1. Angel: After the Fall, Volume 1, Brian Lynch
2. The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin
3. Hooked on Murder, Betty Hechtman
4. That Was Then, This Is Now, S. E. Hinton
5. Rumblefish, S. E. Hinton
6. Tex, S. E. Hinton

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1. Angel: After the Fall, Volume 1, Brian Lynch
2. The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin
3. Hooked on Murder, Betty Hechtman
4. That Was Then, This Is Now, S. E. Hinton

Books Picked Up but Not Finished; Put Aside Indefinitely (but I may return to them)
1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. Intuitive Eating, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch (re-read)

Currently Reading
1. Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk
2. Gothic Charm School, Jillian Venters (re-read)

About to Pick Up
1. Rumblefish, S. E. Hinton

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1. Angel: After the Fall, Volume 1, Brian Lynch
2. The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin

Books Picked Up but Not Finished; Put Aside Indefinitely (but I may return to them)
1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. Intuitive Eating, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch (Re-Read)

Currently Reading
1. Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk

Waiting For
1. That Was Then, This Is Now by S. E. Hinton

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My participation in the Kidlitosphere is on again-off again, mostly off, and right now while I'm not actually physically stressed out by the subscriptions in my Google Reader or the messages in my inbox, it has become only so much digital clutter.  So I am declaring myself on hiatus until further notice, which I hope will be sooner (March or April?) rather than later.  I have a lot going on and I need to pare things down.  So where can you find me in the meanwhile?

I'll still be posting my booklists here.

I won't be using the @lectitans Twitter account during this hiatus. I'm planning to use @kimberlyhirsh, though. You can search for me on Facebook.

What's going on in my life?
1. I'm in library school. It's excellent but it's a lot of reading.
2. I'm in the Durham Savoyards' production on The Mikado.
3. I'm working on my own happiness project. If that's something you'd care to follow, I've created a livejournal for it at ping_jing. Adding the Kidlitosphere back to my life will be part of the happiness project but it's a later phase. Right now, I'm focusing on my health.

Where can you not find me?
Here for anything other than my booklists, probably.
On mailing lists - I've set them to Web only, except for yalsa-bk.

I'll see you all later. I'm not gone forever. I just thought it would be rude to keep up this absenteeism without letting you know where I was.

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How are you doing?  Here's my count:

Jan 8 - 5 comments
Jan 9 - 5 comments
Jan 10 - 0 comments
Jan 11 - 2 comments
Jan 12 - 0 comments
Jan 13 - 0 comments

As you can see, I started strong and then fizzled out.  I'm going to adjust my goal to 2 comments per day.  (It's 2 more than I was doing before!)  That's for a total of 42, which is always a good number to be aiming for.

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I had my first rehearsal for The Mikado last night and in honor of that I'm using some lyrics from the show for today's Poetry Friday post.  These are the lyrics to the song when I, as a member of the ladies' stage chorus, first appear.

Comes a train of little ladies
From scholastic trammels free,
Each a little bit afraid is,
Wondering what the world can be!

Is it but a world of trouble —
Sadness set to song?
Is its beauty but a bubble
Bound to break ere long?

Are its palaces and pleasures
Fantasies that fade?
And the glory of its treasures
Shadow of a shade?
And the glory of its treasures
Shadow of a shade?
Shadow of a shade?

Schoolgirls we, eighteen and under,
From scholastic trammels free,
And we wonder — how we wonder! —
We wonder — how we wonder! —
What on earth the world can be!
What on earth the world can be!

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21 days x 5 comments per day = 105 comments.  Do you think I'll make it to 100?  Those who do are entered for prizes.  I just want to up my participation in the kidlit community.

If you want to join, sign up at MotherReader's blog.

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So I have some goals in addition to reading 40 books this year that I'd like to share with you.

