The third in the series with Enna Burning and Goose Girl. This time they travel to the kingdom they were at war with that Enna burned up to make peace, but well there are more fire starters and Enna is being blamed. The power of water speaking comes to play and well, you have to read all three.

The sequel to Goose Girl, a friend of now queen Isi learns the power to speak fire and during war she uses her power to destroy the enemy, and nearly burns herself up in the process. It’s creepy, but very good.

A retelling of the Fairy Tale “the Goose Girl” which I didn’t remember that I knew until I read this book. “If your mother only knew her heart would surly break in two” Anyone? Anyone?

Yeah, anyway, Shannon Hale adds a dimension of speaking powers. People speaking people can persuade others easily, while Isi, the princess and heroine can speak to geese and the wind. I know it sounds weird but this is a great book, and the sequels are equally enthralling.

The newest winner of the John Newbery Medal is incredible and very deserving of its award. Neil Gaiman somehow manages to meld murder, and death into a fantastic children’s book. This book grabs you from its first sentence,

“There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife.”

The tale of how Nobody Owens grows up in a graveyard is simply wonderful.

This was the best book I have read in ages. Katsa, born with one blue eye and one green, was marked to have a Grace, a special ability. Which turns out to be a Grace of killing and fighting. But Katsa sees the evil around her and wants to help, not hurt others.

This is the story of the Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen (Elizabeth I) and the other faerie queen Invidiana. The two queens of England. It’s a great blend of the fae and of historical England during my favorite historical period. It also incorporates Christopher Marlowe, which is a nice touch.

The title of this book made me think that it was going to be fluffy and rather pink. But in reality it’s the story of hard working girls from a quarry village high in the mountains becoming educated while standing up for their home and way of life. This is one of those books that was far more meaty and poignant that I imagined it could be. The Newbery Honor most deserved.

This is a pleasant companion to Ella Enchanted. Taking place in the same world in the country of Ayortha where singing is the country’s pastime. A girl with a great voice and a talent for throwing that voice, but not looks ends up as the shallow queen’s lady in waiting.

I really didn’t like this one. I have read a lot of Levine, but here she is stretching. This is the story of a god who falls in love with a mortal who is to be sacrificed to another god because her father is dumb. It wasn’t that good.

This story was a really interesting one about faeries in modern times. I mean the sneaky, tricky, don’t want to get mixed up with faeries kind. The Summer King needs a queen, and she’s not interested.

It was a nice take on fantasy, a very modern faerie tale.

This was a better read than I thought it would be. The human characters are quite well written. It was the perfection of the vampires that made it so annoying. They have no weaknesses, or flaws. It made me want to punch the main one Edward in the face. I will however be reading the sequels and there were parts that were quite funny. The plot was on the slow side, but I actually liked this. It brought out the thirteen year old girl in me.

I got this to help me through NaNoWriMo and I am glad to say that it was helpful and fun. I had many post-it notes covering this book and it was an essential read during November to boost spirits or for exercises to boost word count.

The conclusion of the Abhorsen trilogy. I really enjoyed these. They are fun reads not too heavy, but with enough meat to make them stick.

I read Sabriel, the first book in this trilogy back over the summer, and it took until September that I was finally able to read the next 2.

Lirael does a nice job making the world in this series understandable, which was my big complaint with Sabriel. It’s a really enjoyable series.

So I’ve been waiting for this book for almost 10 years. This is the third book in a series that I began reading in oh, second or third grade. In all that time Bruce Coville has only managed to write that much. I am going to recommend to him that he should try NaNoWriMo next year to see if he can get these books going faster.

The problem being that the three books occur back to back time wise. Each ends with a cliff-hang that so far has had to last for years. I really enjoy the world that he has created and the characters that inhabit it, I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long for sequels.

I mean it’s Jane Austen. Everyone knows about Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, and those are fantastic novels, but it was really great to read all of Jane Austen. 1100 pages and I only get to count it as one book for Reading to the Rain.

