Running out of summer....

I was reading Rebel Angels by Linda Bray last night (the second book in the trilogy) and really like it so far.  After the way the first book ended, I am impatient to find out how the story continues.  However, I know that I will probably have to wait until winter break to find out now!   I wish I could read on the treadmill, but that doesn't work well with bi-focals, and I am uncoordinated enough at the best of times to risk exercising with reading glasses on!

I did finish Angela's Ashes and like it as much as I did the first time.  Many people who have seen me carrying the book have recommended 'Tis, so that, too, will go on the winter break list.  I was disappointed in Teacher Man, but mainly because I was looking forward to being inspired and instead found myself reliving some of my more discouraged days in the classroom.  Maybe the book turns around after a while, but as long as I'm teaching, I need to read books about how wonderful teaching can be.

A book that I have started and really want to read as soon as possible is Building Resilience in Children and Teens by Dr. Kenneth R. Ginsburg.  Dr. Ginsburg spoke at one of the sessions at the Military Child Education Coalition Conference and inspired me to order this book.  He very effectively communicated how to talk to teenagers, and how to unintentionally shut them down.   The first edition of this book was written with parents in mind.  This edition has additional information geared toward organizations, including schools.   I hope to bring you updates about this book even while school is in session, and I already wish that I'd had access to this book when my daughters were in school. 

Dinner with the Smileys

I just finished Dinner with the Smileys (the only good thing about insomnia is the quiet-time for reading as I try to move back toward sleep), and the second half of the book is just as good as the first.  When I read about Ford, the eldest Smiley son, I think about my students and the changes they go through over a school year.  They are older than Ford, but the difference between one August and the next is still incredible as they find out who they are as young adults.  Reading about Ford, and sometimes Owen, I remember the days of teenage moodiness and discontent that I endured with my own girls.  Those days seemed to be so very long when I was in the midst of them, but looking back, they were a blip on the radar screen.  The hurtful things that were said as they tried to distance themselves from childhood and parents are outweighed by all the good, but it isn't always easy to see this mid-journey. 

While this book does a wonderful job of showing everyone what a military deployment looks like from one family's point of view, it does so much more than that.  It's a reminder to me that people are more important than whether or not all the laundry is folded, and that difficult times in our lives do pass, leaving us with experience and skills to handle more than we would have thought possible.  Sarah Smiley has written other books, but they will have to wait until I have MY summer reading for school done!

Dinner with the Smileys

I purchased Dinner with the Smileys by Sarah Smiley at the Military Child Education Coalition Conference this week, started reading it when I arrived home on Thursday, and am already half-way through it.  It's a heart-warming story of a family adjusting to the father's 13-month deployment at a time that the oldest son is in the cusp of that roller-coaster ride of the teenage years.  The family comes up with the idea of inviting one person a week to sit in dad's chair at the dinner table -- not to take his place, but to fill his empty seat.  Sarah's life is already hectic before her husband leaves, so the dinners end up being family dinners, like many of us have every night of the week.  The dishes and glasses don't match, she hands out paper towels as napkins, the boys don't always behave, but the whole family learns and grows.  Some of the dinner guests become part of their support network, others introduce the boys to facts of life such as death, childhood cancer, and Alzheimer's disease.  The children react just the way my girls reacted, and Sarah doesn't sugarcoat the fact that this is not always pretty.  But the process helps the children mature and become more compassionate citizens.  Sarah did not set out to accomplish this -- she just wanted a way to get through the time her husband was away.  Looking ahead to the next dinner instead of looking ahead to an ambiguous and changeable return date in the distant future helped them get through the year one bite at a time.

This book isn't just for military families, it's for parents raising teenagers, teenagers dealing with all those conflicting emotions that come with growing up, those of us who need a good laugh, and those of us who can benefit from an inside look at how long-term deployment impacts the whole family.  Then this book extends to us thinking not only of the family missing a parent, but the family across the road or at school missing a family member due to one of the many other reasons life throws at us.  For the second summer in a row, I've planned to invite a couple we know to my house for a German meal, and now summer is once again almost over.  For 10 years, we planned to invite our elderly neighbors to dinner, and now they are gone.  This book is a reminder that following through on plans like that is more important than worrying about whether the house is immaculate or we have real napkins -- just invite friends over and share an evening of camaraderie. 

A Great and Terrible Beauty

Once I read past chapter 8 and realized that this was not going to be another teen-vampire type story, I was able to get into the story more.  Events picked up and characters became more rounded.  There were some unexpected plot twists that kept me reading as much as I could while traveling back from Ohio.  (Reading while in a van or car became headache inducing once I started wearing bi-focals.)   I finished the book today and ordered the next two in print.   If my Kindle would unlock I'd already be reading the second one. 