1. Read no more than one nonfiction, one fiction, and one graphic novel at a time.
2. Inspired by Colleen's excellent post and this year's YALSA YA Lit Symposium theme, I'm going to think more, read more, and write more about diversity in publishing.

I'm sure I'll find more as I move through the year.

Currently Reading:
Nonfiction - Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morganstern
Fiction - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I'm not currently reading a graphic novel but I'm planning to pick up the Angel: After the Fall compilations (they're hardcover!) from the shelf today.  The shelf in my house.  The comic book shelf.  (It is supplemented by the comic book box.  And then of course, there's Will's hundreds and hundres of issues in the attic.)

Next Up:
Nonfiction - The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin or Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons
Fiction - Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey or Dreams of the Dead by Thomas Randall

Which of these I read next will just depend on my mood, but it's always nice to have a plan.

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With all the writing I've been doing in library school, blogging in depth has fallen by the wayside a bit, but I have been keeping up my "Books Read" list.  I read 54 books and graphic novels in 2009.  Eighteen of those were related to my young adult literature class in some way.  It's amazing how much you can read when you've got a deadline. 

I don't believe I set a definite goal for 2009, but 36 books was probably about right, and it's what we're left with if we take away the books I read for class.  I read 35 in 2007 and 34 in 2008, so 54 is quite a jump.  I'll be taking a children's literature class in the summer or fall, so that will push the numbers up a good bit I expect, but I'd like to set a goal for reading entirely out of class.  I feel like I should come up with an elaborate formula but I think we'll just aim for 40.  Since I do count graphic novels, and trade paperbacks of comic series, it's not hard to push the number up quickly.  I think 40 is a good number because it's a bit of a stretch but it's not at all out of reach.

So here I record it for all of you to see:
I will finish 40 books or graphic novels (including TPBs) in 2010.

I say "finish" instead of read because I started reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 2009 but I've not finished it yet.

My favorite of the 2009 list by far is Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon, Dean, and Nathan Hale.  It's a graphic novel with a Western twist on the traditional Rapunzel tale.  I'd strongly recommend it to fans of the fractured fairy tale genre and people looking for cool girl main characters.

What was your one favorite thing you read in 2009?

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1. How to Be a Budget Fashionista, Kathryn Finney [re-read]
2. Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer 
3. Our Lady of Weight Loss, Janice Taylor [re-read]
4. Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon 
5. The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach
6. Smart Women Finish Rich, David Bach
7. Queen Victoria's Bomb, Ronald W. Clark
8. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
9. Lessons from a Dead Girl, Jo Knowles
10. How to Be Popular, Meg Cabot [audiobook]
11. Ghosts of Albion: Accursed by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
12. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson [audiobook]
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [audiobook]
14. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor [audiobook]
15. Ghosts of Albion: Witchery by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
16. Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
17. French Kiss by Sarra Manning
18. Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones
19. The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci
20. Accidental Love by Gary Soto 
21. Vale of the Vole by Piers Anthony
22. How to Build a House by Dana Reinhardt
23. The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott
24. Life Sucks by Jessica Abel
25. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
26. 

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1. How to Be a Budget Fashionista, Kathryn Finney [re-read]
2. Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer 
3. Our Lady of Weight Loss, Janice Taylor [re-read]
4. Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon 
5. The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach
6. Smart Women Finish Rich, David Bach
7. Queen Victoria's Bomb, Ronald W. Clark
8. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
9. Lessons from a Dead Girl, Jo Knowles
10. How to Be Popular, Meg Cabot [audiobook]
11. Ghosts of Albion: Accursed by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
12. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson [audiobook]
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [audiobook]
14. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor [audiobook]
15. Ghosts of Albion: Witchery by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
16. Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
17. French Kiss by Sarra Manning
18. Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones
19. The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci
20. Accidental Love by Gary Soto 
21. Vale of the Vole by Piers Anthony
22. How to Build a House by Dana Reinhardt
23. The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott
24. Life Sucks by Jessica Abel
25. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
26. 

