This will be short and sweet. I think, this is a great book for a “reluctant reader.” It funny and filled with illustrations. The relationship between “wimpy kid” and his brother is pretty hilarious and it kept me laughing or smiling.

Peak, that really is his name, was named by his father, a famous mountaineer. His father was getting ready to climb yet another mountain in Southeast Asia. He was not there when Peak was born but after Peak’s arrest, he has all of sudden come back into his life.
Peak needs to lay low and leave New York. His father take him back to Asia. However, he never could have guessed that his father was taking him to climb – Everest!
For a 14 year old boy, who is also a climber, this is the best thing yet. But why? Why is he here? What are his father’s motives?
The story follows Peak as he confronts physical and mental challenges to get to the top. He has to deal with his father. He has to deal with this mountain. It is full of adventure, wonderful descriptions of Everest and gives the reader a look inside the strenuous physical challenge of climbing Everest. It is a coming of age story but the challenges that Peak faces to go to the summit make is even a more worthwhile read.

Lucy is a giant! She towers over her high school classmates and no one can miss her. She’s so tall she can do a dead man’s carry with her dad after she receives that frequent call to pick him up from the local bar. She has dreams but she keeps them to herself. She’s smart. She can go to college if she wants to but she needs to take care of her dad after her mother walked out on them. What would you do when you cannot follow your dreams?
One day, she is sitting in a bar and hears a call for the next charter plane out of her small town, if you can call it that. She boards. She has no money. She has no prospects. She has no idea what will happen to her but she goes. She needs to go there is nothing for her at home.
Lucy no longer needs to be Lucy. No one knows her in this town. No one knows how old she is. No one knows her alcoholic father. She takes on a new identity and ends up learning about life and being an adult on a crab fishing boat.
If you like “The Deadliest Catch,” you will probably enjoy this tale. It ends a little too abruptly for my tastes but it was definitely a fun, adventure-filled and heart-warming read. It took about 2 hours when I had a bit of insomnia.

A perfect example of if you are famous, you can get anything published, even if it’s drivel.

There was not much effort in the writing of this “book.” Does anyone out there remember slam books? Remember the notebooks you would pass around to your friends where you would write questions and answer them and add drawings or whatever so that your friends would get to know you? I guess, they are a bit like those memes that go around now. Yes, well, that is the format that Madonna uses in the first book of the series, “The English Roses.” There are 5 friends, each a stereotype of a girl: the sporty one, the fashionista, etc. It’s a bit like the Spice Girls. Anyway, so there are questions and the girls answer them. With some “helpful tips” pages, created by each character, thrown in between their entries. All in all, it was not that interesting. I am not sure if girls would enjoy it because it really did not make you all that interested in the characters or their friendship. It was just like a Q&A with Madonna coming up with random answers that a girl might write. She probably should have had Lourdes and Lourdes’ & her friends to answer the questions. If you like Madonna maybe you should buy it but it was not that good.

This is a retelling of a number of different fairy tales, like Jack & The Beanstalk, Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, through the perspective of a mouse that is about to be eaten by 2 house cats. The fairy tales are experiences and stories that have been passed down to this mouse over generations. It is a really cute story and the illustrations are adorable. It was be fun as a read-aloud and also a refreshing take on well-known fairy tales. Another plus is that the mouse is a baker and there are wonderful sentences about the wonderful wafting smells of baking cookies. I would bake some cookies and read this to my nieces and nephews if they were around.

I decided to take part in Book A Month Challenge (http://bamchallenge.wordpress.com/) to help me read more adult books instead of getting bogged down in reading all so much YA literature. You should check it out if you are so inclined.

This month’s challenge theme is “mother.” So, I had to pick a book where the mother is one of the major characters. Check out the site for more information.

So, here it goes:
“What would you do if you could spend 1 more day with a lost loved one?” That is what happens to Chick Benetto when he reaches his breaking point after losing everything and everyone he loves.

One day, Chick receives a letter from his daughter. The letter contains pictures from her wedding. There is no return address. How would that make you feel? For Chick, it was a slap in the face and he knew that now everything he lived for was gone. Would you stick around? Would you end it all?

Chick Benetto makes his decision after going on a 3 day bender. He drives to his home town and ends up in car crash where he is thrown from his car. However, Chick gets up. He walks to his childhood home. He walks in. There is food in the fridge and dishes in the sink. He sits at the dining room table. He hears footsteps. He looks up and there she is – Mom.

The rest of the story follows Chick as he spends a day helping out his mom. He finds out things he never knew about it. He finds out things about his father. They both get to say the things they did not get to say before.

