I forgot to post over the last couple days that I finished the books I had been reading and have now started 3 new books.
According to my list, that makes 24 books read in 2010 and the 5th book finished in April.
The first book I finished this week was “Keeper” by Kathi Appelt.
This is the only book of the 3 that has my review posted.
I read “Lighting Their Fire” by Rafe Esquith as an audiobook.
Definitely recommend it to anyone who works with kids, especially parents and teachers.
I finally finished “Game Change” by John Heilemann & Mark Halperin which details the inner workings of the 2008 presidential campaigns.
Hopefully I will get the reviews written for the last two books shortly.
The books I am reading now are quite interesting.
Two of them, “Wonders Never Cease” and
“Where Fools Rush In” are Advance Reading Copies sent to me by the publishers.
“South of Broad” spent 2 weeks as the #1 Fiction title on the New York Times Best Seller List late last year.
I plan on activating a new Book Queue shortly pulling existing books from my library that I have never made the time to read.
It will be interesting to see if I can juggle 3 books and an audiobook at the same time but worry that if I don’t I will never get to some of the books that I have bought over the years with the best of intentions.
Title: Keeper Author: Kathi Appelt Pub: Atheneum Books for Young ReadersISBN: 978-1416950608Started: 04/03/2010Finished: 04/08/2010Source: ARC from PublisherA pot of crabs begin what is to be Keeper’s worst day ever.
Everything she tries to do to make things right only make things worse.
Keeper, a 10 year-old girl, feels she has ruined everything for everyone.
The story rocks back and forth between the present and the past and we slowly see the layers which brought us to this special ‘Blue Moon’ day.
This day which was going to be special to everyone. But Keeper had ruined it. For everyone.
How could she fix what she had done?
Maybe her real mother could help. Her real mother who, when Keeper was 3, had left her to return to the sea because she was a mermaid.
Alone, drifting out to sea in a tiny boat, Keeper realized how foolish she had been.
Her mom had not left her to go back to the sea. She had just left her. Left her with Signe. Who was asleep. While Keeper was adrift at sea.
The story is quite engaging. The sentence structure and even the structure of the chapters draw you into the story.
The characters are all well developed, even the the characters of the two dogs and the seagull.
My only hesitation in whole-heartily recommending this book is due to a display of romantic feelings and hand-holding between two 15 year old boys in two short scenes.
Nothing explicit is described or even alluded to other than the hand holding.
They could have just been written as friends but the story implies more.
I would rather not have that discussion with a 3rd, 4th, or 5th grader, but maybe I am just naive since we home-schooled and did not have to deal with many subjects they would have in a public school situation.
Other Book Blogger ReviewsIf you have reviewed this book, please make a comment below and I will add a link to your review.
