Ashley's "Easter" Books

Janet Evanovich's "Stephanie Plum" series

I guess I'm on a book kick, because Ashley is also getting books in her Easter basket this year. I was first introduced to this laugh-out-loud series about ten years ago; somewhere along the line Ashley picked one up and read it which is very unusual since she usually avoids the books I read like the plague. Of course she was instantly hooked and has read the entire series, and like all of her favorite series, she has decided she wants to own them all. So I have been diligently trying to seek out & round up the 14 books (so far) in the Stephanie Plum series, along with the miscellaneous "Plum" books Evanovich has put out. I think I've almost got them all! If you've never read a book about this feisty New Jersey bounty hunter and her colorful cast of friends and enemies, pick up the 1st, "One for the Money", and you'll be hooked!

From the back cover: "Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, home to wiseguys, average Joes, and Stephanie Plum, who sports a big attitude and even bigger money problems (since losing her job as a lingerie buyer for a department store). Stephanie needs cash--fast--but times are tough, and soon she's forced to turn to the last resort of the truly desperate: family. Stephanie lands a gig at her sleazy cousin Vinnie's bail bonding company. She's got no experience. But that doesn't matter. Neither does the fact that the bail jumper in question is local vice cop Joe Morelli. From the time he first looked up her dress to the time he first got into her pants to the time Steph hit him with her father's Buick, M-o-r-e-l-l-i has spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e. And now the hot guy is in hot water--wanted for murder. Abject poverty is a great motivator for learning new skills, but being trained in the school of hard knocks by people like psycho prizefighter Benito Ramirez isn't. Still, if Stephanie can nab Morelli in a week, she'll make a cool ten grand. All she has to do is become an expert bounty hunter overnight--and keep herself from getting killed before she gets her man."

For years there have been rumors of this series being made into a movie, with entire websites dedicated to who should be cast as Stephanie, Grandma Mazur, Morelli, and the whole bunch. The competition & opinions have been fierce, especially for something that may never see the light of day. For me, one of the most important casting calls would be for Ranger; he is so extremely sexy and mysterious I can't think of anyone who would do him justice. Many people who read these books are either pro-Morelli or pro-Ranger, comparable to the Team Edward/ Team Jacob competition of the Twilight series. Give these books a try and discover if you're a Morelli or Ranger fan and let me know! Jodi

P.S. As you can probably guess, I am firmly planted in the Ranger camp!

For more information and fun stuff about Janet's books (including how many cars Stephanie has destroyed) check out her website at http://www.evanovich.com/.

Will's "Easter" Books

Working in a university library, I'm not up on children's books like I used to be. Recently though I stopped in at a children's bookstore, looking for Easter presents for my nephew William. I've blogged about Will's love of books before, and I thought some new books would be a nice little addition to his Easter basket. I ended up buying the above 3 books for him, and I just love them; I hope he does too!
A little about them:
Little Quack's New Friend by Lauren Thompson

This is the 4th entry in the "Little Quack" series; I can't remember if I've seen any of the others, but I love this one, primarily because it has a frog in it. Other things I like about it are the bright, cheery colors, and the sound effects ("plunka, splunka"). In this story, Little Quack meets Little Ribbit, who wants to play. Little Quack's siblings determine the frog is "too little" and "too green" to play with, but soon join in as they see how much fun Ribbit & Quack have together. Besides being a cute, fun story, it has a beautiful message of friendship and acceptance as the ducks learn that just because someone looks a little different from them, they can still have lots in common.

Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! by Mo Willems

What can I say....I love the pigeon! Will literally cheers when I bring out a pigeon book, so I thought I'd better get him a new one. In this one, the bus driver asks us to make sure the pigeon doesn't stay up late. Of course, the pigeon comes up with all kinds of reasons & excuses why he should get to stay up, including there being a very educational show on TV about birds. School Library Journal had this to say about the illustrations of the books: "set against comfortably faded pastel backgrounds, the cartoon artwork focuses tightly on the main character, with his comments presented in dialogue balloons. The black-crayon lines speak volumes, as the pigeon's body language and the positioning of his ever-expressive eye humorously convey each nuance of the text." If you're looking for a funny book to read to a child, seek out a pigeon book today!

The Small Seed by Judith Nicholls (Little Scholastic)
This 1st nature book has rhyming text and realistic textures which children can feel as the seed grows roots, develops into a shoot, a stem, and finally a beautiful flower as the last page is folded out. The Little Scholastic series is "a developmental publishing program of interactive books created exclusively to give babies and toddlers a head start in learning". I'll have to seek out more of these because it looks like a wonderful new series. When I first picked this book out, I wondered if it would be too "old" for Will, and something he wouldn't really be interested in. But then I saw him at my parent's house, and what is the first thing he did? Showed me ALL of the new plants that grandma and he planted, and how they're all growing. So I think he may just like the seed book after all!

Life List of YA Books

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, my sister Heather has an addiction to lists--especially booklists! She recently reminded me that we have a "Life List of YA Books" we are supposed to be reading. Yes, she has it titled, numbered, alpabetized, the whole nine yards. It stands at 195 right now; I think over the course of my life I've read 72 of them, so I've still got a few to go. And with the recent award-winning books being announced (Newbery & Printz), she thinks it's time to add a few. I think she came up with this original list a year or two ago; it's basically a consolidation of scraps of paper we both had lying around with books we wanted to read. It has both classics--think Anne of Green Gables--and recent favorites--A Northern Light (see previous post for more info on this one).

