Tales of a (Formerly) Reluctant Reader: Episode One

ReluctantReaderColor33683108Today I would like to tell you about the Black Lagoon Adventures #11: The Snow Day from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler. I picked this book because we had a blizzard right before Christmas, school was canceled, and winter break started early!

Hubie hates snow.  He hates winter. He only wants it to snow once, right around Christmas.  He hates it because it’s so cold, and because of all the clothes you have to wear to go out in it.  By the time you are all bundled up, you have to go to the bathroom!When Hubie sees on the news that they are getting a horrible snow storm, he starts to freak out!

When he wakes up, the entire town is covered in snow.  His mom makes him get all bundled up to go out and play in the snow.  His friend Eric comes over and they go sledding and have a snowball fight.  Hubie begins to see that snow isn’t as bad as he thought.  Once the snowball fight is over, Hubie and his friends go inside his house. It begins to snow again so they have to stay inside. They play board games and roast marshmallows in the fireplace. They tell spooky ghost stories to one another, including the tale of Sammy the Ghost who couldn’t scare anyone.

The next morning, the snow has been cleared and school is open again. Hubie’s teacher, Mrs. Green, asks the kids to write about what they did on their snow day.  This book is Hubie’s report.

What I liked about this book:

There are a LOT of illustrations in this book.   This really breaks up the book and almost seems like you are reading a comic book instead of a chapter book. Here are a few of them:

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Second, the book is made up of more than just a story!  It has funny knock-knock jokes and drawing. Here’s an example:

SCAN0010Finally, the words are large and easy to read.  This helps out a lot when I’m reading in bed at night!  And I liked that I didn’t need to use a dictionary or ask my mom to help out with some of the words.  They were perfect for a kid my age.

The only problem is that most of these Black Lagoon Adventures books are hard to find in bookstores, which is sad because I really love them!  My mom says they are out of print.  She was able to find a few of them in the local bookstore but had to place a special order for the rest.

*Edit: After a little of research, I found a site where you can purchase The Black Lagoon Adventures books.  Some of the series can also be purchased directly from Scholastic.

I hope you have enjoyed the first review in my new feature! Check back in a few weeks for another episode of TALES OF A (FORMERLY) RELUCTANT READER!!!

All Tales of A (Formerly) Reluctant Reader episodes are written by my ten-year old son, John. FTC: These books were all purchased out of my son’s allowance!

Posted in 4-8 years of age, 7-10 years of age, Kid-Lit/Middle Grade, Tales of A (Formerly) Reluctant Reader | 25 Comments

Introducing Tales of A (Formerly) Reluctant Reader!

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It is with much pride and joy that I announce a new feature to Jenn’s Bookshelves, Tales of A (Formerly) Reluctant Reader.  This feature will be run soley by John-John, my ten-year-old son. As fans of Jenn’s Bookshelves know, John was a former reluctant reader.  That is, until he found several books that got him excited about reading!  The point of this feature will be to showcase those books!

John will also be doing a “Challenge the Reluctant Reader” spin on his feature.  If you would like to see if your book would in fact engage a reluctant reader, let us know! John will read and review the book.  His review will list specific parts of the book that did, or did not engage him.  And of course, since he is my son, all reviews will be done in good taste!

If you have a book that you think would interest a reluctant reader, please submit a review request by filling out my Review Request Form. If you would like to “Challenge the Reluctant Reader” please mention that in your form. Or, if you are a reader and have book suggestions, please comment below.  Please note that John will do his best to follow-through with all challenge requests.

Please check back tomorrow when John reviews The Snow Day from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler!

Posted in Tales of A (Formerly) Reluctant Reader | 16 Comments

The Party’s Over! Bloggiesta Wrap-Up

blogiesta

I had a very productive Bloggiesta! Ok, so I didn’t get all of my tasks completed, but that’s only because I added new ones!  Here were my initial goals:

  1. Clean up images (Not completed)
  2. Fix Formatting: (Not completed)
  3. Write Reviews: (Wrote 1!)
  4. Reply to Comments Completed!
  5. Launch Tales of a (Former) Reluctant Reader Completed! Button has been created (after literally spending hours obsessing over it!) and TFRR will launch later this week!
  6. Clean up Google Reader Completed!

 

 

In addition to the goals listed above I also:

  • cataloged review copies I’d received
  • helped out a bunch of bloggers on Twitter with their #bloggiesta questions
  • Helped a dear friend Geri launch her own blog, One More Funny Notion!

 

 

Overall, I *only* devoted about 10 hours to Bloggiesta.  Hopefully, with better planning (and perhaps a babysitter or two!) I plan on participating a bit more during the next Bloggiesta.  So, thank you Natasha for yet another outstanding Bloggiesta!!

Posted in Blog Post | 7 Comments

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading This Week?

