Week 3_PRABE#2

This week my daughter and I are reading the third book in the Hunger Games
series, Mockingjay. I would estimate that we are almost half way through it.
I can't decide if I like it as well as the other two in the series yet.
*spoiler alert - if you haven't read this and want to, don't read any
further* This is the time when the areas are in full rebellion and Katniss
is the symbol of the revolution. As much as I have enjoyed the series, I am
frustrated by her character. She is incredibly timid about her leadership
role in the rebellion and the love triangle feels ridiculous to me. There
are two boys that sit patiently as she leads them both on with her
indecisiveness and they get irritated, yet continue to put up with it. But,
sometimes I wonder if I'm too hard on her character. I want her to be strong
and take the leadership role and make decisions, even though I know that
human nature is not black and white and that the author is trying to show a
person thrust in to a position that she had no knowledge of. Also, a lot of
the times Katniss is completely oblivious to the feelings and situations
surrounding her in a very unrealistic way. Nobody is that oblivious until
the end with a grand reveal. Other than that, the imaginative world and
adventure and scenarios are great and the writing is engaging. We're always
ready for just one more chapter. I guess that outweighs the issues I have
with the character development since I always want to keep reading.

10/10/11 - 30 min
10/12/11 - 45 min
12/13/11 - 45 min

Week 2_PRABE#1

This week I was out of town for a work function for my husband. We had lots of travel time, so I was able to read a bunch. The main book that I read was Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I had heard about it on the radio one day and called my library. They said that they had it in but they were still processing it, so they put my name down first on the list. It came in the day before we left, so I was able to read it on our trip. The atmosphere in this book is one of its best features. There is a ton of imagination and ambiance created through the descriptive writing. While the author set up a strong plot in the beginning, it all kind of crumbled away in the end and I did not feel like the book concluded in a satisfactorily manner. But, the crumbling away was kind of a plot device as well, so maybe it was intentional. Either way, it was worth the read and I definitely enjoyed it.

The other book I read was World Leaders Past and Present - Catherine the Great by Catherine McGuire-Max. I love reading about Russia and the Tsars and their lives. This was a great one because I didn't really know much about her prior to reading this one. She overthrew her husband as Tsar and became the Tsarina. The information about the opulence that the royal family displayed when so many had nothing was timely with all of this 99/1%.


10/2/11 - 180 minutes
10/3/11 - 60 minutes
10/6/11 - 150 minutes

Week 11_PRABE #10

I did not have time for reading this week. With school starting soon, soccer club gearing up and all the finals coursework for my classes, I have been swamped every evening after work. But, I have Fridays off, so I took the kids to the pool for a few hours and spent a chunk of that time reading. I just grabbed a book that I have read before off of the shelf and started re-reading it. It was Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen. I haven't read this for a couple of years, so it was nice to revisit it. I find that I'm reading it from a different perspective now that I'm studying to be a teacher. Where as the first time I read it I was homeschooling my young daughter and reading it for my own interest. Now I find the sections like the one about the invisibility of racism in history text books even more impactful. I'm glad this is the book that I chose to take with me yesterday because it was good to get a reminder about the things that I was taught that don't hold up historically and use that when teaching my own classes.

8/5/11 - 90 minutes

Week 10_PRABE#9

This week I was very strapped for reading time, but I was able to squeeze in a little bit of reading to my girls. With this morning's chapter, I barely squeeked out my 90 minutes. With finals in all of my classes the next two weeks, I have a feeling that my reading time will be equally difficult to find. We have been reading The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. This is a book that my fourth grade teacher read to my class and I have always loved it. My children are enjoying it as well. It deals with a mixed family that moves in to an old house with a reputation for being haunted. Mysterious things happen, but some are suspect as Amanda, the one "new" sibling, and her interest in the occult often seem suspicious. It's really a tale about fitting in, creating new family and children dealing with the hurt of divorce and distant parents. But it's all told in a great narrative fashion and my kids are staying equally engaged in it, as I did when I was a kid.

7/25/11 - 15 min
7/26/11 - 25 min
7/27/11 - 20 min
7/28/11 - 15 min
7/31/11 - 15 min

Week 9_PRABE#8

I have a single literary weakness, the True Blood series. There is nothing redeeming in any literary fashion from these books. Even while I'm reading them I wonder why. The characters are just silly and their motivations are often shallow and obvious. But, for some reason, I read them like candy. It doesn't hurt that I adore the TV show developed around them. But the show is darker and edgier and I prefer it greatly to the books. But, since I finally saw the most recent one in paperback, I bought it and have been happily reading it over my lunch hour this week. (Well, for two days, they are super quick reads.) Dead In The Family by Charlaine Harris was no exception to the silly fun that the previous ones in the series were. The problem with these books is that now that there have been 10 of them, I can't exactly remember where one thing happened as opposed to another. I know the basic plot from start to finish, but they all tend to blend together without many distinctions arising from any of them. This one in particular dealt with the further political repercussions of the different natured creatures declaring their existence, Sooki's PTSD from past trauma, vampire family lines and her own family's special powers. And fairies. Lots of drama, lots of randomness and some smut thrown in for effect. Good times.

7/18/11 - 60 minutes
7/19/11 - 60 minutes

Week 8_PRABE #7

Well, since we had tickets to go see the midnight premiere of Harry Potter 7 with our oldest daughter this weekend, I went ahead and re-read the entire book 7. We were on vacation with our friends and had a ton of time to read on the drive there and while the kids were splashing around in the pool. I finished it Sunday evening, with my husband asking me to read out loud at around the third-to-last chapter. I'm not sure how much I love the ending of the book/series. On one hand, it satisfies the whole "happily ever after" thing that I have going on. On the other hand, it seems a little too "happily ever after". I know, quite a few people die during the series, so there is some loss and it's not where the good guys are invincible or anything. Seeing the movie was fun, but of course, it was nowhere near as good as the book. There's no way that everything included in the books would be able to be portrayed in the movies, of course. But, the final battle seemed weak compared to the chapters and chapters of description attributed to it in the book. It certainly made our six hour drive go by quickly on Sunday, having this book to read.

7/10/11 - 240 minutes

Week 7_PRABE #6

I found myself with a free afternoon and nothing pressing to do, so I was able to grab a book and have a nice long stretch of reading. Instead of starting a new book that I would have to put on hold the next day, I decided to just pick up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and flip to the middle and dig in to it. Since we're going to see the final movie installment next week, I thought it would be the perfect thing to flip through so that I could reacquaint myself with some of the finer details. This is one of my favorites from the entire Harry Potter series. I thought it was quite daring to introduce an entirely new element, the Deathly Hallows, to the final stage of the book. If not done correctly, it could feel like she was making it up just to find a way to solve a story that she didn't have an ending for. But, the way she intertwined it with the horcruxes that were introduced specifically in book 6 and the invisibility cloak that was in the first book, made it feel like a natural progression of the story. Something that has always bothered me about the Harry Potter series is how Voldemort essentially takes the summers off in hunting for Harry. That never seemed terribly believable to me. But, the more detailed information about the protective spells on his family's home helped to give that more validity. This book also had a lot of loss. Everything did not end happily ever after, it ended well enough. People died, children were orphaned and lots of bad things happened. If that had not been the case, these books would not have held the interest of most of the readers.

7/4/11 - 180 minutes