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It can’t be right.  It just can’t have happened that way.  I was just strolling along on my way to pick up some new books and there he was.  He really did it.  He asked me out.  I can’t believe it.  Wait, did I just say that I would go to a movie with Justin Hunt?  Oh my god!  Did I have anything on my face?  Where’s a mirror when you need one?  I must have looked okay or he would have run in the other direction.  Okay, first things first, I must find some advice on first dates.  I came in here for books, but this is an emergency that takes precedence over my book lust.  Thank goodness for the media part of a library/media center.  Okay, calm down.  Once I Google first dates and make sure I have the perfect outfit picked out and know what to say I can get down to my library business.  Must. Find. Computer.  Oh, hello Mr. iMac, how are you?  What say you do some magic for me and help me get this research out of the way.

    I sit down at the computer and start searching for advice columns.  It takes much longer than I anticipated and soon the lunch bell rings and I realize that I have missed my chance to eat anything as well as my chance to look for books.  I quickly grab the scribbles that I have for notes and scramble out of the library, headed for AP American History.  I am hardly aware of the crush of bodies as I tunnel my way through groups of friends milling around in the hallway.  I can’t stop replaying the scene in my head and a part of me wishes I had spent more time noticing the details of what I am sure will be the “how it all began” story we will tell our grandchildren.  I realize as I arrive to class that I am still without a book to read and I will have to visit the library again after school.  Somehow this whole situation has made a mess of my brain like that old commercial about drugs,  “This is your brain (egg)…this is your brain on drugs (frying egg in pan)” except this is my brain on Justin.  I will have to get a grip soon or my whole school day will be lost to me.

Okay, so I started this blog in order to do some of the assignments for the Teachers Write camp this summer.  I am not sure about sharing my draft writing with people but I have decided that I will be brave and share.  Today’s assignment was a quick write that ended with a descriptive paragraph of a place.  I went to my favorite place on Earth in my writing.  When I have written with my students in class, this is always a place I go to…I think that if I do get a novel going it will involve this place in some way.  I now have many ideas flowing for further exploration.

My brainstorming and Quickwrite:

     Today the writing camp that I joined has begun.  First assignment?  Make time to write.  Writing this summer is a priority for me.  The plan for the summer is to set aside at least 30 minutes a day to write.  I will write in the mornings while I have coffee and enjoy the most contemplative time of day.  Another time that I might use for writing is the evening before bed.  Throughout this summer my husband Ramon will be busy in evenings with summer school classes.  I am best at thinking when I am alone so that seems like a good time as well.  Since I am going to be spending two weeks this summer in a writing project workshop, I am sure that I will be able to kickstart and maintain my writing momentum throughout the summer.  When the school year starts, I will continue to write before bed in the evening.  I will write in the living room on the couch or at my desk, depending on what I am working on.  I am excited to set up my writer’s notebook just so and I will explore the world of blog writing this summer as well.

     The writing prompt that Jo Knowles provided this morning has really got me thinking.  She recommended that we start by imagining a childhood kitchen.  I immediately pictured the kitchen at our house on Glenside Circle.  The kitchen was open and accessible from the dining room, the family room, and the hallway.  Our table was always busy with people sitting and working on homework or just family conversation.  I remember the blue patterned wallpaper and the yellow phone on the wall.  There are so many stories that I have flooding into my brain with this idea…the time I dropped the pot of boiling water while making mac and cheese, the morning battles with my screaming sister telling me not to look at her, making Christmas cookies with the powdered sugar glaze, the time my dad got so mad he threw the silverware tray and stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.  I wish I had more time right now to start exploring these ideas…but it will have to wait.  I will possibly write more in the morning about this topic.

     I recently decided to start exploring more with my Twitter account.   When I came home from the Key West Literary Seminar (a fabulous literary event) in January, I was very interested in the fact that some of these authors of speculative fiction were referring to their social media accounts during their talks.  I don’t know why I had never thought about following authors before but this was my “a-ha” moment and I started looking for authors to follow.  Pretty soon I ended up with an account full of authors, both of the fiction books my students and I enjoy, and of professional resources for teachers.  I have now stumbled across blogs of teachers and librarians who are so like me it is scary.  I love reading about other teachers who read as voraciously as I do and enjoy discussing good books with their students and with other teachers.  I have recently been adding books to my “to read” list at an alarming pace. (Especially since I already have an entire bookshelf with to read books at home).   Two of the three books discussed here are books that I have been inspired to read because of Twitter.  I loved the other books I read by these same authors and now am enthralled with the every day posting of each of them.  My summer book a day list will also be full of Sarah Dessen books.  I love the way she narrates her days through tweets.

