Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

 I inherited a bunch of upper elementary books from my mother-in-law when she left teaching, and it's been my goal to read some of them so I can make recommendations to my own kids. I keep thinking these little books will only take me an afternoon, but here I am two months after starting it finally finishing it. Moose Flannagan lives on Alcatraz Island. He's not a prisoner, but his father works at the prison, and so the family lives right there on the Island next to the cons. Moose's sister has been ten for five years in a row. They've tried to find help for her mental condition, and their last choice is a school for similar children. The family has relocated to Alcatraz to be able to afford the school. Moose meets the other Alcatraz children, including the willey Piper, the daughter of the warden. Piper hatches many schemes, one of which is to get the kids at school to pay them to get their clothes laundered by the cons including the infamous Al Capone. Can they actual...

 I'd heard about the Netflix series that adapted this, and many of my coworkers have read it. I also love World War II stories (if you can't tell by my historical fiction choices, haha). This book also won a major prize, and I was curious about the story. All the Light We Cannot See  follows two characters in two timelines. It bounces from the past to the present between Marie-Laure and Werner. Marie-Laure is a young girl who lives in Paris with her father. Her father works for the Museum of Natural History in Paris. As the Germans close in on Paris at the start of World War II, Daniel (Marie-Laure's father) is entrusted with one of the museum's priceless treasures: the Sea of Flames. He and Marie-Laure flee Paris to the home of Daniel's wealthy uncle, where they stay until the city is bombed. Werner is a poor German orphan in a mining town. He is particularly gifted with mathematics and engineering, and is given the opportunity to go to a prestigious Nazi school. H...

 I've read both of the other books in this series and loved both of them. I was excited to get a story that was completely about Julie. The Pearl Thief  takes place about five or six years before the start of Code Name Verity  when Julie is just a teenager. The book starts with her arriving at her grandparent's Scottish castle for holiday sooner than anticipated. After visiting an old friend in the village near the estate, Julie is knocked unconscious by the river that runs on the estate, a river famous for its pearls. After she is discovered and taken to the hospital, Julie is determined to find out who hit her and solve the mystery of the missing pearls from the estate. I liked this book, but I didn't love it. I love Julie and her character. I loved her in Code Name Verity , and her voice is sarcastic, witty, and intelligent. All of that carries into The Pearl Thief  as well, with an added sense of aristocracy that the younger Julie obviously harbored. The plot was...

 I thought it might be fun to look at my reading challenge from last year and look at what I enjoyed the most. I picked my top 5 favorite books from 2022 to highlight one more time. Choosing only five was actually more difficult than I imagined, since I had a lot of favorites. It was also hard to rank them if I'm completely honest, but here is my list! #5 - The Girl Who Drank the Moon  by Kelly Barnhill I loved this book. I loved the whimsical storytelling style and the plot. I loved the characters and how they were developed. I loved how the author carefully crafted the foreshadowing and how she carefully guided you through the mystery of Xan's memories. Overall, this book was so well written. Even though it was a middle grade book, I found myself unable to put it down. #4 - I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys If you've followed my blog, then you probably know that I don't usually care much for Ruta Septys's writing. It's not that I dislike the stories she tells,...

I read this novel for Battle of the Books, but I also wanted to read it. I keep trying Sepetys novels, thinking I'm really going to like them, and then finding myself disappointed. This novel was an exception. This is probably the best Sepetys novel I've read so far. I Must Betray You is the story of Romania behind the Iron Curtain. Christian Florescu is seventeen. His grandfather, an intellectual, questions the current regime, and Christian finds himself agreeing. Romanians are struggling; waiting in long lines hoping for food, spies everywhere, never knowing who's an informer and who isn't. Amidst these tensions, Christian is confronted by an agent of the secret police and blackmailed into informing on Dan Van Dorn, the son of the American Ambassador. Stuck between his beliefs and his fear, Christian does as he's told, hoping that he can dupe the agent. I loved this book, more than any other Sepetys novel I've read. While Sepetys excels at many things in her w...

 I am finally off hiatus... Sorry that was such a long gap! Like I said, 2021 was really tough as far as teaching, and 2022 started off with a student teacher. Because of that, I've been able to read a pretty substantial amount and will be posting hopefully for the next two months consistently. The first book I was able to finish was Out of the Dust  by Karen Hess. This novel is written entirely in verse and follows 14 year old Billie Jo through the trials of living in rural Oklahoma during the dust bowl. Their young family is thrilled because Mama is expecting a baby boy, but that thrill soon turns to despair after an oil accident fatally injures Mama, and eventually the baby as well. As the dust storms get worse, Billie Jo finds herself desperate to leave Oklahoma and start over somewhere else, but realizes that her father is her life, and she ultimately decides to stay. This book was riveting and gut-wrenching. I'm not typically into books written in verse - I've tried s...

 I love Elizabeth Wein and Code Name Verity (see my post here ). Since reading Verity , I discovered that there are more books in the series, and while not completely related (you can read them in any order), I've been excited to read them all. Rose Under Fire has been on my tbr list for AGES, and I finally got around to it. Rose Under Fire  by Elizabeth Wein shines a light on the darkness of Ravensbruck, the Nazi prison camp for political prisoners (at least at first). Rose Justice was an American who went to Britain to help with the war effort. While there, she met Maddie (one of the perspectives of Code Name Verity ), a pilot for the civilian ATA. After a ferry trip over France, Rose is intercepted by Nazi fighters and is forced to fly deep into Germany. Once there, she's sent to Ravensbruck, the infamous work camp for political prisoners. Wein spares no details in showing the horrific conditions of prisoners in the camp. What will happen to Rose and her friends, the Rabbit...

