Despite taking a huge stack of books, and buying even more, I only managed to read one book on my vacation- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry- and that one I read on the plane home. Number the Stars is set in 1943 Denmark. It's the story of the Jewish detainment and one 10 year old girl's role in it. This is a very quick book, written for middle school aged kids. It won the Newbery Award in 1990.
The story is very clear, and simple to read, but I didn't think it was nearly as good as The Giver (also by Lowry) or The Book Thief (also about WWII and the Holocaust). The writing isn't as good, and I didn't find it as emotionally hard as either of the others. This was on my Newbery Challenge list, and I am glad that I read it, but it's not going down as a favorite book.
I also finished Hex in the City by Simon R Green. This is the fourth in the series and it just keeps getting more outlandish and better with each installment. This one sets up the story for the next few titles and ends with a bit of a cliff hanger. I have the next two at home (borrowed from the library) and hope to get to them soonish. I'd like to have at least one series that I'm all caught up on.
Reading goals for the next month or so- Harry Potters 5 and 6, finish up the Newbery Challenge, wrap up a couple odds and ends (The Faith Club, I Am the Messenger, Carved in Bone.) This is a lot of reading for me, those HPs are huge! I'm determined to reread them all before July 21 though.
Two weeks worth of math- 7 more from Paperbackswap (the last being How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater) plus the 7 I bought on vacation brings me to 86 books in since January. I finished two whole books in that time. This brings me to 52 books behind. This experiment is starting to get depressing. Good thing it's summer and tv is all reruns!
I WISH I was only 52 books behind! But I won a sweepstakes in which the winner gets at least one book from every person who wants to participate (I got about 40 or more) and have a few years on you yet.
ReplyDeleteIn other words: please don't turn into me!
And on a happy note, I don't know if you've been by, but I'm running a summer reading contest. Some of these books you've mentioned will fit in just fine... Yup, one book. Two contests. How can you resist?
Happy reading! And really. 52 books isn't so bad.
I love those Simon Greene books. So much fun. And, I will always be behind in my reading and my life.
ReplyDeleteI have not posted two books yet for the summer mystery challenge. See, behind!
But, Big Brother's on in the summer -- 3 nights a week! I wish I had more time to read, sigh....
ReplyDelete