Park Ranger by Nancy Eileen Muleady-Mecham
Similar to “Hey Ranger”, this book and it’s sequel (which I haven’t read) contain real life stories of what it’s like to be a Ranger in a National Park.
Where “Hey Ranger” tended to have more funny stories, this one had more medical stories. The author is a paramedic and over the course of her career has responded to an amazing array of emergencies! The book contained harrowing tales of search and rescue as well as some stories of law enforcement.
The Sugar Queen – Sarah Addison Allen
A few months ago I was checking out Alice Hoffman’s latest, a YA Novel, and the librarian told me that Sara Addison Allen reminded her a lot of Alice Hoffman. I finally remembered when I was at the library and checked out the Sugar Queen.
I’m not sure it was like Alice Hoffman – it had some elements of Alice Hoffman, it was a bit mystical and pushed the reader to believe in some supernatural-ish forces, however it seemed childish. It almost reminded me of a YA novel in many ways. It was a good read and I’ll definitely check out Allen’s other novels.
My poor neglected book blog. :-( It’s September 23 and I’m finally posting my August re-cap. The end of August/Beginning of September marks the beginning of the school year so that’s mostly what impeded me from posting!
I did much better in August than I did in July, which wouldn’t have been hard considering I only read 1 book in July!
1. The Painter from Shangai – Jennifer Cody Epstein
2. Dead Men Don’t Crochet – Betty Hechtman
3. Tall Pine Polka – Lorna Landvik
4. A Stitch in Crime – Betty Hechtman
5. Patty Jane’s House of Curl – Lorna Landvik
6. Parents & Teachers Working Together – Carol David & Alice Yang
7. Moloka’i – Alan Brennert
Just this evening (9/24) I was cross checking my GoodReads “Read in 2010” list with my “100 Books in 2010” list and discovered that there was one missing! I figured out which one it was and fixed the problem…here is the missing book…#8 for August:
8. Fire & Ice – Dana Stabenow
So 8 for August – grand total for the year at the end of August was 58 – an impressive number of books, but I have to read 14.5 books each month for the rest of year in order to break 100 for the year. Yeah. Not going to happen.
I wasn’t expecting to get a chance to select a book for book club this year (all the books are selected at the beginning of the “book club year” in October and I joined in May), but because people had dropped out, I was able to select the book we read for September’s meeting! After a lot of debate I selected Moloka’i after Lesley read it and reviewed it a while back. (See Lesley’s review here)
This book was a lot sadder than I expected, but it was a good read! I enjoyed getting to know Rachel and learning of her struggles and seeing how it all came together in the end!
Parents & Teachers Working Together – Carol Davis & Alice Yang
Every summer we have assigned professional reading for school. Every summer I put it off until it’s almost time to go back! Lucky for me I picked an easy read and was able to polish this book off in no time!
This is one of many Responsive Classroom books and I have read almost all of them! I love these books because they are practical and have ideas that are new and usable!
Most of the time when I read RC books I wish I could implement everything in the book, immediately if not sooner. This book was a little different – there were lots of great ideas of how to better include parents and foster more of a partnership but the thought of implementing every idea was enormously overwhelming! This is one of those books where I’ll take 2 or 3 things from it and then revisit (I hope) regularly and get more ideas!
Patty Jane’s House of Curl – Lorna Landvik
We I was at the library a few days ago I was looking for some new books to read and of course I totally forgot about two new authors I wanted to check out: Sarah Addison Allen and Ann Hood and ended up picking up another Lorna Landvik.
I have totally enjoyed the others I have read by her, especially The Tall Pine Polka. The Tall Pine Polka was one of her early novels so I' had high hopes for Patty Jane’s House of Curl because it was her 1st novel.
My high hopes didn’t materialize. It was a good book, however it felt like a rough draft of Tall Pine Polka! A lot of the same themes and similar events. I might have enjoyed it more had I not just read The Tall Pine Polka.
A Stitch in Crime – Betty Hechtman
This is the 1st crochet mystery that I checked out of the library, didn’t realize that it was the 4th out of 4 so I put off reading it until I’d read the others. I read the 1st and 2nd books in the series and realized that while the 1st book seemed to lay the groundwork for the series the 2nd book didn’t build upon it, since the books seemed to stand alone somewhat I went ahead and read the 4th without having read the 3rd.
This was the best of the series so far! It had a solid story and a solid mystery! It also, like the others, sparked my interest in crocheting! In the back of each of the books there is a pattern and this books pattern was a small purse that I think I can make! :-)