 This is a book that I read for the first time around four years ago when I first started teaching. This novel is one that I have loved ever since then. The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak takes place in World War II in Nazi Germany. Liesel Meminger is not quite an orphan, but she is placed in foster care because her mother can't provide for her. Liesel goes to live with Rosa and Hans Hubermann, and they completely change Liesel's life. On her way to the Hubermann's, Liesel's younger brother dies on the train. In the graveyard where he was buried is where Liesel steals her first book: The Grave Digger's Handbook. Hans teaches her to read it, and inspires her love of the written word. The Hubermann's will then hide a Jew in their basement for a time. What will become of that hidden Jew? What will become of Liesel? What will become of Himmel Street, her friends, and her family in the wake of a violent and terrible war? This book is probably one of my all-time favorite...

 I saw the limited series on Netflix. I was intimidated at first, because I don't know anything about chess except the very basic rules. But the show was extremely well done, and even though I didn't know the moves or anything about the matches, the show did an excellent job of explaining what was going on. My brother then gave me the novel the show is based off of for Christmas. I was excited to read it! Netflix's decision to make it into a miniseries was wise, in my opinion. It allowed them to adequately adapt the book to film, and it was fun to compare the two. The creators of the series definitely took some license with the novel, but in the end, I was really impressed with both works. The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis follows the orphan Elizabeth Harmon. Elizabeth starts out at an orphanage upon the death of her mother. While there, she is taught to play chess by the janitor while she's supposed to be in class. Around the time Beth turns thirteen, she is adopt...

 This book came highly recommended from one of my coworkers who loves this novel. I have a goal of trying to read every novel in my classroom library, and since I had this one, I decided to give it a shot. Bless Me Ultima  by Rudolfo Anaya follows the story of Antonio Marez as he grows into adolescence. Antonio lives in New Mexico with his family. His family has a divided past, and Tony must pick which direction he wants to go. Will he be a priest like his mother desires? When Tony is six, Ultima comes to live with them, a curandera, who heals with herbs and magic. It is Ultima who often guides Tony through his battle between his mother's Catholicism, and his father's desire for freedom. This book is hard to review. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the mysticism and the magic and devils. The story is beautifully described, and the characters are deep and fascinating. The battle Tony fights between what his parents each want for him is also particularly poignant, even though I...

This is my second time through The Great Gatsby . This time, I was reading to annotate it so that I'm ready to teach it. I really enjoy this book! The Great Gatsby  by F. Scott Fitzgerald is an American classic set in 1922 at the height of the Roaring 20s. Nick Carraway is new in New York City. He moves into a dumpy house next to this gorgeous mansion owned by one Jay Gatsby. Across the bay, in the upper-class East Egg lives the Buchanans, a distant cousin of Nick Carraway. Tom and Daisy Buchanan are "old money," while Gatsby is "new money," with no one actually really knowing where he got all of his cash. Gatsby and Daisy dated for a time before he went to Europe to fight in WWI. While he was gone, Daisy married Tom, and Gatsby is trying to win her back. He throws elaborate parties at his mansion in an attempt to impress her. Will he win her back and get the happily-ever-after he wishes, erasing the past few years? I love The Great Gatsby . Maybe that's the...

After reading The Fountains of Silence , I thought I would tackle another Sepetys novel. Most of my colleagues had said that they liked Salt to the Sea  better than Fountains of Silence , so I thought I'd give it a try. Salt to the Sea  by Ruta Sepetys follows several characters fleeing territories conquered by Nazi Germany and trying to get back to Germany itself at the very end of WWII. These characters all end up together and heading toward a ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff, that will take them across the Baltic Sea. The Gustloff is sunk by Allied forces, dropping thousands of people into the frozen water. Who will survive? Who won't make it? I didn't enjoy this book as much as The Fountains of Silence , which I felt was a little unfortunate. After the high reviews that I'd read and the personal reviews of my friends, I was underwhelmed when I read it. Here are some things I did like about the book:  I did enjoy the history. I had never heard of this ship, even though it...

This post is a book that I've read a couple of times because I read it with my seniors. It's one of my favorites, but I'll get into that more later. Code Name Verity  by Elizabeth Wein is about a British spy, code-named Verity who crash-landed in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. She is arrested soon after her landing while attempting to carry out her mission. While in prison, the Gestapo show her pictures of the plane wreck, leading her to believe that her best friend, Maddie Brodatt, the pilot, is dead. Ultimately, Verity begins working with the Gestapo and giving them sets of wireless code which would allow the Gestapo to intercept Allied communications. They also ask her to write her confession: a document with as much information as she knows about Allied plans, bases, and planes. However, knowing that she's going to die no matter what she tells them, Verity takes her time with her tale, instead telling the story of how she met Maddie and how she ended up...

I love historical fiction, so when my book club (of English teachers) picked this one, I was really excited to read it. The Fountains of Silence  by Ruta Sepetys is about a boy named Daniel Matheson who travels to Spain in the 1950s. The leader of Spain, Franco, is ruthless and has an iron hold on his people. Daniel's father is an oil tycoon who wants his son to take over the business, while his mother is from Spain. Daniel doesn't want to join his father's business. He wants to become a photographer. His goal while in Spain is to take pictures worthy enough of a contest that he's working on. While there, Daniel meets Ana, a maid at the Hilton Hotel he's staying at. Ana is assigned to Daniel's family and attends to their every need. Ana's family is poor and this is an incredible job opportunity for her. Ana's family needs this job. Ana and Daniel become friends and start to fall in love with each other, something Ana seems hesitant about and Daniel kno...