Review: The Beasties

The Beasties by William Sleator

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book has been on my TBR list since the summer of 2006. I found it at the Scholastic Warehouse sale a few weeks ago, so I picked it up. I remember sitting in a discussion at an Advanced Placement seminar talking with language arts teachers from across New Mexico about this book. Specifically the activity that the teacher did with her sixth grade class--creating a new cover. I wondered about the cover of this novel, and it really doesn't make sense unless you read it all the way through. I can't help but wonder, having finished it, if Sleator had an environmental agenda, and if this agenda is promoted in any of his other titles.



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Review: The Sorceress

The Sorceress by Michael Scott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I know I frequently reference Gordy from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie, but I have good reason for invoking the spirit of Gordy right now. I promise. The Immortal Secrets of Nicholas Flamel is a series I'm going to have to read those three times that Gordy suggests. Right now, I'm still reading for the story. This story takes its characters all over the world. Scott stays true to the history of the sites he pulls into (and sometimes destroys).

The Sorceress has fantastic pacing. The story cuts between what's happening with Flamel and the twins, Machiavelli, Billy the Kid and Dr. John Dee in such a way that you can't stop reading because you want to know what the continued action is with one character while reading about another.

I'm honestly not sure if I haven't skipped all the way to the results of the third reading (if you've read Part-time Indian, you know what I'm talking about).



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Review: The Roar

The Roar by Emma Clayton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this one up at the Scholastic Book Fairs warehouse sale because I thought the cover looked both familiar and interesting. I thought, after reading the back, that it would be similar to the Hunger Games, except that the children involved were competing for prizes, not their lives and food for their districts. In that respect, the two stories are similar, however, the intensity of the Hunger Games is not replicated in The Roar.

The basic premise of the story is that Mika, one of the protagonists, is searching for his lost twin. Everyone, his parents included, think she is dead but Mika is holding out hope. His therapist-of-sorts tells him he must compete in an arcade tournament and that will help him find his sister. So he does. And eventually he finds her. I'm not going to give too much more of the plot away than that.

What I will say is this book is like Matilda by Roald Dahl meets the X-Men (some of the characters are mutants) meets The Last Star Fighter (check out this link to Wikipedia after you read the book. There are plenty of parallels.)

To my students: If you're a fan of dystopian fiction (click here for an explanation) and/or science fiction this might be a good read for you.

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Validation

Today, my principal stopped me in the hallway before school. She said she wanted to tell me about an administrative meeting she had with principals across the district and the superintendent. The meeting involved discussion of what successful schools in other areas are doing to make them successful. What the superintendent came up with was this: in the successful districts all teachers taught literacy/reading instead of relying solely on the elementary teachers or the intervention teachers.

My principal was happy to contribute to the meeting the efforts the Reading Committee is making here to build awareness about content area literacy and provide professional development that includes strategies to help students build their content area literacy. She also indicated that I may be getting calls to talk to other teachers in e district about what we're doing here. That would be cool.


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Books I've Read

I got this from Derek, and instead of doing it in Facebook notes, I'm doing it here--Mainly because I don't use Facebook notes. Also, I added some commentary. Some of it is funny and some of it isn't. Hopefully it shows up.

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold (I underlined, too. Couldn't see the boldness on a black background) those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds.

 

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen--This is one of my favorites from Brit lit class. It's just so funny.

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien--What I've heard about lengthy descriptions put me off of this one. I did read The Hobbit when I was a kid though. My mom got my dad a pretty version and I snuck it off the shelf and read it.

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee--Doesn't everybody? Isn't it one of those 9th grade standards?

6 The Bible--I read this in high school. I don't know why.

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte--Oh, sophomore English X, how I almost failed thee.

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell--Had to buy a new copy of this one. Lent it to a student who never brought it back.

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman--to be fair, I read the first and own the other two, I just haven't gotten to them yet.

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens--More high school English

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy--You'll never guess why I read this one? Oh wait? You did? English 10X. Mrs. McQuiston's class.

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller--I owned this at one point. Not sure what happened to it.

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare--I've got one of these. Picked it up for $6.98 at Half-Price Books ages ago when I was in college. Probably for Shakespeare class. Yeah, I got a C in that one.

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien--See above note.

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger--I saw part of the movie for this one and, um, what?

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot--Um no. I taught a George Eliot novel during my student teaching and it was painful-probably because the action didn't start until 2/3 of the way into the book.

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald--I've read this one at least 3 times and own at least 4 copies. How I ended up with 4, I don't know. If anyone needs one, let me know and I'll mail it to you.

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy--Long as hell.

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams--funny as hell.

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck--My mother bought a collection of Steinbeck when I was a kid. The covers were so unappealing. Maybe I should get over that.

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll--Ah, Johnny Depp, how you startle me. I remember, though, the Alice in Wonderland television show on the Disney channel from when I was a kid. It had something to do with a mirror. I also remember that my copy of this book was pink.

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis--My aunt gave me a copy of the series when I was a kid and knew nothing about allegory. I lost most of those. Now I'm an adult, I know about allegory, and I really want to read them again. (I picked up a collected version at Coas a few months ago).

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis--isn't this one redundant? Chronicles of Narnia, like His Dark Materials, implies the entire series.

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini--add this to the list of books I own that I haven't gotten around to reading

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden--Read this one during my student teaching. I believe that was the same semester that the movie came out.

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown--The book was much more complex than the movie. At one point I had two copies of this one. Not sure what happened to the second.

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood--also read during my student teaching. There's a poor quality 80s movie that retells this one too. Oh, yeah. And dystopian!!

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding--Derek, I can't believe you haven't read this one. Have I mentioned that I love dystopian fiction?

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan--say his hame five times fast

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley--More dystopia. Oh, I love dystopia.

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon--I've been told I need to read this one. Haven't yet, though. Don't own it either.

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov--One of my AP students was reading this during my student teaching and said it was wonderful. It's on my mile-long to-read list.

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold--I own this one. Saw the movie. Was told that the ending of the novel left a little to be desired.

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville--ugh. I will probably never finish this one.

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker--Hooray for vampires that no one calls vampires and gothic novels in the Victorian era

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath--Read this one in ENGL 111. Really shouldn't have.

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens--Brit lit in college.

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker--Read this one earlier this year. Possibly this summer. Amazing. Hard, yes. But AMAZING.

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle-- I have Volume 1. It begins in a boring place and haven't had the patience to come back to it.

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad--I can honestly say I've been trying to read this since I was 15.

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

 

Review: The Arctic Incident

The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I read something in Guys Read: Funny Business (I think. I know it was a Guys Read book though) about where Artemis Fowl got his start. Apparently it had to do with one of Colfer's brothers who had a mischievous streak. That actually made me appreciate the character a whole lot more. Never let it be said that knowing the background of an author or the origin of a character ruins a story. If anything, I think it enhances it.

I realize that the series continues, and it makes me wonder what Artemis's motivation is in the rest of the series. For the first two books, he was concerned with finding and rescuing his father. This mission is over? So what's next for Artemis? Warding off the people who may come after his father? Figuring out why he was kidnapped in the first place? And what about the fairies? They and Artemis are square now. I'll be interested to see what happens next.



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I made it up myself dictionary

Splat n: someone who is annoying, like a mess that gets in your way when you're trying to do something important.


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