May 3, Houston: The big one -- the Inprint reading -- occurs at the Alley Theatre on Monday, May 3. Do not miss it or you'll be sorry. I'm not kidding -- I'm going to say the craziest, most intellectual yet hilarious stuff I can think of, and I'll be sharing the stage with the ultra sexy Oscar Casares, too.
June 24, Houston: I'm one of the peeps scheduled to read at Poison Pen, at Houston's famous Poison Girl bar. Besides me, everyone there will be ultra, *super* sexy. Come see me and drink!
June 26, Washington, DC: I'll be reading at the American Library Association conference. Come on down.
My other blog: Go read my the Houston Chronicle parenting blog (or my ChronMomBlog, as I like to call it) and make sure my kids won't resent me more than other kids resent their own parents.
Buy my new novel, Lone Star Legend. Already did? Well, buy a few more for your friends, then. :)
Friday, February 10, 2006
book-relatedMost nights, I read to my kids. Last night we decided to give up on Ramona and Her Father and switch over to A Wizard of Earthsea, instead. I haven't read that one since I was a kid. Sometimes I suspect I read to my kids because it gives me such a great excuse to revisit old faves... It's going better than I thought, even though the youngest two fell asleep before the chapter was done. (Which is the secret plan. Mwa ha ha ha!) Before either of those, we read Then Again, Maybe I Won't, which they liked very much. It's funny how often I have to preface our books with, "This was before cell phones and video games, so..." It's hard to get a book that's suitable and enjoyable for their varied ages. I try to err on the side of bigger words, and that's why we quit the Beverly Cleary. My youngest is old enough to read those by himself, and he's been reading the Henrys and the Ribsys at school.
When I was in seventh grade, our Reading teacher read us Flowers for Algernon. I'll never forget the way she cried at the end. "I'm sorry," she said, between hugely noisy sobs and gulps for air, "The end always makes me cry!" Some of the kids snickered, and some of them looked scared. I don't know what face I made (maybe snickered) but I remember being amazed to see a grown-up so affected by a book. That freed me up in some ways. A few years after I left that school, I heard that teacher died. I didn't fully appreciate her until it was too late. (Like you do with all teachers, in a way.)
I'm trying to read Kavalier and Clay, but it's hard to read big-word books when you don't have big blocks of time, and you keep having to re-read in order to get back into the flow. Or maybe this one just starts slow. If you read it, feel free to comment and tell me what you thought. 4:38 PM #
Comments:
It does start slow, but is well worth it. This has been my favorite book since I read it over two years ago. Stick with it! It's great.# posted by
Irishgoddess : 5:48 PM
Agreed - I really liked it as well, although there were parts that I skimmed over when I got a little bored. Then again, that happens with almost all books I read.
Keep reading, I bet you'll like it.
# posted by
Drew : 7:04 PM
I was trying to read Snow Falling on Cedars and it is really slow...then I switched to Atonement and that seems kinda slow too....I am a bit disappointed....I hate it when I get myself all pysched to read a book that I hear great things about it and it is slow...
Did you ever read A Wrinkle In Time when you were little? That was one of my faves. I can still read that book.
# posted by
MissCathee : 8:11 PM
It starts slow, and it kinda ends slow, but a big chunk of the middle is really good. And I agree with the suggestion to skim at will. It's the great thing about long books: you don't have to feel obligated to read every single word.
It's a worthwhile book. It didn't change my life or anything, but it did make me temporarily interested in the history of comics. Er, or should I say "graphic novels."
# posted by
Doppelganger : 1:09 PM
it starts out a little slow, but the rest of the book is quite worth it...it's one of my faves...
# posted by
lisaluluquinn : 12:59 PM
Flowers for Algernon is prolly my favorite of all time! Close seconds are A Cricket in Times Square and Under Plum Lake which I can't even find in print anymore.
# posted by
Tiffany : 10:32 PM
I just bought wizard of earth sea, but it was to read myself not for my 14 year old daughter.
I read it in high school and loved it.
Janice~
# posted by
Janice : 11:27 PM
I am working on a Master's in library science and for my young adult materials class I read "Then Again Maybe I Won't" I really liked it more than I though I would - it was banned or 'questioned' at one time for the peeping scenes. One of my favorite 'young adult' books is The Giver by Lois Lowry. I was prepared not to like "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh", but I really liked it, too. There are so many good YA books I still want to read and don't have a lot of time to.
# posted by
Michele : 10:21 AM
Michele: I know, right? Sometimes I like YA better than adult fiction. Okay - often I do.
Thanks to everyone for the Kavalier & Clay encouragement. I'm gonna do it.
MissCathee: You should read Poisonwood Bible, then. I'm telling you, you'll like it. And yes, I read Wrinkle in Time and loved it so much that I went on to read everything Madeleine L'Engle ever wrote. But then, weirdly, when I tried to read Wrinkle in Time to my kids, it bored them. Damn post-MTV generations...
Janice: Funny! You and I are on the same wavelength. Today I finished rereading the second book, the Tombs of Atuan, and I swear to God, that is one of my favorite YA/not-YA books of all time.
# posted by
Gwen : 6:28 PM
Oh gosh, I miss Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary! My daughter is 13 now and reads stuff like "The Minds of Billy Milligan" about a guy with multiple personality disorder. She also just discovered Kurt Vonnegut which is kinda cool. Gone are those innocent days of Ramona and her hilarious exploits. and that superfudge stuff sigh.
# posted by
Tanya : 12:03 PM
You're my hero. Reading Then Again Maybe I Won't out loud to your kids? Wow! Didn't it have a whole masterbation scene? Oh and the prank phone calls? Man, I loved that book.
# posted by
Lex : 12:22 AM
Tanya: Has she read the one about the wheelchair-bound boy who seems to be deaf and blind to the world, but who is actually conscious of everything and pretty smart, even though his doctors can't tell? And he has seizures that give him out-of-body experiences? And his father is considering doing a mercy killing on him? I have to ask Josh the name of that one; it was pretty good.
Lex: Thank you. There isn't actually a maturbation scene. It's more like they allude to the narrator's wet dreams, and then there's an accidental erection in class that he covers with his mathbook.
I figure it's easier to read with them about it than to sit them down and say, "If you have wet dreams, go ahead and put your sheets in the hamper and put new ones on your bed," or "If you have an erection at school, use your math book to cover it."
# posted by
Gwen : 6:32 AM
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