Top Ten Tuesday: Books to Read in a Day

Here's a few books I that I would recommend sitting down and reading in a day. By definition, I've picked books that are short (mostly) and very engaging...and of course, books I've loved! Do you agree with me? What would you add to the list?

Top Ten Books To Read in a Day

1. Skellig by David Almond
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
3. The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
4. Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
5. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
6. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
7. The Giver by Lois Lowry
8. Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak
9. A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
10. May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

This list prompt brought to you today by The Broke and the Bookish, who continue to come up with fun list ideas week after week after week! Come on over and join us!

I'm In the Spotlight!

Hey everyone! I'm being spotlighted today over at Ann's Cozy in Texas blog. Do click on over and see what I have to say and if you'll learn something about me you don't already know! :) And say hi to Ann and take a peek at her very cozy blog. Please? Thanks to you all!

March Reading Recap

The month wasn't bad considering I haven't read at all this past week, and barely at all the week before! Way to go me! Here's the list of what I managed to fit in this past month of March:

Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose: A short play about jurors arguing whether or not a young boy is guilty of killing his dad.

The Savage Grace by Bree Despain: More adventures of Grace and Daniel as they come to terms with their new life leading the wolf pack.

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler: A letter written by a girl who is breaking up with a boy she thought was  her everything.

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley: A coming of age story starring a young kid who is faced with a terrible tragedy.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks: A compilation of several strange and bizarre neurological case studies.

Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen: An awesome twist on the familiar Robin Hood story.

The Hollow City by Dan Wells: In which we get into the head of a schizophrenic guy and so, along with him, we the readers do not know what is real and what is not. (Review to come later closer to it's release date in July!)

Promises by Carolyn Twede Frank: A year in the life a 12 year old pioneer girl living in a small town on the edge of Bryce Canyon, Utah.

My favorites of the month? Scarlet, The Hollow City and..... hmmm.... Where Things Come Back, too, I think.

Plans for April:

• read Return to Exile by E.J. Patten for a blog tour
• finish Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta before it's due back to the library.
• find The House at Tynford and join a read along
• Watership Down for book club
• read a classic, maybe A Tale of Two Cities? A re-read.
• finish Supernaturally, which I have down on the treadmill
• maybe finish Old Man's War, or maybe take it back to the library unread, dang.
• read something fun, fluffy and frivolous while on our spring break trip!

How'd you all do this month?

Bloggiesta: My Recap

Whew.

What a weekend! What a blast! I'm so glad we had so many participate in Bloggiesta! It was fun, was it not? I was able to visit a lot of people on Friday, work on my own blog a lot on Saturday, and then Sunday was a bust. I was pretty much away from the computer except for the morning chat, so that was sad, but still. I think I got some stuff done.

Here are my final Bloggista thoughts:

• Thank you to Jenni Elyse for giving me her code for my social media icons, which I just love. All I had to do was plug in my own link,  and paste the code. Now THAT I can handle! I think this is my most favorite thing I did on my blog this weekend. It's small, but it makes me happy.
• THREE Twitter chats, with bloggers all over the world! How cool is that??? Two I led (ish... they sort of lead themselves) and one Danielle led and I was there as myself. But that was really fun and we got lots of ideas for challenges for next Bloggiesta. I think the three days and the three times went over well... I hope.
• I think I added most of the participants to my Twitter follow list... that's  A LOT! (If I didn't add you and you want to be, you know where to find me! @SueySays) Twitter is a big part of the whole Bloggiesta experience, yes. I think it wouldn't work without it.
• Natasha, Bloggiesta's creator, joined in here and there too! Did you see her? Did you say hi? 
• I never did get to Google Reader or labels. I started trying to delete old email, but it freaks out the computer and I lose patience and then we both quit.
• I think I say this every Bloggiesta, but computering so very much does make my eyes burn and my shoulder/back/neck ache! 
• I've really missed reading this weekend... and the whole busy week before. I really miss it! I hope I can get back into it, but I still feel like I need to regroup and clean the house or something before I can relax and read.
• Making new bloggy friend connections is always fun, and it will be interesting to see which of the new "faces" I've met this past weekend stick around. Know what I mean? Will it be YOU? :) I hope so!
• Can I just say, the mini challenges and their hosts were AWESOME? I was totally blown away by them! Thank one and all for such a good job!
• Hosting has been fun and I can't wait to do it again in September (28-30)! And Danielle is the best hosting partner too! Wahoo! See you then! (Well, as I said above, I hope to see many of you around before then, but you know what I mean!

Bottom line: It was fun!

Bloggiesta: The Finish Line!

Hey everyone! Are we all still alive after blogging non-stop for three days? Have you learned a lot? Made a ton of new blogger friends? Fixed and changed and spruced and linked and added and subtracted all sorts of things on your blogs? I hope it’s been a blast and that you all feel the event was worth the time.

To end the party, we’d love for you to link up a summary post which can include any or all of the following:

• what you were able to get done
• how you feel the event went
• the best new thing you learned
• suggestions for mini challenges next time (and if you’d like to host one!)
• suggestions to make things run smoother
• Anything you want to tell us! Let us know!

