Good morning. Right now it’s early morning and the sun is starting to rise. It’s pretty quiet over here with only a few of the kids up. The only sounds that can be heard are the keyboard as I type, the heater, and my coffee pot. The second my coffee’s ready, I plan on sitting at the kitchen table reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it For Life. In the book, Tharp explains how creativity is really a habit that you have to foster. She also includes great ways to become more creative and exercises to get you going at the end of every chapter. I’m halfway through it and it’s a book I would recommend to anyone doing NaNoWriMo.

I’m also in the middle of a graphic novel, a memoir, a collection of essays, and some fiction. I have my hands full. Which is why Marie from The Boston Bibliophile and I are planning on doing a 12-hour mini-readathon this Wednesday. The plan is to read as many of our short paperbacks as possible. I have a ton of unread books on my shelf that have been sitting around for years. I hope to knock out as least five books since so many of them are less than 200 pages long.

My coffee’s ready and so I’m off to read. Have a great Sunday. What are you reading today?

If you don’t know, library loot is a weekly meme hosted by the lovely Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share what they checked out at their local libraries.

As usual I went overboard with my library loot. Between my old loot and what I’ve just checked out, I’m starting to become claustrophobic looking at my shelves. But I’m up for the challenge. I’m hoping that November and December will be my best reading months of the year. I also don’t plan on checking out anymore books until I read at least half of what I have. Wish me luck.

• Women Who Eat: A New Generation on the Glory of Food by Leslie Miller (Women Unbound Challenge)
• Street Gang: The History of Sesame Street by Michael Davis
• The Man Who Forgot How to Read by Howard Engel

• Come Closer by Sara Gran (saw it on Nymeth’s blog)
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman
• The Heroines by Eileen Favorite

• Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry (Cybils nominee)
• Looking for Lucy Buick by Rita Murphy
• Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta (Cybils nominee)

• No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (Project Fill-in-the-Gaps)
• Beware of God by Shalom Auslander
• The Brooklyn Nine by Alan M. Gratz (Cybils nominee)

Old Library Loot

• Flight Vol 5 – Kazu Kibuishi
• Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age - Maggie Jackson
• Faith, Hope, and Ivy June – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• High Tide in Tuscon - Barbara Kingsolver
• The Haiku Anthology: haiku and senryu in English

• The Magician’s Elephant – Kate Dicamillo
• The Wild Things – Dave Eggers
• Life Among the Savages – Shirley Jackson
• The Unfinished Novel: and other stories - Valerie Martin
• Little Brother - Cory Doctrow

• Sprout - Dale Peck
• Twenty Years at Hull-House – Jane Addams
• Love, Aubrey - Suzanne LeFleur
• Once Upon a Time (She Said) – Jane Yolen
• Pip: The story of Olive – Kim Kane

• The City of Ember – Jeanne Du Prau
• The Forest of Hands and Teeth – Carrie Ryan
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven - Sherman Alexie
• The Onion Girl – Charles De Lint
• Uglies - Scott Westerfield

• Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories - Sandra Cisneros
• The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle
• The Strain - Guillermo Del Toro

So that’s my loot. I plan on posting every day this week but won’t be hanging around Twitter as much as usual. I really want to read as much as possible. What did you check out from the library this week?

Can you believe that I haven’t posted a new review in over a week? I don’t know if it’s this confusing California weather (thick fog in the morning and warm during the day) or what. I’m in the weirdest mood though November is supposed to be the month where I get so much done. The week fter the readathon, I didn’t read much. This week I’m in the middle of five books so the next review I write will probably be next week. I don’t have the energy desire time to write longer reviews so I thought shorter reviews would be a nice change for right now.

Rapunzel’s Revenge (2008)
Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, and Nathan Hale
144 pages

I first heard about this book during last year’s Cybil’s awards. My library just bought a copy last month and I’ve finally been able to read it. The Hales have taken the Rapunzel fairy tale and turned it on its head! After escaping from Mother Gothel, Rapunzel decides to go back and get her revenge on the witch and free her mother from enslaved in a mine camp. On the way she meets Jack of the Beanstalk fame and the two start on a daring adventure.

This was a great read. In this retelling Rapunzel is a daring young girl who won’t take no for an answer. With Jack by her side the duo chases off coyotes, wrestle with giant snakes, and rescue a spoil brat from a group of bandits. This is a book that has a place in my permanent library.

Amulet Vol 1: The Stonkeeper (2008)
Amulet Vol. 2; The Stonekeeper’s Curse (2009)
by Kazu Kibuishi

Kibuishi is the genius behind the fabulous Flight graphic series. Last year I found out about Amulet and read the first book in the series. The problem with reading books in a series is that you have to wait until the next volume comes out. Just last month volume 2 arrived and I dove in. Both books are about siblings Navin and Emily. With their mother they move to an old family home to start over after losing their father in a car accident. Only days after arriving, strange things start to happen and their mother is kidnapped by a strange creature and taken to another world.

