Posts filed under '48 Hour Book Challenge'
What a fun ride it was participating in the 48 HBC from 8:30 AM Friday, June 5 until 8:30 AM Sunday, June 7. Thank you, MotherReader, for structuring the Challenge so that we participants could read, reflect, write and post as well as move around the web meeting and greeting and cheering one another in this endeavor!
I read 10 books with a total of 2372 pages (although I sure agree, “pages” are very different book to book!) using 20 hours and 45 minutes of actual reading time. I spent 5 hours and 40 minutes writing/posting commentaries and spent about 5 hours socializing by visiting websites and blogs (and twittering a very tiny little bit). I did not sleep a great deal, but that is nothing unusual for me (sad, yes).
I enjoyed great staff support on Friday and we had fun with just “where” I read and what I wore while reading. Saturday and Sunday I was at home and alternated between the couch and a favorite chair with the bed hosting me late Saturday night. The words of wisdom posted by 48 HBC veterans regarding “snacks and more snacks” were greatly appreciated; I am glad I took those words of advice seriously!
Now I know why I was reading about this Challenge from the time I started blogging last October…I am already looking forward to next spring and the next 48 HBC!
Continued happy reading!
June 8th, 2009
I concluded the 48 Hour Book Challenge (and my first book challenge as a blogger) reading a book published in January 2009, The Rock and The River, by Kekla Magoon; it is her debut novel. The book had gone high on my list of books to read when Fuse #8 interviewed Kekla in May .
The book’s inclusion of the role of the Black Panthers shocks some people with whom I have spoken about the book, but one of Kekla’s points in the interview was her own graduation “from surprise to shock to outrage that I hadn’t known about the depth of the Panthers’ community engagement before.”
As a person who was in college in 1968, a “watershed moment in U. S. history” as Kekla noted in her interview, I realize I was never forced to think about how many people outside my collegiate circles felt about the world at that time, what were the feelings of those outside the leadership circles throughout the country, how were children in various settings feeling? I was particularly impressed with Kekla’s ability to include with no apologies the matter of economic class and to develop naturally the discussions and actions surrounding “class”. And it is a book that allows a look at how children whose parents were part of the civil rights leadership might have felt and how they may have dealt with those feelings.
Reading The Rock and the River this weekend is another good reason why I am glad I participated in the 48 Hour Book Challenge. I will be eagerly watching for further work from Kekla Magoon.
June 7th, 2009
Saturday night I could not go to sleep quickly as my mind was still racing with images and thoughts about Down Sand Mountain which I had read earlier in the day as book 6 of the 48HBC. I picked up The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane which I had recently started but was interrupted before I could finish. What a lovely story; and although I knew the story, to complete a reading in DiCamillo’s words was quite a treat…and soothing. It was then off to sleep…………
Thank you, Edward T for believing.
June 7th, 2009
So the call came from a special little friend after I made the last post…would I read Gooney Bird Greene with her the next time I come to visit her house? Well, of course, I said. She often has her red hair in pigtails and loves pink like the tutu worn by Gooney Bird on the cover. I go digging in boxes and yes, I remembered correctly I have a copy here (Why in the world did I have it, I have not a clue!). So, I have read the book and understand exactly why this child’s teacher suggested it for the summer….my little friend is Gooney Bird and vice versa.
I am going to have fun with this book with my friend; I’ll also enjoy sharing it with some of the schools I visit in the coming months…storytelling is given a great boost by the book and second graders and children around that age have such GRAND stories to tell!
June 6th, 2009
How have I missed reading Out of the Dust for all these years? The cover does not put me off, instead it strongly draws me into the book….did I never see it on the shelves? Was I totally outside the real world the year it won the Newbery Medal? Who knows? I am so glad I decided to look back at the Newbery list and see if there was a title that I might want to include during this 48 hours.
For anyone else who has missed reading Out of the Dust, it is written in free-verse poems in the voice of Billie Jo, an adolescent. It is a book meticulously researched by Karen Hesse; reading of her deep research was interesting in itself. Upon finishing this book I then looked up Karen Hesse’s Newbery acceptance speech as I always enjoy reading those, particularly after reading the book….and this one did not disappoint.
I did have to chuckle when reading the book as I came to page 99 and the poem State Tests Again dated January 1935 where one verse conveys the announcement by Miss Freeland, the teacher, that Billie Jo’s grade topped the scores for the state of Oklahoma again…”twenty-four points higher than the state average.” Of course I sat and wondered, will a book dating some piece 2009 still talk about “state tests” and will they be meaningful? Real?
