36, 37, 38 - combining posts . . .

i am in the process of designing a new class right now.  (shh.  this should have been done a few weeks ago, but i'm finally putting some actual teacher thought into it.)  my friend, micki, at school sent me the link to this lesson plan on www.readwritethink.org to help motivate me a little.  and oh boy!  did it motivate me.  and here's why.

36 - the anchor text for this unit is a chair for my mother by vera williams.  when i saw that, i knew that i absolutely had to do the lesson.  this was my favorite book EVER reviewed on reading rainbow.  i still remember watching reading rainbow, hearing about this book, and going to straight to it the next time we went to the library.  i loved the story, loved the art, loved everything.  so yeah.  i am excited to work with it next week.

37 & 38 - when i went to buy it yesterday evening, i found myself standing in front of several of leo lionni books.  talk about books that have amazing philosophy . . . so i had to get a couple.

35 - rebel angels

oops.  i actually read this back in july.  but you know, since i pretty much sucked at keeping up with this blog over the summer, i'm having to backtrack now.

this is the sequel to libba bray's a great and terrible beauty.  like the first book, i LOVED this one, too.  it's so steeped in the mythical and the descriptions are so vivid.  are they for everyone?  nope.  but i really like them.  i'm being cheap right now and waiting to buy the third book until it is in paperback.  i've got several more months to wait . . . 

34 - perfect

my friend, lori, suggested that i read natasha friend's books.  at the time she suggested them, i had several books in my arms for purchase, so i had to file the thought away for a while.  which i did, until last weekend when i went in to border to buy pride and prejudice.  i figured i owed it to myself to buy a book i would probably enjoy reading during the purchase of what has now become my nemesis.  (can a book be a nemesis?)

anyway.  of course, lori was right.  perfect was, well, perfect.  and fast to read.  it's already found a place on my student shelf in the classroom and will probably be the first book i do a podcast on for my school website.  i'm fighting the urge to go buy the other two books she has written.  i will probably lose that battle.

33 - breaking dawn

i read this book.  it was long.  i was happy the last two words of it were "the end."  here's hoping that means i'm done with forks, washington for a while.

do i appreciate ANY book that can get kids excited about reading?  um, duh.  i am an english teacher, so yes.  do i appreciate ANY book that can help me connect to that student who typically won't say a word to me?  um, duh, again.  but here's the deal: i've never been a fan of vampire stories, zombie stories, horror stories of any kind.  you throw in a romance that (to me) borders on unhealthy obsession and dependence and stretch it out for FOUR books (the last of which was RIDICULOUSLY long with some crazy weird stuff going on, i.e. nessie), then yeah, i'm going to be ready to be finished with these characters.  

p.s.  i really liked twilight.  i did!  i did!  the rest of the series has just not been as fun for me to read.

32 - girls in trucks

i'll be honest.  i picked this book because of the cover.  i LOVE that photograph above.  i would like to have it framed somewhere in my house.  

and because i picked a book solely due to the cover, i must deal with the ramifications.  the book was interesting, i'll give it that - a debutante who doesn't follow tradition and goes to college in the northeast and ends up in new york city, drinks too much, alienates her family, and so on.  but, the fact that i read it over a month ago and can't think of anything really to say about it, should probably be an indication of something.  don't get me wrong, i had no negative feelings about the book while i was reading it.  (i know this because i always remember everything about books i don't like . . .)  it just doesn't stand out now.

31 - the dogs of babel

i picked this book up at my parents' house, so it isn't something that would have caught my eye on my own.  that said, i really enjoyed reading it.  the premise is horribly sad: a man comes home from work to find that his wife has fallen out of a tree in their backyard and has died. their dog, Lorelei, witnessed it all.  the first chapter of this book sucked me in faster than any other book i've read lately.  The rest of the book is the journey through the husband's grief and how he just can't accept the explanation for his wife's death.  a linguist, he decides that he is going to teach the dog to talk so she can explain what happened that day.  

farfetched?  a little.  but i think that is why i liked the book so much.  the linguistics plot is interesting and somewhat creepy.  i haven't don't much research to find out if carolyn parkhurst imagined a lot of the "facts" that appear in the novel or if they come from actual historical accounts.  if they are imagined, then WOW.  she does an amazing job of creating very realistic science.  if the are based on historical events, then WOW.  disturbing.

30 - emily's reasons why not

wow.  i don't know what happened the last two months that i decided to be horrible at posting.  i have been reading . . . not as much as i normally do or would like to be, but i have been reading.

so i picked this book up for 3 bucks at barnes and noble.  it sounded interesting . . . girl searching for why she can't make a relationship work having to analyze everything about why previous relationships failed.  she does so by making lists.  i LOVE lists!

overall, it was a good read. my favorite part of the book was that each chapter was kind of like a short story, so you could read a chapter and put the book down for a couple of days and then come back to it.  and, that's what i did.  let's just say, when i needed a break from other books, i came to this one for a bit of silliness.  also, they apparently tried to make this a tv show, but it only lasted 6 episodes.