Here’s where the Ender saga got tough to get through. Granted Jane (the first artificially intelligent being) is cool and can do a lot, but the Chinese OCD people are a lot annoying and there is too much family drama for my taste. Still it’s Ender and he kicks ass, but this was much more difficult to get through.

Picking up 3000 years after Ender’s Game Ender becomes the Speaker for the Dead in penance for his destruction of the Buggers, another sentient species. He and his sister travel throughout the galaxy looking for a place to save the last Bugger Queen. In so doing they travel to a planet inhabited by Piggies, another sentient species that at the close of their second life turn into trees. The only trouble is the Starways Congress is going to destroy the planet because of a sentient virus.

Not as much of a must read as Ender’s Game, but still ok.

This is one of those books that you have to read, if you like Science Fiction or not. Ender’s Game is the story of what humanity is capable of, both good and bad, the destruction and creation.

This is the third from Blue Balliett, which I didn’t know existed until I went to Hyde Park in Chicago and saw the house that was featured in Wright 3. There in the Frank Lloyd Wright house I saw both this book and pentominoes. I was very excited to get both. It was also really cool being in a place featured in a book. So even though I didn’t really like the Wright 3 as much, I was willing to give this author another go.

She didn’t disappoint. This book is much better than Wright 3. This time there isn’t so much whining and stupid fights. Tommy and Petra are flown to England to help rescue their friend Calder, who goes missing the same night that a sculpture by the artist named Calder. This time instead of the kids being on their own, they get grownup support and trust. Finally.

I love how art and mystery are combined in these books. Now I want to learn more about the mobiles and sculptures of Calder, not to mention I have been working with my own set of pentominoes.

I am continuing to read books before I see the movie. This one features gymnastics, which so rarely happens that I felt reading the book would be a good move.

I didn’t get at all what I expected. This is a story about a man’s disillusionment, freeing his mind, and discovering what happiness truly is. A mix of martial arts, meditation and pushing himself past the limit. His mentor Soc, has strange powers to induce visions and jump onto rooftops.

This book offers a strange mix of humiliation and compassion that will take some time to digest, but it well worth the time to do so.

Madame Esme is officially my new hero. I hope that in my first year teaching I can have a quarter of her gumption and believe in her ideals and her students. She faced an idiot principal, thrown stones and children with problems that no one should have. She stayed true to her beliefs and herself and is a very inspiring person.

No one can say teachers have it easy after reading this.

I am working on reading the books before I see the movies. I don’t know how wise that is, since I always prefer the book, and would probably like movies better if I read the book after, but oh well here I am.

I really enjoyed Inkheart. The love that this family has for books is something I really relate too. How often have I struggled to escape the labyrinth of the written word? If you love books you will love this book.

Keeping up with Terry Pratchett takes some effort. I believe this is the latest in Discworld. I really enjoy the new character of Moist who gets a second chance at life and goes from a criminal to the postmaster and in this book he becomes the chairman of the bank. Well, actually Mr. Fusspot the dog becomes the chairman, it’s all rather fun.

An interesting perspective on the largest single factor that changed Israeli foreign policy. A good insight into why the Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Israel act the way they do. Anwar Sadat is a really interesting man. I wish I knew more about him. It’s also too bad he was assassinated.

This is the third in a series I began more than a year ago, and since I didn’t reread the previous ones before this one I forgot most of what happened. Thankfully this isn’t the most complicated of plots.

I still don’t like how painfully short the chapters are, it makes the whole novel very disjointed and annoying. Someone obviously told this author that it was an effective means to create suspense and encourage the reader to keep turning pages, and he never bothered to learn any other strategies for accomplishing the same thing.

All in all, it was a fun read, and that’s about it.

I’ve been wanting to read this book for ages. The premise is so neat, you find a book that tells you how to be a wizard, cool, right? Well I found this book to be rather disappointing and confusing. The wizardry made no sense and was poorly explained. The only redeeming feature was Fred a white hole who has left his mass elsewhere.