“for one more day” is a touching story, retold by Chick’s daughter, who just like Chick was estranged from her parent. It made me re-evaluate my relationship with my mom and also my relationship with my dad. Parent/child relationships are always a bit difficult to navigate. Sometimes you are so similar, it is difficult to get along (my mom and I) and sometimes there is just not that much communication (my dad and I) and sometimes it just is not there. This book just illustrates what can happen when a person knows themselves, knows the truth about things and also is honest with their parents. Some relationships are not meant to be reconciled but when they can be, especially if it’s with a parent, then why not try. Plus, I do not think we can ever really understand our parents until we are parents ourselves.

Highly recommended. I feel like I am making it sound sappy than it is. It is not so don’t be fooled by what I wrote. On a side note, I also liked how Chick is a baseball player and played in the World Series. And I’m not a parent but I do know that my folks sacrificed a whole lot to get us to America and to put us through school…

Mystics are being murdered. There is a strange tension that is building up as Senneth and her companions are traveling south in the country of Gillengaria. Some thing dreadful is happening in this country that is broken up into Twelve Houses, which are ruled by King Baryn, who lives in Ghosenhall. King Baryn has sent Senneth, a mystic on a mission to find out what is happening in this vast kingdom.

Mystics and Riders are different groups. Mystics have powers, for example, Senneth can control fire. Riders are the most elite group of warriors, who serve and are loyal only to the king. Senneth’s diverse group is made up of 2 Riders, one born to it and one introduced to it after being found on the streets surviving, and 4 mystics, one who just discovered his power, one who controls fire and 2 who can shape shift.

As they journey south, they encounter friends but more foes. The people’s views on mystics is changing. They see them as evil and some begin to feel that they need to be destroyed. Why is this happening? Who is fostering and proselytizing the destruction of this specific group of people? However, the mistrust and suspicious is not only outside the group but it is also amongst the companions even though they share the same mission.

Will the in-fighting stop amongst the companions long enough for them to discover the menace that is rising in Gillengaria? Will they make it back alive to the king to report on what they discover?

“Mystic and Rider” is book 1 of the Twelve Houses fantasy series by Sharon Shinn. It is filled with wonderful imagery of a land filled with strange people and strange creatures. Full of adventure and intrigue, as well as a bit of romance, “Mystic and Rider” will leave you wanting to know more about Gillengaria and its people.

Neddie, the main character, had to move to Los Angeles because his father is that kind of man. His father just spontaneously does something and this time it’s a move to L.A.

On the way there, Neddie is given a turtle. The turtle is special. The shaman, whose name at this point is Melvin, tells him to take care of it. On the way to L.A., Neddie has some mis-adventures: he misses a train, he meets an actor and his son and ends up at the Grand Canyon, more interesting adventures ensue.

I did not particularly enjoy this book. However, I do think it is a good boy book for a 6th – 7th grader. There a lot of little anecdotes about Los Angeles history, an introduction to a Native American creation tale, trains, bullies and saving the world. It is fun and a lot of our students enjoyed it and for this one, I would take their word over my own.

“This is my letter to the World/That never wrote to Me.” – Emily Dickinson from Martha Graham’s “Letter To the World”

I have written about Martha Graham before in another blog I have and I have to say she is one of the most amazing artists I have ever been lucky enough to learn about in American Studies at UCSC. My professor, John Dizikes, would show different clips of her dances, one of them was “Medea.” Ever since than I have been intrigued by her.

Russell Freedman writes a warm glowing biography of her life. In 175 pages, he takes the reader on a journey from when Graham first started dancing to her rise to fame to her heartbreak and then her painful retirement. She was and is a dancer and that was all she loved. She seems to have sacrificed a lot of her personal life for her art and in that she created her own movement.

It is a wonderful biography filled with photographs and commentaries from her dancers and friends. If you do not know about her, this is an excellent place to start. Freedman weaves between the dances she created and Graham’s personal life so you can see how her personal and professional are all intertwined. Highly recommended.

“There was a pop and then nothing,” Jane states on the first page of this graphic novel. The next panel is black with the text “I didn’t know what was happening.”

Cecil Castellucci’s “The Plain Janes” follows Jane after she has moved to the suburban town of Kent Waters. Before she leaves Metro City, she cuts off her hair and dyes it black. She changes her outward appearance to reflect the changes in her after that day – the day of the bomb explosion.

Jane is a reluctant loner. She wants friends but not the kinds of friends she had before. She is drawn to the nerds, benchwarmers, theater kids and the outsiders. In this short graphic novel, the reader follows Jane as she copes with what happened in the city, her relationship with “John Doe”, her move to the suburbs and the fear the engulfs her family through art and humour and a little help from her new friends, who all happen to be named “Jane.”

Fast-paced, humourous, inspiring, empowering – this is definitely a great book to give to that girl or boy who just fits a little bit outside the “norm.” It is a great g.n. and highly recommended.