A great classroom read-aloud book, a great book for all of us to renew an understanding of hard times that Billie Jo shares in the concluding poem Finding a Way “aren’t only about money, or drought, or dust. Hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up.”
With apologies that I can’t seem to figure out how to get the “spacing function” changed to share the quotes in actual verse form, I am grateful, however, that I read this book.
June 6th, 2009
It is Saturday afternoon. I read DOWN SAND MOUNTAIN early this morning and was riveted by it…I could not put it down. And then I had to take a couple of walks as my head was spinning with sorrow, with memories of similar characters whether 12-year-old Dewey or Darla Turkel and her more than interesting mother, and spinning as well with the great humor found in this story. I am almost still at a loss for words the book is so unsettling in its realistic characterizations of the setting, the actions, the characters of a small southern town in the 60’s.
Author Steve Watkins is an associate professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he teaches journalism, creative writing, and Vietnam War literature. The book jacket also tell us he is an investigator and advocate for abused and neglected children through CASA. He is a short-story writer and winner of a Pushcart Prize. Down Sand Mountain brought to Watkins the 2009 Golden Kite Award for fiction. I include these biographical pieces for those who do not know them as I have a feeling these tell us a lot about how this book manages to be the great book it is…on a topic not easy on which to write and portray it in the all-round complete manner Watkins does.
Thank you, Steve Watkins.
June 6th, 2009
Okay, I was really getting punchy by late afternoon Friday after RIF’s big week of near non-stop events…so I decided to re-read two books I had read long ago. (Yes, 5 to 6 years is a long time ago.) In the meantime, RIF staff felt the “Snuggie” photo was so cute in the last post, would I like to read in the reception area Maisy house. I said “Of course!”
I made a decision to re-read Coraline today as I recently went to the off-Broadway production after reading the Fuse#8 post on the production; and as mentioned in a post-SLJ Day of Dialog blog entry, the play was everything great I had heard about it and more. And the more I thought about what I seemed to remember regarding some common themes in Coraline and The Tale of Despereaux, I decided to read them together to see if those themes were really there. After all, for me this 48 HRC is all about FUN, not WORK!
Alas, I was off and reading post-photo session (back by now in the beach chair, minus the Snuggie and not folded like a pretzel into the playhouse!).
What were those common themes / phrases I was remembering?
- Needle and thread
- Rats with red eyes and yellow teeth
- Cellar and dark hallway resemblances
- Role of keys
- Soup
- Less than traditional parental attitudes toward one’s own children (as compared to my norm)
- Music
- Light and darkness
Indeed a fun way to re-read the books! Perhaps neither book should count given I had read them previously; but I enjoyed the exercise….and enjoyment is the name of the 48 HBC for me. Now it is off to the house for some sleep.
June 5th, 2009
Okay, so I mentioned I am reading in my “beach scene” at the office today….just what does it look like, you might ask? Here it is……..peanut butter, bread and me in my Snuggie!
When I posted an April COVER STORY featuring SCAT by Carl Hiaasen, I knew then I wanted to read this book, and the 48 HBC has been the perfect time; gracious, did I need a less “heavy” book after the last one!
What did I see and feel in this book?
- That part of my childhood spent devouring mystery books, series of mystery book, individual mystery titles, all kinds of mysteries!
- I’m from hunting territory, all the “stuffed animals” were familiar…and we aren’t talking teddy bears here.
- Eccentric substitute teachers – we’ve all had them, right?
- Looking through a son’s eyes when his father returns from Iraq and is wounded…
Oh, and what’s with the Snuggie? Is my office cold? No, my office is not cold (at least not to ME!). But the RIF staff felt this might grab your attention as a reminder of the “Snuggie-A-Day” Giveaway at RIF. Check it out!
Carol
June 5th, 2009
In a February 21 posting on Jen Robinson’s Book Page I read of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls due to be published in mid-March 2009. I was hooked by the review and am delighted I have now had the time to read this gripping story told by Lia, a girl who is anorexic with other self-destructive behaviors as well.
As noted with the 48 HRC Book 1’s entry, I certainly again here find myself reflecting on young girls with whom I worked during my time as an elementary/middle school counselor. Back in the late 60’s/early 70’s during my training and then while I was counselor, we weren’t using terms like anorexic or even “eating disorders” as official terms…and not one person do I recall using the term “cutting.” Yet we were seeing these behaviors and were agonizing over how to reach these young women, how to assist their families.
What else struck me in this story of Lia and her “families” and “friends”?
- The “agonizing” by counselors is still present.
