The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I got a copy of this book at TLA in 2008. It was an advanced reader's copy so it still had typos, etc. in it. I read the back of the book and it didn't sound like a book I would read and also it was a YA novel which I don't read as often as I should. One day at the conference I had some free time so I took it out of my bag and began reading...I couldn't put it down. I read it in two days and for me that is a major achievement. I love to read, but I am not a fast reader so to finish a book in two days that isn't a picture book is huge. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen to Katniss and the other characters. I can't wait to read the next book in the series which comes out in September of 2009. I passed my copy onto one of my brothers and told him to read it. Let me know what you think - those of you that end up reading it.

Booklist starred (September 1, 2008 (Vol. 105, No. 1))
Grades 9-12: This is a grand-opening salvo in a new series by the author of the Underland Chronicles. Sixteen-year-old Katniss poaches food for her widowed mother and little sister from the forest outside the legal perimeter of District 12, the poorest of the dozen districts constituting Panem, the North American dystopic state that has replaced the U.S. in the not-too-distant future. Her hunting and tracking skills serve her well when she is then cast into the nation’s annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death where contestants must battle harsh terrain, artificially concocted weather conditions, and two teenaged contestants from each of Panem’s districts. District 12’s second “tribute” is Peeta, the baker’s son, who has been in love with Katniss since he was five. Each new plot twist ratchets up the tension, moving the story forward and keeping the reader on edge. Although Katniss may be skilled with a bow and arrow and adept at analyzing her opponents’ next moves, she has much to learn about personal sentiments, especially her own. Populated by three-dimensional characters, this is a superb tale of physical adventure, political suspense, and romance.

I realize that I have been reading more adult books that children's books lately. Usually all I read are books geared for infant through 5th grade. Occasionally I'll read a YA novel but rarely AD books. I guess I too have spring fever of sorts and can't wait for summer vacation. Usually I don't read AD books until summer vacation since I spent all the school year reading children books. I hopefully will have on here soon reviews of the 2009 Bluebonnet books for grades 3-5 that I am starting to read. Everyone have a wonderful Easter! On Sunday, He is risen...He is risen indeed!

Another adult book ...This is the first Anthony Bourdain book I read. It has his "attitude" throughout the whole book. After reading this story, it makes me think twice maybe three times before I decide to eat out again and/or make any comments about the food or service.

Amazon.com Review -Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it." --Sumi Hahn --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Typhoid Mary by Anthony Bourdain

Adult book ...I am currently reading this book. I picked it up because I enjoy watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show on the Travel Channel. I also have a few of his other books. This is very interesting to me. I am learning a lot about history and Bourdain's wit comes through in his writing. If you like his humor and his show you will like reading this book as well.

Amazon.com - In 1906, at a prosperous Long Island summer home, a family falls ill and typhoid is diagnosed. When Dr George Soper is called in to find the source of the contagion, he notices that the household cook has gone missing. She is Mary Mallon, the woman who would become known as Typhoid Mary. Soper, sanitary engineer turned sleuth, sees Mary as his Moriarty. He finds there has been an outbreak of typhoid fever in every household she has worked in over the past decade. Mary is a 'carrier', a seemingly healthy individual who passes on her dangerous germs, sometimes with fatal consequences. Now Soper must hunt the cook down before she can infect more unsuspecting victims. A poor Irish immigrant, Mary refuses to believe that she can harbour typhoid in her strong and healthy body, and she doesn't intend to go quietly. In this fascinating true story Bourdain, in an homage from one cook to another, follows Mary through the kitchens of New York, putting a human face to a desperate and unintentional murderer, and examines a time, and a life, with his inimitable style.

The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber

I truly enjoyed this easy adult read. The characters were all different and yet they all came together and shared their lives with one another. What I really liked about this book, which is part of a series, is that there is a knitting pattern in each book. I will post a picture of my finished product when I get it done.

Four women come together in a knitting class run by Lydia Hoffman and make unexpected discoveries about themselves and each other while knitting baby blankets.