Jay Asher is one of the authors that I have enjoyed following on Twitter.  I was entertained with his posts about what he was eating and drinking during his recent trip to Wisconsin.  I absolutely loved Thirteen Reasons Why because I believe it is important for every teen to understand the way their actions have ripples throughout many lives.  My copy of that book is quite beat up because it makes the rounds through the class each year as my students discover the power in that story.  The Future of Us will not disappoint those students that were eagerly awaiting another book by Jay Asher.  I love the way Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler mixed science fiction and teen romance in this book.  At the beginning of the book, Emma has just received a new computer as a gift from her father.  The book is set in the late 90’s so this is a big deal.  Her neighbor Josh comes over to give her a CD-ROM with 100 free hours of AOL so that she can connect to the internet.  Emma and Josh used to be best friends but things have been awkward between them lately because of some things that happened a few months ago.  When Emma connects to the internet a blue and white screen comes up and when she enters her e-mail and password she is taken to a weird site called Facebook.  The screen that is there is her own profile from the future.  What comes next is a funny and heartwarming account of how Josh and Emma deal with being able to glimpse their futures and how every decision they make can have an effect on the future.  The authors really catch the angst of these teenage characters and the book brought me back to that stage in which everyone is trying to figure out their relationships and how to navigate high school.  I would recommend this book to everyone.  I chuckled many times throughout the book at the attempts of these teenagers in the past to figure out what Netflix, iPads, and many more things could be.

     The other author I have enjoyed seeing on Twitter is John Green.  I enjoyed reading Looking for Alaska a few years ago and have spent a lot of time recommending it for my teen students.  Watching the reactions to his most recent book release made me curious to read his other books.  I loved An Abundance of Katherines.  The protagonist, Colin, was a child prodigy and his struggling with his recent break-up.  He feels like a wash-up and does not think that he matters in the world and this bothers him.  His best friend Hassan decides that he needs to take Colin on a road trip and they take off across the country.  I enjoyed reading about this characters quirky way of dealing with life.  It was fun to read all of the trivia in the footnotes.  This book is also a book about relationships and fitting in.  I would recommend this book to teens and adults who are like me…a little nerdy.

 In this graphic novel the protagonist feels different from others and her parents are concerned about her.  As the story unfolds we find out that she has some interesting powers and there is some science fiction involved in her story.  Can she escape the men following her and survive another day?  Read and find out in this graphic novel.  There is quite a bit of violence and a hint of mature content, but I would recommend this book for teens and adults alike.  It was a quick and entertaining read.

     I love the Artemis Fowl series and was not sure I liked the idea of it being made into a graphic novel a few years back.  It took me  a long time to pick this book up and give it a chance.  If you are a fan of the books, you will not be disappointed.  I like the way that this book was adapted and I could see this being a great way to get someone reading the series.  The book obviously has more character development but this is a great way to get people interested in knowing more about the characters.

     I had not heard of this book before, but the cover art on the graphic novel really caught my eye.  This graphic novel was excellent and I really enjoyed the story.  I am definitely going to seek out the novel now.  In this graphic novel the protagonist Kieren is a half-blood werewolf.  He has a good friend that he ends up hurting by mistake and lives in fear of accidentally hurting her again.  Some crimes start to happen in the city and the cops start to question Kieren based on circumstantial evidence.    He also has to deal with the fact that he will be leaving soon to live with the wolf pack and learn about their ways, but how do you tell your best friend/love that you are leaving?  I was really intrigued by this story and can’t wait to read the series.

     One of the most disturbing series I have recently read about a dystopia is the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness.  The books take place on a planet that has been settled by humans in the future.  What the humans did not know is that on this planet men will begin to think out loud, literally.  What resulted from this is a little bit of chaos in the sounds of all men thinking.  At the beginning of the first book we meet Todd, who has been brought up in a town in which there are no women.  His whole life Todd has been told that the same sickness that made men think out loud worked in a different way for women and killed them off.  The sickness was a biological weapon used by the native species, the Spackle during the great war that the settlers had when they first landed here.  Todd is looking forward to his thirteenth birthday when he will become a man.  Then one day while walking through the swamp, Todd hears a hole in the noise and is perplexed by this phenomenon.  When he and his dog Manchee arrive home, his caretakers react in a very strange way and send him running.  Todd runs from the town without knowing exactly why he is running or what he will find.  His adventures include discovering that many of the things he was told are not true and ultimately the books are about a war brought on by the crazy people in power.  The books make the reader think about the consequences of yielding power and how it can corrupt men and women.  There is also a wonderful message about the power of love to help a person take action.  This series is not for the feint of heart.  I cried multiple times in the series and felt horrified by the disturbing characters.  Ultimately, I felt the message of love’s redemption to be uplifting.  I would definitely recommend these books to fans of The Hunger Games.  Judging from how disturbed I felt, I would say that these books are not for younger children, but more suitable for teens and adults.  (On a side note, I love it that the animals in these books also have noise…the ability to think out loud.  The thoughts that the author imagines the dog and the horses having make the reader love the animals that much more).

