I Now Pronounce You Someone Else

I should have known it was a bad idea, but I did it anyway. I started reading Erin McCahan's I Now Pronounce You Someone Else Sunday evening right about the time that I typically go to bed. Since I have a long day of teaching and doctoral classes on Mondays, I always try to get to bed early. It was a perfect treat before bed, but Bronwen's voice hooked me from the beginning, and I had to pull myself away from the book in order to get a good night's rest. In the morning I read as much as I could during breakfast and found myself rushing around to get ready because once again, it was so hard to pull myself away. When I returned home Monday night at 11 p.m., I was so tempted to read "just a couple of pages", but knew I had to resist and go to bed immediately. Tuesday morning was a replay of Monday, but last night, finally, I was so happy to be able and sit down to finish the book!

From the description I knew that I would enjoy the book, but I had no idea that I would absolutely love it. From Bronwen's voice to the different layers of the plot being unveiled to the beautiful glossy cover, there was so much to enjoy. The book follows Bronwen from the end of her junior year when she breaks up with her boyfriend on prom night. Shortly after she sees one of her brother's high school friends who was home from college and they start dating. He and his family are everything Bronwen has ever wanted. She feels like she belongs and even though everything moves very quickly, she can't wait to officially be part of their family and ends up planning a wedding during her senior year of high school. Yet, she ends up having doubts. She had always been excited about the dorm experience and other aspects of college and tries to reconcile the life that she can't wait to have with Jared with the dreams she had for college.

When I heard about the book, I thought the whether or not to get married conflict was just that simple; however, I realized that Bronwen's inner conflict went back to her own family history of her father dying when she was young and always feeling the void of his absence. I had tears streaming down my cheeks at a couple of points in the book, and when I did reach the end, I sighed and ran my hand along the pale blue pages at the end of the book. Bronwen tells the story in the past tense, making it even more mysterious when trying to figure out exactly what she chose, allowing for unexpected twists and turns. All around, what a perfect, perfect book for an author's debut.

I am interested to see if my 8th graders will enjoy this book or if will only have an appeal at the upper high school level. I know for sure that this would be great for college students, and as an adult, I still loved the theme of making decisions in life that have long term impacts. As a reader it was even hard to know what would be best for Bronwen.

To make it even better, on October 16th I will be hosting one of the stops on Erin McCahan's blog tour. After reading the book, I am even more excited.

*Copy provided courtesy of the publisher

Shadow Riders

History always fascinates me, and I especially love fictionalized accounts of what could have happened during any given context. Just as when I was reading Fever Season and listening to Elijah of Buxton, I loved seeing a historical account from Canada since I am not as familiar with its history while reading Shadow Riders by B.J. Bayle. It is interesting to see how its history is similar or different to our own since we are geographically close.

This adventurous account shares the story of two brothers who set out in search of their stolen mares and a stallion, as their family depends on them to survive economically over the winter. Set in 1874 the boys go on horseback to a fort, hoping to find their horses there. However, they are disappointed and end up deciding to continue on their journey in search of the North-West Mounted Police in hopes that they will assist them in finding and recapturing their horses from the dangerous criminals who took them. The oldest, Rob, who is sixteen, wishes that his younger brother would go back home, but they stick together. Their journey ends up lasting months. The seasons change and they find themselves at the start of winter, which brings on more challenges all the time. The horses are getting skinny and people are getting sick. Rob begins to question whether he made the right decision by continuing on with the journey and hopes that he will be able to return home with the horses.

The front of the book has a map outlining their journey, and the back of the book has support information, such as an author's note talking about the NWMP, as well as a chronological map of the events in the book and resources for further reading. The chronology helped me to realize just how long their journey lasted. At first in the book I had not thought about how much time had passed, and I was a little caught off guard when it was changing to fall/winter weather so quickly. Seeing the timeline made the boy's journey even more amazing, but if you read the book, do not look ahead to the timeline because you would definitely find out more than you would want to and spoil parts of the book!

B.J. Bayle has other historical fiction books available for those who love Shadow Riders.

