Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Which hero are you?

Your results:
You are Green Lantern
























Green Lantern
80%
Wonder Woman
65%
The Flash
65%
Iron Man
60%
Robin
50%
Hulk
45%
Superman
40%
Supergirl
40%
Spider-Man
35%
Catwoman
25%
Batman
15%
Hot-headed. You have strong
will power and a good imagination.


Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Sunday, January 21, 2007

INKHEART by Cornellia Funke

This book was recommended by a few people. It is a Juvenile Fiction/fantasy type book. I was excited to read it but was very disappointed after just a few chapters. For one, usually a long book is just really good because so much is in it and the plot can be developed in a clever way and you love to keep reading. BUT this book though it was 534 pages long never really got better.

For some reason I had to get to the end and I kept reading. So I guess it was okay just not great. A little girl and her dad go on an adventure but then they are kidnapped...there were so many bad guys in this book it was kind of scary. Someone has the ability to read out loud and the characters come to life out of the book. There was mystery and suspense and a lot of characters introduced but nothing really happened.

I read the book because I heard they were going to make a movie based on the book. I don't know if I want to see it now. AND there are more books after this one so I guess I will read those to just to see what happens next or if they get any better.

Broken and Healing book.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

The Anybodies by N.E. Bode

Did you ever suspect you were swapped in the hospital with the kid next to you by a flustered nurse having a bad day? Well, this is a story about Fern. She was swapped.
When she was unswapped her life turned into an adventure you can could never imagine, unless you read this book. She also felt so much better and things started making sense to her finally.

I really liked this book. It was quite cute and unpredictable. If you love books then this is the book to read because it is about people that love books!

I like the way the author refers to children's classics to tell this story and you can picture the story you read a long time ago as a child and just get it. Kind of clever.

I laughed a lot too while reading this book. If my grandmother (Nana) were still alive I imagine she was a lot like Fern's grandmother. My Nana loved to read books and had so many you could barely walk in her house. They were all piled up and I always wanted to stay with her a year so I could read them. She also had a peach tree in her backyard..or maybe it was an apricot tree.

This is a Whole book and a quick read. Well, it took me a few days because of all the interruptions but my son finished it in one night. This is the best book I have read all year!

Monday, January 08, 2007

Personally Classifying Books 2007

Four Distinctions Per Thomas Jefferson Education Model
(p. 73 in A Thomas Jefferson Education, by Oliver DeMille)

1. BENT: Stories portray evil as good, and good as evil. Such stories are meant to enhance the evil tendencies of the reader. (Best to avoid)

2. BROKEN: Stories portray evil as evil and good as good, but evil wins. Something is broken, not right, in need of fixing. Such books are not uplifting, but can be very inspiring. Broken stories can be very good for the reader if they motivate a person to heal them, to fix them. Example: The Communist Manifesto is a broken classic; so are the Lord of the Flies and 1984. In each of these, evil wins; but they can be very motivating if you want to help reverse their message in the real world.

3. WHOLE: Stories are where good is good and good wins. Most of the classics are in this category. This a good place to spend most of your time.

4. HEALING: Stories can be either WHOLE or BROKEN stories where the reader is profoundly moved, changed, significantly improved by his/her reading of the book.

Hey,

My blog is mainly to classify the books I read and write about if I liked them or not. I choose my books from my two book groups lists and also to preview books before my kids read them. Every once in a while I just get a book I think might be good or perhaps I heard was good. I have a long list of classics I hope to read in this lifetime also. Sometimes I like to read books that have movies based on them, then I compare them to see if the movie came close to the book or improved it.

This year my goal is to read 55 books. Last year was 50 and I barely made it. I also want to work on my 5 pillar certification for TJed. I hope to be a good example to the family of balancing learning, work and play. (or just combining them). I hope to inspire not require my children to read good books. I am working on my own education and hopefully the kids will follow along.

If I could I would just live in a library and read all day and night but reality bites when there are kids and responsibilities. I don't think that means never taking time to read for pleasure or educational purposes. Finding the balance in life is the best kept secret. So I read when I breastfeed, I read at night after the kids go to sleep. I read in the morning before the day starts or I read when there is some down time. Okay I admit I also read when I am avoiding or putting off something.

