Book Review: Bag in the Wind by Ted Kooser and illustrated by Barry Root

Link for the book @ Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Bag-Wind-Ted-Kooser/dp/0763630012/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290182379&sr=8-1
Hardcover $13.49

Link for the book @ publisher:
http://www.candlewick.com/cat.asp?browse=Title&mode=book&isbn=0763630012&pix=n
Hardcover $17.99

This book was borrowed from the library for reading/reviewing.

Published by Candlewick Press February 23, 2010/48 pages/For ages 4-8

The author Ted Kooser is a previous U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006, Pulitzer Prize winner of 2 poems he wrote--Delights and Shadows. Bag in the Wind is the first children's book he has written.

Illustrations are by Barry Root, watercolor and gouache, he has illustrated 2 other children's books.

A woman driving a bulldozer pushing garbage in a landfill sees an empty plastic yellow bag. The bag is a nameless, voiceless adventurer in this book on recycling. The wind blows the bag, it travels across the landscape, visits people along the way, and teaches the reader the importance of re-using/recycling/thinking before throwing away an object that can be re-used.
The book has wonderful illustrations of a rural area in the autumn/winter. There is great detail in the watercolor pictures of the land, trees, streams, snow, birds. People are less significant in the larger picture of recycling, our recycling affects our world at large--we are the tool used in order to recycle, but it affects in a positive way the world we live in.
The story is probably too much for a 4 or 5 year old, in my opinion more understandable to a 6-8 year old. It is not that recycling cannot be taught to a 4 or 5 year old, it is because of the lengthiness of the story that a 4 or 5 year old would not sit still and their minds and bodies would wander.

Blissful Reading!
Annette

Book Review: Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

I have 1 more book to read by this author, Fever 1793, and then I've decided to move on to another author.

Link for the book @ Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Catalyst-Laurie-Halse-Anderson/dp/0142400017/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290177830&sr=8-1
Paperback $7.99

Link for the book @ Publisher:
http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670035663,00.html?Catalyst_Laurie_Halse_Anderson
Hardback $17.99
Paperback $7.99

Author's site:
www.writerlady.com

This book was borrowed from the library for reading/reviewing.

Published by Viking-Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers September 30, 2002/240 pages/for ages
12 and up

I have to admit that this was not my favorite from the author Laurie Halse Anderson. I read this book quickly, in 1 evening. Could it be that I'm becoming bored with teen angst and drama?
Kate Malone is in the final months of her senior year in high school. She is a chemistry and science and math whiz, a member of the National Honor Society, a cross country runner. She is a facts and figures kind of gal, she has a analytic and logic type mind. Her dream is to attend MIT. She has a boyfriend named Mitch, he's a great kisser. Her mother died 9 years ago, her dad is a pastor, she has 1 younger brother Tobey.
On one hand Kate is in a whirl of busyness at home: laundry, house cleaning, caring for her sick asthmatic brother, cooking, reminding her dad and brother of their own duties. Kate has taken on the role of mom in addition to her school work and high school activities. She has a problem sleeping, relaxing.
When the neighbor's house burns and this family moves in with Kate and her dad and brother, she is at first insensitive and selfish. I wondered where this part of the story would fit in, but it was important, it gave Kate another dimension to her character that I liked.
What I liked most about Kate's character was that she took seriously and did the best she could in filling in with caring for the home and her brother and dad, since her mother had died. I thought her dad was pre-occupied or inept in not knowing what Kate was going through in keeping up her school work, and also juggling her home responsibilities. I'm sure he was engaged and focused on his own duties at church, which Kate I felt resented. Kate needed counseling, she was at times chilly and sardonic, not wanting to feel anything, not wanting to confront these unresolved areas of her life that were like a blinking light going, "yield, yield, prepare to stop or suffer the consequences of stuffing your emotions."
Kate's friends are introduced in to the story as well as a boyfriend. Although they are apart of the story, it is Kate that is the speaker and the focus is on her.

Blissful Reading!
Annette

More on Eating Disorders

Links for more information:

http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/

http://www.anad.org/

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/eating-disorders/DS00294

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/thin/

Russell's Sign which is scarring from sticking fingers down throat in order to vomit.

A list of books given by Amazon on Anorexia:
http://www.amazon.com/Recommended-Books-About-Anorexia/lm/3M8K5Z4GDKZ47

Book Review: Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Link for the book @ Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Wintergirls-Laurie-Halse-Anderson/dp/067001110X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1289576759&sr=8-1
Hardcover $12.23
Kindle $8.99

Link for the book @ publisher:
http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670011100,00.html?Wintergirls_Laurie_Halse_Anderson
Hardcover $17.99
eBook $8.99

Published by Viking Juvenile March 9, 2009/288 pages
Young Adult Fiction/For grades 8th and up

If I were to use only a list of verbs to review this book they would be:
Tragic
Waste
Sad
Sorrowful
Haunting
Profound
Caustic
Acerbic
Acidulous
Grisly
Austere
Manic
Madness
Hysteria
Ravenous
Empty


This book is not for the faint of heart, or the overly sensitive, nor should it be read on a day you are feeling depressed. This is one of the hardest books I've ever read, not because it is poorly written, nor because it is not a profoundly affecting read; but because it has a strong bite to it. It bites and shreds your tender soul until you cry in pain---for the main character Lia.

