Those of you who have studied stars may recognize Mirach from suggestions on how to locate the North Star - Finding Mirach (or Mirak), then Dubhe - the "pointer stars" and then using the distance between Mirak/Dubhe (prounounced doobie) to point to the North Star... counting "doobie, doobie, doo..." The North Star lies two and a half more lengths away from the pointer stars ;) Diagram here! (diagram not to scale, I just liked the way it lets you hover over to see the constellation lines vs what the sky looks like)
Anyway... as I continue to read more and more dystopian books, this seems to be my preferred genre... my north star metaphorically.
A friend recommended Matched last week, and after reading one or two things about it, I immediately got it, even though it's still in hardback. I took it to the lake last weekend, along with The Truth About Forever. After the weekend, both books were read, and by Tuesday, The Truth About Forever had been sold to a used bookstore, and Matched has been added to my "WHY IS THE SEQUEL NOT OUT YET?!?!" list.
FAN. TAS. TIC.
I want more. Now.
I was a little turned off by a quote on the back of the book - "It's A Brave New World for the Twilight generation" but I think that has a lot to do with my disdain for Stephanie Myers and her series... bleh... sparkle sparkle barf... ;)
BUT. I did not let it stop me, and once I started reading it, I was hooked all over again - VERY reminiscent of my favorites such as The Giver and 1984. The characters in "the society" find out who their mate will be at a certain age because "that is the most effective age to find out" and they get married at age 25 because "statistics show that is the most optimal time to get married," etc etc etc - kids, death, it's all planned out by the society, for the good of the society... Each member of society has three colored pills that they can take under different circumstances (though one ONLY if an "official" tells you to take it...) etc etc... For those of you who have seen books like this, I'm sure it's all familiar to you.
Why is it always girls? Is it that we had a generation of girls grow up "in a box" who felt trapped by America's society? Are they now writing about how to break free from it? Are today's girls feeling trapped? Maze Runner is one of the few that involves a strong male lead... or maybe I'm just picking out the ones with female characters for my own reading....
In side news, I purchased for myself today a Mockingjay shirt from HotTopic, mostly because I wanted to get in on the trend before it truly became a trend - i.e. before the movie. It is a shirt that follows my rules - it only has a small mockingjay pin on it, no explanation (though in very small letters because of the copyright it does say the book) but you definitely have to *know* the reference to understand the shirt :)
I also finished The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordian this past week... it was kind of unfulfilling... I have been reading it for about 6 months now, on and off in my car as I wait for people various places... and maybe I just don't like Egyptian lore as much as Greek myths, but I just didn't find it NEARLY as interesting... I have the 2nd book in the series, The Throne of Fire from February... but I just am uninterested in picking it up...
For this weekend, as I head off, my books for the lake include Love Wins (a Christian book with some controversy), Life As We Knew It because I saw it at Barnes and Noble under "required middle school reading" and was intrigued since Ms. R had mentioned it before, Ender's Game because it has been a while since I read it, and one of my kids is reading it this summer, and City of Ember because while I don't know much about it, that book keeps showing up whenever I search for dystopian stuff, so I figure I ought to know what it is about...
Friday, June 17, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
Rutilicus - Hercules
Hercules was a fighter. The book I started to read was about war... I think... maybe... possibly... I've been told... so it's a stretch!
So I went to the library on Friday after school, and picked up several books from the Young Adult section. I got excited because I was able to find several books that my friends had suggested for me to read.
I like the instant-gratification of getting books from Barnes and Noble, and am often frustrated by the library system in my county because it is a huge county, and even with multiple facilities, books are often not in, or not at the location where I go. So I took a risk and went to the library! I even had to get a new card because I had (go figure) lost my old card! Now I can even request books again! haha!
I picked up a LOT of books, and at least when I pick them up at the library, I can feel not guilty when I give up on it and quit reading halfway through. I don't often start reading with the thought of "this stinks" because I don't pick up bad books - since I'm not in high school anymore, I don't HAVE to read books that I don't like, so I CAN just quit reading part way through
So. This happened. Twice.
I started reading True... sort of by Katherine Hannigan, the same one who wrote Ida B. I honestly have never read Ida B. either, but have heard it's a great book, so I was kind of excited. I did NOT like it. It's a story about a girl named Delly (real name Delaware - I don't do well with kids named after states either...) who makes up words - like "mysteriousity" and other silly words. It's like she is old enough to know better, but still makes up silly little words - so many in fact that the book comes with its own dictionary in the back of "Dellyisms." I couldn't put up with it past like 6 short chapters, so I stopped. It wasn't really going anywhere... I think it might be about a new kid coming, and Delly making friends with the new kid.... but Delly is not likeable character from the start...
So I started in on how i live now which was recommended to me (No, Ms. R, I don't hold it against you!). I had a large print copy, so I'm not sure if part of the trouble I had with the formatting was because it was a large print version... There were no quotation marks, which made it a little hard to follow at times. I also had trouble with something leftover from Junie B. Jones days... which is when a character wants to emphasize something by over capitalization. For instance, here's a sample sentence -
"And for a minute I was so glad I was fifteen and from New York City because even though I haven't actually Seen It All, I have seen more than plenty, and I have one of the best Oh Yeah, This Is So Much What I Usually Do kind of faces of anyone in my crowd."
