A Delightful Bargain

Found this little beauty today while book window shopping. Ah, the euphoric moment of finding a brand new hardcover copy of a book on your to-be-read list at an amazing discounted price. Score! :)

#278 on Goodreads TBR bookshelf

Review: '89 Walls by Kate Pierson

Kate Pierson. Minneapolis: Wise Ink, 2015. pp. 264.
Rating: Decent + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Goodreads Summary: College is not in the cards for Seth. He spends his minimum wage on groceries and fakes happiness to distract his mom from the MS they both know will kill her. It’s agony to carry around a frayed love note for a girl who’s both out of his league and beneath his dignity. 

Quinn’s finishing high school on top. But that cynical, liberal guy in her social studies class makes her doubt her old assumptions. Challenging the rules now, though, would a) squander her last summer at home, b) antagonize her conservative dad, and c) make her a hypocrite.

Teen Blog Spotlight + Giveaway

Welcome Danai Kamvoussiora, the writer behind the blog Books, Music, Beauty, Experiences. Be sure to enter the giveaway at the end of Danai's interview.

Books, Music, Beauty, Experiences 

Why did you decide to start a blog?
Well, I've always admired people who put their thoughts out for all to read. Blogging seemed to be the best manner for me to do that as well. 

What should readers expect from your blog?
I love books and music so I incorporate both of my loves in the blog. Readers should expect book reviews and piano videos mostly, but I will also post beauty tips, and share some of my life experiences.

Book Talk Tuesday: What Books Are Talking to You?

Picks of the Week

Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement-Set in rural Mexico, girls are faced with a choice: forgo their womanhood or become prey of the ruling drug cartels.

Why Do We Fight? Conflict, War, and Peace by Niki Walker-Conflict is an ever present component of society. Why Do We Fight? helps kids understand conflict and how best to deal with it.

What books are talking to you this week?

Nerdy Social Action by Sarah Mulhern Gross

After reading Sarah Gross' post, I had to share it. Provoking students to action is near and dear to my heart.

In Spring 2011, I was assigned to my first student teaching field experience. Twice a week for twelve weeks, I worked in an eighth grade Language Arts classroom. When I began, the English Department was just starting a four-week poetry unit spanning the themes: determination, cultures, love, and courage. During the last week of the unit, my supervising teacher confided in me that she hoped to inspire 127 social activists, at which my heart leapt with joy. For I believe that it is each and every adult's responsibility to teach, influence, and empower youth to support and fight for causes in which they believe. That Tuesday started off like any other. Mrs. Jennings and I prepped for the day's back-to-back classes during the first two periods of the morning.  Little did I know what I was about to experience.

Spell It Out Challenge

This year marks my fourth year participating in the Goodreads Reading Challenge. Riding on a high from meeting and surpassing last year's reading goal of 45 books, I bumped it up ten books for 2015. In comes the new year, then BAM! I'm hit, knocked down, and run over. Every reader's nightmare, The Slump, the dreaded reading slump, pinned me down refusing to release its captive hold. Though my apartment overflows with books, the library is a half mile away from my home, and my to-be-read list is ever-growing, the slump remained constant.

Book Talk Tuesday: What Books Are Talking to You?

Picks of the Week

Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary by Gail Jarrow-The second installment of Jarrow's deadly disease trilogy chronicles Mary Mallon, the infamous Typhoid Mary.

Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design by Chip Kidd- Kidd prompts students to notice the graphic design in the signs they see everyday.

What books are talking to you this week?

Review: Mary: The Summoning (Bloody Mary #1) by Hillary Monahan

Hillary Monahan. Los Angles: Hyperion, 2014. pp.248 
Rating: Decent + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Goodreads Summary: There is a right way and a wrong way to summon her. 

Jess had done the research. Success requires precision: a dark room, a mirror, a candle, salt, and four teenage girls. Each of them--Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna--must link hands, follow the rules...and never let go. 

A thrilling fear spins around the room the first time Jess calls her name: "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. BLOODY MARY." A ripple of terror follows when a shadowy silhouette emerges through the fog, a specter trapped behind the mirror.

It's No Surprise: Books Teach Life Lessons by Lee Ann Spillane

I love the Nerdy Book Club! Since joining this reading community three years ago, I've been connected to hundreds of kindred spirits from around the globe. A group of people who live, breathe, and eat the written word as I do. Each post is filled with a wealth of information, knowledge, and book love. Though I sometimes fall behind on reading my emails, I make sure to catch up on all missed Nerdy news because I know that whatever I read will feed my soul. Posts such as Lee Ann Spillane's does just that. Not only does it drive home the power of books, but it also demonstrates the impact of an international network of individuals sharing, learning, and reading.

IT’S NO SURPRISE: BOOKS TEACH LIFE LESSONS BY LEE ANN SPILLANE

POSTED BY CBETHM ON DECEMBER 7, 2014 IN PAY IT FORWARD,SURPRISE SUNDAY 

“Stories define us and nourish us–intellectually, emotionally–

stories teach us to be human.” – Linda Reif, NCTE 2014

2015...My Year of More

Nine days into 2015 may seem odd to proclaim a course for the new year, yet it's just the right time for me.  On New Year's Eve, in response to a post on Author Amy Harmon's Facebook page, I replied "My New Year's promise is to do more...exercise more...write more...read more...love more." Never one to take new year's resolutions seriously, breaking any I happened to make failed to register in my consciousness. However, a shift...a change had come.

Review: The Christmas Dolls by Carol Beach York

Carol Beach York. Scholastic: New York. 1967. 96 pp.
Rating: Striking + 5 Scoops

Book Blurb: Florabelle is an old rag doll without shoes. Lily doesn't have any shoes either, and her head is on backward. A little girl, who can talk to dolls, sets out on a dark, snowy night to find a way to make them beautiful again. 

