100 Book Challenge Update

Last January I joined the 100 Book Challenge at J. Kaye's website. I ended up reading 115 books, but that's counting children's books and I'm an elementary librarian, so I get paid to read them! Here's a breakdown of what I read:

32 Novels for adults or older teens (the large majority were adult books)
10 Novels for children (helps with my job so I can recommend books to kids)
72 Picture books (again, for my job, but I looooooove picture books!)

And that adds up to 114. Hmmm. I probably read 73 picture books.

I'm disappointed that I only read 32 "real" books. I really thought I could read one a week, but I also moved to a new country, got a new job and dealt with the decline and death of my father. Not exactly good reading situations. Thirty two books is a lot more than most Americans. According to an article in the Washington Post (2007), 25% of Americans didn't read a book at all the previous year. (Yikes!) The typical person read 4 books. Well, I have most of America beat!!!

I read a lot of great stuff. If you want to see the full list, go back to my original post. The fun aspect of the challenge is that it forces you to keep track of what you've read during the year and your list is in chronological order. I also subscribe to librarything.com (it's free!) and that let's me see all the books I've read. Well, the ones I can remember anyway. That's where I get that cool widget on the right side of my blog that shows random covers of books I've read. Very visual! Very fun!

I didn't write any book reviews or anything. No interest in that. But my favorite books of 2009 were:

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. It won the national book award for teen literature and boy did it deserve it. Amazing story. Great writing. Terrific book.

• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. I read a lot of literature set in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and that region of the world. I'm finding really great literature coming out of there right now. The White Tiger is an amazing novel about a taxi driver in modern India. 

• The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller. I don't like nonfiction because I'm all about characters, but this is a terrific book for teachers and librarians. I had to talk myself through it because nonfiction just shuts my brain off. I would say, "Read 1 chapter of this and then read as much of your novel as you want." It worked! That makes it sound like a bad book, but it's excellent, I'm just a bad NF reader. Her ideas about turning kids on to reading made me re-think how I run my library and present myself to my students. If you're a teacher or have children, read this.

• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Won the Pulitzer and rightly so. The writing is amazing. It's a collection of 13 short stories that are somehow connected to the main character, Olive Kitteridge. Olive isn't your typical protaganist that you fall in love with. She has short comings. Many, frustrating short comings. I often confuse my opinions about a book with my opinions about the characters. For example, I used to say that I didn't like The Corrections, but in reality I didn't like the characters. It was so well written that I transferred my dislike for the characters to the book. Same with Olive Kitteridge. I wanted to shake her at times to open her eyes. The author said she wrote it in 13 short stories where Olive is sometimes in the background because she didn't think the reader could take a full novel centered around her. That sums it up for me. That being said, Olive has some very good qualities, as well. She's not all bad. She's human.

• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I know I'm a little behind the ball on this one. I loved The Kite Runner and this is another amazing novel by Hosseini. 

I read other good ones, too, but those are my stand outs. I'm going to do the 100 Book Challenge for 2010, too. It starts tomorrow. My goal is to read more than 32 adult books and to read more than 10 children's novels. I encourage you to sign up. If you read more than 4 books, you're doing better than most Americans!

I have a pile of books next to my bed for my vacation. I wonder what I'll start with.

When Do You Just STOP?!?

It seemed everywhere I turned the title The Life of Edgar Sawtelle was appearing. When I went to book blogs, Amazon, and magazines there it was. It's a New York Times Bestseller. It's an Oprah Book. I was dying to read it. Now I'm dying to just get it over with. I'm 400 pages in and it's just not working for me. Perhaps the hype killed my experience. Perhaps now is not the time for me to read it. Maybe I'd love it four months from now. I don't know why I don't like it, I just don't.

So my question is, when do you give up? I feel like I can't stop since I've invested so much time into it. On the other hand, I feel like I'm throwing good time after bad and time can be more precious than money. My rule of thumb is 50 pages. If I'm not hooked by page 50, I don't continue. If I stop earlier I don't feel like I've given the author a chance. What do you do when you're at page 400 and have almost 200 pages to go and a stack of other titles that you're anxious to read?