Book two starts where the first book left off with Navin and Emily trying to rescue their mother. Filled with more action and adventure than book one, you can’t put this book down until you turn the last page. The graphics are so great, there were a few I wanted to blow up and put on my wall. Great read for all ages.

Peter and Max: A Fables Novel (2009)
Bill Willingham
400 pages

I have been a fan of  Bill Willingham’s graphic novel series, Fables, for years. Peter is a Fable who lives with his wife Bo (Little Bo Peep). When Bigby Wolf, Beast, and Frau Totenkinder informs Peter that his older brother Max has returned, Peter knows he has to go and finish the fight that started between the two brother centuries before.

With that said, I have to tell you this was an excellent read. Because I’ve already read the graphic novels I found the beginning slow-going and almost set the book down. After a while, the book picked up and I set aside almost everything to read it. The plot goes back and forth between the past explaining how Max became the Pied Piper and his jealousy with Peter, and the present as Max flies across the world to confront his brother.Willingham did a fantastic job providing the background information. Bigby and Frau Totenkinder both appear in the brothers’ past and readers find out more about Frau Totenkinder and the life she lead before coming to our world.

The fight that happened between the two brothers wasn’t what I expected after the build-up of so much suspense. It was a pretty crafty fight though. If you love fairy tales and/or love the Fables series, this is a great book for you.

November 1, 2009 – November 30, 2010

Eva from A Striped Armchair, Care from Care’s Online Book Club, and Aarti from Booklust are co-hosting this great new challenge that has many bloggers excited to join. The Women Unbound Challenge is about reading non-fiction and fiction books that focus on issues that affect women.

Readers can choose one of three levels to participate:

Philogynist:  Read at least two books, including at least one non-fiction read
Bluestocking: Read at least five books, including at least two non-fiction reads
Suffragette: Read at least eight books, including at least three non-fiction reads

Of course I’m signing up for the suffragette level. Here’s my list of possible reads:

Non-fiction

• Twenty Years at Hull-House by Jane Addams
• The Water will Hold You: A Skeptic Learns to Pray by Lindsey Crittenden
• Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog
• High Tide in Tucson: essays by Barbara Kingsolver
• In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker

• Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman
• Changing my mind: essays by Zadie Smith
• Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
• The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedman
• Women Who Eat by Leslie Miller

• Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation by Elissa Stein and Susan Kim
• Lit by Mary Karr
• So Long a Letter by Mariama Be
• Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula Giddings
• I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire

• This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund
• Easter Everywhere by Darcey Steinke
• The Secret of God by Beryl Singleton Bissell
• Because I said so by Camille Peri
• Choice by Karen E. Bender

• Claiming Breath by Diane Glancy
• Silences by Tillie Olsen
• A Voice of her Own by Marlene Schiwy

Fiction

• The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
• Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
• A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
• Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

• For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
• The Ultravioley Sky by Alma Luz Villanueva
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• Flygirl by Sherri L.Smith
• Bone by Fae Myenne Ng

So that’s my list of possibilities. How about you? Are you joining the challenge? Are there are books you recommend?

Shelf Discovery Reading Challenge
November 1, 2009 -April 30, 1020

Julie over at Bookingmama came up with the great idea to host this challenge based on the book, Shelf Discovery by Lizzie Skurnick. The reading challenge is all about revisiting childhood favorites. The goal of the challenge is to read at least six of the books mentioned in Shelf Discovery. Doesn’t that sound easy?

Here’s my picks:

1. The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
2. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
3. Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume
4. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
5. Homecoming by Cynthia Viorst
6. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
7. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken

Have you read any of your childhood favorites lately? If not, what is one you wouldn’t mind revisiting?

Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Adams
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci
The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint

Distracted: the erosion of attention and the coming Dark Age by Maggie Jackson
Pip: The Story of Olive by Kim Kane
Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur

Once Upon A Time (She Said) by Jane Yolen
The Wild Things by Dave Eggers
Flight Vol 5 by Kazu Kibuishi

Old Loot

Sprout by Dale Peck
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
The Strain by Guillermo del Toro
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson
The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

Okay. So that’s my library loot for this week. What have you check out from the library lately?

The Year the Swallows Came Early (2009)
Kathryn Fitzmaurice
290 pages
Middle school fiction
2009 Cybils nominee

Summary

All Eleanor “Groovy” Robinson has ever wanted was to go to culinary school when she grows up. In the meantime, she spends her days learning new recipes, cooking for her parents, and sharing her dreams with her dad. But when her dad is arrested for spending the money in Groovy’s trust fund, her dreams are shattered.

I must’ve been in that room for a long time. I couldn’t say for sure because there’s no way to track time while trying to understand something completely different about a person you thought was someone else. Especially after years of me saying to people, Oh no, my daddy’s not like that. My daddy’s this, or my daddy’s that.

