When I first started reading this book, I was somewhat enamored. I just didn’t expect it to be so engaging and there was a competent playfulness that I was really enjoying. But as I read further and further, I got a tad bored. In a book that often feels more like vignettes than a novel…
Holy Toledo! We have just finished covering short stories in my home school co-op English 1 class. This week I slid into a brief bit of short nonfiction and assigned my students March, Book 1 and Martin Luther King Jr.s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The letter was one of three suggestions of short nonfiction that…
If you’re new here, then you alone are not sick of hearing this: I was reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in order to write a curriculum for ninth grade homeschoolers in a class I am teaching this year. I was really hoping this one would stick, even though it’s a touch longer…
I was torn about whether or not to go with Persepolis for one of the two graphic novels I want to use in a ninth grade English class. It’s a powerful book, very well done, and covers some really important thinking ground. But I was reluctant to commit for a couple reasons and I thought…
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is one of the several books I am reading before deciding on a final curriculum for my English 9 co-op class this year. It is one of three that were recommended to me by a couple of rising juniors (my daughter and her friend) when I asked their favorite,…
One of my favorite books in elementary school was The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong. For my review of that book, see HERE. When my co-op, language arts class of middle schoolers arrived at The House of Sixty Fathers, I was excited to read something else by DeJong. And though it is from…
This book was not what I expected, though if I had seen the movie that came out several years ago, I wouldn’t have been surprised. To be frank, War Horse sounds like a book I would not enjoy, but it was on the required reading list for the middle schoolers I teach this year, so…
The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is one of the best modern books written in the English language and I don’t know how anyone can argue otherwise. Okay, maybe I can, but this is the third time I’ve read this book and it still amazes me. The writing amazes me. The structure amazes me.…
I began this season of my Social Passion reading (which would be civil rights/BLM) with some history. I began this way for a few reasons. I enjoy reading history. This book was already on my shelves. And I wanted to begin somewhere in a less disputed territory, on a less of-the-moment and less inflamed book.…
Let me tell you what this blog post is not: a critique on subject or a political statement. Let me tell you what it is: a review of a book. While I had such high hopes for this book—and there were many voices from Oprah Winfrey to The New York Times on the cover calling…
This is like the world’s longest blog entry, and it’s just one enormous list. Also, it’s not something that I am particularly qualified to address you about, but it is, after all, just a list of suggestions. Except not really suggestions, because the list here–of best movies and shows–is culled from various lists online, which…
Second day, second book. I read The Wave, by Todd Strasser. It is a novel, but it hits the reader more like journalism and is read largely during social studies education. Why? Because The Wave is based on the true story of a California classroom in 1969. The teacher was surprised by his class’s response…
When my daughter was assigned this book for fifth grade reading, I was happy to read it. I enjoy history and have a special interest in Native American history. I thought this would be an interesting story, even though it is a fictionalized account. Not so much. Besides the real story, itself, I found this…
This book is an exception. The vast majority of what I read comes straight from my Best Books lists, even if I have to find a reason to put it there myself. At the library one day, my husband walked up to me and handed me the book, A History of Food in 100 Recipes…
Sorry folks, I have been off sick. Pretty sure a fever (how appropriate!) north of 103 gets you off work, even if you work from home. But I don’t need my throat to work, so here I am. Back again. The following review is for Fever 1793, by Laurie Halse Anderson, published by Simon and…
A Night to Remember, by Walter Lord, was published in the 1950s but reissued by Holt Paperbacks in 1994. This book is not on my compiled list of best books of the world (which lists more than 1200 titles). However, it is a sort of classic, and my daughter picked it out of a lineup…
Sitting in my most recent writers’ club meeting, my mind wandered to the issue of the modern reader and how a writer should and would respond. Most specifically, I was thinking about the attention span and the action requirements of the modern reader. Personally, I can relate. I have adult ADHD and even though I…
The Sound and the Fury, written by William Faulkner, the corrected text published by Vintage International in 1984, but originally published in 1928 and (the Appendix) 1946. It is shocking how long it took me to get into this book. I don’t really like to know too much about a book before I read it,…
(Before I begin, let me declare the inclusivity of the term “artist” which I am using here. I include all kinds of visual, performance, literary, and other artists, but speak more from the experience of the painter, crafter, and of course, writer.) The starving artist is such an iconic personage in our history that it…
the starving artist 