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I'm about to bare my soul here, so if you decide to criticize, please do so gently.

I first read Twilight in December of 2007, when it was just on the upswing, but before it became a proper phenomenon.  I was 26, in Florida for Christmas to visit family, away from my then-boyfriend now-husband (who was my boyfriend of 9 years at the time), and for the past several years Christmas-time had been when I was at my most emotionally vulnerable.  My husband would disappear to visit his family, where the internet is slow (meaning infrequent emails from him) and he would stay up until all hours playing video games with his brother, having what sounded like a right magical time to me, while I was with my family, whom I love very much and can stand individually for long periods of time but all together, three days is about my max.  I was in Florida which now counts as far from home, I had a sinus infection (which was actually an infected wisdom tooth but I didn't find that out until January), my sister had just gotten engaged (to her then-fiance now-husband, whom she had been dating for only a little over two years before they got engaged, which seemed like not a very long time to me) in August, so this was the first time all of our family was seeing her since then, and I was feeling supremely lonely and overlooked.

I picked Twilight up at Target just before we left for Florida.  I started reading it on the way down.  (I think I flew but I'm not 100% on that.  All of my trips to Florida kind of turn into a swirly mess in my head, Christmases combined with summers, a few Easters thrown in, because the weather is about the same most of the year.)  I was sucked in pretty much right away.  Bella Swan and I were practically twins.  She had dark hair.  I have dark hair.  She was clumsy.  I was clumsy.  She had moved in with her dad and started attending a high school in a very small town.  I had moved away from my family and boyfriend and taught at a high school in a very small town.  She had a boyfriend who was a vampire.  I had a boyfriend who wanted to be a vampire.

I can't remember how I felt about the sparkling at the time.  I want to say I thought it was stupid but it's entirely possible I thought it sounded very pretty.  (I was supremely disappointed with the execution of that in the film, by the way.)

I ate it up.  I'm pretty sure I sang its praises to my husband.  I think I was all, "There's this book, and the vampire says such pretty things, and it makes me think of you..."  (Let's not leave aside the fact that Bella had never had a boyfriend before Edward.  Because the fact that she was having her first real relationship at 17 also parallels my life.  And probably the lives of many more people than would actually admit it.)

I finished the book while I was still in Florida, I think.  It was a vacation read.  I came back to the real world (i. e., not Christmas in Florida) and forgot about Twilight, mostly.  Then it started really becoming a thing and my students started talking about it.  I had two that were very critical of it, and the more I listened to them, the more I realized that all of their criticisms were spot on.  I started to feel ashamed for having enjoyed it so thoroughly.

I recently re-read Twilight for my Young Adult Literature class.  This time I went in looking to examine exactly why I'd had so much fun with it the first time.  For a while, I couldn't figure it out.  The prose didn't impress me.  I'm thoroughly tired of teenagers in books taking care of their incompetent divorced/widowed parents.  The last time I found that charming was when I was watching Blossom.  Edward's behavior was mostly irritating.

But then I got to the sex-scenes-that-are-not.  If you've read it, you know what I mean.  The

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It's time for interviews again!  I'm not participating due to having lots of school work, but here are yesterday's interviews.  Many thanks to slayground for the code.

Jim Ottaviani at Chasing Ray
Courtney Sheinmel at Bildungsroman
Derek Landy at Finding Wonderland
Mary E. Pearson at Miss Erin
Megan Whalen Turner at HipWriterMama
Frances Hardinge at Fuse #8

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(cross-posted from my personal LiveJournal - originally posted there at 12:39 am)

I'm already past my quota for the DAY.

What, you don't write 1700 words in 40 minutes?

I'll give you a hint:

Make no attempt to disguise your character as not yourself, ramble on at length about the history of comic book characters (summarizing other people's work really ups your word count!), pour out everything you know about the supernatural, and talk at length about all three of the mean things you and your sister did to each other as little kids.