 

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading This Week? This is a weekly event to list the books completed last week, the books currently being reading, and the books to be finish this week. It was created by J.Kaye’s Book Blog, so stop by and join in!

Books Completed Last Week

Snow Angels by James Thompson

Currently Reading

Tripwire (Jack Reacher, No. 3) by Lee Child (audio )
The Secret of Joy by Melissa Senate

Books to Complete This Week

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Boys without Names by Kashmira Sheth

What are you reading this week?

Posted in It's Monday What Are you Reading This Week | 19 Comments

Review: Snow Angels by James Thompson

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  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1 edition (January 7, 2010)
  • ISBN: 0399156178
  • Source: Publisher
  •  

    A Somalian immigrant is found brutally murdered in a cold, dark snow field in Finland.  The case is assigned to Kari Vaara, the lead detective of the local small town police force.  The body is that of Sufia Elmi, a black movie actress.  Racism is a big problem in Finland, and it’s up to Kari to determine if Sufia’s death is the result of a hate crime or something much more.

    Kari’s character is a complex one.  He’s the only one of his siblings who didn’t leave town as soon as the opportunity arose.  One must wonder if he still feels guilty for the tragedy that struck his family when he was a child. Kari is forced to confront his past in order to deal with present.

    Kari is married to Kate, a young American woman who moved to Finland to manage a local ski resort.  Kaamos, ten days of complete darkness, have just begun.  Kate, pregnant with their first child,  is struggling to deal with the subzero temperatures and the vast differences in the Finnish and American cultures. Kate’s feelings of isolation are beginning to have an effect on Kari and their marriage as a whole.

    Thompson does an outstanding job with setting and characters in  Snow Angels.   While laying out the storyline, Thompson also educates the reader on the culture and customs of Finland.  His writing creates vivid images of the frigid Arctic setting and the emotionally cold individuals who inhabit it.  While Snow Angels is labeled as crime fiction, Thompson makes a statement social issues in the Finnish culture. We see a dark side of Finland, one I have never experienced before.

    And while this exploration into the social norms of natives are explored, Thompson also unveils a very brutal crime.  The pace of the storyline is perfect.  There wasn’t one segment of the book in which I felt was dragging on.  And just when I thought I knew the identity of the murderer,  the direction changed completely, leaving me guessing until the very end.

    Snow Angels is the first in a new series.  I impatiently await the second, scheduled for release in 2011.

    Warning: Mild profanity, scenes of a sexual nature

    Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge

    Posted in Challenges, Crime Fiction, Mystery/Suspense, Penguin, Review, Thriller | 14 Comments

    Bloggiesta: Let’s Get This Party Started!!

    blogiesta

    It’s the beginning of the new year.  What a perfect time to do a little blog maintenance!  Natasha from Maw Books Blog is once again hosting Bloggiesta, your excuse to spend the entire weekend working on your blog (like you needed one!).

    To assist you in improving the look of your blog, ten mini-challenges have been established:

    Be sure to check out these great challenges. If you participate and comment, you will be eligible to win some great publisher-sponsored prizes!

    I participated in Bloggiesta last year and, admittedly, came up with some pretty elaborate goals for the weekend.  I’ve learned my lesson this go round and come up with six fairly easy goals:

    1. Clean up images: When I moved to self-hosting from my blogger blog, I lost a lot of images.  I’m going to go through all my old posts and fix the images.
    2. Fix Formatting: Yet another thing that didn’t transfer over well from Blogger was the formatting.  Several posts have wonky spacing, etc. that needs to be corrected.  So, while I go through all my old posts to fix the pictures, I will fix the alignment as well.
    3. Write Reviews: We’re barely in to 2010 and I’m already behind on my reviews.  I plan to write at least five this weekend.
    4. Reply to Comments: I love it when my followers leave comments! I did have a process of going through posts weekly and responding to comments, but this process has fallen by the wayside! 
    5. Launch Tales of a (Former) Reluctant Reader: This is my ten-year-old son’s new feature in which he, as a former reluctant reader, will spotlight books that got him excited about reading.  I still (HELP!) need a button for this feature and need to schedule the posts, but I’m really looking forward to this project!
    6. Clean up Google Reader: I can admit that I’m subscribed to way too many blogs.  I can’t remember the last time I cleared my reader down to zero (without marking all as read).  So, it’s time to unsubscribe to those blogs I don’t really follow anymore.

     

     

    Sound easy enough?  I hope so, because I also have to take down the Christmas tree and do all sorts of work around the house!

    Posted in Blog Post | 9 Comments

    Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Come Up With 10 Post Ideas

    blogiesta

    It happens to the best of us.  Life takes over your blog gets neglected.  One way to prevent this is to come up with posts in advance and store them in your drafts until needed.

    Problogger lists an excellent idea: mapping out future blog posts based on previous posts.