I spend most of my writing days trying to get kids to AVOID that type of writing, and it was downright painful to try and understand what was actually being said... and once I did figure out sort of the plot of what was going on, I was uninterested. Don't get me wrong. I read Flowers in the Attic, but I didn't realize this was gonna be kissing relatives also... So I gave up. Right after Chapter 5 or so... literally, slammed the book and announced "well, i'm done with THAT!"
I am really excited about several of the other books I picked up, including Forge by Laurie Anderson (the second book after Chains, The Monster's Ring and Juliet Dove, Queen of Love both by Bruce Coville, and both in the same series as Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher and Jennifer Murdley's Toad which I LOVED as a child. Apparently there is a 5th book - The Skull of Truth which I have not acquired yet... emphasis on yet! My arms were only so big!
On the "fourth grade appropriate" side, I picked up Havoc but have since realized that I grabbed the sequel... and need to first read Malice - both books look phenomenol - about kids who are trying to escape a comic book world, and so the reader is literally forced into a 4-6 page graphic novel sequence at the end of each (long) chapter. It looks fantastic and I'm excited - though I should wait to read the first one first...
I also grabbed The Forest of Hands and Teeth and am excited that it's a series - though the Zombie idea kind of creeps me out...
Other books that I picked up on a whim - Criss-Cross, No Talking (Andrew Clements, who wrote Frindle), and Small Steps which is the sequel to Holes.
So I guess I'll be pretty busy - but if you have more ideas, PLEASE suggest them! :)
So I went to the library on Friday after school, and picked up several books from the Young Adult section. I got excited because I was able to find several books that my friends had suggested for me to read.
I like the instant-gratification of getting books from Barnes and Noble, and am often frustrated by the library system in my county because it is a huge county, and even with multiple facilities, books are often not in, or not at the location where I go. So I took a risk and went to the library! I even had to get a new card because I had (go figure) lost my old card! Now I can even request books again! haha!
I picked up a LOT of books, and at least when I pick them up at the library, I can feel not guilty when I give up on it and quit reading halfway through. I don't often start reading with the thought of "this stinks" because I don't pick up bad books - since I'm not in high school anymore, I don't HAVE to read books that I don't like, so I CAN just quit reading part way through
So. This happened. Twice.
I started reading True... sort of by Katherine Hannigan, the same one who wrote Ida B. I honestly have never read Ida B. either, but have heard it's a great book, so I was kind of excited. I did NOT like it. It's a story about a girl named Delly (real name Delaware - I don't do well with kids named after states either...) who makes up words - like "mysteriousity" and other silly words. It's like she is old enough to know better, but still makes up silly little words - so many in fact that the book comes with its own dictionary in the back of "Dellyisms." I couldn't put up with it past like 6 short chapters, so I stopped. It wasn't really going anywhere... I think it might be about a new kid coming, and Delly making friends with the new kid.... but Delly is not likeable character from the start...
So I started in on how i live now which was recommended to me (No, Ms. R, I don't hold it against you!). I had a large print copy, so I'm not sure if part of the trouble I had with the formatting was because it was a large print version... There were no quotation marks, which made it a little hard to follow at times. I also had trouble with something leftover from Junie B. Jones days... which is when a character wants to emphasize something by over capitalization. For instance, here's a sample sentence -
"And for a minute I was so glad I was fifteen and from New York City because even though I haven't actually Seen It All, I have seen more than plenty, and I have one of the best Oh Yeah, This Is So Much What I Usually Do kind of faces of anyone in my crowd."
I spend most of my writing days trying to get kids to AVOID that type of writing, and it was downright painful to try and understand what was actually being said... and once I did figure out sort of the plot of what was going on, I was uninterested. Don't get me wrong. I read Flowers in the Attic, but I didn't realize this was gonna be kissing relatives also... So I gave up. Right after Chapter 5 or so... literally, slammed the book and announced "well, i'm done with THAT!"
I am really excited about several of the other books I picked up, including Forge by Laurie Anderson (the second book after Chains, The Monster's Ring and Juliet Dove, Queen of Love both by Bruce Coville, and both in the same series as Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher and Jennifer Murdley's Toad which I LOVED as a child. Apparently there is a 5th book - The Skull of Truth which I have not acquired yet... emphasis on yet! My arms were only so big!
On the "fourth grade appropriate" side, I picked up Havoc but have since realized that I grabbed the sequel... and need to first read Malice - both books look phenomenol - about kids who are trying to escape a comic book world, and so the reader is literally forced into a 4-6 page graphic novel sequence at the end of each (long) chapter. It looks fantastic and I'm excited - though I should wait to read the first one first...
I also grabbed The Forest of Hands and Teeth and am excited that it's a series - though the Zombie idea kind of creeps me out...
Other books that I picked up on a whim - Criss-Cross, No Talking (Andrew Clements, who wrote Frindle), and Small Steps which is the sequel to Holes.
So I guess I'll be pretty busy - but if you have more ideas, PLEASE suggest them! :)
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