Another book that I read in the last few weeks is the book Cinder by Marissa Meyer.  This book really caught my eye with the cover art.  I am a sucker for a good fractured fairy tale and was intrigued by the premise of this book.  Cinder is a cyborg which relegates her to very second-class status.  In this futuristic world, medicine has evolved to be able to help people who otherwise would have died by replacing their systems with computer systems.  Cinder has obviously had a serious injury from which she became what she is but does not recall anything that happened to her before the age of 11.  At this time a kind scientist brought her home to raise as his own.  Shortly after bringing her home, this scientist died of the plague that had been spreading in the world.  His wife, who is devastated by the loss, blames Cinder for his death.  In this way, she has the requisite evil stepmother and two step-sisters. Cinder finds that she is very capable at repairing androids because of her likeness to them.  She works very hard and tries to keep her status as a cyborg a secret from most people she meets.  At the beginning of the book, the terrible plague that has been spreading quickly has already claimed the life of the queen and the king is very ill.  The prince shows up at Cinder’s booth one day with an android that has ceased functioning.  He has heard that Cinder is the best mechanic in the realm and seeks her out.  As she works to fix this robot, she suffers personal loss and is shipped to a research facility.  She continues to try to hide her status as a cyborg from the prince who is also dealing with a threat from the queen of Luna who wants to marry into the royal family.  This is definitely a Cinderella story that makes the reader want the best for the protagonists.  Unfortunately, this book was written as the first in a series of books and many of the points that I was most curious about were not resolved in this book.  I have to say I was disappointed at the end of the book that so much was left unresolved.  I will be impatiently waiting for the next book to come out in the Fall of 2012.

The forensic mystery series by Alane Ferguson mixes murder mystery and young adult to make the perfect fit for me.  This series features Cameryn, the coroner’s daughter who wants to be a medical examiner.  This book is the 4th book in the series.  In this book the crazy ex-boyfriend comes back to town and leaves stalker-like messages for Cameryn in many different places.  There is a serial murderer to catch and Cameryn gets to help in the lab.  The other three books in the series were excellent quick reads as was this one.  This is one of the most likeable protagonists I have read about in a while.  This book and the rest of the series are best for teens and adults.  

In the book Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen, Bryce and Julianna tell their stories as the book bounces back and forth between their perspectives.  It is a lesson for the reader as the stories come out from each perspective and we learn that narrators are not always the most reliable.  Bryce learns a lot of important lessons about the person that he wants to be and the assumptions that people make.  He is forced to see that his father has some narrow views and he does not like what he sees when he looks closely.  This book is a great book for a quick and fun read.  The characters are likeable and there is a good lesson in the book about judging people. 

The book Divergent by Veronica Roth was reminiscent of The Hunger Games.  In this book what seems to be a Utopia at first is revealed to be a dystopia on the verge of a big change.  Beatrice has grown up in Abnegation, one of the four factions in this future world.  The story is set in Chicago in the future after the world has gone through some sort of destruction.  Different factions thought different traits in people were responsible for the destruction of the world so they each pledged to live in certain ways to keep that evil trait from coming out.  At the age of 16 Beatrice has to choose which faction she will go to.  Then there is an initiation period which each person must pass through.  It is during this initiation period that Beatrice learns that the world may not be as figured out as she first imagined it to be.  I would highly recommend this book to fans of The Hunger Games. 

The other books that I would highly recommend for The Hunger Games fans are The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials by James Dashner.  Thomas is thrown into a situation with all of his memories wiped.  He must help the people that are living in the maze to find a solution and escape.  Up until he comes there, they have had one new person join their community each month.  Everything changes on the day after Thomas arrives and this sends everyone into a panic. This is a gripping adventure with a big mystery that kept me turning the pages until the end and then some more as I immediately sought out the next book in the series.  Both of these books have danger, adventure, intrigue, and some kind of weird world in which people seem to be setting these teenagers up in these horrible situations.  It is the right formula for an entertaining yet thought-provoking dystopian series. 

    This Spring Break my goal is just to relax and get in some good reading time.  I have started well with 3 books done in just two days.  It is interesting to me how much fiction is out there with dystopian and end-of-the-world themes.  I think I might have to take a break and find a more cheerful book before continuing to read this type of book.  They certainly make you think!

