The 1% Challenge

I just joined the 1% Well Read Challenge, which will be a little more than the usual challenge, since I only have until the end of February to read the books. I'm looking forward to it, though.

Southern Reading Challenge Completed

I finished Mudbound last week. It was a great book, but I think I need to read it again. I get the sense that there is much more to the story than meets the eye on a first reading. I finished the book while we were in Sunriver, where there is a fabulous bookstore. Thus, I went from Mudbound to The Mysterious Benedict Society. That ended up being too much of a culture shock, as the Benedict Society is not exactly packed with things to think about. I think I'll wait awhile and read it to the Shrimp.

Southern Reading Challenge #2

I just finished Garden Spells (#2 on my list), and I really enjoyed it. It is a light, sweet book, and perfect for summer. It was also a good break between Giant and the one I'm reading now (and loving, by the way), Mudbound.

I get the impression that EVERYONE is loving Mudbound, based on the fact that our library has five copies of it, and there are at least 10 holds on each copy. Not that I wouldn't have bought the book for myself anyway--who am I kidding here--but that gave me a good excuse to go out and buy the book. In hardback, no less. When was the last time THAT happened?

Come to think of it, it was my mother that bought this one. But I would've, if she hadn't.

Southern Reading Challenge--One Down

I finished Giant (Edna Ferber) last night, and loved it. It is so hard to stop living with a book and move on to new characters, new style of writing, etc. Still, I think I can manage :-). I've now started Garden Spells, which seems much lighter. It's almost Alice Hoffman-ish, in that it focuses on women with mystical (or at least somewhat out-of-the ordinary) talents. Lighter, but still good.

Reading With The Shrimp

The Shrimp and I have had our struggles with his reading out loud--"I'm having fun right now. I don't want to" . . . "NO!" . . . "Let's do it after dinner" etc . . .. Sometimes I think the book I've picked out is too hard, sometimes it seems too boring, sometimes he just doesn't want to do it. Late last week, I decided to take a page out of his teacher's book (no pun intended), and just go with Horrible Harry.

During the school year, he read HH Goes to the Moon, HH and the Green Slime, HH and the Purple People, and HH at Halloween. In a quick review of Amazon, it would appear that there are enough HH books left to get us through the entire summer. So, on Saturday, we started HH Moves Up To Third Grade. The Shrimp reads a page, I read a page. We did chapter two tonight, and it works great. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he stays interested--it sure is hard to find things that are interesting AND at the right reading level.

Southern Reading Challenge

My preliminary list for the 2008 Southern Reading Challenge is:

• Giant, by Edna Ferber
• Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen
• In The Land Of Dreamy Dreams, by Ellen Gilchrist

Since I'm already halfway through Giant, I might add a few more titles before the end of summer.