The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle

It was fun. I mean, what kid doesn't love a man who can talk with animals, traveling to an island, volcanoes, pink snails...what's not to love. My favorite part of it though is what it tells about the world at the time it was written, a time when British domination was the norm, a time when cannibalism was not unheard of and most of all, it reminds me of stories of my great grandfather living in the British East Indies. Fun stuff!

The Door in the Wall

It was okay.  A little slow to get through, but some good values are taught and it opens a little window into what Medieval life may have been like.

The Book Thief

I think from now on if anyone ever asks me what kind of books I like to read, I will answer, "Books like The Book Thief." It was perfect. My friend who lent it to me said, "You have to read about 50 pages in before it gets really good." Dear friend, I totally disagree, I was hooked at word one. The narrator - Brilliant. The imagery - amazing! I love words, I love to write with them, play with them, dream about them and this book did more with words than I could ever imagine. Plus, I love historical fiction and have always been a sucker for books set in Nazi Germany. For some strange reason, when I am reading, I love to have my heart ripped out and trampled on and this book did that. Interestingly enough, I did not cry like a baby, just a few well placed tears is all. It probably has a lot to do with the narrator's nasty habit of telling you the end of the story before it actually gets there. But, as one friend observed, that leaves you open to truly experience what Liesel is going through rather than wondering what is going to happen next. Now that I am done reading, I really miss Liesel and Rudy, Hans and Rosa and the rest of the family of Himmel Street.

Dear Mr. Henshaw

Not my favorite book group book, but it was set in California and I found myself telling the kids about this or that detail from my life that the book would bring to memory.  Divorce, low income, family disappointments, I guess it's good for kids to understand these parts of life, just not my cup of tea. But it does encourage them to write, although I don't think I've seen much of an improvement in that in our household.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

This was a sweet book. It took me a while to get into it, but sticking it out was worth it. I loved that it was about relationships, both romantic and family. It made me have an interest into studying some more about WWII from the perspective of the Japanese Americans. Also, I craved Chinese/Japanese food the whole time while I was reading it. Funny side note.

Trumpet of the Swan

We figured since we loved Charlotte's Web that E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan might be just as good...and it was!  Again, every chapter has some lesson or activity that we could do to reinforce the learning. I think my favorite was teaching the kids about N,S,E,W etc. on a compass.  We love our family read alouds. Jared was so interested in the book that he did a whole research unit on swans and made a book of swans with beautiful drawings on each different kind with all their characteristics. I love homeschooling!

Little Women

I think every 12 year old girl should read this book with her mother. Then, read it again on her own each year until she is 18. This book embodies the time-honored values that women used to have and live by, but are now fading away as society becomes more self-absorbed. I love that the young women in this book are still human with individual weaknesses, but strive to overcome their shortcomings to make life better for those around them, while still retaining their unique personalities. When my girls caught me reading this book, they asked me to read it out loud and even though I was in the middle of the story, they loved every bit of it. They kept asking me to tell them what came next and how it ended. It took me several times of starting this book to finally get through it, but once I did, what a reward. My favorite memory while reading this book sitting out on the porch reading it to the girls. Of course, they wanted to be the characters and "played" Little Women for weeks after. They also love watching the movie and reliving it all over again. The characters, the setting, the family ties, it's all beautiful.

The Jefferson Key

Okay, I have to preface this review with the fact that I don't normally read thrillers. I was interested in this book because of the history included. I did enjoy learning more about the history of piracy and privateering and it actually came in handy while playing a game of pirate minature golf with the kids one day. That said, I really had a hard time with all the guns and killing, especially the graphic details of acts of torture from the pirates, and no I don't normally squirm from gore, it was just so unnecessary and unrealistic being that it was set in modern times. I was also distracted by the author's continual switching back and forth between the different plot lines. I don't usually mind that technique, but this was extreme, happening literally after one or two sentences in some cases. My last critique was the over use of the phrase ingress and egress. I thought it was creative vocabulary usage the first time it appeared, but after the third or fourth time it was distracting and I thought that a simple entrance or exit would have sufficed.

Catch-22

I love war books so when I found this classic for sale at the library I snatched it up.  I wanted to like it so that I could check it off of that list of 100 classics that everyone should read, but I just couldn't. Although the story was interesting, the language and imagery was awful and by awful I mean crude. I know, it's a war book and war is not pretty and I really can handle a fair amount of violence, but I just choose not to read foul language and fill my mind with words that may someday slip out and corrupt the impressionable minds I spend my days with, so...sorry classics list, but I did not finish this book and I don't intent to.

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler

Well, other than having the longest title for a book ever! it was a pretty fun book. Two kids hiding out in a museum...what kid wouldn't love to live that adventure. It also reminds me of a story I wrote when I was a kid about my brother and I getting trapped in the mall and the adventures that we had. It really made me wonder if I had already read this book as a kid and it was in my subconscious, or if the author of this book was secretly my elementary school teacher who stole my idea and wrote a book and became rich and famous. Well, we'll never know now will we?

