Sunday Post #4

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer.  It's "a chance to share news, a post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog."

Reading This Week:

I finished four books this week, which is a decent amount for me.  Definitely started to get my life back this week, including some reading time.  

Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin was definitely the best one of the bunch.  I read it at the library last Sunday while my son and his buddy played on the computers.  It took just over an hour.  Martin's Babysitter Club carries such a taint of churning-out-series-to-make-a-buck to me, which is completely unfair since I've only read the Raina Telgemeier graphic novel adaptations, and they seem rather sweet to me.  But this book is definitely unique and written by a "real" author, not a hack.   Rose is a girl with Asperger's Syndrome, a dad who doesn't get it, a fondness for homophones, and a beloved dog.  There are shades of Beverly Cleary's dog Ribsy, handled beautifully.  I would have preferred a different solution to her dad's issues, but overall this is a terrific book.  4 stars.

Prodigy, by Marie Lu, was my only non-white author of the week.  I liked it, but not as much as the first book in the series.  3 stars.

Girl Against the Universe, by Paula Stokes, has a great premise.  Maguire has been the sole survivor of a car wreck, the only unhurt child in a roller coaster disaster, and the only girl who didn't get violently ill at a slumber party.  She's decided that she's cursed, and has developed an OCD-level system for checking the safety of those around her.  This is balanced against a fairly typical teen romance with your basic hot-but-troubled teen hero.  A fun read, but not particularly memorable, beyond the premise.  3 stars.

The Epidemic was disappointing.  I read The Program and The Treatment based on student recommendation, and while I understood why she loved them, they were a little hysterical for me in my advanced age and maturity.  Still, I was interested enough to read The Remedy, and found it far more interesting than the first two.  So I was fairly eager to read The Epidemic.  I wasn't expecting anything earth shattering, just a fun, quick read.  Instead I was bored, confused, and irritated.  The characters all seemed flat, like ideas of people rather than actual people.  The situation begs explanation, which we never really get.  How is the suicide epidemic engineered?  And why?  These seem like fairly important questions to gloss over.  2 stars.

Blogging this week:

This is only my third blog post of the week.  I wrote a post about my favorite changes I've witnessed in my lifetime--and yes, some of those were book related.  Then I wrote my responses to a tag about my TBR pile.  Both of those were fun to write, if not particularly deep.  

Life this week:

In the job arena, I have good news, bad news, and great news!

The good: After seven years in a windowless room with cement walls and a lopsided pentagon shape that makes classroom setup really challenging, I'm being moved to a rectangular room with windows next year!  These are at a premium in my building, so I'm excited to have some time in the sun, literally.

The bad: Didn't get the job.  Apparently all four schools hired internally.  

The great:  I am getting a grant for 500 new books for my classroom library.  I applied last year to Penny Kittle's Book Love Foundation, and did not receive a grant, but the application process itself gave me lots of ideas and encouragement for things I've tried this year, like this blog, and the conferences I've been to.  This week I got a call from Penny herself saying I'm one of this year's grantees!  I can't WAIT to start getting the books!  

In the rest of my life, let's see.  We're working on getting labels designed for my husband's wine, prepping for our son's birthday, and continuing to work slowly on projects around the house.  My son and I took an hour long walk in a local nature park yesterday and saw chipmunks, squirrels, a wren, a Stellar's jay, a downy woodpecker, and a very cool looking garter snake.  

I'm going into the last full week of school--4.5 days the following week, very little of which will be academic in nature.  So this week is really the last big push.  I hope your June starts off well!