    1. Set-up:  Get a piece of paper and draw five circles vertically along the paper.   In the circles, write the titles of your last five blog posts.
    2. Extend Your Posts: Take each post and brainstorm ways the post can be extended.  Answer a comment left on a previous post. Expand upon your answer. Expand upon an idea or opinion that you may have briefly mentioned in the previous post.  For each idea draw a line out from the circle, draw a square (or use a different color) and write the idea inside of it.
    3. Extend Further: This step is optional.  Expand upon the topics you have come up with and you’ll end up with even more post ideas!

    Now to the challenge part!  You have three  options:

    * upload an image of your mental mapping onto your blog.  Comment on this post and include a link to your post.
    * Create a new post based on your mental mapping. Comment on this post and include a link to your post.
    * Leave a comment listing at least five of the ideas that you came up with as a result of your mental mapping.

    Individuals who complete this challenge will be entered to win a publisher-sponsored prize.

    Posted in Uncategorized | 65 Comments

    Book Spotlight: Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

    Wench-671x1024

    Situated in the free state of Ohio, Tawawa House offers respite from the summer heat. A beautiful, inviting house surrounded by a dozen private cottages, the resort is favored by wealthy Southern white men who vacation there, accompanied by their enslaved mistresses.

    Regular visitors Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet have forged an enduring friendship. They look forward to their annual reunion and the opportunity it affords them to talk over the changes in their lives and their respective plantations. The subject of freedom is never spoken aloud until the red-maned, spirited Mawu arrives and voices her determination to escape. To run is to leave behind the friends and families trapped at home. For some, it also means tearing the strong emotional and psychological ties that bind them to their masters.

    My thoughts so far:

    I’m halfway through my reading of Wench and I can’t help but state how drawn I am to the characters already.  Each of the women have a compelling story and a specific reason for not opting to run when the opportunity presents itself.  The storyline itself is heart-wrenching and powerful.  Never before have I read fiction about slavery that haunts me so.  When I’m not reading the book, I can’t get my mind off of the characters and their brutal histories. When I am able to devote some time to reading it, I instantly become absorbed in each of the women’s lives. I guarantee this novel is going to garner a lot of well-deserved attention and praise.  Please come back on January 25th for my full review of this novel.

    Wench

    About Dolen Perkins-Valdez

    Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s fiction and essays The Kenyon Review, African American Review, PMS:  PoemMemoirStory, North Carolina Literary Review, Richard Wright Newsletter, and SLI:  Studies in Literary Imagination.  She is a 2009 finalist for the Robert Olen Butler Fiction Award.  A graduate of Harvard and a former University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Dolen splits her time between Seattle and Washington, DC.  She is a faculty member of the University of Puget Sound where she teaches Creative Writing.  Wench is her first book of fiction.  You can visit Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s website at www.dolenperkinsvaldez.com, her blog at www.dolen.blogspot.com or connect with her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/dolen.

    Posted in Blog Post, blog tour, Historical Fiction | 8 Comments

    A Belated Happy New Year!

    Happy New Year, everyone! Life caught up with me and I didn’t get a chance to do a 2009 wrap up post!

    I still wanted to write a short post about new things coming up on Jenn’s Bookshelves:

    • Reading more books from my TBR piles!  This year, I vow to be a bit more selective when accepting review copies.  My poor TBR piles are about to collapse and I need to pay some attention to them!

     

    • My son, John-John, will be launching a new feature entitled “Tales of a Reluctant Reader” in which he will focus on books that interested him, as a reluctant reader.  I still need a button for this feature.  Anyone willing to help out? Also, if you are a publisher or author with a book geared for reluctant readers, John-John is accepting review requests! Simply fill out the Review Request Form.

     

    • I was recently diagnosed with pigmentary dispersion syndrome.  It’s a mild form of glaucoma.  Basically (if you don’t want details skip the rest of this!) the pressure build-up in my eye is causing the pigment to fleck-off and drift into the black part of my eye.  In addition, I also have a small rupture close to my optic nerve.  I go back to the dr. on the 18th for more tests and to discuss my options.  More than likely, I will have a procedure in which they use a laser to create a small “vent” to help alleviate the pressure.  If this doesn’t work, I will have to use eye drops to alleviate the pressure.  What does this mean? Lots of dr. appointments and not a lot of free time.  So, publishers and authors, if I have agreed to review your book, please be patient with me.

     

    Ok, I think that wraps it up!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and once again, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

    Posted in Blog Post | 6 Comments

    Teaser Tuesday: January 5th

    Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

    Just do the following:

    • Grab your current read
    • Open to a random page
    • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
    • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
    • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

    My teaser this week comes from Snow Angels by James Thompson:

    “The snow is about three feet deep and she’s sunk about half that distance into it.  She managed to thrash enough to make a snow angel.”

    What is your teaser this week?

    Posted in Teaser Tuesday | 2 Comments