I have a friend who will not read any book that she has purchased, she is saving them for retirement. (Hi BW!) I am kind of the same way, but about galleys. I don’t know why. Maybe because there is no due date, I don’t know my reasons, but I always REALLY want to read them. So upon returning from ALA a few weeks ago I promised myself that I would read MOST of the galleys that I brought back with me. So far, I have been doing pretty well. Here are some of the highlights:<\/p>\n
I shouldn’t admit this in public, but I am among friends here and I know you won’t tell anyone, but when I read the ninth epic Captain Underpants novel, it was my first. <GASP!> I know. I have no excuse. The verdict: I loved (most of) it. Why only most of it? Well, I was a little disturbed that George and Harold handled the bully by bullying him right \u00a0back. The scoop: George and Harold make it seem like the lead bully is making friendship bracelets, asking boys for kisses and wearing dresses – and well, as you can imagine, the rest of the bullies make a lot of “fun”. Besides the bullying the bully behavior, how will this make a boy who likes to make friendship bracelets, kiss boys or wear dresses feel? I imagine pretty bad. So there it is. Mostly the book was hilarious, but it bothered me too. The end.<\/p>\n
Drama by Raina Telgemeier is fantastic. It is beautiful. It is perfectly wonderful. I also shouldn’t admit this, but since reading (and loving) Maus in college, I haven’t read many graphic novels. I usually find them too visual or too all-over-the-place or too something for my poor brain, but after reading Drama, I am in love with a new format. Telgemeier manages to convey the awkwardness of relationships and the realities of middle school, but not in a horrifying way. It is gentle and feels true.<\/p>\n
Liar & Spy is a must read. As a homeschooling parent I loved Stead’s presentation of a homeschooling family. As a human I loved her presentation of relationships and fears. Brilliant.<\/p>\n
I had the honor while at ALA (thanks Candlewick!) of meeting Gary Ross, author of Bartholemew Biddle and the Very Big Wind as well as *big time* movie director. He has so many\u00a0 excellent stories and insights; positively fun to listen to. His first ever children’s book is written entirely in verse and is overflowing with adventure.<\/p>\n
Jim Murphy has successfully written another page turning non-fiction book. I had never heard of the Cardiff Giant before and I have to admit, even though the subtitle gives it away, I completely believed (along with most of America) that the Cardiff Giant was a real and true ancient artifact. It was not.<\/p>\n
I haven’t had time to tackle Mr. Terupt Falls Again, but I know that it will be the subject of many a conversation in our workroom. The first Mr. Terupt book knocked people off of their feet. It is next on my list, I had better get to it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a friend who will not read any book that she has purchased, she is saving them for retirement. (Hi BW!) I am kind of the same way, but about galleys. I don’t know why. Maybe because there is no due date, I don’t know my reasons, but I always REALLY want to read them. So upon returning from ALA a few weeks ago I promised myself that I would read MOST of the galleys that I brought back with me. So far, I have been doing pretty well. Here are some of the highlights: Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers by Dav Pilkey (August 28, 2012) Drama by Raina Telgemeier (September 1, 2012) Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead (August 7, 2012) Bartholemew Biddle and the Very Big Wind by Gary Ross (November 13, 2012) Mr. Terupt Falls Again by Rob Buyea (October 9, 2012)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[216,122,210],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ala-annual-2012","category-blogger-heather-acerro","category-books-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}