Announcing the Printz Project!

Yesterday, after writing my thoughts on Jellicoe Road, and deciding once and for all to join something that makes me read more Printz Award books, I discovered that there really wasn't an official Printz Challenge going on. I remembered that Jessica from The Bluestocking Society had mentioned something on her blog about a Printz Project... but when I went there, it appeared that she had just been doing that on her own.

So I said to her, "How about we do one of those challenge things together, and make it official?" Before I knew it, she had this blog created for the official Printz Project!

So if the idea of reading some Printz Award books sounds intriguing to you, please be sure to head over to the Printz Project page and leave a comment to sign up! This will be an ongoing challenge, just something to work on at your own pace, but when you do read a book, then write a review and comment with a link on the post for that particular book. You'll find posts for all the different books on the challenge blog.

Also, I think we plan on doing some sort mini-challenge to get you motivated to start! Stay tuned for that.

Anyway, here are the Printz books I've read up to this date:

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta, winner 2009

Looking for Alaska by John Green, winner 2006

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, honor 2007

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, honor 2007

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak, honor 2006

A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly, honor 2004

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, honor 2003

True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff, honor 2002

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, honor 2000

Here are the ones I have planned to read, just for starters:

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation; v. 1: The Pox Party, by M.T. Anderson, honor 2007

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, by Gary D. Schmidt, honor 2005

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II, The Kingdom on the Waves, by M.T. Anderson, honor 2009

Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, winner 2000

But I may just go to the library, see what they have, and then this whole list will change!

Anyway, we'd love for you to join us on the quest!

The Bookword Game: Voting

Once again, it's time to vote on a new Bookword. This time we are trying to come up with a word that defines this:

"a book with very little space between lines (likely, it's a public domain book/classic) giving deceivingly few pages to read"

The list of suggestions:

Magnifiglass Book from Jan
Wordpacker from Melissa at Ramblings of a Librarian
Marginally Challenged (or MCs for short) from Booklogged at A Reader's Journal
Ink-Linked Book from Joy at Thoughts of Joy

Was it a hard one to define this time? Well, these four are great suggestions I'm thinking! So get to voting! :) Remember to come back next week to see the winner and make suggestions on a new bookword.

poll by twiigs.com

Review: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Book: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Genre: YA

Rating: A

For: Fun

I hadn't heard of this book until it won the Printz Award this year. I'm discovering that Printz Award winners/honors books and I get along quite well, so I immediately put this one on hold at the library, and waited for my turn.

That turn came up over the weekend, so I dropped everything else to read it. At first, it was all a little baffling, jumping from one story to the other. However, I could tell that it was one of those deals where if you just hang in there and not worry about everything making sense, that it will all come together shortly.

And I was right! It didn't take long for things to start meshing. The main story is about a girl named Taylor who is staying at a boarding-type school on Jellicoe Road (in Australia... what is it with these wonderful Australian YA writers?) She has just been named the leader of her House. Soon, we find out that during a couple of months of the year, there's some sort of territory war/game going on between the school kids, the town kids, and the cadet kids that are camped nearby for those months. This game is pretty intense!

Meanwhile, we are getting a flashback story about a group of kids that were all really close friends at the school years before. A couple of them were in a massive car accident, and somehow, that's how they all came together.

And somehow these two stories connect, of course.

And I loved it! It was a very intricate, wonderful plot, with great characters and relationships and hard life situations, and identity issues, and all those deep pondering things that make some of these YA books so amazing.

If you're at all of the weepy sort, have Kleenexes at the ready. Wow.

Okay, enough of that or I'll start giving away too much, which I seriously hate to do!

All this has convinced me that it's time to commit to reading more Printz stuff. The complete list of winners is here and they've been around for just a handful of years, so it won't be that hard. Is there a challenge out there somewhere for that?

Arthurian Challenge: I'm Signing Up!

Don't look now, but I just signed up for another challenge. That's because King Arthur and all his friends (and enemies) are one of my favorite things. It's been awhile since I've read an Arthurian book so I figure it's time to mark off a few more from the list and join the Arthurian Challenge!

Becky is hosting this one, and it's great because there are absolutely no rules. No lists to make, no set amount to read, nothing that's too hard. Just read some Arthur books, and then post a review, sometime in the next year.

So come join us! You know you want to!

(P.S. If I do come up with a more set list, I'll add them here and link from my sidebar.)

P.P.S. Do you have any suggestions for me? What are some of the best Arthur/Lancelot/Tristan etc. books you've read? Dig deep though, I've read most of the "popular" ones... I think anyway.

Review: The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Review: The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Genre: YA

Rating: B+

For: Fun

Last year I read and loved the other book, Life as We Knew It. We had a great book club discussion about it and laughed our heads off pondering how long the current fat on our bodies would last us during a disaster!

