BBAW: Setting Goals

Even though I’m pretty reactionary about the abundance of goal-setting in public education right now (i.e., Isn’t “read 25 books this year” a good enough goal? Do we really need 12-year-olds to make goals like “Improve my ability to make text-to-self connections” or does that take some of the joy out of the whole enterprise?), I’m ready to set a concrete goal for this blog: write more. I don’t think it’s realistic to review every single book I read here (even my beloved Goodreads account has fallen by the wayside this summer), but I do think I can write some kind of something (and not always a meme, for the love of Pete, although they are quite nice) once a week. For a year. I can assess myself next year during Book Blogger Appreciation Week and then this all will have come full circle in a very satisfying way.

BBAW: Thanks for the Books, Bloggers

School is kind of kicking my butt these days (in an absolutely good, but constant and overwhelming way), so today’s BBAW post is basically going to be a list of books that I may have picked up someday, but definitely was driven/shamed into reading when the rest of the  world did, thanks to book bloggers and Google Reader.

• Honestly, seriously: The Hunger Games. I mean, I loved Gregor the Overlander, and I would have picked it up eventually, but it hit the blogosphere so hard that I would have been ashamed to leave it unread for a minute longer than I had. This is also true for Wintergirls.
• Masterpiece, when I heard about the E.B. White Readaloud Award
• Mairelon the Magician, thanks to The Enchanted Inkpot’s book club
• Books 85-100 on Fuse #8′s Top 100 Picture Books poll. As a middle school librarian, I don’t get to rock the picture books too often, so taking the time to read through this list is great exposure to all the greatest hits. So far I’ve been especially happy about Little Pea, Anatole, The Gardener, Swimmy, Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo, and The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear.

BBAW: Reading Meme

I love memes. For the lazy/stressed out/timid blogger like me, they are such a boon to get you writing and just posting SOMEthing, for the love of God. So thanks, Book Blogger Appreciation Week for providing this quick and easy one. So here are my five-word answers to the BBAW reading meme:

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?
No snacks, but sometimes chips.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
Library books, so no pens.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears?
Bookmarks, always. Punish dog ears!

Laying the book flat open?
Not usually. Hurts my brain.

Fiction, nonfiction, or both?
Both, plus comics and poetry.

Hard copy or audiobooks?
Bad at listening. Reading easier.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
Section breaks good, chapters better.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
No way. It’s not homework.

What are you currently reading?
Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie
(That worked out well!)

What is the last book you bought?
Absolute Sandman, worth the cash.

Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
The more, the merrier. Mostly.

Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?
On train. In bed. Always?

Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?
Trilogies not always necessary, please.

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?
Tamora Pierce. The Lightning Thief.

How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)
Genre, kinda, Size, mostly. *sigh*

So easy, and now I’m radiating a sense of accomplishment.

Most extensive bookish meme EVER.

This is an oldish meme via Steph Su Reads, but I’ve been thinking about it because I can’t imagine many other questions that would define a person as a reader. So here goes:

Hardback, trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Hardcover for library books, trade paperback if possible for books I own, old mass market paperbacks for anything science fiction or fantasy, particularly if it’s rocking some crazy mid-60s cover.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?
Umm…. Brooklyn Public Library? Seriously, I almost never buy books these days. The only time I’m tempted is by a really cheap used bookstore or an indie with great staff recommendations. But I have a Barnes & Noble membership, and give books as gifts a lot, so probably B&N.

Bookmark or dog-ear?
Dear sweet lord, the thought of dog-earing hurts me RIGHT HERE. I actually meticulously unfold every dog-eared corner I find in library books. I use bookmarks without fail, particularly old Amtrak ticket stubs and this cache of overnight loan bookmarks I found in my library.

Amazon or brick-and-mortar?
Brick-and-mortar, if I’m buying.

Alphabetize by author, or alphabetize by title, or random?
I use up all my organization at work, so my home library is roughly grouped by genre and then by size. Everything’s double-rowed and stacked on top of each other anyway, so it doesn’t make too much difference.

