The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

I read this for Children's Literature class. I am shocked I've never read this before since I LOVE the movie.

I feel like reviewing this is not really needed since from book or movie most people know the story. So instead of telling you what it was about I am going to tell you what I think about it.

Even though the descriptions don't match exactly in my head I still saw Patrick Swayze yelling at C.Thomas Howell. I still saw Ralph Macchio lying in the hospital bed. I still saw Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise and Emilio Estevez palling around. But it didn't take away from what is a moving, and even though slightly dated, relatable story on what it feels like to be on the wrong side of things,to not feel like you fit in your own skin, to be an outsider.  

(finished on March 26, 2013)

The Giver by Lois Lowery

The Giver by Lois Lowery


This was another one I read for my Children's Literature class.

The Giver started out feeling like it belonged to the same category of books as The Hunger Games trilogy and the Uglies series. By the end I was thinking it still may be but it seems there are more books to this story so I am not 100% sure.


A perfect community devoid of any differentness is where this story takes place. Everything is planned, right down to when a child learns to sleep through the night. It is even decided what the exact right age for having a bicycle is, 9 by the way.

What unfolds is that to achieve this there is no color, emotion, music or love. Is this better? Are people better off not remembering these things? This community decides yes since it also means no hate, pain, war, anger, hunger, or discontent. 

There is one person who holds all the memories of these things to spare the people them but keeps them himself in order to have the needed memories and the wisdom they provide in order to provide guidance to the community when asked.

Then comes Jonas. And everything begins to change.

I liked this book, a lot. I don't know if I loved it but it was very, very good and very thought provoking. But now I feel I need to read the rest of the books in this series, The Quartet series which follows The Giver with Gathering Blue, Messenger and concludes with Son.

(finished March 23, 2013)

Anna Is Still Here by Ida Vos

Anna Is Still Here by Ida Vos Translated by Terese Edelstein and Inez Smidt

I read this as part of my final project I am doing for Children's Literature, the topic is the Holocaust as presented in Children's Lit. This book falls in the early chapter book area, no pictures, all text but no overly hard words. However, if you let the simple reading level stop you from reading this I think you will be missing out on a powerful story.

Anna lives in Holland. She was in hiding for 3 years during the Nazi occupation. She was alone, except for Kiki, her imaginary friend. She had visits from the kind music teacher hiding her, but she was mostly alone. Now she is free and reunited with her parents and back in school. Anna is learning to live outside the attic she hid in, she is learning to trust and feel safe and with the help of her loving father she is finding her voice.

At one point her father shouts out "Rotten Nazis! Look what you've done to my child!" This is the heart of the story, what was done not only to Anna but to an entire group of people. Anna Is Still Here is told in a child's voice and in a very matter of fact and simple way that belies its power and beauty.

(finished March 13, 2013)

Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Requiem (Delirium book 3) by Lauren Oliver

Lauren Oliver's best work still continues to be Before I Fall.
Requiem is book 3 in the trilogy, Delirium was book 1 and Pandemonium was book 2.

In book 3 the story is told in a back and forth between where Lena is and what she is going through and where Hana is and what she is going through. The voices are distinct enough that this easily botched story telling method works here.

The story of the invalids, those not cured of emotions, of the disease of love, and the fight they face to be free and not have to live outside society works as well.

The love triangle between Lena, Julian and Alex works too. You feel like there is no easy solution but no bad guy so it is an emotional gut punch to follow their story.

What doesn't work for me is the ending. It is the last book in a trilogy and when I read a trilogy I expect things to be wrapped up. I don't expect a clean, perfect or happy ending, but I have come to expect and ending. What happened here felt like there were pages missing. A major story isn't closed, there isn't a resolution on a couple of issues. The story jumps to a little speech about tearing down walls, which would have felt like a wonderful note to end on had it not felt like an abrupt jerk away from wrapping up the story of characters followed for three books. This doesn't negate the fact that I found it a good, not great but definitely good, addition the sub-genre of YA books that includes Hunger Games and Uglies, about the balance of freedoms and government control of people "for their own good".

(finished March 10, 2013)

Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography by Rob Lowe

Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography by Rob Lowe

I had a HUGE crush on Rob Lowe when I was much younger. I loved him as Sodapop in The Outsiders and as Billy in St. Elmo's Fire. That crush continued and became more cerebral when he was Sam Seaborn on The West Wing. He is handsome and smart and a talented actor. What's not to have a celebrity crush on?

But now, after reading his autobiography, I have a whole new love and respect for him. He is also a very talented writer, politically aware and active, and a loving husband and father.