Well, my solution is to scan and browse. I never do this, but I'm stuck. If I were on page 120, maybe I could wave the white flag, but no way can I do it on page 400. So I'm zipping through the pages. Dog training - scan - naming puppies - skim - conversation betwen Edgar and his mother - read that section - more dogs - browse... I'm I getting the story? I'm sure I'm not, but I guess I'll find out at the end. The literature isn't enough to keep my attention. I thought I craved dialogue, but Life of Pi is one of my all-time favorite books and most of it took place when he was lost at sea.

So, I should crank out the next couple hundred pages soon and then can move on to another book. If the ending blows me away, maybe I'll read it properly at another time in my life. For now, I'll skim my way to the end. Not very satisfying, but it does the job.

**Update: I finished it this morning. I didn't realize that it was a retelling of Hamlet, until someone pointed it out to me. Duh! Now I'm on to New Moon for my YA Book Challenge.

YA Book Challenge

OK. I'm going to double dip. I just discovered the Young Adult Book Challenge. You have to read 12 YA books in a year. I can definitely do 12 and I'm going to count them in my 100 Book Challenge. This is a good way to encourage me to read teen lit. I really enjoy YA books, but I always have several adult novels I'm dying to read, so the YA books get pushed to the bottom. I look forward to mixing in some fun teen reads! I'll definitely be reading Chris Crutcher books, since he's our visiting author this year. I'll list the titles on this post.

Young Adult Book Challenge:

1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
2. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
3. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
4. Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

5. Flight by Sherman Alexie

100 Book Challenge

My friend Jenners told me about the 100 Book Challenge over at J. Kaye's Book Blog. I read about a book a week, so 100 books in a year sounds like a good challenge. Plus you can count children's books and I will be an elementary librarian in August, so I'm sure I can easily clear 100 books. Right now I'm a high school librarian, so I can't plow through 20 books in a week!

I will list the books I read here in this post. I read 4 and a half books on vacation, but 3 of them were before January 1st. Bummer! Oh, well. What can you do? Keep reading, that's what!

100 Book Challenge for 2009:

1. Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman
2. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
3. You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers
4. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
5. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
6. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
7. Shredderman 1: Secret Identiy by Wnedelin van Draanen (children's novel)
8. The Story of Thomas Alva Edison by Margaret Davidson (children's biography)
9. Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price
10. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
11. The Gathering by Anne Enright
12. In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
13. Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet
14. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
15. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
16. The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh

17. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

18. Flight by Sherman Alexie

19. Body Surfing by Anita Shreve
20. Sea Glass by Anita Shreve
21. Good Faith by Jane Smiley
22. Do NOT Open This Book by Joy Cowley (picture book)
23. Dog Breath by Dav Pilkey (picture book)
24. The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood (picture book)
25. Piggies by Audrey and Don Wood (picture book)
26. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
27. I Took My Frog To The Library by Eric Kimmel (picture book)
28. My Little Car by Gary Soto (picture book)
29. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller
30. Goldilocks retold by Janet Hillman (picture book)
31. Goldie and the Bears by Diane Stanley (picture book)
32. Mud Walk by Joy Cowley (picture book)
33. Duck's Key: Where Can it Be? by Jez Alborough (picture book)
34. Varjak Paw by SF Said (children's novel)
35. Moonbear's Pet by Frank Asch (picture book)
36. Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin (picture book)
37. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
38. The Riders by Tim Winton
39. Magyk by Angie Sage (children's novel)
40. Diary of a Spider by Doreen Cronin (picture book)
41. Growing Frogs by Vivian French (picture book)
42. Stick by Steve Breen (picture book)
43. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamilio (children's novel)
44. Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
45. Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
46. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
47. Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
48. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
49. Jack Adrift by Jack Gantos (children's novel)
50. Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathman (picture book)
51. No More Cookies! by Paeony Lewis (picture book)
52. More Spaghetti, I Say! by Rita Gelman (picture book)
53. Mount Count by Ellen Stohl Walsh (picture book)
54. Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman (picture book)
55. The Perfect Pumpkin Pie by Denys Cazet (picture book)
56. Froggy's Halloween by Jonathan London (picture book)
57. Mouse's First Halloween by Lauren Thompson (picture book)
58. Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes (picture book)
59. Canoe Days by Gary Paulsen (picture book)
60. Where the Big Fish Are by Jonathan London (picture book)
61. Froggy Plays Soccer by Jonathan London (picture book)
62. Baby Radar by Naomi Nye (picture book)
63. The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkin by Barbara Kerley (picture book)
64. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina (picture book)
65. Nine Ducks Nine by Sarah Hayes (picture book)
66. Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh (picture book)
67. Anno's Counting Book by Anno (picture book)
68. A Small, Tall Tale From the Far, Far North by Peter Sis (picture book)
69. Pumply, Dumply Pumpkin by Mary Serfozo (picture book)
70. It's Pumpkin Time! by Zoe Hall (picture book)
71. Bumpy Little Pumpkin by Margery Cuyler (picture book)
72. The Water Hole by Graeme Base (picture book)
73. The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky (picture book)
74. As the Crow Flies: A First Book of Maps by Gail Harman (picture book)
75. White Water by Jonathan London (picture book)
76. Ruth Law Thrills a Nation by Don Brown (picture book)
77. One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root (picture book)
78. Duckie's Ducklings by Frances Barry (picture book)
79. Cha-Cha Chimps by Julia Durango (picture book)
80. Round Trip by Anna Jonas (picture book)
81. What the Sun Saw/What the Moon Saw by Nancy Tafuri (picture book)
82. My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki
83. No Talking by Andrew Clements (children's novel)
84. Midnight on the Farm by Stephen Eaton Hume (picture book)
85. Ten Little Sleepyheads by Elizabeth Provost (picture book)
86. Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen (children's novel)
87. Love That Dog by Sharon Creech (children's novel)
88. Alistair and the Alien Invasion by Marilyn Sadler (picture book)
89. Lullabyhullaballo by Mick Inkpen (picture book)
90. How Do Dinosaurs Eat? by Jane Yolen (picture book)
91. Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton (picture book)
92. Sleep Tight, Little Bear by Martin Waddell (picture book)
93. Good Night, Baby Bear by Frank Asch (picture book)
94. A Dozen Dizzy Dinosaurs by Calvin Irons (picture book)
95. The Piggy in the Puddle by Charlotte Pomerantz (picture book)
96. Drumheller Dinosaur Dance by Robert Heidbreder (picture book)
97. 100 Days of School by Trudy Harris (picture book)
98. The Tale of Pale Male: a True Story by Jeanette Winter (picture book)
99. Caillou Learns to Skate by Marion Johnson (picture book)
100. Julie & Julia by Julie Powell woo-hoo! My 100th book of 2009!!! November 30th.
101. The Children Who Smelled a Rat by Allan Ahlberg (children's novel)
102. The Boy Who Saved Cleveland by Andrew Clements (children's novel)
103. Oh! by Kevin Henkes (picture book)
104. In the Snow by Sharon Phillips Denslow (picture book)
105. Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London (picture book)
106. Duck at the Door by Jackie Urbanovic (picture book)
107. The Stinky Cheese Many and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka (picture book)
108. Robert's Snowflakes by Grace Lin (picture book)
109. Geraldine's Big Snow by Holly Keller (picture book)
110. Froggy's Best Christmas by Jonathan London (picture book)
111. When Cows Come Home for Christmas by Dori Chaconas (picture book)
112. The Snow Child by Harriet Ziefert (picture book)
113. Little Children by Tom Perrota
114. The Twelve Days of Christmas Dogs by Carolyn Conahan (picture book)
115. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

Library Thing with Grade 7

If you've read any of my blog, you probably know that I'm crazy about Library Thing. Yesterday I finally had a chance to show it to some classes. I taught 2 sections of 7th grade Humanities classes how to create their library and put Library Thing widgets on their blogs. 

The beauty of Library Thing is that it's sooooo easy. To register, you just create a username and password. You don't have to give an e-mail address or any other information. It's super simple. I showed the kids my library and the Library Thing widget on this blog. They quickly joined Library Thing and added books to their library. 

My favorite part of the whole process was listening to the kids talk about reading. One boy yelled out that Tunnels by Roderick Gordon is the best book ever written! Everyone was remembering books they've read and giving impromptu reviews. It was fun to witness an enthusiastic discussion about reading that just happened on its own. If we had tried to orchestrate this type of conversation it probably would have been stilted and lackluster. Somehow the sight of the book covers spurred on a natural discussion about literature.