This book reminded me why I love reading. It also gave me a huge list of books to read, which I have been bad about following up with. Each chapter focuses on a certain aspect of the writer’s art and helps you, the reader, to see how it can be used to create meaningful sentences. Yes! This book made me excited about the potential of a sentence. Who knew that was possible? Anyway, if you at all like to read, you have to read this book. If you want to write, this book will help show you the best way to do so. A real treasure with very readable and enjoyable prose.

The sequel to Chasing Vermeer that I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to read. So, I went to the library got the audio book (the print version being out) and listened to it yesterday. This one was a little annoying. A new character, Tommy, was so busy feeling sorry for himself and mad at his friend Calder for making another friend, it was tedious. That took too long to be resolved so the plot could progress.

This installment of the problem solving, coincidence seeking and otherwise art saving kids involves the saving of a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Hyde Park. Reading these has defiantly made me want to take a trip to Hyde Park when I’m in Chicago in a week.

Another thing that bothered me, here are these kids who first save a painting by Vermeer and then a house by Frank Lloyd Wright, yet no one seems to mention that these kids do this in less than a year. It is as though the painting was forgotten. That didn’t make much sense to me. But I still want to play with a set of pentominoes.

I don’t like mysteries. Although if more were like this one I would love them. This was the most intelligent, funny, cute and random book I have read in ages. The idea of experimental schools, coincidences being crucial and of course pentominoes are well done. The puzzles, codes and other creative thinking by the characters is so much fun. Not to mention the use of art. I can’t wait to read the sequel, Wright 3, which I am getting out of the library today.

Oh and it was illustrated by the same guy as The Series of Unfortunate Events.

This was the first book by a bestselling author to be first published in an audio form. It also happened to be the next in a series that I have been reading. Of all the books in the Circle of Magic series this is the most disappointing and frustrating. The whole first half of the novel includes petty bickering which gets the plot nowhere, does not flush out new characters and just basically made me want to pull my hair out. After that it was OK, but slow and monotonous, when a pending volcano eruption should have been exciting.

I happen to be a big fan of Ursula K LeGuin, but she tends to have a depressing side that I was worried about with this novel. Instead I was given a coming of age story in a land where people have strange gifts. This story is about protecting those you love, voluntary blindness and using gifts only for good.

I had no idea what to expect when I picked this up but the cover looked cool and I wanted something new to read. It turned out to be about a good necromancer in a world with some alternate reality problems and questionable religion. While not great literature by any stretch of the imagination, this was a fun read and I do want to know more about this world.

I was in a nonfiction kick and when a writer I love decided to write about another writer I love I knew this was something I had to read. Byron’s curiosity yet his need to stay true to facts makes this a very readable and short biography. The facts about Shakespeare’s life are very few and far between but this biography keeps to them. If you want to know more about the Bard but don’t want to be bogged down with hearsay and imagination this is the biography for you.

I was told to read this book about five years ago and began reading it two years ago. It took that long to finish, not because it isn’t interesting, but because I was very distracted and it is nonfiction so it’s easy to put down for a time. If you happen to have a degree in anthropology the first part of the book will be repetitive and a bit dull, but once you get past that this book is amazing. The scope of understanding why was it that Europe was able to take over the rest of the world in a extremely non-racist manner is incredible. This book won the Pulitzer Prize for a very good reason and everyone who wants to understand the history of the world should read this.

For those of you who have seen the movie please note that the end of the movie occurs about 3/8ths of the way through the book, and the rest is the best part. The book is 26 chapters long with each chapter beginning with letters A-Z.

What makes the Neverending Story so compelling to me is that it’s about the journey that one takes to discover what a person wants. It’s not about the journey of becoming an adult, but the much more difficult one of discovering oneself, and one’s desires.

I saw the movie and loved it, and while i am usually of the opinion that books are better than movies can ever be, find myself in this instance to prefer the movie.

While the book is darker, more adult and has a less violent ending, Neil Gaiman’s prose leaves something to be desired. And no words on a page can compare with Robert DeNiro dancing about in a corset and skirts with a heart on his cheek.

