Life of Pi by Yann Martel

From the Amazon product description: The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger.

Oh my this one has been sitting in draft status for over a month. Let's see if I can remember what I thought! Part of me thought, "This is pretty cool!". Part of me thought, "What's the big deal?". The story reminded me quite a bit of My Father's Dragon except that with the Dragon story, I was mesmerized. I loved it and became enraptured of the fantasy world. I was less enthused about Life of Pi but still very interested. Maybe the first time you read a book in a certain style, it spoils you for all the other first times? I had a friend say that making it through the book was worth it for the last few pages. Now that I have done it, I'd have to agree. I enjoyed the story but then the ending that made you go, "hmmmmm", made it even better for me!


This is one of the books on my list for the Spring Reading Thing 2010 hosted by Katrina at Callapidder Days. Click on the logo if you'd like to see the rest of my list.

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume

From the author's website: A move from the city to the suburbs, sixth grade in a different school, a new group of friends. But Margaret handles it...in her own funny, endearing way.




I have finally finished my first book for the Shelf Discovery Reading Challenge - hooray! I remember this one from my childhood but as I saw another participant wrote - in rereading it, I realised there was a lot more to the story than just a girl who wishes she would develop faster. The bust exercises were definitely something me and my friends all tried - I guess that kinesthetic activity cemented that part of the story into my memory. But the other storylines were even more interesting. There was Margaret's search for a religious home with the pressure form the grandparents on either side contrasted with her parents' reluctance to even engage in a discussion about religion with Margaret. Then there is the idea of Margaret becoming aware that all the other children are not necessarily what they seem to be at first; the "bad girl" might be nice and the "good girl" might have some flaws. Middle school is such a hard age and Blume captures it perfectly!

I also enjoyed perusing Judy Blume's website. Reading her stories about this book and others being censored was very interesting. She's a leader in the movement to keep books from being censored and she has a story about her mother "banning a book" for her that was very similar to my own experience!

This was a fun read for the Shelf Discovery Challenge hosted by Booking Mama. I am glad to have a notch on my Shelf Discovery belt and am looking forward to the others on my list. Click on the logo if you'd like to see the rest of my list.





This is one of the books on my list for the Spring Reading Thing 2010 hosted by Katrina at Callapidder Days. Click on the logo if you'd like to see the rest of my list.





This book is my "A" book for the 2010 A-Z Reading Challenge. Click on the button to see my progress.

Spring Reading Thing 2010

I am so eager to start Callapidder Days' Spring Reading Thing challenge that I actually initially pecked out this post on my Blackberry from my hotel room in Orlando where I am camped out for a week doing some training for work! Now I am in the hotel computer center to add the links and logo but the most important part is, of course, the list! I did pretty well sticking to my list with the Fall Into Reading challenge so I am hoping to do as well this time.

First off is a biography of Thomas Jefferson by R. B. Bernstein that I am reading for the U.S. Presidents Reading Project.

For the Facebook Historical Fiction book club I have the March selection Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran . And,time for the April selection, The Russian Concubine by Kate Furnivall will be here before we know it!

Everyone I know has already read Life of Pi by Yann Martel so I feel the need to get that one read so I can have an opinion. (What I have heard is that it is worth slogging through the whole book just to enjoy the ending.)

I've got a book or two on my reading list for work - Making Connections; Teaching and the Human Brain by Caine and Caine and The Out of Sync Child by Kranowitz and Miller.

And, lastly is all my books for the Shelf Discovery Challenge. I thought I was dead in the water with one but then was happily made aware that the challenge runs until April 30th. (Apparently there were some overachievers - you know who you are - who finished the challenge early and did their wrap ups! Me, I'm more of a last minute kind of girl!) So for that challenge I have these six books....

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler









Harriet the Spy









Are you There, God? It's Me, Margaret









A Little Princess









Wifey





Flowers in the Attic