So, this book is about the same disaster, (when an asteroid bumps in to the moon and knocks if off kilter) but from a different character's point of view. For some reason, I didn't like this one near as much as the first one. Maybe because the stories were so similar? Which is basically a family fighting to survive in the aftermath of this cosmic disaster. Maybe I didn't feel at all connected to the character this time around. Maybe it was just all too sad to take at the moment. I don't know, but I was glad to get through it.

This story was quite a bit more morbid than the other story too. Maybe I just couldn't deal with that either.

Anyway, for fans of the first one, I would still suggest that you check this one out. Maybe you'll end up liking it better!

Updated to add:

Other Reviews:

Becky's Book Reviews

Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

Shermeree's Musings

J.Kaye's Book Blog

The Sleepy Reader

Weekly Geeks 2009.13: A Poem

One of the options this week for Weekly Geeks is to "be a poet." Becky suggests an ABC poem, which I thought might be fun, but do think of what follows as more of a fun word challenge, and not a really a poem!

******************

A is for Author and all those ARCs.

B is for Books and beautiful Bookmarks.

C is for Characters, crazy and cool,

like Dudes named Darcy or Dragons that drool!

E is for Enthusiasm for books and reading.

F's for that Feeling of finally finishing.

G is for Goodreads, and a gazillion Giveaways.

H is for happy, stay-at-Home days.

I is, of course, for "It's All About Books"

J's for just do it and Journal those books!

K is for Kindle, a technology that's new,

and L is for Libraries, tried and true.

M is for Mysteries, Magic and Myths,

N's for the Next book on the list.

O is for Once upon a time,

P is for Plots and Poems that rhyme.

Q is for Quilts and Quotes profound,

R is for Release parties where Readers abound.

S is Signings and Shelves stacked with style

T's for the towering TBR pile.

U is for Understanding unusual tales,

V's for a Variety of used book sales.

W is for wonderful wonderful Words,

X is for syntaX, if spelled backwards!

Y is for YA, those books without lack

and Z's for my favorite author, Zusak!

***************

Silly and juvenile, but fun nonetheless!

The Sunday Salon: A Meme

Jessica from The Bluestocking Society, did this meme a few days ago, and I thought it would be fun (easy) to do it for The Sunday Salon today:

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?

I like trade paperbacks the best. Though hardbacks are pretty, and paperbacks are easy to read, so they are all good.

Bookmark or dog-ear?

I love bookmarks. They are fun to collect and make. Dog ear? Yuck. I can't do it.

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?

I try to alphabetize by author, sort of, on my shelf of books I've already read. Though it gets mixed up fast, since there's just not enough room to make it work, and because there's kids in this house that shuffle through things all the time. My TBR shelf (the messy one by my bed) is not organized at all, and sometimes it stresses me out. But most of the time, I enjoy the chaos.

Keep, throw away or sell?

Keep of course. Sometimes trade at Paperback Swap.

Keep dust jacket or toss it?

What? Of course keep. Hardbacks are pretty, remember? Without the dust jacket, would that be true? I think not!

Last book you bought?

I just bought a couple of books from my daughter's school book orders. Cross my Heart and Hope to Spy for me... and a Clementine one for her.

Last book someone bought for you?

I can't remember. Maybe those two a couple of you got me for my birthday! I think all the books I got for Christmas I got for myself. I can't even remember!

What are some of the books on your to-buy list?

I don't have any specific to buy list right now. I'll probably buy Shannon Hale's new book in June, and for sure the next Hunger Games book in September. Most of my buying is very spontaneous.

Collection (short stories, same author) or anthology (short stories, different author)?

Hmmmm. I'm not much of a short story person, though whenever I read them, I love them. I think I'd lean toward the collection with the same author.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?

Harry Potter. Though Lemony Snicket stuff did make me laugh at first, but then it got old.

Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?

Morning on the weekends, always nighttime unless I'm exhausted beyond words, and afternoon usually between mommy duties.

The books you need to go with other books on your shelves?

I don't NEED any more books! Wait, I need to continuously work on my classics collection! :) Yeah, that's it.

Do you read anywhere and anytime you can or do you have a set reading time and/or place?

I can read anytime anywhere, but mostly I have my set times and places at home.

Do you have seasonal reading habits?

Not really, but I do try to more in the summer.

Do you read one book at a time or do you have two or more books going at once?

Two or more going at once, usually, though one usually rises to the top and gets more of my focus.

What are your pet peeves about the way people treat books?

The above mentioned dog ear. When my kids throw them, or crush them in their back packs. When someone bends a paperback all the way around to read it. However, my husband thinks I'm rough on books, so I guess I can't say much.

Name one book you surprised yourself by liking.

I just finished Jellicoe Road and LOVED it. Not that that was surprising really, but it started out so confusing, I was beginning to wonder what the big deal was about this book. By the end, I was blown away.

How often do you read a book and not review it on your blog? What are your reasons for not blogging about a book?

Several times I've read and not blogged. Mostly because I can't think of much to say about it, or I think others wouldn't be interested, or I let too much time go by and the moment has passed.

**********

If you're in the mood for bookish meme, go for it! :)