Keep, throw away, or sell?
Seriously, who ever throws a book anyway unless it’s fallen in the bath or something vile’s happened to it? I just started getting really into Bookcrossing, so my new answer is: release! I used to be a huge keeper, but ten years of living in small Brooklyn apartments and within steps of a great public library system have made me less possessive. I generally only keep or collect books that I’m head over heels for, have sentimental value, or are out-of-print or otherwise difficult to find.

Keep dust jacket or toss it?
Keep, always.

Read with dust jacket or remove it?
Remove it while reading, but I very rarely read hardcovers that aren’t from the library.

Short story or novel?
Novels, mostly. I have to make a project out of getting through a short story collection.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
Harry Potter. I am my mother’s daughter, and she is the world’s biggest Harry Potter fan. (Seriously, we went to London for the Deathly Hallows release so she could be “where the action was.”) Mr. Penny loved Lemony Snicket, but I stalled out in the second book. I’m willing to give them another try, but I don’t think it has the same level of emotional depth that inspires such great devotion.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?
I like chapter breaks. I’m generally checking to see how many pages are left in a chapter all the time… reading in 20 or 50 page chunks is generally perfect for me.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?
Once upon a time. (Although I’d pick Wrinkle in Time over a lot of fairy tales… is this a science fiction vs. fantasy question in disguise?)

Buy or borrow?
Borrow, but from the library, not other people. Borrowing from other people makes me feel pressured to get to the book immediately, and I hate feeling like I have any kind of obligation or agenda that’s been in any way imposed on me. Reading is an area of my life that I’m completely free, and I want to keep it that way as much as possible. (That kinda sounds worse than I meant it… it’s not like I’m all oppressed or anything. Just don’t tell me what to read, OK? Don’t tread on me!)

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendations, or browse?
Reviews, I guess? I read a lot of librarian/YA book blogs, the Times Book Review weekly, watch what comes up in my Goodreads friend feed, and generally keep my ear to the ground. You can’t beat browsing, too, especially on the new books shelves in the library.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
Wrap it up, people. Tidy endings, all the way (but they don’t have to be quite as tidy as Deathly Hallows, with the corny tribute kids’ names and all).

Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?
All of the above. Some before I leave for school. on the train, with kids when they’re in the library for independent reading blocks, on lunch if I’m eating alone, on the train home, a chapter before I check my email, in the evening, in bed.  I best love long stretches of Sunday afternoon reading, though, when possible.

Stand-alone or series?
I’m getting a little burnt out on the series right now, particularly the fantasy trilogy these days. I actually think twice before picking up a book if I see the line “first of a projected trilogy” in the review. A series has to be pretty phenomenal to get me through the whole thing these days.

Favorite series?
Lord of the Rings, The Lioness Quartet, His Dark Materials, the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb (but not so much the other two trilogies in the same world), Sandman graphic novels… wow, this is hard. There are probably more.

Favorite children’s book?
This is killing me, to pick a favorite. Seriously: as a child, I read constantly and with circularity. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t reading something new while simultaneously rereading some much-loved book for the umpteenth time. The first ten books I can think of that I loved intensely will have to suffice: The Phantom Tollbooth, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Egpyt Game, A Little Princess, Little Women, The Cricket in Times Square, Charlotte’s Web, Little House on the Prairie, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Julie of the Wolves.

Favorite YA book?
See above. First ten faves that come to mind: Alanna: The First Adventure, Beauty, The Golden Compass, Summerland, The Thief of Always, Coraline, Arrows of the Queen, Deerskin, The Changeover, Ender’s Game.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?
The Impossible People by Georgess McHargue. This deserves a separate tribute at a later date. Let’s just say that I probably had this book checked out of my town’s library continually from the time I was 8 until I turned 11.

Favorite books read last year?
2008 brought me: The Time Traveler’s Wife, All the Pretty Horses, American Elf: The Sketchbook Diaries, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer, Bone, My Antonia, Midnight’s Children (again), Moomin, Reefer Madness, Love & Rockets, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Shriek: An Afterword, Assassination Vacation, Ex Machina, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, White Teeth, Daisy Kutter: The Last Train, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Blow-Up and Other Stories, The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose, The Plain Janes, Count Karlstein, Unequal Childhoods, The Lightning Thief, Buddha by Osamu Tezuka, Spacer and Rat, MIddlemarch, To the Lighthouse, Whales on Stilts!, The Wordy Shipmates, Lives on the Boundary, The Changeover… it was a busy year, full of Sarah Vowell, comics, some short stories, and a few classics for which I’m still patting myself on the back.

