Reading and more reading

No new news here: I LOVE to READ!

And for this week/next week, I have been reading like crazy.  Besides that, it provides a most needed distraction from my "real" work!

First, I finished PREP, which I found out is not a YA book, but is one that has been published as a crossover novel, between adult and YA.  Not bad, though the book dragged (it's over 400 pages) and I almost started disliking the narrator's whiny (sp?) voice...but, it ended and I have no hard feelings toward Lee Fiora.

Then, I dove right into Jeff Stone's first book, TIGER, which is a part of a five-book series entitled THE FIVE ANCESTORS.  If any of you remember the article Prof. Stearns gave us on his books, this is the first book he has written.  Though it is definitely written toward a younger audience (the narrators are between 11 and 13 years old), I was captured by the prose and the great contrast the author placed between the relatively old setting and the mostly-modern language.  His descriptions are awesome, to say the least.  CHECK this one out!

Then, because I promised I wouldn't bash the girly girl books anymore without first reading one of them, I picked up the first GOSSIP GIRLS book.  Alright, it WAS exactly as I thought: narrated by an anonymous girl in the clique at a private girls' school for the rich.  BUT, it was just what some girls need, this book and other like it.  Remember reading trashy romance novels by old authors like Dannielle Steele?  Well, this is the next generations' trash with a high-tech, super advertising flair...not that I would automatically think of these books for girls in my classroom, but no, I would NOT deny them their right to disappear, escaping into the unreal world of the gossips.  And besides, I cannot NOT say that I didn't enjoy it myself...

Finally, I read McCormick's short novel CUT, which was disappointing considering my past experience with a friend who had the same addiction (but worse than the novel Callie depicts her own tryst with the obsession).  It was a short read and an interesting slant on the topic...not as real as it could have been...but then it never really is.

See y'all later.

Dawn ;)

Comments

[Karen]

As for not trashing the girlie books, Dawn, so get kickin' with the critical skills you've got to "read" the gossip girls in so many ways that expose popular culture to careful scrutiny for discussions of identity, representation, social constructions of class and gender, etc. etc.

Same with CUT...it changes everything when we read these texts as fertile ground to do "cultural" work w/kids.

This work is empowering because it allows to to step outside discourses that construct them (and which they constuct) and see how manipulative, or reductive or how disempowering the messages in these texts are.

Wow, that was my TH night lecture summed up in a short blog post. Way to go Stearns. KES

[Chris]

Um....and Sammy and Juliana Hollywood?
lol
c

[Jesse]

Dawn, stop reading amazon.com reviews and pretending like you've been reading all of these books. ;-) Btw...Did they kick you out of the Children's book section at B&N yet? My money is on yes. It's not cool to give kids coffee.

[Karen]

Jesse's just a spoiler--jealous is all Dawn. Don't pay him any mind! I know you're not lurking in the children's section of B&N....I see you over there browsing the magazine racks. And I'm right there w/you. KES

[dawnlarson]

Jesse,

I can see we're going to have fun Tuesday compiling the writing...how would you know I was in the childrens' section if YOU weren't there also?!

(you think you're funny, don't you?)

Dawn

[natalie]

Dawn, wait till you hear my presentation in the research class..I've got PLENTY to say about the "trashy" romance genre! Thanks for all the info about YA books...in my class, we get surprisingly little information about anything contemporary....
Nat