Red Faced And Starring At My Shoes

Well, I am not actually wearing shoes, so it's more like I am starring at my bare feet, but you get the picture. What I am about to admit to is embarrassing.

I am ashamed of my book choices. There, it's out. I have been discreetly buying and reading books that I consider a lower species of writing for awhile.

Has it been days?

Has it been weeks?

Nope, it has been years. I have been doing this for years. 

A little background: I read sci-fi, fantasy, young adult and kids books openly and happily. Never feeling silly or embarrassed about them even if they are crap. I often openly admit that they are crap with a smile on my face. 

I have a C.S.Lewis quote TATTOOED on my foot. Not a quote of something he said, nor even from one of his college required reading books like Mere Christianity or Screwtape letters. My quote is from The Magicians Nephew. A children's book. So you see, There is a lot about my reading choices that another starting-to-get-grey-hairs and well-out-of her-twenties women might feel timid about.

None of that causes me to blush at all. It is actually my more mainstream choices that I continuously avoid admitting to.

It's the 'mainstream' and 'normal' books I intermittently pick up that give me pause to admit to. Wild, Those Who Save Us, and The Witch's Daughter to name a few. My current one is The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini. I like it. It is easy to read, but still interesting and the characters are likable and intelligent. It would be better with aliens, space travel, dragons, faeries, werewolves and/or vampires... but hey, no book is perfect. 

Also, and even more distressing is my occasional desire for books that are NOT smut... but definitely could be classified as paranormal romance. Ew. Even typing it makes me feel dirty. Seriously though, lots of chicks read this kind of mind numbing trash. These ones I am reading are nothing compared to the ones we cleaned out of my grandmothers room a decade ago when she moved into a nursing home. (hmm... maybe I can blame this on genetics...)

So why do I skate around talking about these books? I am pretty active in a facebook page overflowing with people who are addicted to reading like I am. Any book published, at least one person in that group has read, but I avoid the 'what are you reading?' posts with a vengeance when I have a questionable book in progress. I will never meet these people and if I did we would never recognize each other for two of the three or four thousand people in the group. Seems silly, but it continues.

Am I just a book snob who is slumming and will eventually come to her senses and give Anne McCaffrey's ambitious son and J.R.R.Tolkien another chance, falling back into my comfort zone? By all that is good in this world I hope so! 

Or maybe I will stop all my close-minded snobbishness and take my changing reading habits in stride, like a mature adult should. 

Ha! I wouldn't hold your breath for that one!

Whatever happens, I am glad for the chance to understand the interests of other readers. I am appreciative that I am getting into the minds of characters the like of which I may never have encountered in my other genres. I am grateful for goodreads.com so that I can discreetly find other books like the ones I can't ask my physical or virtual friends about.

George R R Martin wrote "A reader lives thousand lives before he dies... The man who never reads lives only one." I will live a wide variety, it seems. I am thankful for the opportunity... perplexing as it may be.

Time To Assemble The Marshallow Launcher

For the past 6 months this cardinal has been taking offense to the bird in my side mirrors. They are now all scratched up and I am constantly cleaning bird poo off my doors. 

When I saw him out the window the other day I couldn't help myself. I yelled out 

"It's November! Migrate already!"

At which point mini-me looked up from her schoolwork and replied

"Umm, cardinals don't migrate. They stay here all year."

Thereby shattering all hopes of me and the bird settling this amiably. 

Game on bird, game on. 

Prepare For College *Giggle*

I saw this at Barnes and Noble a couple weeks ago. Made me laugh out loud! 

My Humble Opinion on The Fault In Our Stars... Audio Book

This may not be the most reliable review on a book that I have ever done, simply because of those words I added on at the end of the title. 

Audio book

I tried to listen to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn in audio book quite some time ago and was not impressed by the book OR the reader. So while I waited and waited (and waited!) for the 2 library copies of The fault In Our Stars by John Green to be returned so that I could check one out, I disregarded the option of the audio version sitting on the shelf, lonely and ignored, until I finally ran out of patience with the disrespectful young adults that were dominating the copies of a young adult book coveted by adults.

I checked out those CDs doubtfully. I loaded them onto my computer, transferred them onto the tablet AND bought a new set of ear buds. I quickly discovered that if I am not busy doing things while listening I will 'zone out'. You know what I mean, the voice or music is going in one ear and out the other while my brain is contemplating something thrilling like the grocery list or lesson plans. 

Also, I found that by listening instead of reading I never formed an emotional attachment to any of the characters. At all! It was disturbing to say the least. I am usually overly attached to fictional characters!

Anyway, John Green (according to his author page on goodreads.com ) has spit out 4 decently popular books in the past 8 years. I consider that impressive, having never written anything decently popular in quadruple that amount of time. 