I'm kind of a "streak" reader....for a few months I'll hardly read anything, and then all of a sudden I'll start reading a book or two a week. I guess it must be cabin fever/sick of winter, but I've recently been reading quite a bit again. The last few weeks I've read Olive's Ocean (didn't care for it--sorry Kevin Henkes, Madisonite), Maniac Magee (different--good message, but parts that kind of disturbed me), A Northern Light (awesome!), and Number the Stars (it's set during the Holocaust, so of course very effecting). So, as I'm back into the swing of things, I'll keep you posted with books that really strike me!

Do you have a lifetime reading list? Please share!

A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

16-yr-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown asks her to burn a bundle of secret letters. But when Grace's drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers the letters reveal the grim truth behind a murder.

Scott Turow had this to say about A Northern Light: "A book that sweeps across the genre boundaries of murder mystery, romance, and historical fiction--resulting in an original novel that is both gripping and touching."

I recently read this tale of poverty, racism, and feminism at the turn of the twentieth century, and I loved it! The characters were all very believable; each of the characters has both frustrating and redeeming qualities. Even Mattie is realistically flawed. A pet peeve I often have is that authors TELL us that the heroine is brave, smart, resourceful, etc., instead of just showing us, or having their actions speak for themselves. I thought Donnelly did a great job of telling the story and letting us come to our own conclusions.

I don't often take notes when reading, but there were several passages I marked in this one, for one reason or another:

• ...madness isn't like they tell it in books...when your mind goes, it's not castles & cobwebs & silver candelabra. It's dirty sheets & sour milk & dog shit on the floor.
• Switchel is easier to drink than plain water when you are hot and thirsty. Mixing a little vinegar, ginger, and maple syrup into the water helps it to digest.
• I did not wish to become a sneak, but sometimes one had no choice. Especially when one was a girl and craved something sweet but couldn't say why, and had to wait till no one was looking to wash a bucket of bloody rags, and had to say she was "under the weather" when she had cramps that could knock a moose over...she was fed up with sore bosoms and stained drawers and the fact that she couldn't just live life in the open...
• Cripes, it wasn't my fault. What did he go and have 4 girls for?
• Why do writers make things sugary when life isn't that way...Why don't they tell how a pigpen looks after the sow's eaten her children? Or how it is for a girl when her baby won't come out? Or that cancer has a smell to it?
• I didn't think how saying yes to him would mean no to all the other things I wanted.

Apples & Pumpkins

Looking for some outstanding fall books for children? Here are a couple I recently read & enjoyed:

Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper

In this beautifully illustrated tale, Cat, Squirrel, and Duck discover the ups and downs of friendship and sharing, and what really makes pumpkin soup taste so good.

Johnny Appleseed by Carol Ottolenghi

When I worked in the public library, each September we would dutifully pull the apple books off the shelves to display; I don't know if I ever actually read the ones about Johnny Appleseed, but I recently found this version and found it very interesting. For example, did you know that John Chapman aka Johnny Appleseed was a vegetarian? Or that a law said that every family on the new frontier had to plant 50 apple trees on their homestead? This is one reason I love kids' books...you can learn a lot of great information in a short amount of time, even if you're not a kid anymore!

Berenstain Bears

(from Thursday, October 30, 2008)

I have always enjoyed the Berenstain Bears books, especially the ones featuring the Bear Scouts, and the earlier ones in which Papa would try to teach Brother how to do something & fail miserably (ex: The Bike Lesson). To get into the Halloween spirit, I recently went back & reread Bears in the Night, The Spooky Old Tree, and The Bear Detectives: The Case of the Missing Pumpkin. I still really enjoyed the first two; I think they are fun books to introduce children to prepositions (over, under, etc.) and to reading independently . As I was reading the Case of the Missing Pumpkin I was amused by Papa's bumbling nature & his knack for getting everything wrong, until I came to the page where Papa and his dog inadvertently get caught up in a hay bale. Now I don't know, maybe I'm just extra-sensitive concerning farm accidents, but I found it a little disturbing. Give this book a look and tell me what you think!

The Poetry of Langston Hughes

from Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Today as I was searching the stacks for a class instruction session, I came across this 16 vol. set of the works of Langston Hughes. Hughes was one of the most important writers of the Harlem Renaissance; through his poetry, novels, plays, essays, and children's books, he promoted equality, condemned racism and injustice, and celebrated African American culture, humor, and spirituality. As I paged through this volume, some of the poems seemed to leap off the page at me and seemed fitting to share at this important juncture in our history. I encourage you to seek out some of his writings for yourself!



Children's Rhymes
By what sends the white kids
I ain't sent:
I know I can't be President.
What don't bug them white kids
sure bugs me:
We know everybody ain't free.
Lies written down for white folks
ain't for us a-tall:
Liberty and Justice--
Huh!--For All?


Words Like Freedom
There are words like Freedom
Sweet and wonderful to say.
On my heartstrings freedom sings
All day everyday.
There are words like Liberty
That almost make me cry.
If you had known what I know
You would know why.

To You
To sit and dream, to sit and read,
To sit and learn about the world
Outside our world of here and now--
our problem world--
To dream of vast horizons of the soul
Through dreams made whole,
Unfettered free--help me!
All you who are dreamers, too,
Help me make our world anew.
I reach out my hands to you.


--from Rampersad, A (Ed.). (2001). The collected works of Langston Hughes. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press