Favorite books of all time?
Can I do that thing where I name ten again (oh, but I’ll cheat, and count some series as one book)? The Last Unicorn, Lolita, The Stand, Sandman, Jane Eyre, The Lioness Quartet, Lord of the Rings, Neon Vernacular, Jelly Roll, The Arrival.

What are you reading right now?
Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick, Tales Before Tolkien, and The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for American Workers by Steven Greenhouse.

What are you reading next?
I need to reread Graceling for the NYCSLA book club (twist my arm!) and I’m excited that I just checked Ash out of the library today, so those are probably up next.

Favorite book to recommend to an 11-year-old?
That really depends on the 11-year-old, now doesn’t it? Probably Bone or Diary of a Wimpy Kid for the book-shy, Gregor the Overlander or The Lightning Thief for the Harry Potter graduate, and Coraline for the scary story buff.

Favorite book to re-read?
I love to read The Stand if I find myself home sick for a few days. I’m going to reread Sandman since I’m splurging on the Absolute editions this year. The Last Unicorn never fails to get me, every time.

Do you ever smell books?
Sure, but I don’t generally discuss it in public.

Do you ever read primary source documents like letters or diaries?
Not too often, although I’ve been thinking about reading Virginia Woolf’s journals sometime, and I’m curious about Elizabeth Bishop’s letters.

Whew.

Weekly Geeks: Reading Challenges

This week’s Weekly Geeks hit close to home:

Reading Challenges: a help or a hurt? Do you find that the reading challenges keep you organized and goal-oriented? Or, do you find that as you near the end of a challenge that you’ve failed because you fell short of your original goals? As a result of some reading challenges, I’ve picked up books that I would have otherwise never heard of or picked up; that, frankly, I have loved. Have you experienced the same with challenges? If so, which ones? Do you have favorite reading challenges?

Last year was the first year I’d ever participated in a formal reading challenge, and it was all because of Goodreads. (I love me some Goodreads. Even though I’ve neglected it lately, I am a Goodreads ADDICT.) I’ve always been intrigued by bookish list-making, canon formation, Clifton Fadiman, etc., so I suppose I’ve challenged myself to read along with various book lists my whole life (most notably that Modern Library 100 Best Novels list that came out when I was in college: 33 read to date). But, really, I’m a far more capricious reader than all that, so I very rarely get focused and read a list or an author to exclusion.

Goodreads groups opened my eyes to the zany world of people reading books for every author in the alphabet, or fifteen Serbian mysteries in a year, or books with colors in the title at the whim of a twenty-sided die. I can’t quite handle some of the wackier challenges (although I will defend to the death the right to participate in them), but last year I informally participated in the A-Z author challenge without purposefully seeking out an X author when it got down to the wire. This year I’m keeping track of an A-Z author AND title challenge just to see how far I get without actually trying, and maybe I’ll bat clean-up in the last few months of the year to finish. So if anyone knows any good X or U authors, please let me know. And how happy do you think Xu Xi is about all this? I did the same thing with a “Variety Is the Spice of Life” and finished without any real effort by April.

I’m also attempting a “Seven Classics” challenge, since it makes me sad that I actually have to put conscious effort into picking up a book written before 1950 most days. Of course, there’s the ongoing Pulitzer reading project at Along with a Hammer and I’m about to read my last E.L. Konigsburg book since I set out to read all her books… OMG, back in 2006? I really have to step it up here, people. I don’t know that challenges have led me to stretch my reading muscles too much, since I’m already a pretty diverse reader, but I think they are fun mile markers to pass in a reading year and sometimes they encourage you to pick up the pace a little bit. (Like, really? Can you just finish The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World before she writes another book, already?)

