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No excuses book blogs…

Illustration from The Seattle Times
Illustration from The Seattle Times

Please don’t ever say to me you can’t find SOMETHING to read. After we’ve exhausted the possibilities in my classroom library, and in the school’s library, you may want to check out these blogs. In reality, you should be checking them out anyway to keep up with new titles, authors you love, new authors, new genres, etc.:

Featured book blog: http://missprint.wordpress.com/

Glancing over a few of the reviews on this blog, I had the feeling that here is someone who really reads the books, and enjoys YA (young adult) literature (that would be you, kids).

One of my other favorite book blogs is: Dog Ear, which goes under the URL: http://nicolepoliti.wordpress.com/

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Super Circus Freak-y…

One of my former students LOVED the Cirque du Freak series, long before anyone had taken a bite out of the Twilight apple. If you check out the Dog Ear blog, she gives the trailer a mixed review, stating it gives too much of the plot away. I’ll leave that up to you to decide – remember, it’s always better to read the book first before seeing the movie anyway. The movie should just enhance what images are already in your mind. The casting director’s job is to find the best actors and actresses to portray the characters faithfully.

The movie’s release date is scheduled for October 23, 2009.

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Falling Down a Rabbit Hole Near You…

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

Let’s talk about some other things.

I read Alice in Wonderland when I was an adult, long after seeing the Disney animated version (though it was first released in 1951, I saw it years later). I don’t know that much about Lewis Caroll, admittedly, but I do know Alice  works as a dream, as a fantasy, a stream of consciousness. It’s crazy as a Mad Hatter, and as mysteriousas a hookah-smoking caterpillar.

Before the new movie comes out, I highly recommend you read Carroll’s version of Alice, and some of his other writing. Judge for yourself whether or not a dream-like, nutty as a fruitcake story still holds up after all this time, and under Tim Burton’s masterful visionary film making (well, my opinion anyway).

Really, now you ask me,’ said Alice, very much confused, `I don’t think–‘

`Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.

http://www.literature.org/authors/carroll-lewis/alices-adventures-in-wonderland/

http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/alice/