Bookmarks

Bookmarks are a fun and important aspect of all types of reading. Although I myself don't use bookmarks to hold my place in books when I am reading for fun, I still have a minor bookmark obsession. By minor, I mean I absolutely adore bookmarks. There are several different types of commercial bookmarks I would like to discuss.

First off, store bought bookmarks can be of several types
1) metal traditional
2)paper traditional

3)clip

4)magnet

Then I like to categorize by the way the bookmark looks
1) philosophical quote

2) pretty picture 

3)commercial advertisement/promo

4)cheesy read books bookmarks!!!!!!!

The corny "pro-reading" bookmarks are my favorite and I have a very large collection. Answer my poll... what do you like to use as a bookmark?

Authors

Although there are many "one hit wonders" in terms of authors, some deliver consistently.
In my opinion, these authors are ones who you can count on to deliver an enjoyable read.
*Mary Higgins Clark- Though her books are extremely similar, so much so that I have read almost everything and can't keep them apart, her works can be counted on to provide entertainment in terms of the suspense/mystery genre. In particular, I enjoyed Where are the Children and All Around the Town.
*Tamora Pierce- Tamora Pierce is a good read for fantasy. Her series include The Immortals Quartet, The Song of the Lioness, Protector of the Small, Trickster, and Beka Cooper. These books are labeled YA but they are quick and enjoyable reads.
*Robin Mckinely- She has numerous other good reads besides The Blue Sword. She writes a more adult style of consistently high quality fantasy.
* Sarah Dessen- This author is consistent in her mediocrity. However cliche and feminine her books may be, they always deliver a good read if you are looking for mindless literature that still has good character development and an engaging plot.
*Dan Brown- His books are always action-packed and suspenseful with frequent surprise endings.


Though I am sure there are authors I am forgetting, this is all I can think of at the moment.

Buddha Boy

For a Teacher Education class, I recently read the short fiction book Buddha Boy by Kathe Koja.
This book was not at all what I expected. It is very short and small, despite it's lable as YA(young adult) fiction.I'm not sure what I did expect, but it wasn't the suprising philosophy that I found in this book.
The premise of the story is that a boy, Justin, who is content to live within the status quo, learns about acceptance and not to judge a book by its cover when he befriends the new kid, Jinsen, a scoial leper.This tiny book reinforces its own message, because I found suprisingly though-provoking content in a book that I expected to be boring.
My only complaint was that I felt the book ended somewhat abruptly. However, seeing as it was only 117 pages long, I would definetely recommend this book. For only several hours of reading, this book is unquestionably worth your time.
Want more info? Here is the Authors blog. . . http://www.kathekoja.com/blog/ya-novels/

These are a Few of My Favorite Fiction Chapter Books

In list form and no particular order- I may elaborate and review later...

*Harry Potter 1-7
* To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
* The Blue Sword by Robin Mckinley
* The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
* The Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan
* Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
* In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
* The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
* Witness by Karen Hesse
* His Dark Material Trilogy by Philip Pullman
* Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton

My Life as a Reader

So I thought I would get started by talking about my life in terms of reading. When I was a child I loved to be read to. I would wake up early in the morning and, gathering as many picture books as I could possibly carry, I would stagger out into the living room where my mom would be up and ready to read to me until my brother woke up and disturbed us. Learning to read in Kindergarten and first grade marked a dramatic shift in my attitude toward books. Frankly, I hated everything about having to read for myself. For all the crying and drama I made around reading you would think my parents and teacher were making me put my stuffed animals in a blender. The Montessori school I attended didn't help matters either. When we moved and I was put into public school in second grade, my independent reading ability took off. I went from struggling through Hop on Pop to reading the first four Harry Potter books by the time I reached third grade. I read everything I touched. In fact, I still have with me in my dorm room a "Reading is Cool" pennant I won in third grade for having read the most books in my grade. Suffice to say, books became, and still are, a source of entertainment, knowledge, comfort, escape, mental stimulation, mindless pleasure, and anything in between.  When I entered high school my free time dramatically decreased and so did the volume of books I read. Now that I am in college, the time I have to spend with books has decreased even more. As such, I don't have time to waste on books that I don't enjoy. I am going to review the things I read in an attempt to save others from wasting precious reading time on bad books.