Tag Archives: Jennifer Donnelly

Baked in a Beautiful Pie

“But people forgive each other. It’s like a dance.”

“I wish I knew how to do that dance,” Adri said.

“Oh,” Lily shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that you can’t do it. I think you’re thinking the whole thing is a lose-lose. Like, what if someone actually likes you? That causes all sorts of problems. Then each time you see them, you have to try and keep them. And then even if you manage that, you lose. You end up losing. Even if you go through all the work of accepting someone and occasionally looking like a fool in front of them and then figuring out if they can accept you and you can forgive each other for everything you screw up, you lose them eventually.”

Posted in Coming of Age, Read the World | Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Not a Title in Sight

It’s the end of January. I’m down to the final days of the month, and I have a problem. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big problem – it’s probably not even a problem at all. But in the world of my classroom, it’s a problem of monumental proportions. It could derail the reading we have going on. I have no Schmidt’s Pick title for February. None. I’m empty. Dry. Barren.

Posted in Independent Reading/SSR/Reader's Workshop | Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Same Auld Lang Syne

As 2010 draws to close, I, like so many others, am taking stock of the year. The good, the bad, the ugly – it’s all there laid out in front of me like books on a shelf for me to view and ponder. Overall, this has been a pretty good year. I don’t know if it’s the best ever since I have more years in front of me. It certainly wasn’t the worst. There were moments of pure joy and moments of heartache. Moments of peace and moments of strife. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything, which helps when I set ridiculously unrealistic goals or expect to be able to control everything including the uncontrollable. So as I sit next to a fire that is slowly dying reflecting on a year that is quickly dying, I can say it was a pretty good year.

Posted in Random Musings | Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , ,

Complexifier or Simplifier?

I recently reviewed Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly, and in the beginning of my review I praised the novel as well as the author for being smart and trusting the reader – not talking down to her. I found Revolution refreshing for this reason. It was the first YA book I’ve read in a long time that not only trusted the reader to be a reader and follow the plotline and characters, but it was also the first book I’ve read in a long time that complexified the reading experience.

Posted in Random Musings | Tagged as: , , , , , ,
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