Treasure Chest of Thoughts

There was a time in my life, I would have denied knowing myself as I am today.  NEVER would I have been reading more than one novel/book at at time!  It’s okay.  I liked myself then, and I like myself even better now.

Here is what I am currently reading…as they lie about in the various spots of my life:  purse, desk, bedside table, side tables…

• Nosey in Nebraska by Mary Connealy:  A collection of three novels, this one caught my attention at Wal-Mart because of the individual novel titles – Of Mice…and Murder, Pride and Pestilence, and The Mice Man Cometh.  Catchy, uh?!  I have read the first one:  an easy, entertaining, light read.  Just what I need during these summer days with my Diet Coke, iced tea, or lemonade!
• The Hunger Games by  Suzanne Collins author of the Underland Chronicles:  I received a free copy of this novel (Thanks, Scholastic!), lent it to a student who loved it, have seen various reviews of this novel listed on other readers’ book lists, and, so far, am enjoying this one…if one is supposed to enjoy a novel about kids killing kids…more about that later when I review this novel at Mrs. Gillmore’s Book Reviews.  Lots of good info here at Scholastic that students would love as they read this novel.  This series continues with Catching Fire, being released September 1.
• Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom by Will Richardson:  I am about halfway through this one and most of it has been a review (have picked up some good tidbits, though, and reminders) as the first part of the book is about blogs and wikis, which I use.
• The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow:  Thanks, Mrs. Ann, for reminding me about this one!
• Readicide by Kelly Gallagher:  Read on Dana Huff’s blog that she is going to complete this book and comment on it.  I, too, did not finish the novel as the group read it on The English Companion Ning.  Found another way to read and share!
• A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink:  This one I am reading with my 21 CLC team at school.  “Meeting” Mr. Pink online during our meeting next week, thanks to Lisa Huff, coordinator of these teams within our district.  By the way, Pink just released an educator’s discussion guide to this book.

Are you, by chance, reading any of the above?  Comments on them?

Updated my book review blog (Mrs. Gillmore’s Book Reviews) this evening…still behind on some commentaries.  Right now, I would rather read novels than write about them!  Uhhmm, is there a lesson here for me, the teacher, who requires her students to write reviews of novels as they read their “required” six reads per nine weeks?  Yes, probably a blog post about that will follow…need to “read” a little research, though, gather some data before I can “write” about it.

My latest read and review is novel number 25 Eclipse.

Now, on to novel number 26…yes, New Moon!

My husband and I just finished watching Defiance, a movie about a group of Jews who resisted becoming victims of the Holocaust by living in the forest, by surviving, by fighting, by living.

Very inspiring movie.

Please consider renting this movie.   Thanks to Redbox, you can rent it for only a $1.  For that $1, you will receive an insight, a respect for those who desire to live, to stand for what they belief. 

So far this Spring Break, I have written two of four book reviews for my latest good reads.

1. Night by Elie Weisel ~ a horrific glimpse into his Holocaust experience:  may we never forget.  A required read by all juniors at our school.
2. A Question of Honor  by Dana Huff ~ a journey to another country, another time.  Very enjoyable!  May click here to purchase.

I would appreciate reading more by both authors (read comments in my book reviews linked above). 

If you have not read these, please consider going on the adventure that each provides!

Yesterday (during day two of Spring Break), I spent some time with a former neighbor canning a recipe passed down from some of her family, a recipe symbolic of the survival of the fittest during the Great Depression.

While creating great aromas, she shared with me her concerns for our future and her fears that her grandchildren and great-children will not know how to care for themselves for so much of the “old” ways are nearly non-existent.

She shared also how during the Great Depression they were given stamps for one pair of shoes per year, stamps for gas, for sugar, for meat.  I hardly knew how to respond, for my mind was a tumble with the abundance with which I am now blessed…as I mentally viewed my shelves holding just the basics.  Imagining only one pair of shoes.  Someone, writing this post, is totally spoiled!

Then she proudly told me about the education she obtained despite these obstacles.  “I walked to school three and a half miles one way…seven miles a day…to obtain a tenth grade education.”  I just wish you could have heard her say those words, for they were definitely filled with pride, and I was even more proud to know her.

Then she spent thirty years working in a shoe factory, raising a family, and caring for those around her…like myself when I became her neighbor about fifteen years ago.

I just could not help but think of myself, of my peers, and of my students today and wonder what percentage of them would even be capable of such resiliency.

