his uncle, who likes to fight with everyone, and thinks he is always right.  He says that his uncle told him that poems need to rhyme and that his poems were not good.  He also said that William Carlos Williams was a "minor poet."  I just found that very amusing, and I know that people can be like that uncle!  I thought that it was cool, too that this toady uncle was a college professor, just proving that even people in "important" jobs can also be wrong! 
Great book and well, I loved how the boy came to know the truth about cats!

Bits and Pieces

Chris Lynch writes about tough stuff.  Pieces is another tough one and very original.  Inexcusable was really good and was a National Book Award finalist.
Eric's older brother, Duane is killed in an accident and his organs are given to three very different people in need. 
Eric is still really grieving, as you can imagine.  A group affiliated with the organ donation process arranges opportunite for the donor's family to meet the folks who received "pieces" from their loved one.  Eric is willing to do this and meets the single mom who got Duane's kidney, a young, naive teen who received some part of Duane's ear and a fairly obnoxious guy with who now is giving Duane's liver a workout with a lot of partying. 
Duane's old girlfriend comes back into town, just hearing about Duane's death as she was doing humanitarian work out of the country. 
This book was good but it seemed to drag for me in some places. I just read that it is a sequel to the book Iceman.  Maybe I would have enjoyed it more had I read the first one.   But look at that cover!  Dude.  Wow.  Terrible. 
Still, a good book.  I ended up giving it four of five stars. 

Jack Gantos, I Could Marry I Guy Like That!

Not that Jack Gantos would want to marry me!  But I love this man's sense of humor and his heart.  In 2012 he won the Newbery for Dead End in Norvelt.  He follows up this year with a wonderful sequel, From Norvelt to Nowhere.  This book continues that antics of Gantos boy and Mrs. Volker as they chase Spizz and honor the recently deceased founder of Norvelt, Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Saying Good-bye

Yes another chance to use this fantastic Anne Murray song. There is a line in Lena that made me think of it right away.  "Seemed like someone was always leaving someone, like that's the way the world worked- people were born and people died, people left and people came."
Lena is a sequel to I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This.  I wish I would have read that first, but I didn't take away any of goodness of reading Lena.  It was pretty much just what you would expect from Jacqueline Woodson- beautiful.
This is the story of two young girls, Lena and her sister Dion, who have run away from home because of their abusive father.  A story of strength and heart-break and courage.  Highly recommended.