The story developed into the start of a fairly unique battle between good and evil which I assume will continue.   Gemma is attracted to Kartik, but they appear to be on opposite sides, although I don't see Kartik as being on the side of evil.  I want them to end up together, although that would not be socially acceptable.  Is Gemma going to develop enough confidence in herself to be able to flout convention?

I am also interested in how the lives of two of Gemma's friends will continue.   I'm not sure whether I like Tom enough to consider him good enough for one friend, and I worry that the other has been seduced by evil.  I may end up impatient enough to order book two in a Kindle version and read it on my phone.

A Great and Terrible Beauty

Following a student's recommendation, I've started reading A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray.  The style and time period remind me of Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers, a book that I now realize I never finished.   When I finish Beauty, I really need to go back and reread that one before I get busy preparing for another school year.

Beauty has an air of mystery.  I know that the malevolence lurking in the story is tied to two generations of females, which leads me to wonder whether it is an "inherited" spirit similar to that in Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches trilogy.   At the start of chapter 8, Gemma has read her mother's diary, but it doesn't appear to offer any clues as to the form or origination of this spirit.  A newspaper clipping found therein, however, hints at a link between multiple girls' boarding schools and whatever is going on.   The boarding school itself is so far somewhat stereotypical along the lines of Jane Eyre.

So far, the book interests me, but it has yet to captivate me.  It is the only book I have with me on an out-of-town trip, and reading it passes time between events at the competition at which I am chaperoning students.   Gemma's brother, father, and the mysterious man from India are all stock characters with little to give the story the depth I would like to see, but hopefully they will be developed more fully as the book progresses.    

Anonymity

I finished reading Anonymity at 1:45am on the last day I blogged.  I don't know if I liked the ending,  but I do feel that the ending was appropriate.   Toward the end of the book, the chapters became shorter so the pace picked up -- and the plot line was never slow-paced to being with.   That's why I was still up reading well past midnight!   There were several surprises (but one predictable outcome regarding the journalist), so the book held my interest until the end.     I fully recommend this book, but still have reservations about assigning it to students.

In between exercising with my Wii Fit and working to repair storm damage to the yard, I've read another book on my Kindle (I don't remember the title) and started re-reading Savannah Blues by Mary Kay Andrews.  My Kindle locked up for the first time yesterday morning, so I'm now re-reading The Chronicles of Pern:  First Fall by Anne McCaffrey.   Apparently I bought this book on my way back from England in 2002 and have not read it since that flight.  I love using plane and train tickets as bookmarks -- they provide a reading history!   I have a stack of print books on the table next to the couch that I'll make my way through while waiting to see what happens with the Kindle.   As it had a full charge when it locked up, I may have a while to wait to see if it unlocks once the power runs out.   It has ignored all my attempts to reset it so far.   Both McCaffrey and Andrews make for great summer reading with my brain set on coast.   I don't plan to read anything work related until mid-July -- for the first time in 5 years, I'm not taking any graduate classes this summer and I plan to start next school year thoroughly refreshed and enthusiastic!

Anonymity by Janna McMahan

I'm about 1/4 of the way through Anonymity, a story about multiple characters all somehow tied together by a homeless girl named Lorelei.  This would be a good companion book to Can't Get There From Here and From Homeless to Harvard.   There is a shroud of mystery around Lorelei (hence the title) that makes me want to keep reading.   McMahan mentions Lorelei's brother at intervals and Lorelei appears to be searching for him.  The novel also hints at other reasons why this young lady (she should be in her junior year of high school) left home, but details are lacking so far. 

Emily, another major female character, appears to be drifting through her life without a real purpose.  She works and supports herself, but doesn't appear to be really using her abilities.  She doesn't seem unhappy, but nor does she really seem happy.  She enjoyed photography in school, but left her camera at home when she moved to Austin.  Now her mother has convinced her to experiment with photography again and she has met a man who may or may not become a love interest who needs a photographer.   From a photograph she took of this man, the reader can see that she has a good eye and knows how to use a camera.  There are multiple threads to her story that I want to follow.

The chapters of this novel revolve around one particular character at a time.  Lorelei and Emily are clearly the main characters at this point, but other people have had their own chapters.  This makes me wonder who of these other people will play greater roles in the plot as the story goes on.

I find this book less cliched than Can't Get There From Here, but it is written for a different audience.  If I teach Can't Get There From Here again, I may offer this book and From Homeless to Harvard as alternatives to my stronger readers.   The F word is present, but only when it would occur naturally in conversation.   UPDATE:  I would not give this book to a sophomore, which is when I teach Can't Get There.  Two pages of steamy sex don't ruin the book, but they do make this inappropriate for the classroom.

Enough writing...... back to reading......  (I love summer!)