There are too many major plot elements that are identical from book to movie that reading the book was boring and anticlimatic. Although i liked the nonviolent solution from the book, i liked the movie’s actual ending better.

Just go see the movie, it’s one of the best movies that i have seen in ages.

I waited and waited for this to come out and i jsut realized that i didn’t post about it (probably because i couldn’t remember my username and password)

So the latest for GGK (Guy Gavriel Kay). It’s a real departer for him. This novel is actually set in modern day. And somehow he manages to link together alot of my favorite things, archaeology, photography, storytelling, magic.

A photographer and crew including his son are summering in the south of France (the poor things) when Ned (the boy) stumbles into a 2500 year old love triangle that dates to when the Celts lived in France and the Greeks were just beginning to explore it.

So much is purposfully left unsaid that i dont’ feel right giving more away, but the prose is poetic and thoughtful and very refreshing.

Being that i am now in a masters program for childhood education i have been reading a lot more children’s books. I can’t say i’ve been disappointed, quite the contrary. It should be abvious to many of you why i took to this title. For those of you who don’t know, Shakespeare is one of my most favorite writers, and anything that can possibly get young people to read the bard is worth a look.

It uses historical facts, speeches, poetry and pictures to piece together who is the real Shakespeare. All while conquering the sixth grade. Set as a mystery looking for a famous diamond that belonged to none other than Anne Boleyn. For those historians among you will note that Shakespeare and Anne were not contempraries, hence the mystery. The book makes such wonderful use of primary sources, even sneaking in Emily Dickinson, who is also not contemprary to the main historical figures nor is she even English.

While this may be a little bit unorthodox for Reading to the Rain, Flotsam is the best book i’ve looked at in ages. This is the most recent Caldecott Medal winner (an award given annually to the best children’s illustrations) in fact this book doesn’t contain a single word of text. This wordless book is beautiful, poignant, mysterious, exciting, and thought provoking. It shows the story of a boy on a beach, when a mysterious underwater camera washes up on shore. He develops the film inside to discover an exciting and fantastical underwater world. Then the last picture is a picture of pictures reaching back to the past and showing all the children who have ever dicovered the same thing. I really recommend this book to anyone, not just children or those who read to them.

I have been told that i need to comment on this book. So i read it between 1 and 8 am on July 21st. I really enjoyed it. I liked how all the places and all the people that harry has come in contact with over the previous six books came back. right down to gringotts, and even sirius’ motorbike.
The use of the short little references has been a strength of the series but i thought we had seen most of them. I didn’t expect Grindlewald to be as important as he is. I am glad to know more of Dumbledore’s past, and to know even the little things like how dumbledore’s nose was broken. I knew that the room of requirement was important and especially the room where harry hides the half blood prince’s book. the diadem being there was super cool.
there was a lot of death, the only one i didn’t expect was Dobby and that was the only time i cried during reading. i’m torn about harry’s death/not death. part of me wanted expected and thought he had to die. and yet part of me is relieved that he didn’t die.
the epilogue, i have mixed feelings on this as well, i see that JK wanted to show that the trio were happy and that the wizarding world has been rebuilt and all, but it was a lot on the corny side. i have been more satisfied by the interviews.
I may write more later this laptop and my fingernails are driving me nuts.

The Second in the Abarat series this is another picture book adventure of Candy in the Land of Arabat. This one gets more into the secrets of Candy and her connection to the crazy place.

Filled with just stitch patterns this book shows you tons of great ways to cable or lace or mix and match. a great resource for creating your own knitting patterns with interesting stitch patterns worked in.

For this book the title really does say it all. It just contains sweaters for those of the feminine sort, but the designs are modern and really nice. These aren’t boxes with sleaves, but really nice sweaters. I can’t wait to knit some.

Sequel to Faerie Wars and another great story, but the prose problems are worse. Chapters are sometimes only a page long and they change every time that anything remotly witty is said. Still the third installment is out in October and you know i’ll have to read it.

I got this book out of the library because it had a pretty cover and spelled faerie right. I was rewarded to find a great story. The prose leaves something to be desired, but the plot was engaging and fun.

