The Great Reading Challenge!

The great reading challenge is going on now. I've been trying my best to read & listen to books as much as life will allow me. Yesterday consisted of a lot of errand-running (so I listened to an audio book in the car) and I read the adult book I have at home because I forgot the children's book at work that I was planning on reading. So, here's where I stand so far:

[Adult] Book: _House Rules_ by Jodi Picoult -still reading
Audio Book: _The Giant-Slayer_ by Iain Lawrence -finished
Audio Book: _Falling In_ by Frances O'Roark Dowell -still listening
Book: _Redwall_ by Brian Jacques -still reading

Not that great, but there are hours to go! I'll check in later.

The Music of Dolphins by Karen Hesse

The Music of Dolphins by Karen Hesse


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Told in journal format, this is a story about a teenage girl who is found in the ocean off the coast of Cuba by the Coast Guard. They name her Mila (Spanish for ‘miracle’) and discover that she has been living with dolphins for most of her life. She is placed into a special hospital/school where she can learn how communicate and behave like a human.

Mila’s progress is clearly documented in her journal entries; her entries start off very short with little vocabulary, then grow longer as she learns more. She likes her doctors/therapists very much and is happy where she is…but she also desperately misses the ocean and her dolphin family. At times she feels trapped living in the special house; she is always under someone’s supervision and unable to live freely, the way she did in the ocean. She has learned so much about humans, but will she ever really feel like she fits in?

This was a very interesting story. I think it’s remarkable that someone who lived wildly for so many years, not clearly remembering being around other humans, would be able to progress so rapidly with her speech and human behaviors. Readers who enjoyed this book about a wild child might also enjoy the classic The Jungle Book (Kipling) or Passager (Yolen).

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Small Steps: the Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I'm currently listening to an audio book called The Giant Slayer (Lawrence) and it's about a girl whose friend is in the hospital being treated for polio in the mid-1950s. This made me interested to learn more about polio and how others who had it were treated.

In the children's department at my library, I found that children's author Peg Kehret (Terror at the Zoo, Danger at the Fair) had polio and that she wrote a book about her experience geared toward younger readers.

I really enjoyed this book; it was a quick read, as she tells her tale like a fictional story. She includes some pictures, too.

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The Mysterious Howling (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Book 1), by Maryrose Wood

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Miss Penelope Lumley, having graduated from Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, interviews for a position as governess at Ashton Place. Strangely, Lady Ashton doesn’t provide much information about the children during the interview; in fact, she seems to avoid talking about them at all. But before she knows it, Penelope is signing the (very generous) contract and is hired!

During the interview and while she’s getting situated in her new room, Penelope hears a strange sort of howling. Having a soft spot for animals, she decides to follow the noise to see if she can locate the source of the poor creatures. In the barn, she finds who is making the noise and she is quite shocked—three children are howling! It turns out that Sir Ashton found the children while hunting—apparently they were raised by wolves—and he decided to keep them. He and Lady Ashton are only recently married, and she has no desire to raise three feral children…hence, the hiring of a governess. Now it falls to Penelope to teach the children how to speak English, wear clothing…basically, how to be human beings! This will be no easy task, but Penelope is not a quitter.

This is a great book! It’s very entertaining—readers will enjoy reading about the wild children and how Penelope lovingly handles them. This is the first book in the new series The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place. Readers who liked this book might also like The Willoughbys (Lowry) or The Collected Tales: Nurse Matilda (Brand).

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The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children by Keith McGowan

The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children by Keith McGowan


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
When Sol and his younger sister Connie move into a new neighborhood, they soon face a couple of unnerving facts: they have a real-life witch as their neighbor, and their parents are trying to get rid of them (by “donating” them to the witch so she can eat them!).

Sol and Connie have every intension of avoiding the witch, but they are too late realizing that the children’s librarian is her ally!  While Connie waits for Sol to be finished on the computer, the librarian catches Connie so she can give her to the witch!  Sol must put his own fears aside so he can focus on finding and rescuing his sister.

A contemporary spin on the fairytale Hansel and Gretel, this is a very entertaining book! The regular chapters are interspersed with entries from the witch’s journal, so the reader gets a feel for the witch’s point of view.  Readers who enjoyed this book should consider reading Dahl’s The Witches, Buckley’s The Sisters Grimm series, or Mull’s Fablehaven series.

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The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
In this fast-paced story, Gratuity (Tip) Tucci shares her experiences during the year that aliens land on—and take over—the earth.  The day the Boov (the aliens) land on Earth is called Smekday (named for the Boov captain Smek).  They decree  that they own all of the United States—except for Arizona, which is where the Boov send everyone in the U.S.  The humans are provided with rocketpods to get there, but Tip decides to take her chances and drive the car (although she doesn’t have her license) so she can look for her missing mother on the way.

When car trouble forces her to pull over near an abandoned convenience store, she encounters a Boov that—for some reason—calls itself J-Lo.  He agrees to fix Tip’s car if she lets him accompany her to Arizona…it turns out that the Boov are after him for a mistake he made with radio towers.  To the surprise of each, Tip and J-Lo become friends.

I enjoyed this book very much.  Tip is a likable character; the way she reacts to J-Lo and the crazy adventures they face together is entertaining.  And readers will be sure to like J-Lo, even though he’s technically on the same side as the bad guys.  Readers who enjoyed this alien adventure might also enjoy The Doom Machine (Teague).

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The 48-hour Book Challenge

This year, I'm going to try to participate in this: The 48-hour Book Challenge! Basically, all one does is read as much as possible in 2 consecutive days, June 4-6. Coworkers have done this before and it was a lot of fun for them!  It'll be challenging to read a lot while working at the service desk, but hey, it's my first time doing it so I don't yet have any personal goals to break!


For more information about this event, visit here.