In Stories I Only Tell My Friends, he is very open about his short comings, the sex tape, cheating on Melissa Gilbert, alcoholism, and the bumpy start to the relationship with his now wife Sheryl. This isn't the case of a celebrity trying to make themselves out to be perfect and blaming all their screw-ups on others. He learned the hard way the price that comes with fame, how it can mess with your head and make you feel like you are more important that you are. He took the lessons learned and started his career over and makes better choices now. He is first and foremost a father and husband, the rest, the fame, is the icing on the cake and he talks about how lucky he is and you really get the feeling he means it.

Of course since he is a celebrity there is a some back story on life growing up with Emilio Estevez as his friend, his run-ins with celebrity legends such as Liza Minnelli, Cary Grant and Lucille Ball, his dating life, his drinking problem and his recovery, you know, the dish people read celebrity biographies for. But the take away here is about more than gossip, as a matter of fact the gossip feels peripheral to his life from boy to man and who he wants to be and the dreams he has for his own sons in light of the life he lead and still leads.    

I loved this book!!!

(finished March 9, 2013)

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

I read this for Children's Lit.

It was a touching look at a boy's love for his dog and his journey into learning about poetry, the poetry of others and the poetry that is him.




(finished March 5, 2013)

Diary Of A Stage Mother's Daughter: a Memoir by Melissa Francis

Diary Of A Stage Mother's Daughter: a Memoir by Melissa Francis

Melissa is the actress who played the part of Cassandra on Little House On The Prairie in the later years of the series. It was my favorite show as a child so when I saw the review for her memoir in EW I rushed right to the library and snagged a copy. I was prepared for all kinds of dish on working with Michael Landon, Jason Bateman and Melissa Gilbert. What I got was so much more.

Melissa's mother was more than just a stereotypical stage mother; she was downright abusive. She told her daughters, Melissa and her sister Tiffany, often they were too fat, not good enough, not smart enough, not working hard enough and just awful. She also mismanaged or horded and kept away from Melissa her money earned as a child actress. But she also parceled out praise, gifts, bribes and something that on the surface looked like love to get them to work as actresses and to get them to perform well. Melissa ended up going forward with a career as an actress into her teens while Tiffany stopped acting.

Mrs. Francis is not likable, but Melissa is so very lovable and brave and strong. She survived her mother admirably.

I saw so much of my relationship with my mother in the things Melissa was feeling and dealing with. Of course the situations were different but essence of mother was so strikingly similar that I had a physical ache while reading this and at times considered stopping. I am so glad I didn't, the last page was a balm to my heart, and summed up where I am and working daily to continue to be with my family, my husband and children.


Melissa writes:
"The texture and color of my love for all three of them has proven to me that I can love, even though I was not ultimately loved myself. It doesn't matter what's come before if I can let go and try to do better. That truth was an awakening. My own family is a new beginning."

Her blunt open style is one that invites the reader in and causes an emotional connection to form, even if you didn't have any childhood trauma in your own life. Melissa treats the reader as a new friend who has come over for tea and is allowing to get to know her.

(finished March 8, 2012)

The Harmonica by Tony Johnston

The Harmonica by Tony Johnston

I am not really sure that this book is age appropriate for the picture book age group (1-6) even though it is classified as a picture book.
I feel shaken by it and I'm far, far above the age group targeted.

A little Jewish boy gets a harmonica from his father because they can't afford a piano, or much of anything. He and his parents love music, love Schubert, and the boy learns to play on his harmonica and his parents dance. That is until the Nazi invasion of Poland. He is separated from his parents and sent to a concentration camp where he manages to hold on to his beloved harmonica.

The boy is aware his parents are dead and when the commandant of the camp finds out about the boy's ability to play Schubert on it he makes the boy play for him and gives the boy extra bread. This makes the boy feel dirty and bad. Until he learns that the other prisoners can hear it and it gives them hope. So he plays his little heart out.

Touching and moving and just plain heartbreaking.

(read March 2, 2013)

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

I read this a million and a half years ago when I was about 12 or 13 and I think the impact was lost on me because this time around I was blown away.


In case you aren't familiar with it, Go Ask Alice is a young girls diary that is a raw documentation of her spiral into the world of hard drugs and addiction.

She is not quite 15 at the start of her story. Her words are sweet and open and raw and heartbreaking. Once she falls into the underbelly of her life she is startlingly blunt and it's quite painful. She wants to embrace the family that loves her so and wants nothing more than to help her and she doesn't actually like what she is doing but is unable to stop.


Go read Go Ask Alice

(finished March 1, 2013)