Books I've Been Reading and Trends That Annoy Me
I list all the books I've read along with a my impressions at goodreads.com. Some of you are friends with me on goodreads, but in case you are not, here are my recent favorites:
For Young Adults, Wildwood Dancing and Cybele's Secret by Juliet Marillier, The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare, and the Airborn Series by Kenneth Oppel.
For Middle Grade, We Can't All be Rattlesnakes, by Patrick Jennigs (which will hopefully inspire your kids to never bring a wild animal into the house ever again), Alvin Ho by Lenore Look, and Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Sommerset Sisters by Leslie M. M. Blume (Made me think of Charlotte's Web).
For Adults, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, and of course, Silent on the Moor, by Deanna Raybourn.
The more Young Adult fiction I read, the more I notice this strange trend: When frightened, upset, angry, nervous or concerned, teens are biting themselves until they bleed. I have never known anyone to do this, unless it was on accident.
In some cases the characters will bite the inside of their cheek. In others, they bite their hands and draw blood. Is this the only way authors have to illustrate the intense feelings of their main characters? Because I doubt this ever happens in real life.
The Weather
Sun is overrated. It causes skin cancer and necessitates the use of sunglasses.
On the other hand, sun provides vitamin D (somehow) and helps people not have seasonal affective disorder. Plus, it helps things to grow.
But, so does rain.
We've had more rain than sun lately, but as far as I'm concerned, it's all good. Just as long as we have enough sun to make my awesome tomatoes grow this summer.
Summer Vacay
I have big plans for the kids for summer break. As usual, my ideas are life changing and will most likely only last 2 weeks once implemented.
My plan includes chores and incentives, bike riding, treasure hunting and absolutely, positively no trips to the Dollar Tree.
More details to come.
Movies I Should Have Seen a Long Time Ago, or Not
Juno - Wow! The one thought I kept having while watching this movie was, "If there's a book, I have to read it." I felt there was so much going on in Juno's head I wanted to get more info on. And Bleeker! Oh, that guy rocks! Not as much as Juno's mom though, played by Allison Janey. She was my second favorite character right behind Juno herself.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Sorry Indy, you're too old for this. The movie was formulaic and cliche. I suppose it was somewhat entertaining, although I almost fell asleep at the end.
Elizabeth the Golden Years - I'm not sure what all the hype was about with this movie. Was it all about the costuming? Because I can totally understand that. And I suppose Cate Blanchette was a fascinating Elizabeth I. The movie was just weird though.
Winco Malted Milk Balls vs. Brach's Malted Milk Balls vs. Whoppers
Winco totally wins.
Whoppers chocolate is too thin and too waxy.
Brachs chocolate is too thick and too waxy (eww gross!)
Winco has thick chocolate with a rich chocolate taste around a large ball of malt. Excellent.
4 comments:
Those malt balls sound like a winner! Yum!
You should e-mail me your treasure hunt ideas. We're going to be going on some 'hunts' at my Autism camp, and I am sure you have brilliant ideas!!!
Have you heard of Letterboxing ?www.letterboxing.org it is super fun like geo caching without the expensive gear. There are severaly here in Rock Creek.
I need all the ideas I can get for things to do this summer--please share! I haven't given it much thought yet...maybe I'm trying to block it out. Here we go again.
My treasure hunting was possibly going to be letter boxing OR geo-caching. I was looking for cheap GPS thingys on Craig's List.
I've been looking at letterboxing sites and it seems many of the local letterboxes have been reported missing or retired. I guess that can happen with geo caches too.
Once I get my plan in place, I'll be sure to post more details.
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