- How realistically the family units are portrayed….all can seem A-OK but my, oh my, is it different deep within these families. Sample: “Last week’s Thanksgiving was artificially sweetened, enriched with tense preservatives, and wrapped in plastic.”
- The utter sense of being lost that is Lia’s daily life. “What do I want? The answer to that question does not exist.”
Wintergirls does not give the ultimate answers, but it gives what I find to be a real picture, a hard-hitting description that might just allow an individual or even some families to see or feel a personal beginning toward a solution.
Sobering…
Carol
June 5th, 2009
It is raining, raining, raining in D.C.…what a great day then to read. As noted in my “starting line” entry, I am reading today from my office with a copy of the blog posting on my door and an invitation to RIF staff to come in and read with me or leave an email to be answered on Monday. So far no interruptions; but more than likely people are just thrilled I am occupied and not asking questions about follow up to the many activities here this week: Board meeting, visiting Volunteers of the Year from across the USA, fundraising Gala and the debut of a new program in Maryland yesterday!
I also noted in the first entry today I am reading in the “beach setting” in my office; this tradition started a couple of summers ago when I had to unload my beach chairs from the car to carry some boxes of books for RIF. Once an elementary teacher who created bulletin board and scenes, always an elementary teacher!
I also years ago was a certified elementary school counselor and often the books I now read that are older elementary books (i.e., beyond picture books) and YA fiction are seen by me through the prism of how I would have used the book with the children/families I was counseling or at least how they would have reacted. We’ll see how much of that comes through in the books I read during this Challenge.
I also do not write traditional reviews (whatever that means). I tend more to share what I felt/experienced while reading the book as well as “dot point” type highlights. I’ll depend on you the reader to ask me clarifying questions, okay?
I have spent so much time over the last seven and a half years at RIF concentrating on picture books that I jumped at this Challenge to give myself the “luxury” to make the shift and concentrate for this 48 hours on books for older children/youth.
My first book completed in this 48 HBC for 2009 is an Advance Reader’s Copy (ARC) of THE GEORGES AND THE JEWELS by Jane Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A THOUSAND ACRES. This book is scheduled for release September 8, 2009.
Now, I must admit, I have never read an Advance Review Copy (ARC) so will be very careful to note to you that the publishing company always warns anyone reading ARC’s to consider everything about the book “tentative and subject to change without notice.” Got it? I am also not supposed to “give away” critical points in the book…and I won’t.
As mentioned in a posting summarizing the SLJ Day of Dialog in New York on May 28, Jane Smiley was interviewed during that program and shared her own love of horses which she raises in California at her home, the ways in which stories of persons she has met with “horse stories” as parts of the fabric of their lives have provided pieces of what she has herself woven into this story, her first book for children. We learned Jane loved reading as a child but didn’t aspire to write; it was her mother who encouraged her to write. Jane noted she was fully accustomed to seeing women write as her mother was a women’s editor for a newspaper, and Jane thought it quite common to have the typewriter and a lot of papers strewn across the dining room table.
We also heard a bit about Jane’s daughter who has recently published and of Jane’s experiences chairing the 2009 Man Booker Award with Alice Munro announced the winner only the day prior to our NYC session.
Throughout the interview and question/answer session I felt instead of 250 people sitting in an auditorium, we were sitting around a campfire (maybe in part I imagined that setting because Jane talked about a series of Girl Scout books she liked when young? Silver Birch?) listening to Jane tell us the stories from her own life and lives of persons she has met that went into this new book for children ages 10 and up according to the publisher.
While I have not ever been able to spend much time on a horse’s back due to my allergies and the fact within moments of going near a horse I am crying and wheezing, I have always admired horses as objects of beauty in the way they move, their lustrous coats if well kept, and the affection I have often witnessed between human and horse. I felt those qualities in this book about a young girl whose family raises horses for sale. And thus the title of the book gives you the names given to all geldings and mares on that farm so that the children would not become so attached to a single horse as to grieve when it is sold.
What did I see and feel as I read this book?
- A young girl Abby who loves horses to the core of her being, much like many young girls I have known.
- A family with deep rooted religious convictions that sometimes put the children in what they perceived as very difficult positions among their peers.
- Very typical adolescent behaviors and divisions among girls, usually seen most vividly at school.
- A father who gives his daughter some excellent business advice which in turn is good advice for “living.”
- A horse trainer who appears for a short period giving Abby even more lessons in living drawn from the training of the horses.
So, I am leaving the ranch now to move on to an urban setting and again, adolescent girls…more later (a phrase my “writer” grandmother used to sign off).
Happy Reading!
Carol
June 5th, 2009
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