The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

by Mark Haddon.

I read this book because I saw it recommended on a friend's facebook wall. Random, I know. But I googled it and thought it sounded interesting so I went and checked it out. This story is told from the point of view of an autistic boy, and the author has spent over a decade working with autistic and other special-needs children; this story is the result of many of his experiences.

I also was intrigued because my cousin is autistic, and as I read the story I could genuinely see some of my cousin's thought processes represented in the manner the story was told, and also the logic for behavior chain-reactions. There are a few F-bombs dropped along the way, just as a heads up.

Christopher is a boy who finds his neighbor's dog dead in the neighbor's front yard in the middle of the night. He is understandably upset, and when the neighbor comes outside she jumps to the conclusion that Christopher is the one who killed her dog. What follows is a narrative of events resulting from this initial incident.

Treasure Hunt for Free Books, gift certificates and more...

Dear Readers,

TWO GREAT PROMOTIONS,

31 CHANCES TO win free stuff!

This is real because I personally know the author Laurie LC Lewis and she sent me the link...

Happy Hunting!

Welcome to Our “Summer Treasure Hunt:

Dig for Clues and Win” Contest!-
Some friends and I have put together an exciting contest to kick off your summer! Beginning June 1st, we will be giving away a prize a day. That’s right: 30 days, 30 treasures! There should be something for everyone: romance, mystery, historical, contemporary, and young adult fiction; children’s picture books; a variety of non-fiction; and just to liven things up even more, we’ve included a few exciting non-book prizes: a free 30 page manuscript edit, for you aspiring authors out there; an e-bay gift certificate; and a gift-certificate for a Vinyl Expressions Quote.

How can you win one of these fabulous prizes? Follow the rules below:

SUMMER TREASURE HUNT RULES:
You can send in an entry for each day’s prize, or only for those prizes that strike your fancy. The rules are simple:
(1) Go to the website or blog indicated for each day, find the answer to the question for that day, then email the answer with your name and mailing address to jdipastena@yahoo.com.
(2) Please send a separate entry for each day and type the day you are entering in the subject line. (Such as: June Treasure Hunt, Day 1; June Treasure Hunt, Day 2, etc).
(3) Deadline for each day: Midnight PST
(4) The winner will be contacted and announced on the day following the deadline.
You do not have to wait until the designated day to enter. You can start sending in your entries right now, or begin entering at any point along the way. And check back here each day between June 2nd-July 1st to read the names of the winners.
If you have any questions, feel free to email Joyce DiPastena at jdipastena@yahoo.com.

And now…let the treasure hunt begin!
http://www.laurielclewis.com/promotions.html

The Romanov Bride

by Robert Alexander


Historical fiction set in Russia, early 1900's, just as the Russian Revolution was breaking out. Each chapter switches between two perspectives. We hear from Grand Duchess Elizabeth, the sister of the last tsarista in Russia, Alexandria (wife of Nicholas), as well as the fictional Pavel, who was right in the midst of the revolutionaries. I liked how you could see the events unfolding from the viewpoints of both the Romanov family and peasant life. It weaves through historical events and shows how Ella's and Pavel's lives come together in a dramatic ending.

It does drop the f-bomb three times, though, which I hate. So. . . beware. I ripped out a page and grabbed a sharpee for the last incident!

It's told in a compelling, honest, story-weaving kind of a way. The author did a great job of giving both characters a real voice. It felt like reading a diary or listening to them tell a story around a fire. Definitely makes me want to read the author's other books about the Romanov's.

The Nazi Officer's Wife

I sit here as I sit with you today in my favorite cafe on the square in the city of Netanya by the sea in the land of Israel, and an acquaintance stops to chat and says, "So tell us, Giveret Beer, what was it like then, during the war, living with a Nazi Party member inside Germany, pretending to be an Aryan, concealing your true identity, always fearing exposure?" I answer in a little voice that is dazed by its own ignorance, "Oh, but I do not know. I think I do not remember this anymore." My gaze wanders and loses focus, my voice turns dreamy, halting, soft. It is my voice from those days in Brandenburg, when I was a twenty-nine-year-old Jewish law student on the Gestapo's "Wanted" list, prentending to be an ignorant twenty-one-year-old nurse's aid.
You must forgive me when you hear this small voice from then fading and faltering. You must remind me: "Edith! Speak up! Tell the story."
It has been more than half a century.
I suppose it is time.

I have been meaning to read this book for a while now after a few recommendations. This is the autobiography of Edith Hahn Beer and her experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust. Her general tone is one of sorrow, bent pride, and bitterness. It is amazing what she went through and she is grateful for the life she was given afterward; but overall, as compared with other witnesses of this atrocity, she is not hopeful in her message, she is merely telling her story. I can understand why she suppressed the experiences for nearly 50 years. This is the only biography I have read that truly evoked some of the emotions and smells I experienced while visiting Dauchau and conversing with survivors.

Similar genre I have read:
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
Christian German sent to concentration camp for involvement in Resistance
The Diary of Anne Frank
Jewish girl's diary of hiding during the holocaust
Yearning for the Living God by Enzio Busche
German man and soldier who finds that God has never abandoned him
A Distant Prayer: Miracles of the 49th Combat Mission
American fighter pilots and their experiences as POW

The Neverending Story

by Michael Ende. Translated by Ralph Manheim.


This story is one that I fear gets overlooked because of people's memories of the movie that came out oh so long ago. I passed it in the library last week and decided to check it out again. I hadn't read it for about 13 years. I was worried it might not live up to my expectations, but it did! This story is every bit as good as I remembered, which is a relief! The book is 27 chapters long, and the first chapter is really a sort of prologue. The first letter of the first word of each chapter is gigantic and made into a picture, just like with old-fashioned story books, and the second chapter's letter is 'A' and the very last chapter's letter is 'Z' which is kind of fun.

Also, I would like to say that the very first Neverending Story film ends after the chapter beginning with 'L' and the second movie is pretty much made up and doesn't resemble the second half of the book at all. Also, I seem to remember being scared of a wolf in the movie when I was younger. That wolf is barely a character in the book at all. That is how much the films are edited-down/altered versions of the story. Of course the book is better---it always is.

Bastian Balthazar Bax stumbles into a bookstore one day and sees a book called the Neverending Story. He spontaneously steals the book, and is so overcome with shame about it that he decides he can't ever go home and face his father. Instead he hides in the school attic, and spends the rest of the day reading. The more he reads the later in the day it gets, and the more engrossed he becomes. The crux comes when he realizes that his story is part of the story he's reading, and unless he makes an important decision the two stories are destined to continually repeat themselves, over and over, in a type of Groundhog Day phenomenon. Bastian makes a hard decision, and soon finds that his life will never be the same again.

Inkheart

by Cornelia Funke

I LOVED the beginning, got a smidge bored just before the middle, and then zoomed through the entire second half.
It tells the story of a man named Mo and his daughter Meggie. When Mo reads aloud, characters from the book come out to stay - but always trade places with someone from our world. It's basically a run-in with some dark characters that used to be in the book he read from. There's danger, intrigue, a little bit of romance, as well as some good friendships. A few interesting plot twists and enough creativity to keep you thinking.

Twilight

by Stephenie Meyer.

All I'm going to say is that in my opinion, the book is
way better
than the movie.

The End.

Princess Academy

by Shannon Hale.
As one of my friends put it, when she recommended this to me, "Princess Academy will delight your brain."


She was right. This book was absolutely delightful in every sense of the word. Its got all the trappings of a fairy tale princess story with a good dose of Woman Power. I couldn't recommend it enough, whether you are ten, twenty, or seventy. And I've got to say, I had no idea how this story would end. It isn't predictable at all.

Miri is a girl who has always felt out of place in her village, high in the mountains. Everyone in the village works in the quarry to mine linderstone to barter with the traders, but her father won't let her take one step in the quarry without any explanation. One day the king's messenger arrives to tell the villagers that the king's priests have divined that the next princess will come from their village. As a result, all girls of a certain age must attend a princess academy, effective immediately.

This is quite daunting, because the villagers know nothing of outsiders, let alone how to read, write, or any of the custums of the rest of the country. Miri looks at the princess academy as a chance for her to actually be good at something, and a means of proving her worth. Miri learns a lot at the princess academy; perhaps most importantly how to be brave in the face of danger.

The Doll in the Garden

By Mary Downing Hahn.


Ashley and her mom move into the upstairs of an old house midsummer. An old woman, Miss Cooper, lives in the bottom half of the house. In the evenings, a white cat always comes into the yard and meows at the house. Ashley's neighbor Kristi tells her that the cat is a ghost and only appears during the summer. Ashley notices that the cat doesn't have a shadow. One day Ashley and Kristi are messing around in the back garden when they unearth a treasure which starts the ball rolling in their ghostly adventures with the white cat.

This book is a quick-read. It doesn't waste time with inconsequential characters, and the plot moves forward fairly quickly. At the same time, the reader doesn't know how it will end. I read the whole book in less than an hour, and even though it was fast it was still enjoyable. I'd recommend it to girls in fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. Or adults like me that still get a kick out of children's lit. I think I'm going to go check out more books by this author, apparently she's got quite a few ghost stories published that are pretty good!

Ender's Game

I just finished reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

I've been meaning to read this book for the past 10 years and just haven't gotten around to it. Boy, was I missing out! This book is definitely one to read and remember.

Ender is a boy named Andrew Wiggin, who lives with his family thousands of years in the future. Aliens have attacked earth twice over the recent centuries, and the earth's government is concerned that a third attack is imminent. As a result, they scan young children to monitor whether they would make good leaders to champion what well may be the last stand to preserve humanity and life as we know it on earth. Ender is believed to be someone who would be a good leader and so is taken away from his family to attend Battle School somewhere in space. Here the students are divided into teams to learn skills and strategies as they compete against other teams to win "battles."

The book reads really easily---even though it takes place thousands of years in the future it flows easily and the focus of so much of the story is on the human interaction of child to child or adult to child, and how our relationships with each other shape our choices and determination to either assimilate with the majority for the sake of peace, or to stand tall individually because in the long run being true to ourselves will give us internal peace.