All the books….

In the immortal words of Brittany Spears, “Oops, I did it again….”

Yesterday was another day for the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl. My husband and I completed the crawl by visiting another 7 bookstores in the area. This time a friend tagged along, and I think enjoyed the day as much as we did. All in all, I came away with 28 books (29 if you count the copy of 150 Bookstores You Need to Visit Before You Die that my husband bought me as a Mother’s Day gift but I found as the books fell out of bags in the trunk). And I still have some books from last year’s crawl that I never read. But with a yearly Goodreads goal of 80 books, this should not be a problem to finish the books. That is, if I can remain focused on the books I own — and none of my favorite authors distract me by publishing new books this year.

This week I have been enjoying The Bee Sing by Paul Murray. When I say I’m enjoying it, I really mean it. I have found myself wanting to scream at one character (PJ, I’m thinking of you), “NO! Don’t do that!”, and feeling regret with another character (Cass) for poor choices with unintended consequences. But I have questions – the biggest is, why no punctuation in the third chapter? (Although is it really called a chapter if it is more than 75 pages long?) This book is definitely keeping my interest and making me want to keep reading to find out if PJ really follows through with that really bad choice.

I am also reading a middle grades novel. I found The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass through Instagram, and I’m so glad I found it. The library was lost due to a fire of mysterious origin. Two boys are determined to discover the cause and solve personal mysteries as they do. Other characters include a cat, and old librarian, and a few ghosts. It is an enchanting story.

One quote caught my eye this morning and I can’t let it go. In a flashback chapter, the librarian character Al is remembering a young boy who used to come to the library, reading everything he could get his hands on. “One of those books was a story about a mouse. It changed him. After he read that book, he could no longer see mice as the enemy. He saw them as fellow creatures….” (page 95). And that is why we need diverse books. Not just so that we can see mice as fellow creatures, but so that we can get to know and understand people around us who are different, and who experience life differently than we do. We need diverse books because we need to be able to see those people as fellow creatures and not enemies.

I hope my middle grade readers will be able to understand the connection between a boy understanding a mouse and no longer seeing it as an enemy, and people learning to understand other people and refusing to see them as enemies.

Happy reading — and happy understanding!

My TBR list is growing!

My TBR list runners over!

In April every year, the Independent Booksellers in my area host a book crawl and it is one of the most fun things my husband and I do all year. This year 19 independent bookstores are on the list which spans 7 counties and 2 states. It is a daunting challenge, but you have the entire month to visit each store and collect a stamp on a passport or printed page. The bookstores are also collecting children’s books for the non-profit organization Promising Pages, which distributes books to children who may not be able to afford to purchase their own books. 

Yesterday, my husband and I left home at 10AM, and proceeded to drive to all of the bookstores north of our home. It took us to areas around our home we never visit. Most of the bookstores sell used books, and it was a great chance to stock up on the titles we are missing in our collections, as well as browsing through many we have never seen before — you never know when you may find a gem you never knew you wanted to read. I was able to find several books by Kate Morton that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet, as well as picking up many books from my Goodreads TBR list. As we traveled, we met many other people also participating in the book crawl and collecting stamps for their pages. At the end, there is a gift tote bag, and a drawing for gift cards for the stores. 

At the end of the day, I had added 18 books to my collection, and my husband added 8 to his. 

So — what am I reading now? 

Yesterday I started The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. It is my book club’s choice for June, and a daunting 643 pages and currently enjoys a 4.01 rating on Goodreads.com. (My book club shys away from books with ratings lower than 4.0) My plan is to finish it in the next two weeks, so that I can get started on my new stack of books — and maybe even read a title or two collected during the book crawl of 2023!

Happy reading!

Teens Race to Save Falcons

On the Far Side of the Mountain
by Jean Craighead George

In her sequel to My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George opens with 16 year old Sam Gribley’s falcon, Frightful, being confiscated by a conservation officer. On top of that, his 14 year old sister, Alice, who joined him in his wilderness home has disappeared. Sam must leave his home in order to find Alice, and in the process, discovers a dark secret in the Catskill mountains he calls home.

Alice is a budding engineer, and has built herself a tree house home in the fashion of the local native tribes. She built a plumping mill to smash acorns, and has plans to bring electricity to their homes with a water mill. After she disappears, Sam finds his first clue as to her whereabouts in a compass she made from a stick and two rocks. The siblings also create their own barometer using a rubber glove and a jar, a trick I’m planning on bringing to my classroom when we study weather.

I love strong, smart female characters in books I recommend to my students, and Alice certainly is a strong, smart female. She makes a plan, researches in the library, and then puts her plans into action. This book would be a wonderful addition to any STEM based classroom and library.

I would recommend this book to upper elementary readers, and middle school readers. The Lexile level is 760 and the F&P Guided Reading level is V.

Teen Survives in the Wilderness

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

15 year old Sam Gribley ran away from home one day in May. He was tired of living in a cramped apartment in New York City with 8 siblings and his parents. His father told him about land that his great-great- grandfather owned in somewhere in the Catskills, and so armed with a penknife, a ball of cord, an ax, some flint and steel, and $40 he saved from selling magazine subscriptions — and just the clothes on his back — Sam takes off to find his ancestral home.

And so begins Newberry Honor Book, My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. The book, first published in the USA in 1959, chronicles Sam’s adventures the first year living on his own on the family’s land in the Catskills. The book is written in the first person, as if you were hearing from Sam himself tell the tale of learning to find food, taming a falcon, creating a warm home, and preparing for a harsh, mountain winter.

I picked up this book after reading an excerpt from the third book in the series. I can’t read books out of order, so I started with the first. I found this book engaging, full of adventures and mishaps. I liked the character Sam, a smart boy, willing to do the research in the town’s library and then apply what he has learned to the situations he finds himself in.

I would recommend this book to strong upper elementary readers, and middle school readers who are looking for adventure. The book has a Lexile rating of 810, and a Guided Reading Level U.