Current Chapter Title:
"Chapter The First: In Which Lauren Grace Vanderbilt Morlock Discovers That She Is, In Fact,Not the Most Important Person in the Entire Universe (Much to Her Dismay)"

Quotes of the Day:
"If you would like, we can have a lengthy conversation about how superheroes are our modern mythology, and how it is actually a metaphor when these people gain their powers, for our changing bodies in puberty and our changing roles in life in adolescence and coming to understand our own power of being adult and working that out psychobabble blah blah blahcakes."

"I get really bad headaches. I keep trying to walk through walls in hopes it will make them better. I usually just end up walking into walls instead, which is not as effective for curing a headache, actually."

"...I was fairly certain I was destined to save the world at least once, perhaps several times, perhaps over and over again and maybe then someone would go back and actually retcon my life and it would all be different and I would have a new origin story and you do not know, okay?"

"I may be a Marvel girl, but Batman is really cool."

"So my sister. I love her very much. I think people are supposed to love their sisters, and I love her. I maybe do not really understand her, but we fight much less than many other siblings, so, yeah. We are on pretty good terms, pretty much all of the time. I mean, I am fairly certain she has not stolen any money from my jewelry box for weeks, and I am even more certain that it has been a couple of months since the last time I handed her an empty soda can and said, 'Here, you can have the rest.' (Never mind that I fed her dog biscuits when she was two, okay? She was hungry.)"

"I am not known for my ability to shut the hell up."

"She likes to help people. Which is a really good trait if you are going to have superpowers, I suppose."

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Consider yourself warned.  This reading journal is about to become a writing journal!

Here's my MAGNA CARTA I (see No Plot?  No Problem! for details) - a list of things I really like in books.

MAGNA CARTA I
Magical girls
Smart girls
Sisters
Love that doesn’t get in the way of adventure
Love that isn’t too angsty
Love that is fun
Pretty hair
Horses
Smart men who have principles
Misunderstood people (mostly because they’re too smart)
A few close friends
Fantastical elements
Cleverly hidden exposition
Intricate interweaving of mythology
Imagery
Talking cats
Puzzles
Girls who are strong but not physically tough

What about you?  What elements do you really like in your stories?

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I didn't get to go to KidLitCon but I'm still learning a lot about it because I've been reading all the posts linked from MotherReader's Round-up.

As you might surmise from my last post, I've been reading on average 4 - 6 novels a week for the past few weeks on top of my other assigned readings (articles and such).  One of the things that keeps coming up in the KidLitCon posts is the question of why we blog.  I've looked at that question for lectitans several times and it always comes back to the same answer:

I want to share my responses to books.

Sadly, when I read at the rate and with the urgency I've been reading, I don't have time to become too emotionally involved in the books.  So there's not a lot of response to share.  If things ever calm down a little, I hope to share with you the difference in my experience of reading Twilight the first time and the second time.  I'd also love to talk with you about how reading The Book Thief and What I Saw and How I Lied has inspired me to research my roots - i. e., the Austrian Jews who came here before World War I (thank goodness they did), and also inspired me to confront my intense visceral response to any visual representation of the Holocaust (esp. symbolic memorials) rather than just looking away.

But those deserve actual, real posts, and I just don't have time for that right now.

So...  I'll see you with my booklists and for quick little posts here and there, but probably you won't get anything substantive until December.

I'll leave you with a link to my first ever recommendation list, which is an assignment for my YA Lit class.  (I haven't read everything on it, I'm sad to say.)