*Copy provided courtesy of the publisher

Gamer Girl

Last year I heard about Gamer Girl from a Scholastic book order. Though I did not automatically buy a copy, one of my students did. I always love pulling books out of the Scholastic boxes, especially books that caught my eye. After my student read it and had positive feedback about it, I could not resist eventually getting a copy for the classroom library. Since then, other girls have also read and enjoyed it.

When I had a chance to read it, I loved the premise, as with other books that integrate changing technology into their plots. Maddy's parents have just gotten a divorce, and as a result she has to move away from Boston and the school she loves. Her mom did not see any other solution than to move in with her own mother. The first day at her new school ends up being disastrous, making the transition nearly unbearable. Her one solace is her birthday gift from her dad - a virtual video game where she is able to escape as Allora and meets Sir Leo.

The book takes different twists and turns as Maddy tries to reconcile her different lives on and off line, wishing that she was able to have a little more courage in real life as she does behind the comfortable anonymity of her computer screen. I loved the cute drawings at the start of chapters showing different emotions and giving a hint as to the direction the chapter would take. Though the book was a bit predictable, there were some surprises to balance out the direction the plot went. I can see why my 7th grade girls enjoyed it last year and imagine that more of their friends who did not get a chance to read it last year will pick it up now that I will be putting it back in the YA section tomorrow.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The Harry Potter books, similar to others, such as The Hunger Games trilogy, are books that I feel like I should have already read a long time ago since they since they have been so popular. I have been listening to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for my commute, and just finished it this week.

I can see why it drew in so many readers. It was fun to think about what would happen with Harry next as the mysteries of his past were unveiled throughout the book and he discovered and refined some of his magical capabilities at Hogwarts. As a reader, I cheered for Harry to have an escape from his unkind aunt, uncle, and cousin who have been his caregivers since his parents' death. Upon arriving to Hogwarts, Harry realized that his fame preceded him, even though he had not realized so many people knew who he was.

I never knew what Harry's magical capabilities would allow him to do or how he would save himself from the different challenges that arose. Of course, I knew that he would be triumphant because of the presence of the rest of the series, but it was fun to wonder which twists and turns the plot would take leading up to the ending of the book. I loved the end of the book on different levels, a great mixture of seriousness and humor.

I can see why the Harry Potter series has been and continues to be so popular. Each year I see students both reading for the first time or rereading books in the series. Eventually I would like to read the whole series, and don't worry, yesterday I just received my Scholastic order, including each of the books in The Hunger Games trilogy. I will be getting up to speed with that set of books as well!

Second Helpings

A year ago in June I posted about Megan McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts. Not long after I posted, I put in an interlibrary loan request for Second Helpings, but I had resigned to thinking the request was not going to be filled. Lo and behold a little over a week ago I went to return some library books and the librarian said a book had just arrived for me. It was such a nice surprise. Even though I had loads of doctoral class homework, I was able to squeeze in time to read it.

If you have not read the series, you might want to just read my original Sloppy Firsts post because this post might spoil a bit of the plot.

I was excited to pick up where the first book left off. I have to admit that one night when I was too tired to keep reading but could not wait to see what would happen, I thought I would just skim ahead to see when Marcus Flutie's name would be mentioned again, wondering if Jessica would ever forgive him from the first book. When his name showed up 30 pages later, I could not help myself and read the next 30 pages ahead. It was so hard to go back and read the pages I skipped, knowing the book was going in a little bit different direction than I thought it would. I just wanted to keep moving forward to follow those twists in the plot. Nonetheless, I went back to where I jumped ahead. Then I had to make myself stop skimming forward.

Once again, I loved Jessica's voice and watching her navigate the end of her high school days. Someday I will love to read the rest of the series. From the blurbs at the back of the book, the third book covers her college years, and the fourth book is after she graduated from college. It mentions Marcus Flutie and has wedding bands on the cover - that's enough to keep me wondering. I was thinking there was a fifth book, and just confirmed that on Amazon; although I would not recommend reading ahead the information because I just saw a little more than I wanted to, giving away some of the events in the third and fourth books. Oops. I should have just been satisfied to see that yes there was a fifth book without trying to read ahead.