Challenged Books - Interesting Titles

Julie at My Book Retreat had an interesting post.  She looked at the list of recently challenged books and asked people to comment on the books that surprised them the most.  Her post is here.

The ALA Most Challenged list can be found here.

I hadn't looked at this list in awhile.  I expected to see Harry Potter, Catcher in the Rye, and the Twilight series.  I was shocked to see Bridge to Terabithia on a few lists.  That was one of the best books I've ever read with a class of students.  It provoked the best discussion groups and really touched the kids.  It made them think and feel.  What more can we ask of a book!

I was also surprised that My Sister's Keeper was on one of the lists.  Again, this is a book that makes you think and feel.  I could see my fourth grade students from that class ten years ago loving Picoult as young adult readers. 

I am going to make a point of reading one of the books on the lists that I have never read.  Any suggestions?

Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich

This is the latest Stephanie Plum novel. However, I can't really review it like my normal reviews. The book is filled with the normal Plum characters and humor.

I don't know if I like this one or not, but I truly appreciate it. I bought it during a run to Target from my mother's hospital room. She has had a massive stroke and was in ICU for a number of days before being transferred to hospice. She is still in hospice care as she makes her final transition. This book was my companion in the last few days because it helped me pass the time with a few laughs when it has been hard to laugh.

Thank you to Grandma Mazur, Stephanie, and Lulu for keeping me company and easing my mind just a little.

Please send prayers my mother's way for her peaceful transition, and to my father for his resilience as he loses his mate of 50 years.

The Forests Of Silence by Emily Rodda

This is not a full review, but I wanted to take a moment and rave about a new, to me, series of children's books I just found. I had the great fortune to attend a teacher workshop given by Jim Trelease who is the guru of reading aloud to kids. I was doubly fortunate because Jim is retiring, and I got to see his last professional southern California workshop. Quite cool.

Anyway, he highly recommended the Deltora Quest series so I had to read the first one. If you have someone who loves fantasy and adventure, but is not quite ready for Harry Potter, give this one a try.

I really loved it and wanted to get the word out on this one. There are seven books in the series which I can see a kid devouring and wanting more!

Abby

I wanted to take a moment to remember our very special dog, Abby. It may seem funny, but she was a member of our family for the last ten years. Unfortunately, she died last night, and our house is very sad.

Abby was found wandering the streets by our former neighbor who took her in. Abby (for Abandoned) was abused by a former owner. She couldn't stand to be around poles or brooms. She loved our pool man because he treated her with compassion, and gave her dog treats! Our neighbor cared for her for two years until his untimely heart attack. Abby came to us and has been part of our family ever since.

Abby was a Scottish Terrier with a heart of gold. She loved to ride in the car and danced for her dinner every night. Our neighbors always knew she was getting fed by her lusty barks, and they would say to each other that it was Abby's dinner time.

We will miss her, but I wanted to take a chance to let other people know how important she was to us. Can she be replaced? Never. Will we get another dog? In a while, when another dog steals our hearts.

Top 50 Children's Books

I found this list at Lizzy's Literary Life and I was curious to see how many I'd read. So I've changed the text color to red if I've read it. I'm counting reading it as an adult or as a child. I'm curious to see how many I've read.


Top 50 Best Children's Books

1. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
3. Famous Five, Enid Blyton
4. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
5. The BFG, Roald Dahl
6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
7. The Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
8. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
9. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
10. The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
11. The Tales of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter
12. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
13. Matilda, Roald Dahl
14. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
15. The Cat in the Hat, Dr Seuss
16. The Twits, Roald Dahl
17. Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves
18. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
19. The Malory Towers series, Enid Blyton
20. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
21. The Railway Children, E. Nesbit
22. Hans Christian Fairy Tales, H.C. Andersen
23, The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
24. The Witches, Roald Dahl
25. Stig of the Dump, Clive King
26. The Wishing Chair, Enid Blyton
27. Dear Zoo, Rod Campbell
28. The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Judith Kerr
29. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jan Brett
30. James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
31. A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond
32. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
33. Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
34. Aesop's Fables, Jerry Pinkney
35. The Borrowers, Mary Norton
36. Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling
37. Meg and Mog, Jan Pienkowski
38. Mrs Pepperpot, Alf Proysen
39. We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen
40. The Gruffalo's Child, Julia Donaldson
41. Room on a Broom, Julia Donaldson
42. The Worst Witch, Jill Murphy
43. Miffy, Dick Bruna
44. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
45. Flat Stanley, Jeff Brown
46. The Snail and the Whale, Julia Donaldson
47. Ten Little Ladybirds, Melanie Gerth
48. Six Dinners Sid, Inga Moore
49. The St. Clare's series, Enid Blyton
50. Captain Underpants, Dav Pilkey

I'm fairly surprised. I've only read 28 out of the 50 and I've never read anything by Enid Blyton. This list is from a British newspaper. I wonder if an American list would be significantly different. If anyone knows of such a list, let me know. Now I'm curious.

Friday Fill-In

1. The last compliment I got was from a parent; he/she said that they were pleased with the way I handled a difficult situation.
2. I'm reading The Book Thief which has been highly recommended on a number of blogs.
3. I woke up today and thoughtthree day weekend coming!
4. Why does it always seem like good or bad things happen in threes!.
5. The last thing I ate was an ice cream sandwich called an Its It.
6. January... cold and Open House time at school.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to movie night (it was Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone), tomorrow my plans include taking in a jazz concert for date night and Sunday, I want to do nothing but I really have to help Surfer Girl finish her science project and we still need to take down the Christmas tree!

Blogger Blessings

I was just tagged by my friend Presbyterian Gal for a blogger blessing. The idea is to bless and celebrate the people we've come to know in the blogging world and keep the blessings moving. The original thread can be found here.

Here's the description:

The idea… it’s a game of tag with a difference, rather than looking inwardly, we look outside ourselves and bless, praise and pray for one blog friend. By participating in this endeavour we not only make the recipient of the blessing feel valued and appreciated, but we are having some fun too. We’re going to see how far the bloggin’ blessings can travel around the world and how many people can be blessed! Recipients of a bloggin’ blessing may upload the above image to their sidebar if they choose to. If you recieve a bloggin’ blessin’ please leave a comment on this thread here so that we can rejoice in just how many blessings have been sent around the world!

So I get to choose three people to bless - so I'm sending Happy New Year greetings to these three book bloggers because I enjoy reading their blogs and value their contributions to my blog with their comments.

So, please know you are blessed and appreciated:

CJ from My Year of Reading Seriously

Alison from So Many Books, So Little Time

Literary Feline from Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Personality Recipe

The Recipe For Janis

3 parts Attractiveness 2 parts Happiness 1 part Love Splash of Vigor Finish off with an olive

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

This one is thanks to CJ. I like this one alot and "blush" I hope it does fit me.

25 Comments Day

Patrick at Patrick's Place has declared that tomorrow - Sunday - is 25 Comments Day. The rules are simple. Visit at least 25 blogs tomorrow and leave comments about a blog entry. Since I'm spending the night camping with a group of 20 girls (that means no sleep for me), I'm going to give this a shot later in the day on Sunday. I think it would be a challenge to leave that many unique comments. If you decide to participate, feel free to leave your first comment here - but wait until tomorrow:)

One in Four! What's Happened to all the Readers?

I spent part of the morning waiting at the car dealer for a minor recall repair to be done (glamorous, I know!) and read an article about the lack of reading in America. I was simply horrified. According to the reporter, one in four (that's 25%) of adult Americans had not read one single book all year. This survey seems to include religious readings, as well as fiction and nonfiction choices. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea. 1 in 4!

No wonder our children aren't reading. That could mean that 25% (or more) of kids have no role model for reading. This survey didn't seem to care about what language was read either. 1 in 4!

It really makes me wonder if our national illiteracy rate is truly that high. As a reading educator, that saddens me. I can't imagine not enjoying at least one book in a whole year. With all the advances in audio books on CD, through public libraries, and in new formats like MP3, it seems that books are more accessible now than they have ever been.

I know, in this case, I'm probably preaching to the choir, but I was really shocked by the statistic. What do you think? Is this really accurate in modern America?

Junie B. Jones controversial?

Junie B. Jones (for those of you who don't have young ones currently in your lives) is a character by Barbara Parks in a series of books for first and second graders. Junie is in kindergarten and first grade as the series progresses. Well, anyway, I read an article in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday about these books and was blown away.

It seems that this series is one of the ones that is most frequently challenged in public libraries. Apparently, there are parents who are offended by Junie's improper use of language.

I have always read aloud a book, or two, from this series to my students. I have probably heard every book either from a student reader or from the audio versions my own daughter listened to all last summer as we drove on vacation. I have never had anyone complain about them.

