A true classic

Ummm, such a good one. I seriously love it more and more each time I read it. I don't even think this book ever has to compete to make it onto top 50 lists. Romantically timeless, wonderfully witty writing: Jane Austen was brilliant. Anyone who hasn't read this is seriously missing out. There is a reason hundreds of movies and books have been written based on this story.

Darcy really is such a dream. Elizabeth gets a little more annoying with each read, but she'll never reach the pains of Emma. Ughhhh, I think I need to try Sense and Sensibility or Mansfield Park. I don't doubt Austen deserves two slots on my final list, but Emma will not be the one to do it.

Anyway, I should say more about this one, but I really can't. It's perfect. In all ways it is perfect. That's all that can be said. It only took me about three sittings in less than a week to get through this. Such a perfect little pleasure.

Life is a farm

I love love love teaching this. All my students got into this. Even the ones with the lowest reading level. It isn't my personal favorite, but as far as teaching goes, I think I would dub it fav.

This book brings up the richest discussion topics. Students become so invested in the characters I think they forget they are animals. Which, is part of the brilliant point. I can really say with confidence, that I think Orwell is one of the greatest writers of all time. I hate to say he, Dickens, and Tolstoy are the top three (all white, all male, pretty lame), but that's truly how I feel.

The most striking part, when Pilkington congratulates Napoleon for having his lowest animals work the hardest and receive the least amount of food. Sweet Miko pointed out that this political theory is how the good ol USofA was built. We are a nation built on that exact same concept.

Pigs.

End of the Game

Ender's Game took me way to long to get through. I started it this summer by the pool, and just finished it at the new year. I just didn't see anything valuable or exciting at the beginning, but once I got to about page 70 I was at least curious to know how it ended.

Why though?
1st - I knew Ender would some how win
2nd - I figured the racism wouldn't let up and it was super annoying me
3rd - I don't really like Sci Fi
4th - I hear Card is a homosexual hater, go figure since his book talks about naked boys every ten pages. Really, I'd guess he was gay if I didn't know better. So the homophobia totally makes sense.

There is a religious plug, but it connects in no way to the LDS Church. I knew a boy who served in Card's ward while on a mission and he said he was "disappointed."

I'd imagine Card is a weirdo, super conservative, recluse. I wish he'd go back and take out the racism (as it adds nothing to the book) and fix the typos and TERRIBLE grammar. And as others say, he spends a ton of time on the middle portion of the story and not enough on the ending. Just felt a little backwards. Plus, the ending ending isn't really needed at all. I felt very much like he was just setting up the story for a series. Which is lame.

Okay, enough complaining. I still manage to give it a couple stars. It wasn't like I wish I'd never read it, I'd just never read it again, nor will I ever recommend it to someone (or tell my friends he is LDS).

Sensing a theme

So I must read things in pairs. Of my last 7 books, two were from the Great Depression Era, two about slavery in the early Americas, and three fictions from WWII aftermath.










I've been wanting to read these two for like 12 years now. I love love love Night. I think it is one of the greatest novels ever, and since the three are a series I figured these two would also be memoirs. Turns out they are not, which is kind of weird. But the author's note on Dawn mentions he always wondered if he had left the camps and went to Palestine instead of France, this would have happened. Which is why the books are fascinating. I always read stuff about the Holocaust but you never really get to look into how the survivors lives after the Holocaust were affected.

The philosophy he explores is pretty fascinating. I don't think I fully understood it, as I'm sure it's impossible for anyone to fully understand what a Holocaust survivor who feels responsible for letting his father die just two days before freedom can feel.

Apparently many of the details in Day are factual. Which I love because it makes me think he and his wife had such a fantastic relationship and after you spend so much time not being able to love yourself, you deserve someone who loves you like she did. Her recent translation of Night is my personal favorite. Partly, just because I think it is endearing that she bothered to translate it at all. What's strange to me is that he never translated them (or, why he'd write them in French anyway . . . he speaks fine English).

Anyway, I'm not really discussing the books much here, cause as I said I didn't really get them. Plus I read them almost two weeks ago and they are so short I just whizzed through them. They are worth reading. I just don't really see how they are a series though.

What Julia needed to know

I would recommend this read to just about anyone. I only remember there being a few questionable moments. Abortion and affairs are discussed, but things work out as they should.

I loved how Julia's journey to find Sarah's Key effected so many people in such diverse ways. It really shows the impact you can have, especially when it comes to something so small.

My sister-in-law Laura is the one who recommended this one to me. She described it as "realistic." I feel like that fits well. Some character's stories end so sadly, as they would have in real life. Some of the things you want to have work out don't, but still the human spirit pushes on.

I'm really sad to know that over the course of my life, the events of WWII will become a far distant past. The world needs more Julia's.

In the author's note, she (or he) mentions this is not to be read as historical fiction. But I honestly don't know how it can't be. WWII fiction seems to be a really popular contemporary topic right now and I'm grateful it is. Tough nothing catches the tragedy as well as the memoirs from the time, I do feel it is important we don't fall into the trap Julia feels guilty to falling into. Not knowing. I hope author's can continue to dream up captivating story lines such as these so that we are never guilty of not knowing.

It pains me to know that near the end of my life the events of WWII will be a far distant past. The world needs more Julia's, people who have a passionate desire to know.

Beauty in the darkness of the past

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is such a wonderful book. It is such a shame more people haven't read it. This is one I think I could teach every year for the rest of my life and never tire of it. Sadly, I know if I tried I'd eventually run into opposition from parents. I heard of a teacher being fired over teaching this.

Such a shame. How can people turn their backs to the events Angelou speaks of. Sure the sexual abuse is heartbreaking, but it's real. It's a true story, and it happens to so many women. Plus, I felt the way she tells the story is so fascinating. She tells it just as a 7-year-old would have experienced it. Especially an 7-year-old who had never been hugged. Who had faced years of abandonment from her parents. The guilt Maya feels after word was so frustrating for some of my students, but again her descriptions are so marvelous. You see right into the mind of a confused victim.

As she grows older her descriptions and her vocabulary matures. I doubt she even noticed the voice change. I also doubt she planned it. Such a testament to the wonderful writer she is. The sexual identity chapter is the only one I feel parents really have the right to question. But isn't it so much better that their children experience their introduction to these things through the power of words rather than the glorification of Hollywood and the media. I feel like if anything, this opens up the need for good communication skills between parents and children.

Maya's story needs to be told. Her experiences need to be talked about. Of course, the book should be read with caution, but if you are so close-minded you can't find beauty in her life and in her prose you are sheltered passed the point of damage control.

I found this jewel at the Gettysburg gift shop. I'd never heard of it. But it's the nature of the beast, I'm drawn to tragedy. The amazing part is that she admits to keeping some of the most heinous abuses towards her out. I can't even imagine.

We as humans really are a disappointing species. How sick was Ms Bellmont? How could she reason with any of her treatments of Harriet? And those Bellmont men, to allow such to happen in their home. They really are just as guilty. It is sickening.

Nothing I've read so far beats Fredrick Douglass' slave narrative. But I'm still so grateful books like this are republished after years of being lost.