This is a tear jerker people. Before I even opened the cover... er... CD case... I knew it was a love story about two teens with cancer, at least one of them terminal. Some people would cry over that in itself. 

It is the story of Hazel, who meets Gus at a cancer support group. It is the story of their friends from before they were diagnosed and the story of Isaac, a friend who also has cancer. It is the story of siblings, parents and doctors who love and treat them and others. 

*Side note: I love the names in this book. They are not totally common or uncommon. The purpose of that? Who knows. I, however, prefer to think that it is because they need to be viewed as individuals, not just another John or Jessica, but they also need to be considered as people you could meet at the local high school or supermarket.

These teens are avid readers and deep thinkers. Whether that is because they were born that way or if it is a 'side effect of dying' is not made absolutely clear, but my guess is that we are expected to deduce that they became that way after they were diagnosed. 

This is not just a story of first love. Nor is it simply a story of cancer. It is a tragic and heroic story of living & dying, love & anger, despair & hope. Life. It's a story of the realities of life.

So what is my opinion?

I liked it. I wish I had read it instead of listening to it but, eh, so it goes.

Read it, tell me what you think. Okay? Okay.

Why Do You Read?!?!

Why Read "Bad" Books

It is Banned Book week once again and I find that the rebel in me is ALL ABOUT reading things that other people think shouldn't be easily accessible. For several years now I have been spending this week with an attitude of utter defiance. 

I get immense pleasure out of reading frequently challenged books like The Giving Tree, In The Night Kitchen and Sylvester And The Magic Pebble to the unsuspecting toddlers and preschoolers that I am entrusted with each day. I spend a little extra effort encouraging my mini me to read things like Harry Potter, The Golden Compass and Harriet The Spy (though she needs little prompting). 

I commonly read challenged books anyway, but I make a little extra effort to pick up something controversial during this time of year. Something like Slaughterhouse Five, To Kill a Mockingbird or The Handmaids Tale makes me feel a deep sense of accomplishment. 

Why, though, should those of you who are not consumed by the need to be insubordinate acknowledge Banned books week? Here are a few reasons to consider

1. Reading is a great way to encourage yourself to think about things you take for granted as fact when, in fact, they are opinion. "Just because you're taught something's right and everyone believes it's right, it don't make it right." ~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
2. One questionable opinion or scene in a book does not negate the good of the entire book. 
3. These books can help us teach ourselves to disagree with each other, authors, societies, etc.. without fear or hate. Agreeing to disagree is an important step towards peaceful relations with each other.
4. If a book is being challenged or banned it is usually because someone is trying to stop others from considering the validity of an unorthodox opinion. You don't even know these people! Why should they be doing your thinking for you?
5. When do you want your kids to think about tough situations? When they or their friends are already in them? Or before that, with you or a teacher after they are handed the book and asked for their thoughts and given the chance to discuss it and hear different opinions/options?

Think about it!

Sharon Creech- Lover Of Children

I'm not sure if I have shared this before, but as a child I was NOT A READER!  

**BUM BUM BUM**

I did not get into reading until I was forced to by that dreaded AR (Accelerated Reader) program when I was 12 or 13. As you would expect from an angry teenager with anxiety and an attitude problem who has never learned to love reading, I hooked onto the R.L.Stine fear street series. 

(In the interest of full disclosure I did like the Thoroughbred and Saddle Club books at some point.)

After that I moved sideways into L.J.Smith, then up into Anne Rice, then sideways to Anne McCaffrey. Occasionally, I caved in and read the books I was supposed to read for school like Othello and To Kill A Mockingbird (more on that later!).

Long story short, I never read the 'normal' books that other kids read when they are young. No Judy Blume or Ronald Dahl or E.B.White for me. This may or may not explain my obsession with children's and teen books even though I am physically an adult now, or so people tell me.

When I was working at Barnes and Noble they would have Christmas parties. When I say party I mean they would school us in all the pertinent holiday policies and events then play games where we win books. Not cheap mass market ones either. Newish, hardcover ones. I once won The Castle Corona and later acquired (I don't remember when or where) Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech.

I found these books to be phenomenal. 

After that I would often look at the C section in the young readers aisle at libraries and bookstores and think about picking up another of hers, but never got around to it until this week.

While we were volunteering at the library this past week I grabbed Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King, Pandora by Anne Rice, Love Life and Elephants by Daphne Sheldrick, the DVD of Hugo, and of course The Boy on the Porch and Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. 

She is a really cool author. She writes books about orphans who find people who love and care for them and about how kids really feel about things. I find her perspective fascinating. I feel like her books help me understand what goes on in those crazy little heads of the children around me which in turn makes me a better caregiver, teacher and parent. So really it's like professional development! (See I can justify anything!)

Next time you come across one of her books pick it up. It will only take you an hour or two to sail through one. I promise you won't be sorry.