August Reflections

I've read some great books this month! I've read a LOT of E. Nesbit! If you haven't read any of her books, you really should give her a try!!!

I read 22 books this month.

Children's books: 1; Middle Grade: 8; Young Adult: 2; Adult: 5; Christian Fiction: 2; Christian Nonfiction: 1; Nonfiction: 3.

Review copies: 7; Library books: 13; Books I bought: 1; Books I borrowed: 1.

My top five:

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. E. L. Konigsburg.
The Story of the Treasure Seekers. E. Nesbit.
The Railway Children. E. Nesbit.
Into the Parallel. Robin Brande.
The Colonel's Lady. Laura Frantz.

Reviews at Becky's Book Reviews:

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. E. L. Konigsburg. 1967. Simon & Schuster. 162 pages.
The Boxcar Children. Gertrude Chandler Warner. 1942. 155 pages.
The Book of Dragons. E. Nesbit. 1900. 180 pages.
Five Children and It. E. Nesbit. 1902/2004. Puffin Classics. 240 pages.
The Phoenix and the Carpet. E. Nesbit. 1904. 224 pages.
The Story of the Treasure Seekers. E. Nesbit. 1899. Puffin. 250 pages.
The Railway Children. E. Nesbit. 1906/2011. Penguin. 304 pages.
Sarah's Ground. Ann Rinaldi. 2004. Simon & Schuster. 192 pages.
The Twenty-One Balloons. William Pene du Bois. 1947. Viking 180 pages.
Huge. Sasha Paley. 2008. Simon & Schuster. 272 pages.
Into the Parallel. Robin Brande. 2011. Ryer Publishing. 392 pages.
They Do It With Mirrors. (Miss Marple). Agatha Christie. 1952/2011. HarperCollins 224 pages.
Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck. 1939. Penguin. 619 pages.
Further Chronicles of Avonlea. L.M. Montgomery. 1920/1989. Bantam Classics. 200 pages.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Jules Verne. 1870. Puffin Classics. 280 pages.
Venetia. Georgette Heyer. 1955/2011. Sourcebooks. 368 pages.
By His Own Hand? The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis. Edited by John D.W. Guice. Contributions by James J. Holmberg, John D.W. Guice, and Jay H. Buckley. Foreword by Elliott West. Introduction by Clay S. Jenkinson. 2006. University of Oklahoma Press. 208 pages.
The Private World of Georgette Heyer. Jane Aiken Hodge. 2011. Sourcebooks. 256 pages.
The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared. Alice Ozma. 2011. Hachette. 304 pages.

Reviews at Operation Actually Read Bible:

A Most Unsuitable Match. Stephanie Grace Whitson. 2011. Bethany House. 336 pages.
Let God Change Your Life: How To Know and Follow Jesus. Greg Laurie. 2011. David C. Cook. 288 pages.
The Colonel's Lady. Laura Frantz. 2011. Revell. 412 pages.


© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Ultimate Top Ten - Blogiversary Edition

I thought I would celebrate turning five by composing the ultimate top ten list. A list celebrating the TEN books that I've loved the most of all since I began reviewing in August 2006. I'm thinking it's fair to include one from 2006, one from 2011, and two apiece from 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. November 2006. I've reviewed this one SO many times since the initial review because this book has become one of my favorite-and-best books of all time.

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban. October 2007. I think my reading experience of this one is almost as good as the book itself. This is one that I read for Dewey's read-a-thon. I remember starting it in the wee hours of the morning--definitely past 1AM--and I just fell completely in love with it. I mean this book was my new best friend. I was so in love with it that I reread it within a few days. It's just one of those practically perfect middle grade novels!!!

Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker. December 2007. If A Crooked Kind of Perfect reminds me of Dewey and read-a-thons, Billie Standish Was Here reminds me of Cybils! My very first year of working on a Cybils panel actually. This book truly was one of the best books I read that year, and it was all thanks to the Cybils that I discovered it!!!

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt. June 2008. I'll be honest with you. For some reason 2008 was the best, best, best reading year for me. Just looking at the end of the year best-of lists, I could have picked at least ten or twelve books that were worthy of attention here. Books that I just love and adore even after three years. Books that I feel more of a connection to than any I've read this year. It was the year I read Jane Eyre. It was the year I discovered Georgette Heyer. It was the year I read Hunger Games. And that's just getting started. So why did I choose The Underneath? Well, this one wowed me. And it wowed me upon rereading just as much. It's a beautiful, beautiful novel. And if nothing else, it proved to me that a dog can be on the cover of a book without me hating it.

