Provo Children's Library Book Festival

As I was going through my list of posts that have been sitting on the back-burner as I awaited finishing school, graduating, moving, etc., I realized that I completely forgot to create a post about the Provo Children's Library Book Festival from this past May. Wow. Talk about a brain lapse. And this year it was PHENOMENAL! One of the main reasons for it's elevated status is because I got to meet Jennifer Holm, author of the Boston Jane series (one of my favorites), as well as the author of the ever popular Baby Mouse comics. Though she was the keynote author, I was surprised at how little attended her line was for signings, but I got over the shock once I started talking to her and realized that I could have a 10 minute conversation with her, which is what I did. Definitely the highlight of my day, and year.

After chatting with the hilarity that is Holm, I quickly jumped into the Shannon Hale author signing line with a friend because she had some new books of Hale's that she wanted to get signed for herself and her family. Once we got to the table and started talking with her, we realized that she was pregnant with twins, which promptly became the subject of our conversation. What was she going to name them? Did they know the sex of the babies? Had they considered naming them after famous Superhero duos? Our little chat was probably the best of the day, which was greater intensified because of our super long wait, but most definitely worth it.

Although I didn't spend as much time as I have in the past at the book festival because I've already had the pleasure of meeting several of the authors, I was glad that I made the festival a "must" on my summer "to-do" list. I just can't wait for what next year has to bring!

Posts, Posts and More Posts

After months of not writing any reviews, I'm finally getting back into my blogging mood. As of right now I have 13 posts that I'm working on, so check through last October for posts. I'm working "forwards", so oldest posts come first. Oh, how I love to avoid homework!

Richard Peck at the Provo City Library

Last night I had the chance to meet Richard Peck. I'm sad to say that I've never read any of his books, but after listening to him talk for an hour, I'm sold. To my defense, I have checked many of his books out several times, though have never had the "time" to read them. His book A Long Way From Chicago was this year's pick of the ProvoReads organization to be read by the Provo school district and the Provo City Library (for more info, click here). I knew this was going to be a good event because there were only a limited amount of tickets, I was too excited to write a paper (story of my life), and Barnes and Noble was there to sell books ( Yes, I did help stimulate our economy last night).
They had a Q&A session that had some interesting questions- I didn't get a chance to ask any questions, but here's what I would have asked, given the chance:

• Was the food they offered at the Newbery dinner worth winning the Newbery?
• Why would you have a cat with you- if you're getting secluded on this make believe desert island, why not have a dog that walks itself?

This author-attending was definitely one of the best I've been to. Although I haven't had much exposure to Peck's work, I fell in love with his love for the English language, his ability to weave a hilarious and engaging story, and his overall charisma and personality. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to not only meet Peck, but that I was able to spend an hour or so with him. It was definitely the perfect evening out, and I'm excited for the next ProvoReads event!

Goals

So I'm broke. Though this is nothing new, I've decided to do something about it. I'm tired of wasting my money on stupid things I don't need and then regretting spending my money, while feeling guilty. I'm done. Of course I'd like to have the money to buy things I can't afford, especially when it comes to my wardrobe, but I don't have any money. I'm not only broke, I'm super broke. So to try and keep myself on track and on the straight and narrow, here are my financial goals for the month:

• I will not buy food at school
• I will not go to stores where I know I will feel tempted to buy something (Cougar Craft and Floral, Nordstrom's, Macy's, J Crew, Gap, Banana Republic, Brambles, Patina Market, or the Flower Basket- all boutiques)
• I will not buy any new books this month (there is a book sale coming up at the library in a couple weeks where I'll spend my change)
• I will read AT LEAST one of the books that I currently own to offset the sadness of not buying new books this month
• I will only go to one reg. price movie, 1 matinee movie, and/or 1 dollar movie
• I may break down and buy myself a Valentine's Day accessory- we'll see how depressed I get as the day approaches
• Earplugs for my roommate (but that's a whole different story that I will not share here)
• I will spend the money to get checks- I'm tired of not having them when I go and pay rent
• I have to finish paying for my books on my account on BYU- LAME
  

This new attitude towards money is not only a change of heart, but one of common sense (and the fact that I have to record my purchases for my finance class). However, I think this is a great idea. I don't want to write down all my purchases every time I buy something, so ergo, if I want to buy something I question whether or not I want to take the time to get out my notebook and write down the amount I've just spent- finally laziness becomes productive! Hopefully I can make it- we'll see though.