We have two prize packs for which we’ll be drawing random winners taken from the list of summary links here on this post. If you want to be eligible to win one of these prizes, be sure to link up here! We are giving you the whole day Monday to get your post done and linked up. We’ll be picking a winner at midnight Eastern time on Monday night and the winner will be announced here on this post by Tuesday!


The prizes are as follows:

Candlewick Judy Moody Prize Pack (Includes all of the following):An extra-large Judy Moody T-shirt
A pink boa
Pink sunglasses
1 copy of Judy Moody: Twice as Moody (which includes book 1 & 2 in the Judy Moody series)
1 copy of book #9: Judy Moody Detective
Candlewick on Twitter, Facebook and Website


Walden Pond Press prize pack (Includes all of the following):Neversink by Barry Wolverton hardcover
The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander hardcover
The Fourth Stall, Part II by Chris Rylander hardcover
Juniper Berry by M.P. Kozlowsky hardcover
Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu hardcover
The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy ARC
Walden Pond Press on Twitter, Facebook, Blog

And so that ends this episode of Bloggiesta! Do give us some feedback! We want to hear from you! And be sure to mark your calendars for the next installment:

September 28, 29 and 30!

Now don’t forget to link up your summary post with feedback for us. You have until midnight Monday night (Eastern time.) Thanks for hanging out and Bloggiesta-ing with us!

Bloggiesta Update: Part One

So here I am, trying out Windows Live Writer as was suggested by Jacinda of The Reading Housewives in her awesome mini challenge post. She has some very convincing arguments for using this program. But I’m not going to commit yet! I will need to play with it and use it for awhile to be totally convinced! So, let’s so how it works for me as I give you a Bloggiesta update!
So here’s what’s been going on with me so far:

• I’ve updated much of my review archives, but am not quite done yet.  Wait! I AM done after all!
• I’ve figured out code for social media icons (thanks to Jenni Elyse,) but haven’t been able to put them on my blog because something is wrong and it won’t let me! I can’t add a gadget.
• I’ve led a Bloggiesta chat!
• I’ve commented on lots of starting post blogs.
• I’ve hung out on Twitter more than ever before in my life I think.
• I updated my blog roll
• I’ve added some stars to a review, and learned how to add html for star ratings.
• I’ve been updating Pages… but I deleted a whole bunch of work there and have to start over. :(
• I’ve tried out dlvr.it to see if I can get blog posts automatically sent to Twitter.

Anyway, that’s what's been going on around here so far. And, in order to keep trying out this Live Writer thing. I’m going to add some pictures and play around a bit and then post it. Okay? Okay!

With Live Writer	I can make a table!
Something I’ve wanted…	…. to do many times!

And here’s embedding YouTube from here instead of using the html code:

Really love Colton… anyone else?
What can I do with pictures? Let’s find out…..

Well, that was fun. Hmmm…. I think I’ll give this thing a go! But there’s lots to figure out still! Ah my spinning head!!

Review: Promises by Carolyn Twede Frank

Book: Promises by Carolyn Twede Frank
Genre: MG Historical Fiction
Rating:★★★★☆
For: Blog Tour
From: Sent to me by the author.

This book is based around the idea of promises that our heroine, Hattie, makes during the year she is 12 years old. It makes me think about all the little promises we make every day that we might not realize we are even doing! For instance, when we tell our kids we'll be there at such and such a time to pick them up... that's a promise. When we commit to helping with an assignment of some sort of another, that's a promise. When we say we'll participate in a blog tour! That's a promise too! :) It's nice to stop and take a moment to think about how important it is that we, that I, make sure I count these little commitments as big ones, to actually consider them promises, and keep them!

But let's get back to Hattie! She is turning 12 just as her family is moving to a tiny Utah town on the edge of Bryce Canyon, called Tropic. It's the late 1800's and she is just as bummed as any kid today would be about moving, and about the fact that no one remembered her birthday! She thinks she will have no friends in this new place, and in fact, when she arrives, the only girl her age is, to be blunt, a snotty brat! (Totally reminded me of Nellie Olson from Little House stories.)

But she does find some connection to the girl that used to live in the house her family has bought. She promises, in her heart, to find this girl and get to know her and bring her back her things. Will she be able to keep this promise? You'll have to read the book to find out!

The story is very sweet and heart warming, drawn from the memories of a real life Hattie. It gives you a realistic feel for what life may have been like for a young girl druing this time.... every day living, things kids did for fun, friends they made and... dealing with heartache and loss.

One thing I loved was the horseback rides she took with a certain cute boy, who really WAS a good friend, down into the Bryce Canyon! Can you even imagine letting your 12 year old kids take off on such an adventure today? It freaked me out!

Anyway, I've been to Bryce and it is an awesome place. I loved learning about what it was like for people living here before it became a famous and well traveled park.

Bottom line: I really enjoyed this fun little book!

Be sure to check out this blog tour page for more reviews on this book. There's a book trailer here if you are interested. Also, the author, Carolyn Frank, is having a contest on her blog as part of this blog tour. Be sure to enter to win a full-sized puppet stage and puppets, value of $290 by participating in this blog tour giveaway. Check out her website or blog for more details. Also, she is having a joint tour with her friend and blog tour partner, Cindy Hogan. Her book is called Protected and you can find info about her blog tour on her page here.