Sunday, April 06, 2008

Reading Update

This is where I'm at with the stack of books I have right now. I'll skip the summaries and give you just my thoughts.

Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians actually had some chuckle-aloud moments relating to libraries and reading for me but I do wonder if kids will find it amusing. It's one of those the author talks to you and the characters have clever names (in this case prisons) and unusual talents (such as breaking things) books. Nothing really wrong with it, just not too much to really recommend it either.

What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy has more to offer but won't have a broad appeal either. I enjoy his style but this may have gone on a little too long. It ends with a discussion about the story itself. How we often want to take the story past what we've been told. How a good story makes us ask questions, sometimes just about the story and sometimes about how elements of the story relate to our real lives. The kinds of discussions I like kids to have about stories. The kind that get them into the story more than the kind they may have in school.

And I spent some time just looking at what Amazon has done with it's books because of the online catalog things. This is what struck me today. There are communities you can join to interact with others on various books topics. There are 13,256 people in the Fantasy Community with 495 discussions about 20,415 products and the last post was 10 minutes ago. There are 332 in the Juvenile Fiction Community with 184 discussions, 684 products and the last post was 1 hour ago. There are lots of ways to spin this.

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