Like any child, I looked forward to the Fall/Winter holiday season. For me it signified big family dinners, approaching birthdays for my siblings and I, colorful lights, homemade decorations, presents, and Claymation cartoons. More than anything else, it signaled time to snuggle up with my two favorite Christmas stories, The Christmas Dolls and The Nutcracker. 

Dear Well Meaning Adult, Here’s how to buy books for teens on your list.

Books are the perfect gift for any occasion. To ensure you purchase the most fitting book for the teen in your life this holiday season, here's some helpful advice from Teen Librarian Toolbox.

Dear Well Meaning Adult, Here’s how to buy books for teens on your list.

Review: In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005 (originally published 1985). 246 pp.
Rating: Decent + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

"My mother never told me much about him, what he was like or what his favorite food were or anything. I don't even know how tall he was or what kind of personality he had. He's just a face in a picture, but now I'm getting real curious." (64) 

To eighteen year-old Samantha Hughes, the Vietnam War is everywhere, but nowhere. Surrounded by her Uncle Emmett and his war buddies and with the blood of a Vietnam soldier running through her veins, Sam is on a mission to piece together the Vietnam War. Devouring every book, newspaper article, video report, and personal story she encounters, Sam attempts to reconstruct the life of a Vietnam soldier traipsing through the dense jungles of Vietnam. Although she's searching for answers to understand her Uncle Emmett's behavior, she hopes to learn about the father she never knew, and in the process find herself.  However, the road to truth means making peace with the past.

Are You Rich?

Though it's been almost a whole year...an entire 365 days, literally, since the incident, the memory still haunts me. Oh, the shame, the shame. Last Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2013, I missed an opportune teachable moment.

Back in 2011, I purchased my youngest sister's children their first journals. At that time, my nephew was 7 and my nieces were 5, 5, and 3. As I explained to them the many uses of a journal (creating lists, drawing, writing about their day or their feelings, etc.) my nephew, in all of his seven-year old wisdom, proudly proclaimed, "You write secrets in your diary." Then Amia, one of the twins, turned to me and said "Stephanie, let me see your secrets," rendering me momentarily speechless."

Top 10 Books For Reluctant MG And YA Readers by F.T. Bradley

Originally posted on Nerdy Book Club. Another great top 10 list!

Top 10 Books For Reluctant MG And YA Readers by F.T. Bradley

When I set out to write the Double Vision trilogy, I wasn't all that knowledgeable on reluctant readers, what books appealed to them, and why. All I wanted to do was write a fun, fast-paced thriller. The kind of book I would like to read if I was still twelve (okay, if we're honest: the kind of book I still like to read...)

But when I found myself the parent of a very reluctant tween reader, I got serious about understanding what makes kids turn away from books. More importantly: I wanted to figure out how to get those kids to pick up a book again. For fun.

Mini Review: Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1) by Gail Carriger

Gail Carriger. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2013. Ebook. 
Rating: Decent

Goodreads Summary: Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is the bane of her mother's existence. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea--and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right--but it's a different kind of finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine's certainly trains young ladies in the finer arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing: the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at school.

Forbidden Book Trailer

Being the historical fiction lover that I am, I knew that I had to get my hands on Forbidden by Kimberley Griffiths Little, when I first heard about it four months ago. Not only is the book trailer beautiful, but it also contains "betrothed" one of my favorite words. (-:

Review: Black and White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene "Bull" Conner by Larry Dane Brimner

Larry Dane Brimner. Honesdale: Calkins Creek, 2011. 114 pp.
Rating: Striking + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

The March on Birmingham evokes images of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leading thousands of people through the streets of a 1960's Birmingham, Alabama. Huge dogs barely contained by the law enforcement officials to whom they are entrusted. Fire hoses drawn, aimed, and shot—firing torrents of throbbing, rushing water into the crowd hurtling protesters several feet through the air, and chaos run amuck. Seldom, if ever, does Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth spring to mind. Though I grew up in the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, Montgomery, Alabama, before reading Black & White, I had never heard of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. Like many of you, I depended on the public school system to teach me all I needed to know of the the Civil Rights Movement and its leaders. However, had it not been for Fred Shuttlesworth, desegregation in Birmingham may have been months or even years away.

Review: Firstborn by Lorrie Ann Glover

Lorie Ann Glover. Grand Rapids: Blink, 2014. 292 pp.
Rating: Worthy

During the time of invaded lands where the fierce desert cat prowled and the rapion dwelled, a society of people flourished...living as their ancestors before them. Forced under Madronian rule, the R'tans quash their faith in the Creator Spirit to survive. According to Madronian belief, the firstborn child, no matter the number of offspring birthed, possesses the greatest strength; which can only come by way of a man child. Those firstborn not of the male gender are left to die outside the village walls, but there is an alternative to life—assume a male identity and forever forsake a womanly existence.

My Goodbye—A Call to Action

Today, we laid to rest Nizzear Rodriguez, a young life gone too soon. A life taken by individuals not much older than his own. Upon watching the funeral procession drive away from the church to the burial site, I shift from consciously knowing that Nizzear is no longer here to acceptance and then belief. Today, 6 September 2014, Nizzear's death is real to me. Though his death didn't garner national headlines as Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Jonathan Ferrell, or Trayvon Martin, it did wake up our sleeping little town and for that I am forever grateful. An act of senseless violence took him from his family, friends, teachers, coaches, those whose lives he touched, those lives he had yet to touch, and all those that loved him.