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1. How to Be a Budget Fashionista, Kathryn Finney [re-read]
2. Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer
3. Our Lady of Weight Loss, Janice Taylor [re-read]
4. Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon
5. The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach
6. Smart Women Finish Rich, David Bach
7. Queen Victoria's Bomb, Ronald W. Clark
8. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
9. Lessons from a Dead Girl, Jo Knowles
10. How to Be Popular, Meg Cabot [audiobook]
11. Ghosts of Albion: Accursed by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
12. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson [audiobook]
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [audiobook]
14. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor [audiobook]
15. Ghosts of Albion: Witchery by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
16. Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
17. French Kiss by Sarra Manning
18. Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones
19. The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci
20. Accidental Love by Gary Soto 
21. Vale of the Vole by Piers Anthony
22. How to Build a House by Dana Reinhardt
23. The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott
24. Life Sucks by Jessica Abel
25. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
26. Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones by Ann Head
27. The Contender by Robert Lipsyte
28. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
29. Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho by Jon Katz
30. America by E. R. Frank
31. First Part Last by Angela Johnson
32. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon
33. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future for You by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon
34. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wolves at the Gate by Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon
35. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Time of Your Life by Jeph Loeb and Joss Whedon
36. This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
37. Slot Machine by Chris Lynch
38. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
39. What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell
40. The Name of the Game Was Murder by Joan Lowery Nixon
41. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer [re-read]
42. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Predators and Prey by Jane Espenson, Steven S. DeKnight, Drew Z. Greenberg, Jim Kreuger, and Doug Petrie
43. The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones
44. Here in Harlem by Walter Dean Myers
45. Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography by Andrew Heifers

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1. How to Be a Budget Fashionista, Kathryn Finney [re-read]
2. Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer
3. Our Lady of Weight Loss, Janice Taylor [re-read]
4. Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon
5. The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach
6. Smart Women Finish Rich, David Bach
7. Queen Victoria's Bomb, Ronald W. Clark
8. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
9. Lessons from a Dead Girl, Jo Knowles
10. How to Be Popular, Meg Cabot [audiobook]
11. Ghosts of Albion: Accursed by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
12. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson [audiobook]
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [audiobook]
14. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor [audiobook]
15. Ghosts of Albion: Witchery by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
16. Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
17. French Kiss by Sarra Manning
18. Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones
19. The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci
20. Accidental Love by Gary Soto 
21. Vale of the Vole by Piers Anthony
22. How to Build a House by Dana Reinhardt
23. The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott
24. Life Sucks by Jessica Abel
25. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
26. Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones by Ann Head
27. The Contender by Robert Lipsyte
28. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
29. Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho by Jon Katz
30. America by E. R. Frank
31. First Part Last by Angela Johnson
32. This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
33. Slot Machine by Chris Lynch
34. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
35. What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

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When Little Willow asked me if I wanted to participate in Thomas Randall's blog tour, I jumped on it, mainly because I trust her. But also because she sent me an excerpt from the book to read, and it was excellent. Since my favorite thing about it was the atmosphere of the setting, I asked Thomas to write about his research on Japan. Here's what he had to say!

Confession time: I've never been to Japan.  The absolute best thing about the early feedback on THE WAKING: DREAMS OF THE DEAD is that I seem to have convinced people otherwise.  But I'm not going to lie to you, my friends. The Miyazu City that exists in the pages of this trilogy exists only in my mind.  Sure, a great many things that you'll encounter in the book are real--landmarks and shrines and even street names--but this isn't the real Miyazu City.

Though that shouldn't come as a surprise.  Most writers invent versions of the cities in which they set their stories, even cities they know well.  You take what is useful, discard what you don't need, and do your best to get the sense of the place...its atmosphere.  When it's a place you've never been, a place you're unlikely to be able to afford to visit on your own dime, what makes the presentation of a setting feel realistic are the details you choose to include.  And details, of course, require research.

If you live in Miyazu City, you'll certainly know that the version of the place that exists in THE WAKING is fiction.  But if you live there....sssshhh, don't spoil it for everyone else.