I’d gone around my whole life believing what he’d told me, like what he’d said was just how things were. Mama had said he’d taken the money, that he’d lost it on a bet, but it wasn’t until I saw his handwriting in the book that it seemed real to me. It wasn’t until I saw for myself all his different ways of trying to win money that I knew how much he’d been lying to me and Mama. (pg. 170)

Groovy isn’t the only one who has to deal with a troubled parent. Her best friend, Frankie, has to deal with the sudden reappearance of his mother who left more than a year ago. There are so many questions that need to be answered and so many things about their lives that’s changing. The only thing that is staying the same for the two kids is the yearly arrival of the sparrows to their small town of San Juan Capistrano, California.

My Thoughts

This was a great coming-of-age story about forgiveness, change, and love. Both Frankie and Groovy have to reflect and decide whether or not they’re going to forgive their parents or harbor that anger and let it change who they are and who they can be in the future. After her father’s arrest Groovy goes from being called “Groovy” to Eleanor when she realizes that she’s no longer the same person. Frankie tries to hold on to his anger instead of forgiving his mother for her disappearance.

Groovy is a great character, one of my favorites this year. She’s honest and insightful about the people around her. You couldn’t help but want to know more about her from the book’s great opening paragraph,

We lived in a perfect stucco house, just off the sparkly Pacific, with a lime tree in the backyard and pink and yellow roses gone wild around a picket fence. But that wasn’t enough to keep my daddy from going to jail the year I turned eleven. I told my best friend, Frankie, that it was hard to tell what something was like on the inside just by looking at the outside. And that our house was like one of those See’s candies with beautiful swirled chocolate on the outside, but sometimes hiding coconut flakes on the inside, all gritty and hard, like undercooked white rice.

Thanks to last weekend’s read-a-thon and the Cybils, last week was my best reading week in months! I read:

August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
B.P.R.D. #2: The Soul of Venice and Other Stories
The Year of the Sparrows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice

Imogene’s Antler’s by David Small
Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen

Amulet 1: The Stonkeeper by Kazu Kibuishi
Amulet 2: The Stonekeeper’s Curse by Kazu Kibuishi
Angels in America by Tony Kushner

The Professor’s Daughter by Joann Sfar
Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon and Dean Hale
A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams by Jen Bryant

Not Shown:

The Imaginary Garden by Andrew Larsen
Humpty, Dumpty Climbs Again by Dave Horowitz
The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino
Babymouse: Dragon Slayer by Jennifer L. Holm
Abigail Spells by Anna Alter
Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden byEdith Pattou

Right now I’m reading

Peter and Max by Bill Willingham
Hide Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Admissions by Jean Hanff Korelitz

This week I also plan on reading:

The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo
Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry

What are you reading this week?

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? About hour16. One of my sons wasn’t feeling well and wanted me to lie down with him. I knew if I did, I would probably go to sleep and I did. Luckily I woke up a few hours later and read some more.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? The Fables series by Bill Willingham (graphic novels), Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry (play), anything by Shaun Tan, Black Swan, White Raven edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (short stories). There’s a lot of books I can recommend so I’ll write a post before the next read-a-thon.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the read-a-thon next year? None.

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s read-a-thon? Twitter. By using Twitter we had so many people sign up and it was also an easier to cheer people on.

5. How many books did you read? 8

6. What were the names of the books you read?

• Angels in America by Tony Kushner
• The Professor’s Daughter by Joann Sfar
• Amulet 1: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kubuishi
• Amulet 2: The Stonekeeper’s Curse by Kazu Kubuishi
• Imogene’s Antlers by David Small
• Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen
• Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
• Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon and DeanHale

7. Which book did you enjoy most? I loved them all.

8. Which did you enjoy the least? None

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? Don’t feel overwhelm. I learned with this read-a-thon that though it’s possible to reach a lot of blogs, you won’t be able to make it to each one unless you’re only cheering.

10. How likely are you to participate in the read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? I’m definitely participating in next year’s read-a-thon. I’ll probably just read next time instead of reading and cheering.

Big thanks to Wordlily, Nymeth, Trish, and Eva for hosting!

Books read since last update: 4 (Amulet 1: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi, Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen, Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and Imogene’s Antlers by David Small)

Total books read: 6

Pages read: Have no idea. I quit counting.

Now reading: Amulet 2: The Stonekeeper’s Curse by Kazu Kuibuishi

Mini-challenges participated in: 4?

Latest meal: Hash browns and sausages

I just finished the book club meeting with my son. We had a lot of fun reading and discussing Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Imogene’s Antlers by David Small (an old favorite of mine), and Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen. Yolen is easily becoming one of my favorite authors.

Surprisingly I’m not tired yet, but I am prepared to read in bed if I have to go lie down with the kids later. I still have a ton of great books I’m looking forward to and I’m officially done cheerleading for the night so I’m not going to bed anytime soon. If you don’t see any more updates, I’m in bed. Hopefully awake.

Happy reading!