Lia age 18 is a senior in high school living in Amoskeag, New Hampshire. She is living with her dad and step-mother Jennifer and their daughter Emma age 8. Lia's mother is a physician living in the same town.
In the opening pages Lia's best friend Cassie has been found dead. Lia and Cassie have the same gut gnawing
compulsion, they are anorexic nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Add to this Lia cuts herself. Lia's family is toxic in their behavior with each other and in how they respond to Lia's serious problem.

This is not a book where I respond by saying---I loved this book! There is nothing at all to love about this book except the education that I received from reading it, and of course my ability to have greater empathy with the people that have these eating disorders.
It is scary, frightening, to know there are young women that are so deeply troubled, lost, empty emotionally, that they starve themselves until they disappear. When they see themselves in a mirror it is not with reality that they see themselves, but with a distorted image that peers back at them mocking and terrorizing them.
Lia obsesses about calories, every single tid-bit that goes in her mouth or could go in her mouth, she thinks of the calories.
She obsesses about her pounds and the "perfect" number, which gets smaller and smaller.
The distorted image she has of herself widens to include all areas of her life, she sees nothing as it really is. Plus, she has forgotten was normal is.
The books main focus is on her eating disorders and cutting; but her tangled disjointed dysfunctional family is explored.
Often Lia is impersonal speaking of herself in the 3rd person; isn't this called depersonalization disorder?
Neurosis is present in her throughout most of the book.

This book was borrowed from the library for reading/reviewing.

Blissful Reading!
Annette

Book Review: Under A Red Sky, Memoir of a Childhood in Communist Romania by Haya Leah Molnar

Link for the book @ Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Under-Red-Sky-Childhood-Communist/dp/0374318409
Hardcover $12.23
Kindle $9.99

Link for the book @ publisher:
http://us.macmillan.com/underaredsky
Pubished by Frances Foster Books Farrar Straus Giroux March 30, 2010/Young Adult Non-Fiction/Grades 6-9/320 pages
Memoir/Holocaust/Romania/Communism



Author's site:
http://hayaleahmolnar.com/
and her blog:
http://www.hayaleahmolnar.com/blog/

Eva Zimmerman is living in a small apartment with 7 adult family members in Bucharest, Romania. When the book begins the year is 1957 and she is 6 years old. During this time period Romania is a Communist nation and the memories of World War II are fresh. Until the age of 7 Eva did not know she was Jewish, it comes as a shock to her that she'd not known before. Her family had wanted to protect her from anti-Semitism. Her family members are strongly opinionated and often have loud ugly arguments; Eva's safe place is in a kitchen pantry. The adults quarrel and fight, yet they are loving towards Eva. Eva's grandfather is a loving and gentle man, often sacrificing for the benefit of Eva. The book follows the lives of Eva and her family until 1961. We are told of the family's experiences during the Holocaust, their lives under Communism, Eva's school life, her friends. Eva has an inquisitive and brilliant mind. She often asks questions of her family members that stun them, they are unprepared and uncomfortable in answering. Eva is sensitive to her family members unrest and dislike of each other; yet she knows they love her.

I loved this book!
I have read many books on the Holocaust; but this is the first book on Communism I've read.
The author Haya gives her family members 3 D quality, I love it that she writes of their facial expressions.
Eva is given greater depth by the author, by giving the reader her inner feelings and insecurities. She is a strong girl that has many limitations in Communism; she has been taught though to have a will and a voice in her own home.
The book cover is lovely, a collage of several family photo's, all in blue tones.
The author has shared in the book several family photographs all bringing a clearer face to her family.




This book was borrowed from the library for reading/reviewing.


Blissful Reading!
Annette

Book Review: The Year of Goodbyes, A true story of friendship, family, and farewells by Debbie Levy

Link for book @ publisher:
http://disney.go.com/books/year-of-goodbyes-the--1423129016

Link for book @ Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Year-Goodbyes-friendship-family-farewells/dp/1423129016/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289322220&sr=8-1
Hardcover $11.55

Author's site:
www.debbielevybooks.com

Published by Hyperion Books For Children on March 16, 2010/144 pages/For ages 10-11 or middle school grades.

This book was borrowed from the library for reading/reviewing. 

The author has written this book based on an account of a poetry type album her mother kept during the year 1938. Her mother's name is Jutta Lieselotte Salzberg. When 1938 begins Jutta is 11 and living in Hamburg, Germany with her parents and younger sister Ruth. They are Jewish, and during 1938 the governing Nazi Party is working to destroy and eradicate all Jew's. Time is running out for all of them, they are fearful and anxious for a way of escape. Jutta and her friends keep poetry type albums named poesiealbum. They are a more serious and intimate form than the American style autograph book. In the writings of the poesiealbum, Jutta and her beloved friends express their fearfulness, anxiety, frustration, anger, and sadness in what is going on outside their homes and close-nit group. They are fearful for their parents and fearful for their futures.

This is a deeply personal account written in short sentences; but with words that display the horror of the situation for the Jew's during the Holocaust. Children speak honestly, and Jutta is a young girl that is in a whirlwind of impending doom. The book is frightening, emotional, and memorable.

Blissful Reading!
Annette

An Award!

I received the Life Is Good Award from The Book Bee!

I am supposed to pass this award on to 15 new blog's! I'm so sorry but I just don't have the time to search for 15 new blog's in addition to answering 10 questions about myself, although I appreciate so much the award!

Blissful Blogging!
Annette