The Shack by William P. Young

This is definitely an adult only book! Quite a few teachers said that I should read it and finally I did. I liked it in that it really made you think about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I wasn't blown away by the book. I even had a hard time "buying" what the author at times was trying to convey but all in all it was an enjoyable read. Below is the description that I got off of Follett.

"After Missy is abducted during a vacation and evidence of her murder shows up at a shack in the forests of Oregon, Mackenzie Philips, her father, receives a strange note inviting him to return to the scene of the tragedy where he wrestles with nightmarish religious questions."

Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee

Read any of these three books by Lisa Yee and you won't be dissapointed.
Millicent Min, Girl Genius - Stanford Wong Flunks Big-time -So Totally Emily Ebers
These books are telling some of the same stories but from different angles. I enjoyed them because I was taken back to being in middle school. The things that were important then are so trivial now. I got a good laugh or two or three... :)

School Library Journal (March 1, 2004)Gr 5-8:
Millie, an 11-year-old with a genius IQ, is taking a college poetry class and waiting for her high school senior year. Because she never hesitates to show how much she knows about a particular subject, her peers tend to stay away. Millie's social ineptitude is a cause of concern for her parents. Against her will, she is enrolled in summer volleyball and enlisted to tutor Stanford Wong, a friend of the family. Into this mix enters Emily, a volleyball teammate and typical preteen. The girls become friends but Millie neglects to tell Emily about her genius status. Eventually the truth surfaces and Emily feels betrayed. Millie thinks that Emily is angry because she is smart, never realizing that the betrayal comes from her lack of trust in their friendship. While some readers will have trouble identifying with Millie, her trials and tribulations result in a story that is both funny and heartwarming. A universal truth conveyed is that honesty and acceptance of oneself and of others requires a maturity measured not by IQ but by generosity of spirit.-Sharon Morrison, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, OK Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Way We Work by David Macaulay

David Macaulay will be at Book smART on January 25. For ticket information go to DallasMuseumofArt/ALL or call 214-922-1818.

Booklist (October 15, 2008 (Vol. 105, No. 4))Grades 7-12:

Many years in the making, Macaulay’s latest work follows the same format as his groundbreaking best-seller, The Way Things Work (1988). Here, Macaulay shifts his focus from modern machinery to the infinitely more complex workings of the human body. The single, holistic subject makes this title far more ambitious than its predecessor, in which each spread was devoted to a particular device. In The Way We Work, every page builds on a previous spread: there is a clear progression from atom to whole organism, but in most cases, readers will need background context to orient themselves as they move through the anatomical subjects, which close with reproduction and birth. As with The Way Things Work, this book’s audience will include adults. In fact, older readers who have previously encountered the science concepts are likely to glean the most from the text’s brief, technical explanations; students seeking a basic understanding of topics such as cellular reproduction will find this much less accessible. As always, though, Macaulay’s artwork is a marvel. From microscopic views to head-to-toe, skeletal structures, the colored-pencil and watercolor images are filled with whimsy. Some pictures are visual metaphors: the respiratory system is shown as a giant, looping roller coaster, for example. Other touches are simply playful and wry: tourists ride a rubber raft through the small intestines; angels support strands of colon that frame a landscape reminiscent of a Renaissance masterpiece. The powerful, illuminating images will ignite curiosity and inspire awe over the magnificent connections that make up the human body.

Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park

The author will be at

The Hockaday School

Hoblitzelle Auditorium

11600 Welch Road

Dallas, TX as part of Book smART on May 3. For tickets, go to the website DallasMuseumofArt.org/ALL or call 214-922-1818.

Booklist (February 1, 2008 (Vol. 104, No. 11))Grades 4-7:

Park, author of the Newbery-winning A Single Shard (2001), opens this thoroughly researched novel in Brooklyn with the 1951 baseball season half gone. Nine-year-old Maggie likes to hang out at the fire station, where she listens to Dodgers games with the firemen. The new guy, Jim, teaches Maggie how to score a game, and after Jim is drafted and sent to Korea, Maggie writes him letters. When she learns that he has been traumatized and sent home unresponsive and unable to function on his own, Maggie works on a plan to bring Jim back to himself and his old life. To her credit, Park doesn’t make Maggie’s goal seem easy or even realistic. The involving story spans several years with only a glimmer of hope for Jim’s recovery. Still, readers will find plenty to root for as they get to know determined, persistent Maggie, who feels that the first words she ever learned must have been “Wait till next year.”

Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner

I like any of the Skippyjon Jones books to read to my younger classes. The students really love these books. They are always on hold in the library. As soon as they are checked in, they get checked back out. The are like hotcakes. The author will be at the Dallas Museum of Art for Book smART on Friday, March 20, at 7:00PM. For tickets, go to the website DallasMuseumofArt.org/ALL or call 214-922-1818.

School Library Journal (January 1, 2004) Kinder- Grade 3:
This is a wildly wonderful book about a hyperactive kitten, Skippyjon Jones, whose head and ears are too big for his body, and whose imagination is too intense for his mama. According to her, he needs to do some serious thinking about what it means to be a Siamese cat instead of a bird (Skippyjon always wakes up and eats worms with his feathered friends). She sends him to his room, where he imagines he is a Chihuahua ("My name is Skippito Friskito./I fear not a single bandito"). Chock-full of rhyming chants and Spanish expressions, the feline's adventure as a doggy Zorro ends in chaos. His frazzled mother gives him a hug anyway and says, "Say good night, Skippyjon Jones." "Buenas noches, mis amigos," says the kitten, as he bounces on his bed all ready for another adventure. The buoyant and colorful cartoon illustrations match the exuberant text perfectly. Spanish-speaking children will be especially delighted by the words and humor; others may be a little bewildered by all of the foreign phrases and will need some explanation, but the story definitely has the potential of a fun read-aloud. A good multicultural offering.-Judith Constantinides, formerly at East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library, LA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Alice's adventures in Wonderland : a pop-up adaptation of Lewis Carroll's original tale by Robert Sabuda

This is a book for all ages! I knew of pop-up (paper engineered) books but didn't truly begin studying them until I was taking a children's liteature class in my master's program. I had a professor who collected pop-up books.

The history of pop-up books is very interesting. Check out this website for more information. http://www.library.unt.edu/rarebooks/exhibits/popup2/introduction.htm

Robert Sabuda will be at the Dallas Museum of Art for Book smART on May 31. For tickets, go to the website DallasMuseumofArt.org/ALL or call 214-922-1818 for tickets.

It is amazing how detailed some can be and Robert Sabuda is an excellent paper engineer. My favorite part of this book is the house of cards. I hope the whole family enjoys this book and then goes out and reads more pop-up books. Enjoy!


Horn Book (November/December, 2003):
Pop-up master Sabuda turns his craft to Carroll's classic tale, creating on each of six spreads an iconic tableau from the story: one spread opens to show a sulky Alice seated at a 3-D tea party with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the sleeping Dormouse, while opalescent silver teacups rise from the table; in another spread, Alice takes a swing at a rolling hedgehog with her pink flamingo croquet mallet. Small booklets to the side of the main image contain Carroll's text (necessarily abridged: the story moves at an over-fast pace but still manages to cohere) along with some pop-up surprises of their own. Devotees of the original art will applaud Sabuda's adoption of Tenniel's style even as he translates the characters and scenes into his own psychedelic color scheme. Devotees of pop-ups will admire the effects Sabuda achieves: Alice's neck growing out of the page, a baby whose face is replaced by that of a pig, a gardener painting a rose that changes from white to red. Foil accents light up the magenta, teal, and royal blue pages; every fur-bearing character is texturized with flocked paper. The only thing lacking is the Cheshire Cat, who emerges Sphinx-like from a tree but fails to vanish and leave his grin behind. A cunning addition to any Alice collection, this achievement in paper engineering will leave readers with an into-the-rabbit-hole sense of astonishment.

Finished reading TWILIGHT....finally!

I finished reading Twilight over the Christmas holiday. I thought I would get it done quickly but spent my evenings instead knitting Christmas presents that were not finished. Finally, on break, I was able to finish the first book. I truly enjoyed it even though it was not my usual "flavor" of reading. I am looking forward to reading the second book in the series. Of course, I am going to see the movie now but not until it comes out on DVD.