Tag Archives: reading notes

Half way through listening to Kathryn Lasky’s The Capture. What an exciting tale and much darker than I had anticipated. The fear, the punishments, the implied grand scheme…. whoa! I love how Lasky keeps so many owlish traits for the characters and makes the world quite believable, even though we must first take for granted that every owl is born able to communicate with speech and that all owl-kinds use the same language.

An 8th grader just finished the upcoming (April, 2012) book (ARC): The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen and raved about it!

Just started reading Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara DeMick (Winner of the 2010 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize)

Listening to the first title Kathryn Lasky’s Guardians of Ga’Hoole series (The Capture.) Finally figured out how I can download directly to my Android phone audio books from the New York Public Library. Woot!

Re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to make quiz questions. Enjoying it very much. Rowling is quite good at setting up scenes and coming up with surprising turns of events.

Work got in the way from reading a LOT more of the the story that I wished to… I love my job, of course, but at this point, I love the book more! Only one question tonight: why are all three couples in Cashore’s books deal with their relationships in agony, argument, and fights? Simply to keep the tension high or is that something the author believes to be the reality of love affairs between people?

Following one of the patterns in the book, I am listing a few of my puzzles of Bitterblue’s tale: Does she have a Grace? What is it? I vaguely remember thinking at the end of Graceling that she MUST have a grace (probably MATH?) Do Teddy and Saf know that she’s the Lady Queen? What did Leck ask Thiel to do in the Prologue? Is it to MEND Ashen after he tortured her? Will Cashore set up a Love-Triangle? (Please don’t!) Will I be able to follow the forthcoming Ciphers and Codes or will I be too baffled and frustrated because it’s too high level for me? And —

Is Saf’s name inspired by William Safire who wrote about word origins for the Times Magazine?

Bitterblue has four PARTS: Stories and Lies; Puzzles and Muddles: Ciphers and Keys; Bridges and Crossings — so you can see, it is a book that’s full of puzzles, riddles, bafflements, hidden dangers, foggy agendas… EXACTLY what I thoroughly love! Getting to half-way point and even though everything is still so “muddled,” my interest remains strong and my enjoyment of the chapters remains high.

Since I already forgot to post yesterday, I have to post at least 2 entries today. Sitting on my table is an advanced reader’s copy of Cashore’s Bitterblue. It’s much thicker than Graceling (545 pages.) I am eager to start it and apprehensive, too. I really want it to be GREAT!!!

Re-reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to make quiz questions for the students. Loving the quiz-making part, but not too wild about how excessively JK used adverbs. I do enjoy comparing the book’s details against the movie’s.