Yes, she talks like a child but that's why kids like her. I guess I've never expected books to be perfect models of any language. Some of my favorite books use dialect and slang to create their sense of time and place. I'm thinking of the work of William Faulkner and To Kill a Mockingbird. I do agree that Junie is annoying and makes poor choices in the stories, but that gives me things to discuss with the kids. They know she behaves poorly, and, I think, they know not to do some of the things she does.

I wonder what anyone else thinks of this one. Does her inaccurate use of language bother you? Have you read them to, or with, a child? How do you feel as a parent or reader about this?

Thanks for any responses. I'm really thinking about this before the new school year starts because I normally start the year with a Junie novel.

GLUB!

It was about 6:00pm ... just back from twelve glorious days in Maui when every toilet in the house made the aforementioned sound at the same time. A coordinated welcome home maybe, but I didn't think so as my husband went to get the handy dandy plunger. When I heard, "We've got a problem," I could smell it right away, and it wasn't sweet. So, off to the phone with the plumber's number in hand. Since it was after hours (time and 1/2 - ka-ching!), they needed to call me back.

Flash backward a little over twelve hours, and we were getting off the red eye from Maui. As our bags approached on the carousel, my husband calmly told me that our luggage was old and it was time to buy a new set (ka-ching!) One suitcase was totally missing it's handle and the other looked like it had bust a gut. The seam was undone. Oh well, Maui was great!

Time to call the parking lot shuttle for pick up. We found that pay phones still exist believe it or not. (My husband's cell really enjoyed its splash into the warm waters of Maui - ka-ching!) After explaining that we couldn't call from the red curb, the driver said five minutes. Well .... I guess he meant five minutes island time because we had to call again (a second pay phone) after 1/2 hour and were told ten minutes. At this point, we realized that the nice older ladies, father traveling with his daughter, and two entire families with too many children to count were all waiting for the same small van (did I say small?) So ... with the van finally in sight, we grabbed our broken down luggage and made a dash for the door as soon as it opened. (Not normal for our family, but I'm writing it off to red eye induced hysteria).

OK ... flash forward back to waiting for the call from the plumber who calls and asks if we have some kind of clean out drain. By then I, of course, need to use the restroom so I'm off to our nearest local (and clean) restroom at the public library while my husband valiantly tries to find the drain in question. (Being me, I did take a couple of minutes to peruse the recent acquisitions shelf but more on that later). I got back to the news that we didn't seem to have the needed drain which meant two guys (ka-ching! ka-ching!) going on the roof.

Well ... they couldn't get there until 9:00pm which seemed a bit late (and dark) to climb the roof so, without a bathroom option, I did what I do best and googled local hotels (ka -ching!). I know it's August and vacation time but I guess smokers don't rent hotel rooms because that was all I could find until the last one. I couldn't book direct because the internet rate was better so back on I went. OK .. all's well and off we go to the hotel which has become a grand adventure for "Spots" aka SurferGirl. As we drove, SurferGirl asked about dinner, which never happened and became fruit from the hotel lobby.

Well .... we get to the lobby and have to swipe our credit card again, and it's denied! Ok, luckily, I had my working cell and called the company to be sent to the fraud department. It seems that they considered charges in Maui and a mainland hotel within 20 hours of each other a bit suspicious. As I answered the security questions, the red eye hysteria set back in, and I lost it. I don't normally cry in public but those last four numbers of the social security number do it to me every time. Finally settled and in the room.

Flash forward to this morning, 8:30am, my husband meets the plumbers to find that the drain is located in, of all places, our master bedroom. Well, they decided to use the roof access and save our rugs. But, we will need to add a new drain in the future (ka-ching! ka-ching!) to avoid the tree roots that caused the whole problem.

That's what I get for starting the laundry .... Maui is looking better and better! Now that this is off my chest, I'll get some pictures up soon.

Life, Death and Hives

It's been a long weekend as "Spots" recovers from the hives, which, unfortunately, cancelled a long-planned trip to Disneyland. After almost an hour of tears this morning, it was clear that this was the end of the world to her eight year old mind. A visit from Grandma and Grandpa and $20 did a lot to erase that thought.

It got me to thinking that what seems truly significant, at the time, isn't. That hit home with me as I've been following the tragic story of the suicide attempt of opera tenor Jerry Hadley. He was not one of the mass-marketed singers, but I had the chance to hear him live in duet with Thomas Hampson at the San Diego Opera. He was sublime, and their duet from The Pearlfishers can bring tears to your eyes.

The last I read, he's in a coma after shooting himself in the head with an air rifle. What a waste of a life and a talent! My thought are with his friends and family.

It brings the hives into perspective. "Spots" will recover, and I've had a weekend to spend with her. What a blessing!