Book Review

Not much to report today. I wrote a review of the latest book I've read. And, when I was cleaning my office this morning I actually went through the canvas bag I got at the conference on Monday and discovered a free book! It's an advance copy of The Sisters Club by Megan McDonald. It's been a while since I've read a novel for younger readers, but this is a good one to get me back into it. Really enjoyable so far.

Dishes

Somehow, when we moved into a flat without a dishwasher, I convinced John that he should be responsible for cleaning the dishes and I would clean everything else. But John hates cleaning dishes as much as I do, so finally, after 5 months, the system has fallen apart. Together John and I cleaned ALL the dishes today (something that hasn't happened in a while), and then I cleaned the kitchen (something that hasn't happened ever). Maybe starting back from the beginning we can keep the situation with the dishes under control. Both of us. We are in agreement that we need a dishwasher when we move back to the US.

I reviewed another book today: The Knife of Never Letting Go. I love this book. Like, it is up there with the His Dark Materials series. In fact it is the first book in the Chaos Walking series. And since it is a new book, the rest of the series isn't published yet. The last time I read a series as it was published was when Stephen King published The Green Mile in serial form. If I don't get hooked until all the books are out - instant gratification! It was very sneaky of this book to be so good that I MUST have more and then make me wait!

Hibernating

I remember when, over the summers, as a child, once I got into a rhythm of sleeping when I was tired and waking up when I wasn't I would naturally wake up around 8 in the morning. Now I have to set an alarm to get myself up even when I don't have anything scheduled or I will practically sleep all day. I have decided that since I am in a colder climate my body is trying to hibernate.

Although I can turn into a bear in World of Warcraft, IRL I am NOT A BEAR. Do not be fooled.

In spite of oversleeping I did manage to update the website and write a book review.

Can bears do that?

That's what I thought.

Polar Running

So, I took a little break from running while John and I were in Georgia to let my shins heal. I decided to break my running fast today even though:
1) I woke up dismally late because I have not been making a very serious effort to adjust back to England time
2) The weather widget on my home page said that it was snowing outside
and 3) In spite of my disbelief that it could possibly be snowing, when I looked out my window I did, in fact, see snow.



















Okay, it doesn't look like much, but it's the principle of the thing. It has to be pretty cold to snow.

Anyway, I went running. I've lost some of the ground I had gained before the trip home so I only made it two miles instead of three. And I think the only reason I made it that far was that I was afraid if I stopped running too far from home I would freeze.

I'm still looking for another good audiobook/podiobook to listen to. I downloaded one called Dark Matter that was read in a very boring voice and had, okay only one, grammar mistake in the first chapter, but come on.
This morning I downloaded Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World, thinking "what could go wrong?" It is read by a computer. I'm not even joking.

It looks like I need to install some things on my computer to download books from the Georgia Download Destination, but, don't worry, I'm on it.

Ahem. So, if you have any audiobook recomendations for me, please leave them in comments.

Oh yeah, there is also one more book review on my other blog. Not a British book. I bought it while I was at home because I'm ever-so-slightly a John Green fangirl.

More Book Reviews

I've reviewed another British YA novel on my other blog.

If you scroll down to the review of the last podiobook I listened to, you can see that the author commented. Flattering, but also embarrassing. It never occurred to me that an author might read my blog!

A Shave and a Haircut

While I was doing yoga and writing a book review this morning, John went into town to find a place that would give him a haircut and shave his face for him. It's a good job* he did, too because his facial stubbery was beginning to qualify as an actual beard.

*The British tend to say "good job" where we would say "good thing." I tried to find an article making mention of this, but what I found instead was an article on Oxford's list of top ten irritating phrases. "Good job" isn't on the list, but someone brings it up in the comments....wait for it....as an annoying American phrase. In fact, a lot of the complaints in the comments are about how Americans butcher the English language. That's why we have our own dictionary now. It's like we're living in different countries with different cultures and different ways of expressing ourselves or something.

KS1 Book Reviews

Our Big Blue Sofa by Tim Hopgood

A brother and sister like to bounce on their big blue sofa and imagine that it is other things, like a big blue car, or hot air balloon.

I love to touch things so the flocked sofa (on every page, as advertised) is pretty neat. The story is simple and fanciful, probably something I would read for story time. In the middle of the children's imaginative play with the sofa there is an interjection about how granny doesn't like it because it is old and hurts her back. This paragraph confused me and I thought it was unnecessary. It makes more sense once you get to the end and the sofa falls apart, but even so, I wouldn't have broken up the flow of the story in this way.

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

A bunny demonstrates several ways that a box can be anything but a box, like a robot or space ship.

I have read this book in story time. The story is told through words and pictures which encourages participation. The illustrations are simple with bold colors and thick lines. In every picture you can see the box and how it is not a box. The narrative style is like that of Willems's Pigeon books. The bunny is talking directly to you. I really like this book.

Two Frogs by Chris Wormell

One frog has a stick for defending himself against dogs. The other frog is telling him how unlikely it is that he will encounter a dog in the middle of the lake when they find themselves face to face with some more common frog eaters.

At first I thought this story was going to have some sort of moral, but really it is just a combination of a few strange twists of fate. It is fun and the frogs have some great facial expressions. Each illustration is a two page spread with space left at the bottom for the text.

The Bear in the Cave by Michael Rosen

A bear goes on a sing-song journey from his cave by the sea into the city and back again. The illustrations are two-page spreads with bright colors. The story is sweet and, thanks to the rhythms, one that kids will want to chant along with you.

Kit the Cat by Alison Maloney

Kit the Cat finally flops Flash the Fish out of the pond, only to be foiled by Dig the Dog.

The tongue-twisting rhymes remind me of Dr. Seuss and the illustrations are sassy. I'm not sure I agree with the cat being categorized as the villain, though.

The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon by Mini Grey

The dish and the spoon run away together and make it big performing but they blow all their money and then get in trouble with a loan shark.

More two page spreads. The illustrations are very busy. The story is cute but I don't think most children would get it.

I went to a discussion group today for "Key Stage One" books. The School Library Service lends books to teachers and then meets with them about every six months to hear what their students thought of them. Unfortunately, when I met the School Library Service people weeks ago, they accidentally gave me the wrong pile of books (there are two Key State One discussion groups), so the only book I read that everyone else had read was The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon. They had pretty much the same opinion of it as I did. But I did learn that Mini Grey is a very popular children's author and people who knew her work expected something different.

The teachers got into a lengthy discussion about a reading program that some people are very into here. The books in the program have no pictures and only contain words with the sounds that the child has learned up to that point. I learned on the car ride back that there is pressure on the public libraries to carry these books because parents want their children to learn to read faster. The teachers didn't seem to think much of this system. They believe there is nothing wrong with children using pictures for context clues and that they are more interested in pleasing language and interesting stories.