When I set out to write THE WAKING trilogy, I knew the basic story. American teenager Kara Harper and her professor dad are still mourning the death of Kara's mother two years after their loss.  Her dad has been teaching Japanese language at an American school, and Kara has grown up with the dream of someday visiting the country.  Her father has not only taught her the language, but instilled in her a fascination with the nation and its culture.  In the aftermath of her mother's death, Kara and her father begin their life anew in a Japanese community where few gaijins visit.  She is the only non-Japanese student at her new school, and her father the only non-Japanese teacher.

Sometimes research feels like a chore, but not on these books.  I jumped right in with both feet.  My first job was, of course, to figure out where it would all take place.  I thought of inventing a city (as Kara's school, Monju-no-Chie, is invented), but as I surfed page after page online, printing up dozens (at first) of pages about schools in Japan, I ran across an article about the three most beautiful places in the country.  One of them, Ama-no-Hashidate, immediately caught my interest.  A long spit of land that juts out into Miyazu Bay, its white sand beaches are striped up the middle with a dense wood of black pines.  From certain vantage points--scenic overlooks--visitors turn their backs to the bay, bend over, and view Ama-no-Hashidate through their legs.  Upside down, against the blue water, it is said to look like a bridge across the heavens.

It seemed a peaceful place, and I liked the idea of the beauty and tranquility there.  The shore of the bay, in view of Ama-no-Hashidate, seemed the perfect place to set the story of this American girl trying to live in a new country, and adapt to a new culture.  And the perfect place for evil spirits and curses, among other things.

The research only began there, of course.  What followed was a crash course on Japanese education, school uniforms, fads and hobbies, and behaviors in a culture so different from my own.  I had always known that traditions would be different in Japan, but so many things surprised me.  Japanese students have a period of time at the end of each school day (and before mandatory club meetings) when they clean their schools.  Every day.  When they enter the school, they remove their shoes and place them in small cubbies, donning slippers that are worn at all times while in the building.  I loved learning about what Japanese parents put in the bento boxes their kids take to school for lunch and the details of various festivals, such as Toro Nagashi, during which lanterns are set afloat in the bay, each representing a loved one who has died the year before.  I wanted to know what they might eat for snacks, what their traditions are when going to the beach, how
 boys and girls behave together, how they celebrate their holidays--and I wish I *didn't* know what they put on their pizza.

Seriously.  I hope one day to visit Japan, but I will not be eating pizza there.

I enjoyed every moment of discovering life in Japan with Kara Harper, and I hope you'll enjoy it, too.  It's the perfect thing to lull you into a false sense of security before the really creepy stuff starts.  After all, THE WAKING: DREAMS OF THE DEAD, begins with murder.  You'll understand, I hope, that I didn't do any first hand research on that.

THE WAKING: DREAMS OF THE DEAD by Thomas Randall.  In stores September 29th, 2009.



Follow The Waking blog tour to learn more about Dreams of the Dead, the first book in this thrilling YA series, and its author, Thomas Randall.

Monday, September 28th: An interview with Little Willow at Bildungsroman
Tuesday, September 29th: Author Q&A with Courtney Summers
Wednesday, September 30th: A guest blog about writing from the female POV at readergirlz
Thursday, October 1st: A guest blog about researching Japanese culture at lectitans
Friday, October 2nd: Q&A at Sarah's Random Musings
Friday, October 2nd: An interview at Steph Su Reads
Monday, October 5th: A guest blog about writing mysteries at Books By Their Cover
Tuesday, October 6th: Q&A with Kim Baccellia
Tuesday, October 6th: An interview with BookChic
Wednesday, October 7th: An interview at Presenting Lenore
Thursday, October 8th: Special post for Michelle at GalleySmith
Friday, October 9th: Last stop with Kelsey at Just Blinded Book Reviews