I just finished writing a book review of Night on my book review blog and wondered with author Elie Weisel “…I could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the world would never tolerate such crimes…”  How did such atrocities occur…and are still occurring (for instance, the horrific abuse of women in Africa).

Did we not learn from the Great Depression?  I fear we did not.

While I have the opportunity, I am going to wrack this survivor-of-the-Depression’s brain! She is going to teach me how to use a pressure-cooker this summer and can all these vegetables my husband and I are growing (shhhh…I have a secret fear of pressure-cookers…of the pressure part, you know?)

In her words, “I need to share this with someone, need to pass it along.”  Glad I am the chosen one!  Glad I am also the one who now also gets to enjoy that canned tomatoe ketchup…made 12 pints during that conversation with my friend and mentor.  Yum yum!

Click here for my latest book review on Mary Alice Monroe’s Time Is a River.

Want to borrow the novel?

Thinking about reading The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?  Please check out my book review at Mrs. Gillmore’s Book Reviews.

A novel about hope, The City of Ember held my attention until the very last page. When I completed the novel (during my lunch today!), I asked several students if they had read the first in this series, and several of them had, and all said they, too, had enjoyed reading this now-being-portrayed-on-the-big-screen hit, except they had read it several years ago, when they read it on grade-level, as this is a young adult novel for grades 4-7…let me comment on this little later.

Hope Springs Eternal?
Lina and Doon, each twelve-year-old graduates (and the main characters), assume their new assigned jobs of messenger and pipeworker and begin to learn that hope exists through a bean seed and a worm. Strange places for hope to spring, but spring hope does. Through these two forms of life, Lina and Doon also realize that life begins some other place than the city of Ember; something exists within. As a Christian, I will be interested to see where author Jeanne DuPrau goes with these interesting perceptions in the following three novels in this series.

Allegorical Move?

I also wonder if DuPrau might be establishing this novel as an allegory of sorts.

• City of Ember = a country under attack
• Unannounced light outages = bombing attacks
• Mayor and the guards = oppressive forces
• Lina and Doon = Savior-figures

Published in 2003, I wonder what thoughts DuPrau might have had about the war in which our country was/is fighting. Just a thought. (Not sure that fourth to seventh grader would analyze this novel quite like I did…so maybe Amazon might include English teachers with nearly 18 years of experience within their descriptor? Maybe?)

A DuPrau Insight

As an English teacher…and sometimes writer…I appreciate the following borrowed from DuPrau’s website:

Jeanne DuPrau spends several hours of every day at her computer, thinking up sentences. She has this quote taped to her wall:”A writer is one for whom writing is harder than for other people.” ~ Thomas Mann

This gives her courage, because she finds writing very hard. So many words to choose from! So many different things that could happen in a story at any moment! Writing is one tough decision after another.

But it’s also the most satisfying thing she knows how to do. So she keeps doing it. So far, she has written four novels, six books of non-fiction, and quite a few essays and stories.

Need a good dose of hope? Sit down with a cup of coffee and enjoy this quick read. Take that journey down the river with Lina and Doon and Poppy.

 

 

Just learned about this site: Daily Lit.  Novels delivered to my email…for free!  That speaks to a teacher’s heart…and purse-strings!

First, thanks go to Ms. Carla The English Teacher Blog. for writing about this new find.

On this website, all sorts of literature may be discovered…593 classics alone, which are sent to the reader in installment format…meaning you receive a portion each day…via your email…free!

I chose The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald for three reasons:

1. This novel is now one of the newly released movies, and I like to have read the novel before seeing the movie.
2. Written by Fitzgerald, this novel may give insights to the author as English 11 studies another of Fitzgerald’s novels The Great Gatsby.
3. A goal of mine is to read more classical literature.

In eleven installments…or in eleven days, I will have read this novel. Not bad!

Posted, in part, previously on one of my student blogs at Writing Right.

Meyers has been critiqued by some as not being the best of writers. Not sure I agree with them, for their very actions belittle their accusations as these Meyer fans all quickly add that they, too, had to keep reading…all the way to the end. We also have to keep in mind the audience for which these novels were/are intended…young adults.

I also appreciate Meyer’s references to the classics…this time to Romeo and Juliet and, in particular, the character Paris. Very interesting! I shall never read that play again in quite the same manner.

Shhhh…don’t tell anyone, but I like Jacob better than Edward! Meyers just makes him more “real” to me than she does Edward. For one, he is warm! I just do not like being cold!

Two comments about these novels so far:

Started this series?  If not…prepare to be addicted…or bitten!

Also posted at Mrs. Gillmore’s Book Reviews.