Spring Break 2017 Fantasy Extravaganza

So this Spring Break, I decided that it would be nice to not do anything. And by "decided" I mean "procrastinated to the point where there was no point in planning anything." So, I was home, and really didn't want to spring clean my apartment, so I pulled out some books and started reading.
Procrastination at its finest.
I reread an entire series of books called The Song of the Lioness, because I was feeling very nostalgic and wanted something easy. There are four books in the series (Alanna: the First Adventure, In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman who Rides Like a Man, and Lioness Rampant), and they follow the story of a young girl named Alanna who hides her identity in order to become a knight in a fantasy world where there is magic and sorcerers and gods and goddesses of everything. She makes unlikely friendships along the way and gets into all kinds of trouble and foils plots against the king and generally runs around being heroic. I love it.
It certainly doesn't hurt that there's a magical talking cat.
So, after I finished those four, I started in on the sequel series, The Immortals Quartet, but I only read the first one of those, Wild Magic, because after a while I get a little tired of reading books by the same author, even if I love Tamora Pierce more than almost anything. And then I realized that these books have been out for longer than I've been alive, and that's funny to me because when I read them for the first time, I was in middle school, and I could have sworn they were newly published then, but boy was I wrong on that one.
Then I started reading this other fantasy series by Sharon Shinn called The Twelve Houses, and I read the first couple of those: Mystic and Rider, and The Thirteenth House. Super engaging stories about magical people living in a kingdom where you have kings, and feudal overlords and all that good stuff. I've read the whole series before and I don't know why I didn't feel like I wanted to read something new, but sometimes there's just a real comfort in knowing where a story is generally going to go, even if you don't remember the exact details.

Good reading!
Caitlin

Book Talks

For extra credit, I give my students additional works to read and then we discuss them in small groups after school.
Because we are doing a unit on non-fiction, specifically relating to war and its impact on young children, I gave them titles of memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies of young people impacted by the same conflicts, or similar conflicts.

Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda's Children, Why It Matters and What You Can Do
by Faith McDonnell and Grace Akallo

This was some propogandist BS, and I'm a little sorry that I had my students read this. The review seemed really good, but it was really poorly written, and the narratives were confusing and occasionally inaccurate.
Way too much emphasis on Jesus and Christianity, and the history of Christianity in Uganda.
Grace's story, of a girl kidnapped from her boarding school and sent to fight was compelling, but it was split up with historical chapters that didn't really relate well to the content of her own. Although her story would have been heart-rending, I just didn't care.


A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Ishmael Beah

I'd read this before, and recommend it all the time to my students. This is what I was hoping for from Grace's story. It's horrific, and you feel his struggles and difficulties, as well as his hopes for the future.
This book really brings home to my students that these things could happen to anyone, and that people around the world are really more similar to them than different.

Good reading!
Caitlin

Restarting

Ok
So, this is embarrassing, but sometimes you just have to take a break from a thing even if you really love it.
Also, there was that year and a half where I didn't read a single book that wasn't for work.

So, here we go.
Take two.
Is this thing still on?

There's this thing at work where we're supposed to do something for Lent, and I'm certainly not about to give up my lattes and soda, so I'll just start reading and blogging again.
I mean, this goes hand in hand with my podcast with Liz, bsbookreports.com but this will also include anything that I read for work and all the other stuff.

So, hi world!
I've got like 18 drafts of blogs that I never wrote 5  years ago, and I think I'm just going to delete them and move on with my life.

Good reading!
Caitlin