Read This Book!

I’m an advocate for books. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m known for. I became a teacher because I wanted to share my passion for books with others, hoping they would fall in love with reading too. I am so enthusiastic about books I love that I do little happy dances and tell people if they don’t read that book right now they are missing out on life and happiness.

When friends or family want a good book, they ask me. I’ve never left a doctor’s office without recommending at least two books to pretty much every single person I talk to. I read while waiting in the doctor’s office, which means the nurse always wants to talk to me about books. If it is a doctor I visit often, they start asking for recommendations the moment they see me. Once the doctor comes in, we usually spend more time talking books than about what I’ve come into the office for. And I love every single minute of it.

When I talk books, I talk about the ones I love. The ones that kept me up at night, that were the reason my husband had to dig out his oldest pair of jeans because nothing else was clean, the reason I considered playing hooky from work just to stay home and read all day. I talk about the ones that made me cry. Made me laugh. Made me read them several times.

Because this is what we do when we love books. We want others to love them too. I don’t recommend books I don’t like, the ones I can’t finish, the ones I toss aside in disgust. Yes, I’ve read plenty like that. But no one wants to hear about those. They want to hear about the ones I loved so that maybe they will fall in love too.

So that is why I only review books I like, and that is why if you check out my Goodreads, you’ll only see 4s and 5s. No, not every book I read gets 4s and 5s. Sometimes I’ll go a couple of months without updating because I don’t love the books I’m reading. I decided a while back that I would only talk about those books I would recommend to others. That’s what I do.

I do believe there is a need for critical reviews. I have plenty of opinions about why books didn’t work for me. I discuss those with my book club or friends who have read the same book. I adore critical book discussions, picking apart the character development, voice, plot. But my blog reviews and Goodreads were created to get others to read. I sort of feel like that’s my calling.

So here are a few of the books that I love. And keep checking out my blog or Goodreads if you want to hear about more.

 

A few of my favorites:

IT by Stephen King

A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES by Deborah Harkness

REBECCA by Dauphne du Maurier
FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
THE SWAN THIEVES and THE HISTORIAN by Elizabeth Kostova
Anything Jane Austen, but particulary PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
THE SHADOW OF THE WIND by Carlos Ruiz Zafron
 

HARRY POTTER by JK Rowling (obviously)

JELLICOE ROAD by Marlina Marchetta
CRACKED UP TO BE by Courtney Summers
SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS  and AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES by John Green
JUST ONE DAY by Gayle Foreman
THIRTEEN REASONS WHY by Jay Asher

(And I’m going to stop there because once I started making this list it started getting out of hand. How do you pick your favorite books?!)

Happy Reading!

Musical Muse

Music has the ability to transport me places just like books do. And sometimes, when I combine a book and music together, they will always remind me of each other. I talked about that a little here. Now, whenever I hear “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles, I am immediately back in that scene of The Hounds of the Morrigan.

The other day, “Welcome Home” by Radical Face came on. I immediately got the chills and had to stop what I was doing to listen, because I was all of a sudden plunged back into Reclaimed.

I listened to that song over and over again while I was doing revisions on Reclaimed. Now, when I hear the song, I see my characters. I see the town of Solitude, where the story is set. I see the lake and the trees, Jenna’s Bronco, the old rail yard. I see Ian and Luke. When I hear the song, I'm in the story again, and I love it. It’s the sound of October to me, the month when Reclaimed begins, as well as the month I was revising. Now that song makes my heart ache, because I feel for my characters and their struggles, and it beats a little faster too, because soon readers will know those struggles as well.

 

 

 

 

I also love hearing a song for the first time and being swept away by how its voice is the voice of one of my characters. This happened just a few weeks ago, the first time I ever heard “Too Late” by Wes Kirkpatrick. The song hadn’t played for more than a few seconds before I felt too full, like my heart was pressing against my ribs. I know that’s a bit melodramatic, but I’m serious. I heard this song and I was caught up in the emotional struggle of the male main character in my current WIP. I felt everything he feels in the manuscript, and all of those feelings rushing toward me at once was a bit overwhelming. It was so him that I fell in love with this character all over again.

 

 

Music is the soul to my writing. My playlists aren’t so much what my characters would like or listen to, but more the singing of their souls, so that as I am writing them, I am hearing them cry out, begging me to listen, pleading for their stories to be told. All I can do is crank up the music and hang on tight. I never know where their stories are going to take me. But I do know that when I hear that song again, I can always revisit that journey.

Childhood Revisited: Angelle T. reviews MICK HARTE WAS HERE

It was fifth grade in Mrs. Crockett’s class that I was given Mick Harte Was Here by Barbara Park. I wasn't the biggest reader at that time, only my precious Dear Dumb Diary books that were mostly illustrations. I still remember flipping it over and reading the description about a girl who has to deal with the grief of her brother Mick’s death. I had never read anything serious at that point in my life and the book seemed daunting.

