Shift

Shift
Jennifer Bradbury

It seemed like the perfect idea. Two best friends, fresh from graduating from high school, set out on a cross-country bike trip. They even get their parents to agree to the idea. Then, sixty miles from their destination, the Washington coast, one of the friends disappears. Now the friend that is left has to deal with the questions and demands of the family who is not happy their only son is gone.

Chris is now starting his freshman year at Georgia Tech, and he’s furious with his former best friend Win for abandoning him on the road. Win’s father is rich and powerful and he loves throwing his weight around. He’s even gotten the FBI involved in the case, and Chris finds himself being questioned and being followed. He knows that he didn’t do anything to Win – that Win just took off – but can he get anyone to believe him?

Shift is told in an alternating present-time chapter/flashback chapter format. We see Chris as he’s trying to cope with what he views as his best friend’s betrayal, and we also see who he was before and during the bike trip. I think it’s pretty obvious from the beginning as to why Win disappears, but that didn’t spoil the story at all. I really enjoyed this book, even though it was read in a fit of insomnia in the middle of the night.

Evernight

Evernight
Claudia Gray

Bianca knows that Evernight isn’t the place for her. Most of the students who attend this ancient boarding school are too beautiful, too poised, too good for everyone else who just happens to be there. While I’ve never read any of the Gossip Girls books, that’s the picture I envisioned. Bianca is there because her parents are teachers and they’ve taken a job at Evernight to try and get Bianca out of her painfully shy shell.

Bianca’s roommate is one of the beautiful ones, but she is at least passably nice to Bianca. Bianca shows more interest in the students who appear to be outcasts. Immediately in the book, Bianca meets a boy named Lucas and falls heads over heels for him. They do go through some pitfalls, but eventually they become a couple. Each of them, however, is harboring a secret and these secrets could destroy both their relationship and the entire Evernight community.

I thought this book was ok. I will read the sequel if I can get my hands on it without having to buy it. I know my eighth graders will like it, but I wouldn’t recommend it for any lower grade levels than eighth.

Fade

Fade

Lisa McMann

Fade was my reward to myself for finishing White Fang. It took me 7 days to read White Fang – it took me 2 ½ hours to read Fade.

At the end of Wake, Janie accepted a position as an undercover police officer. Her captain had worked with another dream catcher and recognized the importance of having one on the force. Now Janie has been asked to do something quite dangerous – find a potential sexual predator at her school. She immediately suspects her chemistry teacher and there are some really creepy scenes with her flirting with Mr. Durbin and him letting her know he likes it.

In the midst of all of this, things for Janie are getting harder. Recovering from the nightmares other sleeping people have is more difficult. Her eyes are getting bad and she doesn’t know why. The captain has given her some files that might have answers to her questions, if only she has the nerve to open and read them.

Wake and Fade are fun to read. I’d put them as appropriate for 9^th – 10^th grade, not middle school level. I wouldn’t say the mystery in this one was difficult to figure out, but the mystery is just a side story. The real story is the romance between Janie and her boyfriend Cabel and the story behind Janie’s dream catching.

White Fang

White Fang
Jack London

The first thing I should say is that I’m not going to do a traditional review of White Fang. No summary of the book. But I am going to take the time to talk about how I felt about the book.

I should start out by saying that I didn’t set out with a good attitude towards White Fang. I don’t really like reading animal books, and I don’t care for Jack London. Why read it to begin with? Because it’s on North Carolina’s Battle of the Books list and I’m the coach for my school.

White Fang is divided into five parts – for me the first four parts were pure torture. Jack London is an excellent writer, and I could see how the book would appeal to many (my husband loves it), but where I read 9 books during Mother Reader’s 48 hour challenge, it took me 7 days to get this book read. I will say that I enjoyed the last part so the book ended on a positive note for me.

I was taken aback by the brutality in White Fang. The wolf is horribly beaten on several occasions, and he is forced to participate in dog fights. While I wasn’t necessarily surprised to find these scenes in the book, it was quite painful to read them and they were one of the reasons I could only take the book in small doses.

48 Hour Reading Challenge -- Final Post

As I said in my opening post, I have wanted to do the 48 hour reading challenge for two years. Two years ago I didn’t have a blog, but I discovered many of the blogs that I read daily through Mother Reader’s challenge. Last year the weekend wasn’t right. This year, it was – thank goodness.

This past month has been one of the most challenging professional months I have had in 20 years of teaching. For various reasons, I was in charge of all end-of-grade testing at my school. I haven’t been able to be a librarian all month, and I have missed it. Being able to spend the weekend doing nothing but reading was incredibly relaxing and just what I needed.

So here are my totals. I read and blogged for 21 hours. I wasn’t great about recording which times were reading and which were blogging but here is what I did:

Friday:
7:15 pm – 10:15 pm

Saturday:
7:45 am – 8:45 am
9:45 am – 10:15 am
10:30 am – 5:00 pm
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
10:10 pm – 10:40 pm

Sunday:
6:00 am – 8:00 am
9:30 am – 11:00 am
1:30 pm – 5:00 pm
5:20 pm – 5:50 pm

In that time I read 9 books:
London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd
Leap of Faith by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Bounce by Natasha Friend
Exodus by Julie Bertagna
Edward's Eyes by Patricia MacLachlan
Huge by Sasha Paley
Wake by Lisa McMann
Safe by Susan Shaw

Reading books in a variety of genres helped me keep the pace up -- something I have to remember for next year. I would also like to increase my total reading and blogging time to about 24 hours next year.

Finally, let me say that the hotel was the way to go. I didn’t worry about laundry or cooking dinner, or really anything except reading. Now the only sad part is I have to wait a whole year before the next 48 hour challenge.

48 Hour Reading Challenge -- Update #9

Safe
Susan Shaw

Tracy’s mom died when she was three, but she’s always felt her presence with her, keeping her safe. That is, until the unthinkable occurs. On the last day of school in 7th grade, Tracy is kidnapped, raped, and left for dead on the side of the road. Suddenly nothing is safe.

Safe is the story of recovering from a trauma that goes deep in the soul. Tracy turns away from everything she has loved (except her father) – her friends, basketball, taking long hikes. She does find solace in music, discovering a love for the piano, and a talent for composing.

Many will compare this book to Speak, and that’s valid. I think they make good companion books. I didn’t like this one as much as I loved Speak, but then I didn’t expect to – Speak is one of my top ten young adult books and it would take an awful lot to top it. I did really enjoy Safe, though, and I think my upper middle school students will too.

48 Hour Reading Challenge -- Update #8

My time for reading and blogging is up to 19 ½ hours – I’m almost at my minimum goal of 20 hours. Book #8 is

Wake
Lisa McMann

Janie is seventeen years old and she rarely if ever dreams. She doesn’t need to – she’s too busy being caught up in the dreams of anyone who is sleeping in the same room she’s in. Sound good? It’s not – she’s tired of the “I’m naked and everyone else around me isn’t” dreams and the “I’m falling” dreams, and the inevitable sex dreams, but it’s the nightmares that really get to her, that send her into a paralyzed state.

After a harrowing bus trip in which many of her classmates sleep/have nightmares, Janie is forced to admit her abilities as a dream catcher to a boy who she likes and appears to like her back – a boy that has the worst nightmares she’s ever experienced. But it appears that he is not all that he seems to be and she might have just confided in the someone who’s not worthy of her trust.

This one I really liked. I’ve enjoyed all of the books I’ve read for this challenge, but a couple (at least) were fairly predictable. While I could predict parts of this book’s plot, the premise was quite original and I’m looking forward to reading its sequel, Fade (as soon as I go buy it at the bookstore).