Book Quote

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. -William Styron, novelist (1925-2006)

Lady of the Forrest by Jennifer Roberson

A Christmas Carol (Audio, unabridged) Charles Dickens

The Search for Belle Prater (Audio)

AL Capone Shines My Shoes

This is the second in a series by Gennifer Choldenko. Joe and I really liked the first book, Al Capone Does My Shirts, which tells about the microworld of living in the small town of Alcatraz Island which had a laundromat, wood shop, dress shop, grocery store, cinema, etc. for the families of the guards and administration of America's top high security prisoners. The story is told from Moose, Matthew Flanagan, a twelve year old boy whose father accepts a job on Alcatraz to earn money to put Moose's big sister, Natalie in the Esther P. Marinoff's School for the Autistic.

Product Description

Moose and the cons are about to get a lot closer in this much-anticipated sequel.

It’s 1935. Moose Flanagan lives on Alcatraz with his family, the other families of the guards, and a few hundred no-name hit men, con men, mad dog murderers and a handful of bank robbers too. And one of those cons has just done him a big favor.

You see, Moose has never met Al Capone, but a few weeks ago Moose wrote a letter to him asking him to use his influence to get his sister, Natalie, into a school she desperately needs in San Francisco. After Natalie got accepted, a note appeared in Moose’s freshly laundered shirt that said: Done.

As this book begins, Moose discovers a new note. This one says: Your turn. Is it really from Capone? What does it mean? Moose can’t risk anything that might get his dad fired. But how can he ignore Al Capone?

(From Amazon.com)

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Dial; First Printing edition (September 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803734603
• ISBN-13: 978-0803734609

Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey. This title does not fit this book which is rated for an upper YA fiction novel. Joe and I both enjoyed this funny, sometimes thoughtful book. A chocolate bar in the afternoon kind of read.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A romance involving a high school girl and a handsome vampire may sound a little too familiar, yet this first novel quickly bursts ahead of the pack of Twilight-wannabes. Down-to-earth mathlete Jessica Packwood is completely horrified when, a few months shy of her 18th birthday, a Romanian named Lucius Vladescu shows up on her doorstep, claiming that he and she are vampire royalty betrothed to each other since infancy—what's worse, her adoptive parents verify the betrothal story and explain that her birth parents identified themselves as vampires, too. Fantaskey makes this premise work by playing up its absurdities without laughing at them, endowing Jessica with a coolly ironic sensibility and Lucius with old-world snobberies that Jessica's girlfriends find irresistible. Jessica's laidback parents serve as foils for imperious Lucius (Can I ever again be happy in our soaring Gothic castle after walking the halls of Woodrow Wilson High School, a literal ode to linoleum? he asks sarcastically); a scene at a steakhouse where the vegan Packwoods meet the carnivorous Vladescus is first-rate comedy. The romance sizzles, the plot develops ingeniously and suspensefully, and the satire sings. Ages 14–up. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Graphia (January 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547259409
• ISBN-13: 978-0547259406

The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 9 Up–Zusak has created a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesels story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (September 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375842209
• ISBN-13: 978-0375842207

Warning: This book is an upper YA read: swearing, profanity, sexual inuendos, war, violence, etc. described.

This was a hard book to read and get through. It is quite lengthy and also is leading and yet foreshadows death and suffering. It also spotlights some good that comes out of very hard circumstances: friendship, loyalty, compassion, strength, integrity, faith.