Once we started, I couldn't put it down and finished the book so impressed. I saw reading in a whole new light. This book not only got me reading but shaped the way I read. First of all I have to thank Mrs. Crockett for letting us read this as fifth graders. This book definitely pushed the limits of my fifth grade mind. It talked about curse words, death, and even questioning God. I know that sounds inappropriate, but it wasn't at all. Barbara Park did such a great job of putting these harsh subjects out in a friendly way, through the voice of Phoebe, who is actually me in an alternate fictional universe (awesome). Even though she was fourteen, which seemed really old at the time, Barbara made her relatable to me, then and to this day, as I reread it as a totally sophisticated 16 year old. She didn't shove things down your throat. You didn't have to agree with the things Phoebe did or the way she thought during her time of grief. This was just her story that you happened to be reading. It was all up to your discretion.

I appreciate being challenged with this at a young age because it made me always look for things in books that made me uncomfortable but intrigued and showed me things I haven't experienced. As I was reading it again, it really dawned on me how Phoebe being such a strong female lead is parallel to all of the books I really love today. She dealt with things her own way and matured as the book went on. She was a dynamic character, which is something I look for in the main characters of the books I read today. This book challenged me to think in ways I never had. It showed me how reading can make you feel something. It was the first time I had ever cried while reading, and that was an amazing thing to me. Re reading it yesterday, I cried even more. I think being older and having experienced much more in life, her grief was something I could relate to and feel along with her. I had a whole new appreciation for the book and its messages. Don't get me wrong, this isn't just a sad book; in fact, it's pretty funny. Phoebe's dry humor in her time of grief kept her going, which I really related to and appreciated. It kept me interested the whole time, which is a pretty big deal to be able to keep a ten year old’s attention, but this book did it in a way that felt very natural.

This book taught me to appreciate a constant flow and quality story line in the books I read.  An aspect that really stood out to me when I read it again was how the ending wasn’t picture perfect because, well, that’s life. But that’s what made it a great book. I don’t think as a ten year old that I had ever read a book before that didn’t end in smiles and laughter before fading to black. This one was different. I have to believe that it shaped my perspective of books. I can’t tell you the last time I really enjoyed a book ending with everyone’s problems solved. After reading this book, a door was opened in my mind to what a really meaningful reading experience could be, growing as a person through the words of others, and that has made all the difference.

Angelle is a high school student who has participated before in my Teen Perspective reviews. She often sings lines from A Very Potter Musical, much to both the annoyance and amusement of her yearbook teacher (i.e., me).

Childhood Revisited: My Review of THE HOUNDS OF THE MORRIGAN

I want to thank everyone who participated in the Childhood Revisited blog series. I really enjoyed reading reviews of book I fell in love with as a child - they made me want to re-read them all.


My copy of the book has been taped back
together more than once.

My love affair with The Hounds of the Morrigan began in fourth grade. It was the biggest book in our school library, and I had always had a thing for weighty tomes. I gained an enormous sense of satisfaction when I finished long books, but it also meant I could live in their world a little bit longer.

We visited the library every two weeks, so at the end of the two weeks, I was disappointed when I had to return the book. I begged my parents to buy it for me for Christmas, and I was thrilled when it was propped against the fireplace on Christmas morning. I finished it fairly quickly after that, so enamoured was I with the characters and their quest to basically save the world. There is one particular moment that I can recall as vividly today as if it just happened. I was lying on my bed reading this book with the radio on in the background. “Eternal Flame” by the Bangles came on (you read that right - the Bangles), and the mood and tone of the song so perfectly fit the scene I was reading that I seriously felt as if my heart were too big for my chest. That is the first time I really remember being so moved, so caught up in a story that the words felt more real than reality. I had always been able to lose myself in a good book, but this was so beyond that.

The Hounds of the Morrigan follows ten-year-old Pidge and his five-year-old sister Bridget. They have been recruited to go on a quest to find a stone with the Morrigan’s blood on it. If she finds it first, the world will be doomed. They are followed along the way by the Morrigan’s hounds, who can scent them but are not allowed to actually hunt them unless the children run in front of them. I always felt such fear for the kids, as I knew how badly they wanted to run but couldn’t. They are helped along the way many times by both man and beast, and must outwit the Morrigan as she uses her magic to prevent them from finding the pebble first.

This book was released in 1985, well before Harry Potter, and I loved the fantasy and magic and danger. I had never read a book like it. At the time I believed the children to be in a completely new world, but in re-reading it, I realized they are in Ireland. (Which is fantastical enough for me.) Most of the story’s characters are based on Celtic mythology, and I do wish I knew a little bit more about that. I think that would make the story even better.

