Monday, April 14, 2014

Books We're Reading (From Atticus to Ramona)

Atticus is reading...
Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker by Stanley Crouch and Bruce Catton's The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road. (That one's a reread for him, but he can never get too much Civil War reading.)

He's also reading lots of these:

Thanks, Image Chef.  And yes, his students really do call him Mr. Ed. 

I am reading...
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle and Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson. I love this kind of stuff.

Anne-with-an-e is reading...
The Complete Sherlock Holmes. This would be even better if we could have Benedict Cumberbatch come over and read it aloud to all of us.

She's also reading Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis for a class and is really enjoying it.

Betsy is reading...
(I'll let her tell you in her own words. She just started a new blog, and did a post today about current reads.)
I've got a never-ending list of books, and not enough time to read them all. These are just a few of the books I've been reading.
I'm working my way through the Series of Unfortunate Events and I'm loving them. I'm on book nine. I've never read them before, and Lemony Snicket's humor has me in stitches. I love the intricacies of the story, and the way the plot lines blend together almost seamlessly.
At night, I'm reading Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg to my little sister. I've read this book so many times, and I love it. She has never actually read it, and I love being able to read it to her for the first time.

I started My Antonia this morning, and I'm really enjoying it. There's not much I can say about it at this point, because I've only read the first fifty pages. But I love the style of Willa Cather's writing, and the forming friendship between Tony and Jimmy.
I cried for the last twenty pages of The Book Thief. I adored this book. Every character became so real to me, and I loved them all. Max, Liesel, Rosa, Rudy, Hans. Each one of them. I just wanted to scoop them up and keep them safe from everything.
In my TBR (to be read) pile, I have The Raft which is a reread for my book group. I really enjoyed this book, by S.A. Bodeen. It's about a girl whose plane crashes, and she ends up on a raft with the only other survivor, Max, the copilot. Very intense, very good book.

Ramona is reading...
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (this is a read aloud we're doing together -- loving it) and Pinky Pye. (How I adore Eleanor Estes.)

The other day I mentioned that we just finished reading Rules. I tweeted about it, and shared Ramona's picture, and Cynthia Lord was sweet enough to respond and tweet back her reaction to Ramona's drawing (thanks for making her day, Cynthia!)

Hey, Twitter? Actually, hey, Whole Internet? Can I just tell you how much I love you for making it possible to easily connect my daughters with authors they love? If it weren't for the Whole Internet, would I ever have met Melissa Wiley? And ended up godmother to this adorable little kiddo? So. Great.

7 comments:

sarah said...

What a great list. I recently finished reading The Element for the second time and my daughter read some of it too. Then I had to go and be a party pooper by raising the subject of selection bias and other assorted fun statistics issues. ;-)

Faith said...

My 12 yo just started reading The Series of Unfortunate Events. I love the humor in those books, so sly!

Amy said...

My Antionia has been on my "soon" list for a long time, you'll have to let us know what you think! If it's awesome I'll push it up past the stack of non-fiction on my night table. :) (p.s. it's Amyable, I keep moving...)

Danae said...

What a great list....adding to my TBR stack!

Karen Edmisten said...

I like the issues you raise, Sarah. :)
Faith, I have never read them! They are now on my tbr stack. Our friend, Danae (see commenter below!) got us started on them.
Amy, My Antonia is a beautiful book. I'm hoping Betsy loves it, and I hope you do, too. (And I love the name of your new blog!)
Danae, which of these have you not read?

Lissa said...

Mmm, so many favorites here. Calpurnia, Antonia, Pinky Pye.

I'm the real winner in the internet connection lottery!! To imagine life without the Edmistens--shudder!

Karen Edmisten said...

A Peterson-less world would be a sad place indeed. :)