The first book I want to talk about is The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch.  This is a post-apocalyptic book with a lot of action and adventure.  The book starts off with Steve and his dad, who are scavengers, traveling and looking for things that they might trade for supplies needed for survival.  In the world of this book there was a terrible plague (P11) which wiped out most of the population.  The people that are left are working hard to survive.  Stephan ends up in a tricky situation in which he needs to trust some strangers, but he has always been taught never to trust anyone but family.  There are battles and a lot of suspense in the book, but what really drew me in was the complexity of the characters and the questions about human nature that this world brought up.  Are we really just savages when you take our material possessions away?  Will people lose who they are and the ability to be kind if there ever is a situation like this?  I would highly recommend this book to young and old.  It will especially appeal to boys. 

      I didn’t really know what to expect when I picked up the book How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff.  I knew it had won the Printz award, which is a high recommendation in my book, but I did not really have any idea what it was about.   I started reading and was immediately drawn in by the way the author wrote in the voice of a teenage protagonist.  The use of foreshadowing in the book was also interesting because it really helped me to know that something terrible was about to happen.  The setting in this book is a small town in the countryside in England.  An American girl is sent to live with her British cousins after a fight with her step-mother. 
Her personal problems are soon forgotten when the world all of a sudden is in a war.  The electricity is cut off and there are no phones and she and her cousins are stuck living as orphans because her aunt is stuck in another country and unable to get back.  There are many twists and turns and it kept me riveted to the page because I wanted to find out what was going to happen.  I am impressed with the author’s imaginative not-too-distant future.  This book has a lot of action and also a survival story.  I would recommend this book especially to teenage girls who will identify with the voice of the protagonist and the way that she thinks.  There is also a subtle message about eating disorders in the book. 

     Another Spring Break book is the book Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings.  I have had this book on my shelf for a few years.  I knew it looked good and had received high acclaim from critics, but I was hesitant to pick it up as I always am with books I know will be sad.  This one has a tragic boating accident at the center of it and a teenage boy who has a difficult time with the outcome.  Partway through the book the protagonist has to make a difficult decision and has a very hard time figuring out what to do in his moral dilemma.  This is an amazing story and I am sorry I waited so long to read it.  I would highly recommend it for everyone. 

   Last but not least is this classic little book for young adults, Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster.  It is a charming story of an orphan who gets a benefactor that sends her to college.  One of the conditions of the money that she will get is that she has to write to this benefactor once a month to tell him about how she is doing in school.  She is not to ever know the name of the man who is paying for her education and is to call him Mr. Smith.  Jerusha, the protagonist, thinks this is boring and since she happened to see his shadow which showed he was a tall gentleman she decides to call him Daddy Long Legs.  This character is a charming young girl and the story is a fun one to read.  We read it in class in preparation for seeing the musical version at Skylight Musical Theatre.  I was so glad to have the opportunity for this trip also.  I highly recommend both the book and the musical. 

              The first book I want to talk about in this post is a fairly recent release.  The book Matched by Allie Condie is reminiscent of The Giver in that this dystopian society at first seems like a Utopia.  In Matched the main character, Cassia, is happy with her life and sees nothing wrong with the way the society decides things for everyone.  Her world makes perfect sense and seems to be better than what used to exist.  Then a series of events starts her thinking that maybe it is not the best idea to have everything decided for you.  This is an intelligent book that really gets into the head of the main character.  Cassia is a likeable teen who is faced with some pretty unpleasant decisions and realizations. 

    
     This next book is a book that I have been meaning to read for quite some time.  I am talking about Monster by Walter Dean Myers.  It is an excellent book for high-interest easy reading.  In this book the main character is a boy in jail going through his trial for murder.  He is interested in film and movie-making so the majority of the book is written like a screenplay.  In this book we get a glimpse of what it might be like to make the stupid mistake of helping some tough guys in the neighborhood.  I highly recommend this book to everyone.  It is a quick read and a great story as most of Walter Dean Myer’s books are. 

     Last but not least is the book Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson.  I avoided reading this book for quite some time because I have a hard time reading heartbreaking books and I wasn’t ready for another heavy account of how slaves were treated.  This book surprised me because it was set in the north during the Revolutionary War.  The book was an excellent work of historical fiction and I learned quite a bit about what was happening in New York during the war.  Yes, it is heartbreaking to think about slavery and the awful treatment of slaves.  The main character Isabel did experience her fair share of this, but she also is a resilient and intelligent girl that is a fascinating character.  The book is an intriguing story that tells more than just the story of this one girl and this one household.  I especially love the epigraphs that come from historical documents.  Laurie Halse Anderson obviously did extensive research before writing this historical fiction novel.  It is an excellent book.