Sometimes books become really popular but aren't exactly all too good in content. Like for example the Harry Potter Series. I read all of these. At first I was totally against them. Then because everyone said they were so good and my kids would probably want to read them soon I picked one up and read it. It was very good and I was hooked. BUT I wasn't blind. The books were not appropriate in my eyes for children under 10 or a child that didn't understand the difference between fantasy and reality. Some of the stuff in the Potter books are BROKEN. Witchcraft isn't exactly Godly even if it is being used to help people. So the fantasy world can get confusing between what is good and what is evil. These books are on the wait list for my children.

Another example are the Lemony Snicket series. These are very clever books and I was hooked after the 3rd one. I bought them for the family because they were on sale at a book fair and in a set of 3. I gave them to my husband and I admit, as a gift that keeps on giving. (I wanted to read them). At first they were just awful. They were BROKEN/HEALING books. They had a lot of dark plots, like murder, lying, stealing, abuse, kidnapping, and just a lot of not listening to children that need help from any sane adult. They never ended very happy. How can this be a good book for a young child reading and absorbing the world of a book? The books are very funny and have wonderful vocabulary used and usually explained right in the story line. They also are mysterious and exciting . This was a good thing and probably what most people were taken with. For me it didn't balance out or negate that most of the book was too dark. These books are on the wait till later list for my children. I on the other hand am painfully hooked on the series and must get to the end to see if it is a happy ending.

Here goes another year of reading like crazy!

Thursday, January 04, 2007

The Grim Grotto #11 by Lemony Snicket

I really think the books are getting better and more clever every time he writes one for the series. This was a nice read with scary parts, not too many sad parts and some super funny parts. Finally the ending wasn't so depressing but it was still mysterious.
Some of the mysteries from the other books were revealed this time around so more things are making more sense.
If you like the ocean, caves or mushrooms you will like this book. If you don't like adorable tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian's then join the crowd!

You might want to take along some horseradish while your read this book.

This was a Whole Book

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

2006 Reading list

Becky's Book list - 50 completed in 2006:
(in Bold are my favorites)

Persuasion by Jane Austin
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Kogi's Mysterious Journey by Elizabeth Partridge
Early Morning Cemetery by Patricia Wiles
The TJed Conveyer Belt by Rachael DeMille (Essay)
Calling On Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
The One Minute Teacher by Constance Johnson
Collection of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories
The Innkeeper's Wife By Lynda M. Wilson
The Island by Gary Paulsen
Funeral Home Evening by Patricia Wiles
The Rifle by Gary Paulsen
Snicket #10
Snicket, #9
The Voyage of the Frog by Gary Paulsen
The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
The Boy That Owned the School by Gary Paulsen
Dogsong by Gary Paulsen
Boys Who Became Prophets by Lynda Cory Robinson
How To Be Lost by Amanda Eyre Ward
The Winter Room by Gary Poulsen
Walking the Bible by Bruce Feiler
Chocolate Fever by Robert Kinnel Smith
River Secrets by Shannon Hale
My Mom's a Mortician by Patricia Wiles
Brian's Winter by Gary Paulsen
The River by Gary Paulsen
Series of Unfortunate Events-book 8
Series of Unfortunate Events-book 7
The White Mountains #1
The City of Gold and Lead #2
The Pool of Fire #3
When the Tripods Came #4.

The DeVinci Code by Dan Brown
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kinsolver
White Teeth by Zadie Smith.
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
The Princess And the Pauper by Mark Twain
A Murder, A Mystery And A Marriage by Mark Twain
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Prairie Dog Town by Janette Oke
Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Man Of The Family by Ralph Moody
Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Anne of the Island (book 2) by L.M. Montgomery
Anne of Avonlea(book 3) by L.M. Montgomery
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien


Books I'm reading at the moment:
Pippi Longstockings
Standing for Something
TJed Home Compainion
L. Snicket #11