Saturday, March 26, 2005

Click Here (To Find Out How I Survived the Seventh Grade

Vega, Denise.
CLICK HERE (TO FIND OUT HOW I SURVIVED THE SEVENTH GRADE)
Meet Erin. Going into 7th grade and finding out her best friend will not be in the same classes. Erin and Jilly have been best friends since Kindergarten and Erin has never really had to faced any situation without Jilly's input. Erin begins to keep an electronic blog to write down her feelings. Of course, she will not publish it. She just keeps it on disk and shares her most secret thoughts. But 7th grade doesn't turn out so bad after a rough start. Erin makes new friends and gets involved in the school's new Intranet Club. She finds that people even come to her with problems when it comes to computer code. But the boy she likes choses Jilly over her and things start going wrong. Through a series of errors, Erin's life is about to get a whole lot worse.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

The Shadows of Ghadames

Stolz, Joelle. THE SHADOWS OF GHADAMES

Life at the end of the nineteenth century Libya is one of separation of the sexes. Malika is on the verge of adolescence and she begins to see how things are changing for her and her brother. While she is restricted more and more to the home, her brother is now banned from sharing the women's space and must now work with his uncle.
The childhood play is over. This is a world that may seem very strange to us in the 21st century but it is a world that makes sense to Malika's mother. But the arrival of a wounded young man makes Malika begin to question her limited opportunities.

B for Buster

Lawrence, Iain. B FOR BUSTER
For 16 year old Kak, joining the air force was a good way to escape his abusive father. He had dreams of flying and being a hero in the war. Stationed in England in 1943, Kak soon found himself flying ops over enemy territory. But it was not as exciting as he had believed. It was down right terrifying. He didn't know how he could go on flying. Surely no one else was as frightened as he was. But then he met an unusual man. Bert was the keeper of the
homing pigeons that were used to send messages back to base from the airplanes that went on the missions. Bert seemed to understand what Kak was feeling and was a source of strength for him. Join Kak as he learns that war is not all he had imagined it to be.

Bollywood Babes

Dhami, Narinder.
BOLLYWOOD BABES
The Dhillon sisters are back with a new adventure. Forced to participate in endless school fundraisers due to the alleged indescretion of the principal, the girls are excited to help with the latest idea. The school is hosting a Bollywood party. Both Auntie and Mr. Arora are working on the planning. But the girls get a great idea. They have found out that Molly Mahal is living nearby. She was big in the 1980s but hasn't done any Bollywood films in a long time. But the girls can't help but think what a big draw a real Bollywood start would be. So off they go in search of Molly Mahal. What they find is not at all what they expected. Actually, nothing goes as expected.

I'm a grandmother again!

My daughter just had her second baby. I am so thrilled! It's another boy -- and another red head. Now she has two little red headed boys! His name is Jordan Everett and his big brother Aiden is not too sure about it but he'll adjust.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

New book is out!

My newest book has just been published! Using literature in the middle school classroom is published by Linworth and came out this past week. I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think!

March update uploaded

I have uploaded the March update to Booktalks. I haven't indexed it yet but that is coming. I've been working on the manuscript for my new book and that has taken most of my extra time. Now the manuscript is just about finished so I should have time to do other things -- like read!! I have hundreds of books waiting for me to read and it has been hard letting them lie there are I spent hours on the new book. But with the help of a few snow days, I've done what needed to be done and have time to get to those new books!