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1. How to Be a Budget Fashionista, Kathryn Finney [re-read]
2. Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer
3. Our Lady of Weight Loss, Janice Taylor [re-read]
4. Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon
5. The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach
6. Smart Women Finish Rich, David Bach
7. Queen Victoria's Bomb, Ronald W. Clark
8. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
9. Lessons from a Dead Girl, Jo Knowles
10. How to Be Popular, Meg Cabot [audiobook]
11. Ghosts of Albion: Accursed by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
12. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson [audiobook]
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [audiobook]
14. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor [audiobook]
15. Ghosts of Albion: Witchery by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
16. Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
17. French Kiss by Sarra Manning
18. Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones
19. The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci
20. Accidental Love by Gary Soto 
21. Vale of the Vole by Piers Anthony
22. How to Build a House by Dana Reinhardt
23. The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott
24. Life Sucks by Jessica Abel
25. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
26. Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones by Ann Head
27. The Contender by Robert Lipsyte
28. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
29. Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho by Jon Katz
30. America by E. R. Frank
31. First Part Last by Angela Johnson
32. This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
33. Slot Machine by Chris Lynch

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The September Carnival of Children's Literature is online now. Please go take a look!

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Follow The Waking blog tour to learn more about Dreams of the Dead, the first book in this thrilling YA series, and its author, Thomas Randall.

Monday, September 28th: An interview with Little Willow at Bildungsroman
Tuesday, September 29th: Q&A with Courtney Summers
Wednesday, September 30th: A guest blog about writing from the female POV at readergirlz
Thursday, October 1st: A guest blog about researching Japanese culture at lectitans
Friday, October 2nd: Q&A at Sarah's Random Musings
Friday, October 2nd: An interview at Steph Su Reads
Monday, October 5th: A guest blog about writing mysteries at Books By Their Cover
Tuesday, October 6th: Q&A with Kim Baccellia
Tuesday, October 6th: An interview with BookChic
Wednesday, October 7th: An interview at Presenting Lenore
Thursday, October 8th: Special post for Michelle at GalleySmith
Friday, October 9th: Last stop with Kelsey at Just Blinded Book Reviews

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We read this poem in my YA Lit class the other day, and it's phenomenal.

I can’t believe it.

Whoever made it up is pulling my foot

so it’ll fit that shoe.

I’ll go along with martyrdom:

she swept and wept; she mended, stoked the fire,

slaved while her three stepsisters,

who just happened to oblige their meanness

by being ugly, dressed themselves.

I’ll swallow that there was a Singer godmother,

who magically could sew a pattern up

and hem it in an hour,

that Cinderella got to be a debutante

and lost her head and later lost her shoe.

But there I stop.

To read the rest of the poem, go to the Calyx Publishing page and find the excerpts from A Fierce Brightness.

My two favorite parts are these:
"who just happened to blige their meanness/by being ugly" - I love the notion that the stepsisters have a responsibility to be ugly, because that is what their meanness requires of them.  It makes a good point about the nature of many stories - the good people are beautiful and the bad people are ugly, and the physical body makes easily apparent the character's spiritual nature.

"...there was a Singer godmother,/who magically could sew a pattern up" - Because Singer is a brand of sewing machine.  One other person in the class recognized this and chose it as her favorite part, and I was so excited she did.  But it's an excellent pun of sorts as well, of course, if you imagine that the godmother did, in fact, sing.

Poetry is so good when it's good.

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From Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast:

...7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you.

Here are my kicks:
1. Monday, I attended a board meeting for an arts organization, and we actually decided some stuff and got things done.  That happens so rarely at meetings that it's pretty amazing when it does.

2. On Tuesday night, I met with a group for a project we're presenting this week, and they were wowed by the Powerpoint I'd put together for us to use.  (It really wasn't a clever smokescreen to cover up how I hadn't finished my research.  Really...)

3. On Wednesday night, I wrote a paper that was due Thursday morning.  It looks like procrastination, but I'd been doing research, taking notes, and outlining for two weeks.  Which made the actual writing go really quickly.  And I feel the paper is pretty solid.  And as part of the research process I found out why steam technology never took off in the Roman Empire!

4. On Thursday, my sister came over and I tried on my dress for her wedding and it's lovely (needs a tiny bit of alteration) and we made banana bread.