As a child I loved the stories and characters, particularly Roo, the Fox. I have read this book more times than I can remember, but this is the first time I’ve re-read this book since becoming serious about my writing. This time around I was more interested in O’Shea’s writing. I’m sure part of that had to do with the fact that I know this story so well. But O’Shea does a wonderful job with voice. The story is told in third-person POV, and many times we are in Pidge’s head. He, and his little sister, seem much wiser and more mature than their age. But somehow O’Shea still manages to keep a child’s voice without sacrificing language. She does not dumb down her vocabulary or really even simplify her sentence structure. The dialogue, particularly when Bridge is speaking, still makes me giggle.

The Hounds of the Morrigan is one of those books that feel like they belong just to me. I’ve never met anyone else, besides my sister, who has read this book. If you have, I would love to hear your thoughts. If you haven’t – well, I guess I can share.

Childhood Revisited: Emily P. reviews THE LITTLE HOUSE books

By the time I was six, I was already searching for chapter books to quench the burning desire I had to read books that would last longer than thirty minutes. And although I was already an advanced reader, I wasn’t quite ready to give up illustrations. So, my mom presented me with The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder, launching me into a faithful obsession that would consume the next four years of my childhood. The Little House books were just amazing to my younger self, the story of a girl my age growing up in such a different time, but still facing the same struggles as I did, like getting along with a sister. By my seventh birthday, I had read the entire series, and a little part of me had grown up with Laura (which could possibly explain why I never did understand my parents’ use of the “you’re only seven” excuse). These were the books that taught me about family, and because of them, I was able to appreciate my family even more. Laura was always more than a drawing of a little girl or a “Half-pint” to me. She was another friend.

Most of the books I read in the latter parts of my childhood years were linked to The Little House books. I discovered that there were also books about Laura’s mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and daughter, and the hunt began for every copy. Sadly, we couldn’t find all of them in our bookstores, but I devoured those that we had found, almost as soon as I got them, always ready for another, much to my parents’ wallet’s dismay.

So, these were the books I chose to reread because they had taught me more than any other book ever has. The thing it, though, when I first read these books, I was Laura’s age at the very beginning of the series, and I connected with her more when she was six and seven. Now, at sixteen, I can relate to the latter of the series, and that pressure to do well in school, and that fluttering beginning of romance. These books are timeless, with lessons and meanings relatable at any age. Even now, after hundreds of rereads, Almanzo’s proposal still coaxed a little gasp and a grin from me.

That’s the beauty of all books, I think. That they can last you a lifetime, and still make you feel like you did when you were six years old, wondering how on earth anyone could live in a little house in a Big Woods.

 

Emily is a high school student who often contributes reviews to this blog. You can see why.

Childhood Revisited: Kate Slivensky Reviews A WRINKLE IN TIME

I first read A WRINKLE IN TIME in fourth grade, as a class assignment. It was right around the time I was in love with Bruce Coville's ALIENS ATE MY HOMEWORK. It was also right when I was on the verge of beginning my Star Wars obsession (I devoured every Star Wars novel ever written during my tweenage years). In other words, though I was already an avid reader at that age, I was just beginning to learn the wonders of "science fiction fantasy".

So, along with my fellow "Gifted and Talented" classmates, I cracked open this odd-sounding book with nerdy enthusiasm...and my nine year-old mind was blown.

Going on two decades later, I picked this book back up to reread it for this blog series and had my mind blown again. Everything came flooding back, and it was glorious. I kid you not, sitting in my apartment with only my cat as a witness, a giant grin took over my face as soon as I got to the mysterious line at the end of the first chapter:

"...there is such a thing as a tesseract."

I remembered that line. That line was burnt into my brain, because as a kid--a kid with an extensive vocabulary and science-y interests much like the main character, Meg--I'd never heard the word "tesseract" before. And it was at that line that I was officially hooked. All because Madeleine L'Engle did something amazing: she didn't tell me what a tesseract was right away.

Instead, I was left trying to imagine what this strange word might be and why it is important to Meg's mother, and what it has to do Meg's father, and how this odd old lady knew it would mean something to this family.

Before I started my reread, I jotted down everything that stuck with me from my childhood about this book: tesseracts, the explanation of how time wrinkles, the weird world where everything is the same and rigid and structured, and Charles Wallace fighting the times tables. Most of all, though, was this one sentence I wrote down and underlined several times: "IT MADE ME THINK SO HARD MY BRAIN HURT...BUT IN A GOOD WAY".

