Remember how I was going to make Book Review Friday a thing? Well, that lasted one week, obviously. Sorry to everyone. Lately I have been reading tons and tons of YA books for my Young Adult Lit class and I have to say that it is so fun! I seriously save that homework till the end every day because it is so enjoyable. I am so glad that I get to be a teacher and read these fun books with kids....instead of some of the weird stuff I have had to read in college. I just pray that I have a department chair that doesn't mandate something terrible. Like the Poisonwood Bible like everyone had to read when I was a senior. bleh.
Anyway, for fun right now I am reading "One Day" which is the book that that movie with Anne Hathaway was based on. So far it is enjoyable....it's really light so it's the perfect chick lit for a mid-semester fun read. Although I have to admit that I usually only make it through like 3 pages before conking out at night, but I have I enjoyed those 9 pages so far. Warning though, they are college students. European ones.
I will tell you a book NOT to read: The Jane Austen Book Club. Dumb, dumb, dumb! I put it down a third of the way through. It was just sordid and inappropriate for no reason and the parts that weren't about the characters' scarring high school dating experiences were just boring people sitting around talking about Jane Austen. WHO CARES? I could read JA myself if I wanted to, why do I really want to hear what they have to say about a book that I am not even currently reading? I had strong feelings about the lameness of this book coinciding with its apparent popularity.
I suddenly started panicking that I own none of my favorite childhood books besides HP (and a random copy of Ramona and Beezus that I won), and so naturally I made it a priority to do a bunch of weird odd jobs on Amazon Mechanical Turk and earn Amazon credit and buy some. So yesterday I came home to my very own copies of "The Mitchells: Five for Victory" and "Betsy, Tacy, and Tib" in the mailbox! Heaven help our sons. I have no idea what to make them read. I had this horrible realization at dinner a few days ago that Dave has never read Little Women or The Secret Garden. Never even seen the movies!!! He was rather offended that I seemed so upset by this as he still turned out comparatively normal.
The only boy books I read as a kid were "Johnny Tremain" (hated it) and "Adam of the Road" (hated it even worse. Seriously, just say "Adam of the Road" and me and my sisters will all start convulsing and gagging. It was one of the more misguided book decisions my mom made. Not all Newberry Award books are meant to be read by real live children). Although if our sons follow the current trends of male students they will never read a book for fun outside of school. Yes, less than 1/3 of 13-year-olds are daily readers. And the numbers are getting worse. They were too busy gaming or something. Don't get me started on this. I am in a Teaching Reading class too and we basically just sit around and decry the American teenager's literacy skills.
Whew. Ok I think that's all I had to say right now.
Ooh I love to hear your book recommendations :) Now that I am working and not in school I actually have a lot more time to read. So keep the ramblings coming :)
ReplyDeletep.s. I liked Johnny Tremain as a kid! But that's ok, I think we can still be friends ;) Maybe I need to re-read it.