5.  My husband's brother is the guitarist for Who's Bad, the Ultimate Michael Jackson Tribute Band, and they had a hometown show Friday night.  We went and my sister came with us.  I'd been wanting to take her to one of their shows for a while, so I was happy she came.  (Staying out until 2 am after a concert though is really not my thing.)

6. Yesterday I saw "Extract," which is a cute movie.  In the middle of the film the projector stopped working and it was a long time before management got it fixed and when they did, they'd gone too far forward, past where we left off, so we missed a few scenes.  But the whole experience was rather hilarious, so that's good.

7. Today I am going to do laundry, and clean clothes smell nice.

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Remember these?

I've been doing more of that blog navel-gazing that we all do from time to time.  I decided to examine the archives for my first couple of months and see what I came up with.  I was looking for purpose and intent as well as content, and I ended up reminding myself that this is a blog about my reading experiences.  It is, essentially, a personal blog that sometimes contains reviews and interviews, but has my own reactions to books at its core.

This weekend's wondering:
What is your personal history as a reader?

This was a freewrite that we had in my YA Lit class this past Monday.  The professor asked us to write about our reading history for ten minutes, including earliest memories and influences.  (I was extraordinarily prepared to write about this, as I'd spent the whole weekend thinking and chatting on Facebook with folks about the defining literature of their own adolescence.)

Here's mine, completely unedited except to protect names of folks I don't communicate with anymore or places that might rather not be mentioned.

My earliest memories of reading have very little to do with actual reading and it’s hard to separate my memories from anecdotes my mother told me.  My first book was Stop, Go, Word Bird! And I read it when I was three.  Around that time I also tried to exit the library through an emergency exit door, which colors all of my memories of the Melbourne public library.

I don’t remember learning to read – I was so small that almost all of my memories from that time have faded.  My mother was the biggest influence on my reading – she would read with and to me and once I became an independent reader she would recommend books for me.  I remember when I was in second grade or fourth grade (sometime in Tallahassee) and she was reading the Xanth books and I wanted to read them too and she said I was too young (which now I’m all, what?) but then when I was in middle school I was allowed to read them.

In middle school and high school, I read science fiction and fantasy almost exclusively, focusing primarily on the work of Piers Anthony.  I can trace my development as a young adult through his books: I started with Xanth (Ogre, Ogre) and then moved on to the Incarnations of Immortality.  Then I read the Mode series, which for some reason is inextricably linked in my mind with adolescence.  (Probably because I read it in 8th grade which was a hard year and because Colene was 14, much younger than the main characters in Xanth or Incarnations.)  I kept up a correspondence with Piers which was exciting and fueled my desire to read his books more.  (I remember reading and re-reading my one copy of Hi Piers over and over again.  Piers went with me on a lot of field trips, now that I think about it.)

I was in the middle of an Incarnations re-read when I met Will, and he encouraged me to pick up the Apprentice Adept series which I did – I read those during the spring of my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college.  I think after that I read the Bio of a Space Tyrant series.

Letters to Jenny (like Alina said) falls in there somewhere, as does Tarot, but I can’t place either of them.  Tarot is maybe my junior year of high school (I bought it the summer I met Will but I think I checked it out from the library before that) and Letters to Jenny much earlier.

Libraries played a big role in my reading history but a quiet one.  I never asked for help selecting books  - I would browse a lot and picked up the vampire books by Caroline B. Cooney and I volunteered at the library which was probably one of the happiest summers of my life.  I loved the library and it was a source for much more than books – we checked out the same music and videos over and over again (I’m not sure why the French La Cage was such a favorite, but it was).

I loved school librarians – Mrs. F and Mrs. L especially (although I didn’t really know the librarians at my high school).  I felt very at home and grown up at the library.  I still have and use that 20 year old library card.

So what about you?  In the comments or a post at your own blog, tell us your personal reading history.

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