As a kid who was nerdier than most, getting to read a story in which I couldn't guess where it was going--a story with fantastical elements that were explained in a logical way and concepts that philosophy majors could debate in graduate level courses--was like candy for my mind. Too often, adults fail to give kids enough credit. Kids can think. Kids can think pretty big, serious, and complicated thoughts.

Instead of dumbing ideas down for her readers, Madeleine L'Engle introduced ideas. She counted on her young readers to take these concepts and think them through for themselves. She knew kids were smart, and so she wrote a smart book for them. I cannot applaud her enough for this.

A WRINKLE IN TIME is one of my favorite childhood reads, because it encouraged me to think. As an adult, I've clearly take that lesson to heart. I'm a science educator. I write science-based adventures for middle grade readers. In all that I do, I try to get kids to think. Rereading A WRINKLE IN TIME has been enlightening, because it's put perspective on what I do and why I do it. Every now and again, a book comes along that really does change your life, and after rereading A WRINKLE IN TIME, I'm more convinced than ever that this was one of those books for me.

If you've never had a chance to read it, do yourself a favor and snag a copy somewhere. Better yet, get a copy, read it with a kid, and then have conversations with them about it. This clever, thought-provoking novel is guaranteed to worm its way into your brain and never completely let go. And don't be surprised if little Charles Wallace worms his way into your heart and stays there forever, too.

Katie Slivensky is a science educator and aspiring middle grade novelist. She has a Master's degree in paleontology and has spent countless hours digging up fossils in the badlands and measuring bones in dark museum basements. She now works for the Museum of Science in Boston, where she teaches outreach programming to kids across New England, and also runs their rooftop Observatory. Her blog, discoverific.blogspot.com, aims to help every-day people get to know science a little better.

Childhood Revisited: Jennifer Iacopelli Reviews THE SECRET GARDEN

When Sarah tweeted about the idea of rereading our favorite childhood classics I instantly knew I wanted to be a part of it and which book I wanted to read. There were many books that influenced me as a child and many books that I came back to over and over again. From the Little House series to Anne of Green Gables, I loved reading about strong girls, girls whose worlds I wanted to crawl into and experience first hand, girls I wanted to be friends with and emulate as I grew up. But like I said, when Sarah mentioned this blog series, I knew which book I wanted to reread, because this book was the first book that made me feel that way. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was the book that made me a reader.

Mary Lennox is a brat. That’s what I remember thinking when I was seven years old and reading The Secret Garden for the first time. My aunt, the one that always bought me books (we all had a relative like that right?) bought me a copy for my 7^thbirthday. She said maybe it would be a little too much for me, but I pretty much took her words as a challenge and was determined to read it on my own. So I did and for the very first time, I found myself with a real quandary while reading a book. Mary Lennox was most certainly a nasty, bratty little girl who’d I’d probably hate if I met her in real life, but I also remember thinking that maybe she had a good reason. Her parents were dead, everyone forgot about her and then she was sent to live in a strange house in an even stranger place. This wasn’t black and white, a hero or a villain. This was the first shade of gray I’d ever encountered and it fascinated me. Of course I didn’t really understand that at the time. I was simply drawn into the magical world of Yorkshire, the mysterious boy who thought he would die and the boy with red hair and beautiful blue eyes who could talk to the animals. I think I might have loved it despite Mary.

As an adult, the world of The Secret Garden was no less magical. I still fell in love with Dickon and his animals. The mystery of Colin and his “crooked” back was no less intriguing, but my opinion of Mary was a total reversal. As a little girl I thought that she was a brat, but with good reason. Now, it was all I could do not to weep for the little girl who had no understanding of how desperate she was for her mother’s love, for anyone to take notice of her, for just an ounce of happiness. It was such a joy to watch the magic of the garden, but truly the magic of having people love and care for her, transform Mary into a strong girl, one capable of amazing things, like helping a sick boy become healthy and reuniting a family.

Now, years later, I finally understand what kindled my interest in reading about girls like Laura Ingalls and Anne Shirley and later, Elizabeth Bennett and it all came back to a little brat I was sure I wouldn’t be able to stand and the magic she experienced in a secret garden.

 

 

Jennifer Iacopelli was born in New York and has no plans to leave...ever. Growing up, she read everything she could get her hands on, but her favorite authors were Laura Ingalls Wilder, L.M. Montgomery and Frances Hodgson Burnett all of whom wrote about kick-ass girls before it was cool for girls to be kick-ass. She got a Bachelor's degree in Adolescence Education and English Literature quickly followed up by a Master's in Library Science, which lets her frolic all day with her books and computers, leaving plenty of time in the evenings to write and yell at the Yankees, Giants and her favorite tennis players through the TV.

 

 

Jennifer is the author of Game Set Match, which will be out May 1st, 2013. Add it to your Goodreads!
Also, follow her on Twitter and check out her gorgeous website.