Next the kids browsed the different styles of widgets and added one to their blog. They looked really good! Lastly, we created a Group so they could see what the others in their class were reading. The classes can have online discussions about reading and literature. 

The Humanities teacher and I really enjoyed the experience. It seemed like the kids did, too. It was a simple way of combining literature and technology and to promote and celebrate reading.

Is Technology Rewiring my Brain?

I used to be able to watch a movie without falling asleep. Not anymore! Just sitting and watching a movie or TV zonks me out within 15 minutes. In fact, I'm blogging right now while watching Eagle Eye. I decided to watch it in the afternoon to hopefully make it through the movie. I thought I could do it. I wasn't tired when the movie started, but about 10 minutes in, I started nodding off. Brenna knows the solution - give me a laptop so I'm doing something interactive. It works every time. Right now I'm surfing the net, chatting with my sister in California on Facebook and writing this post while watching the end of the movie. Mission accomplished!

So why is this happening? I have a difficult time focusing on one task. I'd much rather multitask. It kind of bothers me that I need more stimulus in order to focus. It doesn't make sense, but it's my reality. I don't remember being like this when I was younger, but maybe I was. My husband is less of a techie and he prefers to focus on one thing at a time. He has a difficult time reading with the TV on or any other distractions. Is there a relationship between 

being a techie and having to multitask?

I've read a little about digital natives and how kids' brains are different now because of technology. I'm 42. Has technology rewired my brain? Is this a good thing? Today I was talking to Amanda DeCardy and she has the same experience. She needs more stimulus to focus on one thing, otherwise her brain wanders. I feel your pain, sister! However, we can both read and get totally absorbed. Why? We think it's because when you read, you get immersed in the characters, you are taken to another location and you're also creating a movie of the book in your mind. Reading is more interactive for us. 

Recently I've wanted to do a little experiment. I'd like to test how much I grasp in a meeting where I can't multitask. No doodling or messing around on a laptop. Then test how much I grasp when I can multitask. I feel like I remember more when I have more going on, but how do I know what I'm missing?!? 

Does anyone else have similar experiences? A couple years ago I jokingly started calling it Adult Onset ADHD, but maybe it's more that. Maybe technology is changing how I process. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Maybe it's neither. Maybe it just is what it is.

Library Thing Obsession

I've already blogged about Library Thing, but that was when I first discovered it. Now it's become somewhat of an obsession. My library is up to 108 books, but I know I'm missing quite a few. Dang! I wish I had kept that book diary like I always said I would! 

Today out of the blue I remembered a title that I read 3 or 4 years ago. I was so excited to get home and add it to my library. It's such a simple concept, but I'm hooked! I've also started looking at libraries of other people that have read some of the same books. While browsing their libraries I've found titles I've already read and can add to my library. I also see lots of great books that I want to read. I really need to get my hands on The Magician's Assistant and The Alchemist.

There's something about seeing all those covers. When you read a book, you make connections with the characters and even the author. You experience other places and situations. Seeing the cover brings it all back. A friend described it well when she said, "It's like seeing old friends!" 

Hey! I just thought of another title! That makes 109!

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Good!

So I figured out I'm a Jonathan Safran Foer fan. I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in a few days, which is my "vacation reading" speed, but I'm not on vacation! Was it better than Everything is Illuminated? I haven't decided yet. I liked some aspects of it more because it takes place in New York City and I grew up in New Jersey so I was comfortably familiar with the setting and some of the personalities. 

Foer wrote another original novel with an interesting plot and a cast of unique characters. Books are all about the characters for me and Foer creates people that I want to watch, listen to and learn more about. I find them very intriguing and enjoy learning about their lives. 

This afternoon I started The Rug Merchant by Meg Mullins. It must be good because all I want to do is finish this post and read!

Library Thing!

I was reading TLC = Tech + Library + Classroom where I learned about Library Thing. What a cool sight! You can add books you're reading and have already read and they show up with the cover of the book. You can get recommendations and reviews for similar books or connect with other readers with similar taste. I'm obsessed with adding every book I've ever read! My library continues to grow and grow. I'm not sure I'll use the chat feature, but I'm already reading reviews and recommendations for book that I want to read. Great site! Thanks, Tara!