I just want to say one thing. I want to be like Death’s granddaughter Miss Susan when i grow up. She is the coolest teacher ever.

Another trip to Discworld, this time to celebrate the advent of the newspaper.

In this Discworld novel we travel to the land of dwarfs and werewolves and vampires. My personal favorite new characters were the Igors, wonderful lisps and great surgical skills.

So pat already posted on this but it seems that i am also posting.

So this novel basically takes place over a few days spaced several years apart, and there is minimal action. It surrounds the consequence of a seemingly innocent observation and an attempt to grow up before it’s time. The consequences span 50 years, a war and jail time for an innocent man. Even at the end of the novel the protagonist is not cleared of her actions and has to take her atonement with her to the grave.

This is basically a short story that takes us to two years after the events of His Dark Materials. It’s always cool to take a look at the life of a deeply loved character after the story is done. But here Philip Pullman adds new elements to Lyra’s world raising my hopes that he will take us back there again as there are so many new avenues to explore.

Patrick and I read this novel years ago, and have agreed that it is Guy Gavriel Kay’s best. And we generally really love his work. This heartbreaking story is about a land that enraged an invading sorcerer so much that he took away the name of the land and it’s heritage. Then he stayed nearby to ensure that everyone who ever knew its true name was gone from the world.

“Thief, the thing cried, in that thick, hot voice that seemed to come from somewhere else. Thief, robbing us of what is ours….I’ll make you give it back. Make you give it back.”

I picked this randomly out from the library and wasn’t disapointed. This is a fantasy story about a society where women are veiled and controlled by men. Then gradually men who once had magic lose it and women who never had magic before begin to manifest powers. Drought threatens their society, but not as much as magicless men who refuse to accept women’s newfound powers.

i promised i’d post again once i’d finished. 6 hours even start to finish and i cried and cried. i’ll write more later.

So Death takes on the role of Father Christmas because someone tried to assassinate “the Hogfather”. Ho. Ho. Ho. Somewhere in here the Tooth Fairy becomes a bogeyman, the god of hangovers sobers up and childhood horrors had better beware of Susan’s Poker.

?

I’m sticking with the British editions. It is especially fitting for this one because i was in Europe when it was released, and for those of you who remember this was the last one to be released in the UK before the US. So i got it and read it before it was released in the US. I was on a trip to Dover. We got the book in a really cute bookshop then I started reading on the hovercraft ride across the Channel back to the mainland to drive back to Brussels. I had it read before I went to sleep that night.

arguably the best in the series (i am reserving judgment until i have all seven reread at least 5 times) This one sets the tone for the growing up of Harry and friends and really starts the darkness that have really transformed this series.

This one fits right in with the Philosopher’s Stone, i read this one too when i was supposed to be cleaning my room sometime before the craze hit the states. I read them both twice in the weekend before my mom noticed and made me actually clean my room. oh well.

I realize that this is the Latin version, but it has the same contents and i like the bloomsbury press cover better. Besides i also believe that the Philosopher’s Stone should not have been dumbed down for an American audience. It is quite insulting. So anyway, what else can i say about this book we’ve all read it. I am only slightly Hary Potter obsessed, i read this one sometime in 1999 while my dad was workign in Europe and slightly before the craze hit stateside. I was supposed to be cleaning my room, but these weird books i hadn’t heard of and hadn’t read were too distracting.

Feet of Clay is a murder mystery, where the victim figures it out before the detective. Add a lady dwarf unliving pottery men and some solid Coats of Arms and there you go.

Interesting Times chronicles the journey of the most unlucky and inept wizard ever, with an oriental flair, a polite revolution, old men as barbarians and water buffalos on pieces of string.

A picture book for bigger kids this is a fun trip with a twisted time scope and a distinct lack of answers. thank goodness there are sequels to look forward to. that might(?) rectify that.

Discworld is the greatest for quick easy reading but with poignant moments poking fun at the world. Men at Arms tackles the politically correcting of the police force and the debate of “do guns or people kill people?”