Sea Change

Sea Change by Aimee Friedman was an okay read. I had this book checked out from the library for roughly a month and a half before I started getting angry overdue email notices that told me I needed to return it, posthaste. It's sad to say that until last week, this book sat in my locker at work for a month and a half waiting for me to crack it open. I wanted to read this book solely for it's cover, yes I'm shallow, but how could you not? It screams of teen cheesiness and of a whirlwind, passionate romance- could it get any better than that? Frankly, yes it can. Although I did like the book on the whole, there were a couple things that I didn't really like about it which shall be addressed later in the post.

For recap, this is a story that could be classified as many things: summer romance, mermen (yum!), coming of age, befriending the popular kids, and more. The main storyline is this: Miranda is a high schooler in New York who plans on doing an internship at the National History Museum but gets spirited away by her mom to Selkie Island, an island off of the coast of Georgia so that they can get their dead grandmother's house ready to sell. Miranda isn't too happy that she has to delay her internship, but goes along because she's a "good" girl. Upon arrival she sees that there are many signs that boast of the danger of the island, and especially the interesting nature of the gorgeous boy "next door" who seems to be falling for her.

I enjoyed this book, though I didn't really like the whole way the "mystery" of the island was approached--it felt to fictional. I couldn't really connect with the main character, even though I did feel her plight, and her mother's descent into Southern Belle socialite bothered me. Other than those hard to overcome flaws, this was a pretty good book--at least one that was enjoyable to read on the whole.

When You Reach Me

So if you haven't been living in a literary cave, you know that When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead just won the Newbery award for 2009. I'm really surprised that this won out of all of the other books that were nominated. Not that I've read any of the other books that were nominated for the award, but surely there had to be a selection better than this one. I don't have a lot against this book, but I can't really understand how this book won the Newbery. It's not that the book was necessarily bad, but it's not a book that I'll ever read again, nor one that I think was captivating until the last 30 pages or so when everything started getting tied up, but even then wasn't engaging. So here are my greviances and a summary of the novel:

First off, unless I had known that this book was nominated for the Newbery, I would have never picked it up. I won't beat around the bush, but just say it: the cover sucks. It really sucks. What kid (or adult) is going to pick this book up? Until you finish the book, you have no idea that all the random items on the cover have something to do with the story. Even then, it's still really confusing and pointless. If I were Ms. Stead and this cover was given to me for approval (though I know that authors don't really have a say in their own cover art), I would have used all my power to VETO the crappy art. Definitely a poor choice on the editor's part- I would never have let this cover go through.

Before I get even more into my grievances, I'll tell you what the story is even about so you can judge for yourself whether you want to waste your time reading this. Here's a summary from amazon.com: "Shortly after sixth-grader Miranda and her best friend Sal part ways, for some inexplicable reason her once familiar world turns upside down. Maybe it's because she's caught up in reading A Wrinkle in Time and trying to understand time travel, or perhaps it's because she's been receiving mysterious notes which accurately predict the future. [It] captures the interior monologue and observations of kids who are starting to recognize and negotiate the complexities of friendship and family, class and identity. Set in New York City in 1979, the story takes its cue from beloved Manhattan tales for middle graders like E.L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy, and Norma Klein's Mom the Wolfman and Me. Like those earlier novels, When You Reach Me will stir the imaginations of young readers curious about day-to-day life in a big city." I agree with the overall summary of the story, but definitely not with the comparisons to Konigsburg, or Fitzhugh. Stead's story isn't even in the same galaxy of quality as these two authors. That last sentence of the review is definitely false.

I didn't like that the story was not really engaging. Like I said before, I didn't get into the story until the last 30 pages, and even then it wasn't very captivating. Having read this once to see what all the hype was about, I will never read this book again. Also, I didn't like the fact that Stead tied in L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time- I felt like this was a complete plug in wanting to try to get the Newbery, and surprise! It worked. However, I'm definitely not convinced that this is Newbery worthy. I question the board's sanity at the time of the selection.

Ghost Girl

I had a hard time getting into Ghost Girl by Tanya Hurley. I wanted to like this book, I really did. Everything from the concept of the story to the book cover intrigued me, but alas, I could not be persuaded to read more than 50 pages. Lately I've been in a non-reading mood (weird, I know) and I've had a lot of intolerance and impatience for books. All I want is a really good book that will keep me focused, but I haven't been able to find one yet. Ghost Girl seemed like it would be interesting, but within the first 50 pages I got sick of the main character talking about how invisible she was and how she wanted to re-invent herself so that she could become popular and attract the cutest boy in school, blah blah blah. Sorry. I don't buy it. And I'm tired of all YA books being about this, or at least close to this topic. I love the idea of this book, and I'm sure that I quit reading it right before the good parts started, but it shouldn't take 50 pages to get good. Isn't the beginning of the book supposed to be written and rewritten multiple times so that readers won't fall into this trap?