Participating in MotherReader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge not only kickstarted this blog, but was absolutely tons of fun and really pushed me to get through some books that I’d been “saving for good,” like Savvy and The Hunger Games. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more reading sprint challenges like that one. Any excuse to spend the weekend in a pile of books and snacks is A-OK by me. I’m really bummed that I missed the dates for the Once Upon a Time challenge, so I’m definitely looking forward to that one next year.

The only real challenge disappointment I’ve ever had happened with the “To Be Read” challenge. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard to read books that I actually own, seeing as I read something like 200 books a year, but apparently last year, I couldn’t manage to read a single one. I’m such a heavy public library user, and borrow so many books from my own school library, that I’m always trying to get something back that’s on hold for someone else or reading a student recommendation and my personal bookshelves just sit in my house all pretty and for show. I’m not a huge book buyer any more, but still, this is a little ridiculous, so hopefully this public shaming will encourage reading of books that are mine in the legal sense.

Getting ready for the 48-Hour Book Challenge

Motherreader’s 48-Hour Book Challenge is more than half the reason I started this blog. Or, maybe, it just gave me the kick in the pants to actually go through with it. Anyway, it’s nearly upon us, and, if the fun of getting ready for it is any indication, this weekend is gonna be an absolute blast. (If, by “absolute blast,” I mean I’m gonna sequester myself in my apartment with a huge stack of YA books and some snacks. It’s a blast on my terms, people.. it’s all relative.)

Mr. Penny will be away all day Saturday, so I’ve just about cleared my calendar for a two day window from Friday to Sunday evening. Honestly, I think my biggest downfall will be afternoon napping, which has sabotaged many a plan to finish a book over the weekend. Abby the Librarian had some good tips for planning and pacing yourself over the weekend that I’m going to try to take to heart. I’m assembling a stack of books from school to match the leftovers from last summer (my summer reading eyes are bigger than my… summer reading eyes?) and I’m hoping to bat cleanup on the YA books I’ve got out from the public library too. Of course it will be way more than is humanly possible to read in 48 hours, says the girl who just hit the limit on her Netflix queue and has a “to-be-read” spreadsheet that tops 6000 books.

What Are the Kids Reading?

I’ll ease into this with a meme from The Well-Read Child: what are my kids reading today? I saw three classes today for independent reading blocks, plus lots of walk-ins, so let’s take a look at what they borrowed:

The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman, 95 Pounds of Hope by Anna Gavalda, 101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher by Lee Wardlaw (why does it always seem that the kids who borrow this book don’t need any help on this matter?), Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret and Then Again, Maybe I Won’t to a student who said that her mother wanted her to read fewer books about teenage drama and romance and more “adventurous books she could learn something from, like Judy Blume books” (I refrained from pointing out any irony here), the All-About Guide for AIDS, The Creation of Spiderman fresh from a box of new books, Cruise Control by Terry Trueman, the DK nature encyclopedia, The Dear One by Jacqueline Woodson, The Dark-angel by Meredith Ann Pierce, Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt (totally surprised to see this cross my desk… I loved it when I was a kid, but most Voigt is very rarely checked out), Jinx by Meg Cabot, November Blues by Sharon Draper, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (yay!), The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin, Savvy by Ingrid Law, Summer of Fear by Lois Duncan, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, Skateboarder’s Start-Up, the Oceans Visual Guide, the short story collection The Haunting Hour by R.L. Stine, and the poetry anthology Revenge and Forgiveness

Many different books from these series: Captain Underpants, Dear Dumb Diary books, Bluford High, Gossip Girl, Goosebumps, Cirque du Freak, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Fear Street, Andrew Lost, Demonata

Comics: Spider-Man in flavors Amazing and Ultimate, Babymouse, Simpsons comics, Baby-Sitter’s Club, the Batman DK Ultimate Guide, Far Side, Bleach, Bone, Goosebumps, Fruits Basket, Garfield, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kingdom Hearts, Tokyo Mew Mew, Naruto, Yu Gi Oh

A pretty typical day, with over a hundred books checked out. When I got a chance, I was working on Live Through This by Debra Gwartney, since I need to get it back to the library ASAP. Oh, and I had a sixth-grader ask me if I had any copies of Another Country by James Baldwin, since his teacher was reading it, and I tried to let him down gently.