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. November 2008. I know not everyone loves this one. Or loves, loves, loves this one as much as I do. It's a book that if you love, you love with all your heart. It's also a difficult read. I won't lie.

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork. March 2009. While it was slightly easier to choose from 2009, there were still easily six or seven that came to mind as being the best of the best of the best. I chose this book because I loved it. True, there were other books that I loved--that I still love. But this one deserves all the attention it can get.

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness. September 2009. With as much passion as I loved this one, a second in the series, I hated the first book The Knife of Never Letting Go. You might think that it would just be weird--crazy--for me to pick up the sequel to a book I hated. So it's a good thing I have my own sense of logic, because I just LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this one. As in it restored my faith in reading. So, of course, it has to be on this list!

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. May 2010. This is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite books. So even though this list hasn't been about sharing my favorite-and-best classics, if ever an exception was to be made, it should be made for North and South.

Venetia by Georgette Heyer. July 2010. Just as this hasn't been a list focusing on my love for classics, it hasn't been a list for me to gush about Georgette Heyer. Knowing that it would really only be fair to include one--at the most--of her books, I've saved it for now. This is the most giddy-making of her romances, in my opinion.

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. February 2011. Surprised to see Charles Dickens on the list? He's certainly not anyone I would have dreamed of reading back when I started in 2006. In fact, I thought I would NEVER willingly pick up any of his novels. But. I've changed SO MUCH as a reader through the five years I've been blogging. I just loved this one. It was just a perfect, perfect read for me.

© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Sunday Salon: Week In Review #34

Reviewed at Becky's Book Reviews

Sarah's Ground. Ann Rinaldi. 2004. Simon & Schuster. 192 pages.
The Twenty-One Balloons. William Pene du Bois. 1947. Viking 180 pages.
Huge. Sasha Paley. 2008. Simon & Schuster. 272 pages.
Into the Parallel. Robin Brande. 2011. Ryer Publishing. 392 pages.
Further Chronicles of Avonlea. L.M. Montgomery. 1920/1989. Bantam Classics. 200 pages.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Jules Verne. 1870. Puffin Classics. 280 pages.
The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared. Alice Ozma. 2011. Hachette. 304 pages.

© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Reading Promise

The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared. Alice Ozma. 2011. Hachette. 304 pages.

It started on a train. I am sure of it. The 3,218-night reading marathon that my father and I call The Streak started on a train to Boston, when I was in third grade.

The Reading Promise itself--the promise shared between this father and daughter--was quite simple. The father would read aloud at least ten minutes every day to his daughter. He must get the reading in before midnight. It could--if necessary--be done over the phone. But for the most part it was a commitment to share quality time with one another, and with books, each and every day. Of course, at the very, very beginning neither could have predicted that this hundred-day challenge would become several thousand nights long!

The chapters of this memoir cover the time of The Streak. From a young child (third grade) to a very-soon-to-be-freshman in college. The Streak ended the day the father dropped his daughter off for her first year of college. During this time a LOT happened in the family as you can imagine. The book is a book about reading, a book about family coming together, but it is also a book about growing up. We see quite a few changes as the family goes from four to three to two, to one. As the mom leaves and it becomes a single-parent household. As the older sister goes to college and starts her own life. As Alice Ozma herself leaves to go to college.

Readers also get a small glimpse into the father's profession: school librarian. He loves, loves, loves his job reading aloud to children. He sees reading aloud as fundamental to his job, to his role in these children's lives. But by the end of the book, times have changed significantly--and not for the better. His position as school librarian is being undervalued--to say the least. And he's told that he will not be allowed to read aloud to children. And that even the very youngest need no more than five to ten minutes of a picture book. He's told that his job is to teach these kids how to use computers and the internet. Books are out of the picture--in the eyes of the administration. He fights for what's right, but ends up retiring a half-a-year early.

As I said, it's an interesting book. Readers get a good coming of age memoir that happens to focus on books now and then. The back of the book shares a list of books that she remembers being a part of The Streak.

© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews