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Category Archives: Books
The Fenway Foul-Up: A Review by Cinco
Filed under Books, Cinco's Reviews
Review: Dead Ever After
In Harris’ final Sookie Stackhouse book, she managed to neatly tie up the saga. Going into this book, Eric was slated to marry another vamp against his will and Sam was brought back from the dead. (By the way, book 12 was really bad! And, all set up for this one.)
It seems that a fair number of long time fans of the series did not like this ending. Personally, I did not hate as much as many people did. A little weak–but not horrible.
While reading the final book, I also realized how many men Sookie bedded. She starts the series as this sweet little southern girl who is a virgin and ends with an amazing amount of lovers in a short time. I know its fiction, but good heaven woman— slow down!
***SPOILER ALERT***STOP READING NOW-Because I am going to write freely about the plot!
I love Eric as much as everyone else. And, he was barely in this book. And, Sookie did not end up with him. But, I am not truly surprised. She truly wouldn’t end up with him. He was too intense for her to be with him long term and unless she was going to be a Vamp (which she did not want) they would have to part ways. Making it forced on him was actually a nice plot move in my opinion.
As for her being with Sam, from the first book, I felt as if those two were going to get to together. I mean, they just had such a solid friendship. The only question is why it took so long. Answer: To sell more books!
All and all, I think it was a fine ending–not great, not surprising, but fine.
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Review of And the Mountains Echoed
This is another in the series of books by Khaled Hosseini
(think Kite Runner)
about people from Afghanistan. This book spans about 60 yrs and takes us from Afghanistan to Europe and the United States.
First, the things I liked. Hosseini opens the book with a children’s story about a giant taking away a man’s child. I found the story at the beginning of the book to be an amazing introduction to the book. It set the tone and provided structure for the rest of the book. Most of the book consisted of vignettes about people who are linked together when a brother and sister are separated. Without the introduction, I think the individual stories would have been too disjointed.
I also loved the language and images the author uses to tell his story. For example, In chapter 4 he writes the line”a life lived from the backseat”. It is a very gripping image of a person who is somehow afraid to strike out in life and stays behind watching others live. Again, masterful writing is seen when Hosseini writes, “…it would be the dripping faucet at the back of her head”. These lines reflect Hossieni’s ability to use words to bring forth images in a dramatic way.
All this being said, I liked the book. But, I did not love it the way I did his previous works, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns).
I am sure there will be many people are not happy with me for only giving 3 stars. But the others were better in my opinion.
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Mom Camp Day 3: Rainbow Day (Not in a Gay Pride kinda way)
Even I have to admit that yesterday’s Mom Camp was hurting. Amazing enough The Princess and Cinco both gave it pretty decent ratings (6 and 5 out of 10) . I gave it a 2! Today is going to be better and cooler and way more fun! I promise!
Its Rainbow day (The Princess’ idea). We start with a rainbow breakfast of all fruit. The kids picked out the fruit yesterday — Strawberry, Oranges, Pineapple, Grape, Blueberries, Blackberries (I know the blackberries is cheating a little but oh well!)
Our activities for the day:
- Oil, Water and Color: Borrowed from Highlight’s Website (I loved that magazine as a kid!) we did a project where place food coloring in oil add the oil to water and watch the colors sink down into the water. I thought this was going to be awesome…. but our projects sort of fizzled. The water mainly just changed color and we had to do the experiment about three times before we got it to look ANYTHING like the example.
- Milk Rainbow: Borrowed from Come Together Kids , we did a milk experiment with food colors, milk (has to be whole milk– which meant I had to make an emergency run to the store last night–we only have Almond Milk in the house) and dish soap. The kids add food coloring to the milk, nothing really happens. Then they add the dish soap and the soap causes the fat in the colored milk to move away from the soap. We actually used both almond and whole milk to see what the difference. The almond milk was a dud, but it was useful for the kids to compare the two kinds. We recorded our observations as well.
- Old C
D Art: I found this in the book
You take old CDs and cover them with acrylic paint. Then you swirl the paint around making designs and hang it up as art. So easy and simple even the four year had a great time doing it!
- The final fun project was making our our faux-tie-dyed-t-shirts. I borrowed this one from The Art Girl Jackie.
Super fun, really easy. You need sharpies, T-shirts and rubbing alcohol. Both kids enjoyed this little project very much. And, although you might think it would be messy with a 4 and 7 yr old, it was pretty much a snap!
As for books and movies… I came up blank on the movie with a rainbow theme, other than Rainbow Bright, which I thought Cinco would not appreciate. Although, he does tend to be pretty tolerant when it comes to little girl movies.
Books:
Over the Rainbow by Judy Collins: It’s basically just the song written out with some lovely illustrations added. But the book does come with a CD of her signing the song and we listened to that in the car on the way to Costco.
Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors by Sue Kassirer.
And, that brings us to the end of the exciting Rainbow Day activities!
Filed under Books, Mom Camp 2013
Mom Camp: Day 1 (Bored by 6 pm… its going to be a long summer!)
Today was sort of an unofficial Mom Camp. We had an award ceremony of Cinco and then a day full of action packed fun.
8:30 — Awards
9:00 — Donuts
9:15 — Swim Play Date with a friend
12:30 — Movie Epic and Hot Dogs
3:00 — home — free time
4:15 — Book Review, Math practice and worksheets
5:00 — Make CornBread
5:30 — Dance Party!
6:00 — Bored, (Are you kidding me??? its only day one!!!)
6:30– Dinner
7:00 — Cuddles and movie with Dad
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Cinco’s First Book Review
Pirates vs. Cowboys by Aaron Reynolds
It is a fiction picture book. This book was about pirates and cowboys that were attacking each other. My favorite part of the story is when the half-cowboy, half-pirate yells out P.U. to the other characters. It was very funny! I liked this book and think girls and boys would also like it because it is funny.
Filed under Books, Cinco's Reviews
The Book Seller of Kabul: A Voyeuristic View into Another Way of Life
The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I realize I’m a bit late to thepartyreading this book. Nonetheless, it appealed to me and I’ve finally gotten around to doing it.
I wish there was a 4 1/2 star rating. I very much enjoyed the book but it’s just not at the five-star superior level.
It’s a fascinating story that provides a snapshot into the life of one Afghan family.
The experience of women in the family is particularly startling, in comparison to our modern western way of life and values. The chapter where the author describes the women simply as Burkas going through the daily actions of their lives underscores the lack of identity provided to these women. More so even than rights, this culture truly stripes women of a sense of self.
Western European women women were subject to the laws favoring husbands, treated as chattel, and could suffer physical abuse. But they seemed to at least have more identity. They oversaw castles and manners when men were at court, as nuns they were able to escape male control, and female townspeople often engaged in their husbands trade as assistants or their own trades brewing beer or as midwives. Marriages were certainly property and status transfer arrangements but don’t seem to be nearly as identity destroying as those described in the book.
Reading, or in my case listening to the book, makes you wonder at how strange these people seem– as if they are some kind of aberration. But, the people who are really the aberration are us. Going over all the people in the world throughout history very few have really given women the sort of freedom we have now.
The book also provides an examination of some of the strange and hypocritical social dynamics that arise from this culture. Men who engage in perverse sexual relations because they take advantage of system rigged against women. The intolerance of female sexuality but a tolerance for homosexual behavior.
There is a voyeurism that captures you while reading allowing you to sneak behind the “iron Burka”.
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Summer Reading
One of the worst days in my childhood summer was when the dreaded summer reading list arrived in the mail. It came in a manilla envelope and seemed innocent enough until my mother opened it and took out the reading list, “Optional Summer Reading List”–what a joke. About 25 years ago, the list included such acclaimed books as Hatchet and Island of the Blue Dolphins— both of which I could not stand! Let me just say that books for young readers have come a long way since my childhood. In fact, the horrible scene with the black flies from Hatchet is still with me. Ugh…. With summer just around the corner, The Booky Mom is getting ready to make summer reading for Cinco and The Princess at little less traumatic! So here goes…
- Let’s Start With a Bribe. The children love yummy worms. So why not turn simple yummy worms into book worms? I am going to fill a mason jar with our “book worms” and each child can have one “worm” each time we sit down for our reading time.
- Summer Reading Programs. Our local library, and probably yours, offers a summer reading program for kids 0- 11. Read 5 books and earn a book buck, which is good for a book at the library used book store. Barnes and Noble is offering a program as well. Read 8 books, fill out the required form, take it to the store and get a free book from a pre-selected group. Of course, I cannot forget the Scholastic Books reading challenge.
- Using our Mom Camp Theme Days to Keep Reading Interesting. As part of our Mom Camp Theme Days, we will also be choosing books that match the theme. So, follow our theme days for ideas of coordinating books and projects that will hopefully make reading less painful.
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Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell
Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I have really tried with this series. I mean, come on I got all the way to the third book. But I have to say, now I am done. I have nothing against the main character and the author’s writing is fine. But none of the plots really grab me and I find myself muddling through all the books asking when they are going to be over! So now for me at least, they are over! Too many boring battle scenes…. Not enough heartfelt emotion… The only part I did like was the Ben Hur slave moment.
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The Booky Mom 