Over Sea, Under Stone

This book by Susan Cooper is the first to the series "The Dark is Rising." Unlike the rest of the world, I am not one who usually likes to read series. I guess I'm just enough ADD that I like to mix it up and read something totally different than the book I just finished. However, the other books in this series are supposed to be really great so I guess I will read them, I just need a break in between. Anyway, about the book, it has been compared to "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," but honestly the only similarities are the British children who are staying in an old house with a strange uncle, who are bored on a rainy day so they decide to explore the house and find a mystery hidden behind an old wardrobe. Okay, so I know that sounds exactly like "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," but that is where the similarities stop. Although this story is really just your basic kids-save-the-world-by-singlehandedly-fighting-all-the-bad-guys, I enjoyed it's quaintness and the fact that it was well written if not all believable. I have high hope for the next book in the series which is "The Dark is Rising" and is a Newberry Honor winner.

Peter Pan

All I have to say is WOAH! This is not your Disney animated Peter Pan. We read it as a family for book group and the kids enjoyed the swashbuckling, flying, mermaid aspects of it, but honestly it was intended for a much older audience. I think middle school would be more appropriate.  I was shocked by some of the inferences and references until I did some further research on British terminology and found out that our use of words like negligee is not the same as the original meaning of the word. Good thing, I was really starting to wonder about that Tinker Bell. :)

City of Ember

Great teen dystopian society book. It would be good to read this along with either The Giver, The Hunger Games, or The Unwanteds and do a compare and contrast.  Movie was decent, but not always true to the book.  The kids loved to listen to the book on disk.

The View from Saturday

My feelings about this book are conflicting. This is a children's award winner and I am learning very quickly that award winner does not always translate into great. This book started out slow but picked up with the chapter about sea turtles although even that seemed cliche and a little too save-the-world-by-being-green to make this a timeless book. The characters in the story are 6th graders and as the general rule is that children read books where the characters are a couple years older than they are, I thought it should be appropriate for my 3rd and 5th graders. I personally, did not think that the overused references to puberty would be appreciated by my children and I took issue with several other references as well, such as referring to a dog as "obviously male" and using a noose as their academic team logo. In the end, the story was cute and a little endearing to read as an adult, but I really find it hard to believe that children would enjoy this book. To prove my point, I started reading it to my kids and they all rebelled against the book in the first chapter. I think it I could get them to sit for it, they might actually enjoy it in the end, but they are so turned off by the beginning that I don't know if that will ever happen.

Eagle of the Ninth

I read this as part of our Ancient Roman studies. It took a long time to finish, but it was actually pretty good, just not riveting. I really loved the friendship and trust portrayed in the two main characters. I don't think that the movie did justice to the book at all.  This is definitely intended for middle to high school aged youth, and they should probably have some interest in Roman legions or it might not hold their interest.

The Phantom Tollbooth

This was another book group book. The kids really liked it, but I could take it or leave it. It is touted as being a math book and there are several instances where that is true and that may also be why it didn't really hit the spot for me. It was just too left-brained for my flowery, creative right brain.  I really don't remember much about it other than a dog that is actually a clock and some play on words with dictionary terms etc.

The Golden Fleece

and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padriac Colum

This book would be more recognized if it were titled Jason and the Argonauts since that is what it's about. Of course, the task that Jason and the Argonauts set out to accomplish was getting the Golden Fleece, but I think because of the movie, more people would recognize it by that name. This is a great introduction to Greek Mythology for children (and me). I have heard before that most stories have their origin in either Greek Mythology, the Bible or Shakespeare and through reading this book, I can see that this is a true statement. While reading, I kept coming across elements that can be found in other well-known stories, like The Lord of the Rings, Lot and his family leaving Sodom and Gomorrah, and Snow White, to name a few. This book is not necessarily a page turner, but still a worthwhile read if one is not ready to read Homer (which I have read, but can't remember).

The Help

Five Stars, hands down, one of the best books I have ever read. It was engaging, funny, witty, taught lessons, made me cry with laughter and sadness. I can't say enough about this adult novel set during the civil rights movement and the movie was perfect as well.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Jared and I read this book for book group and although I liked it a lot, I didn't feel that it had the same quality of literature to it that many of the other books we read have. However, the Greek mythology themes that it teaches the kids are priceless and they quickly became the theme for most of our family conversation for the whole year. We even dressed up as the characters for Halloween.

Charlotte's Web

We read Charlotte's Web for our homeschool book group. We loved every bit of it. One of my favorite things was that there was some activity that we could do to continue the learning from each chapter.  I cried through the whole last two chapters, which is probably the reason why I have never read this book before. 

Ender's Game

I read this book because it is on the Thomas Jefferson Education list of books that are good mentor reads for youth. I hated everything about this book from the language to the videogaming and couldn't understand why it was recommended until the very last page.  Then...I got it, and I really liked it. The movie came out in December 2012 and we went to see it and loved it too.  We even ordered the sequels and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.