Summer

Summer is here (finally). School is out and I have more time to reflect, write, and read. As an English teacher, it's a given that I love books, but it's hard to find the time during the school year for anything besides academic reading and the occasional quick read. But summer is my time to delve deep into books.

This is my first week off, but already I have accomplished many "bookish" things.

1. I read both Matched and Crossed by Ally Condie. Of the two, I enjoyed Matched the most. Matched is not unique in the dystopian genre - it echoes The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, and The Hunger Games. However, it is fresh, clean, and engrossing. I found several quotes that I saved for future use in my literature discussions:

"Is falling in love with someone's story the same thing as falling in love with the person himself?"

"I don't know. I don't know if he's real," Ky says. "If he ever existed."
"Then why tell his story?" I don't understand, and for a second I feel betrayed. Why did Ky tell me about this person and make me feel empathy for him when there's no proof that he ever lived at all?
Ky pauses for a moment before he answers, his eyes wide and deep like the oceans in other tales or like the sky in his own. "Even if he didn't live his story, enough of us have lived lives just like it. So it's true anyway."

 
I was excited to dive into Crossed, but it lacked the driving plot line of the first novel and the thoughtful prose. In Matched, the reader (and Cassia) are not sure who is who and what is what. Who can be trusted? How can we know truth? Crossed is most definitely a middle-series story. It's an enjoyable read, but not as engrossing as the first. I'm looking forward to Reached, which is scheduled for release this fall. Hopefully it will capture the energy of Matched.

2.  Years ago when it first came out, I used and loved Overdrive. After we moved across states, however, our new library didn't have as large of a selection and I stopped using it. This week I happened to look into it again and what a pleasant surprise! Our library now has many, many new and classic eBooks and audiobooks to download and enjoy. I was pleasantly surprised with the Overdrive iPad interface. Controls are intuitive and the app runs smoothly. I also like the option to return a book early - this was not there last time I used Overdrive. Well done, Overdrive.

What English teachers do for fun - alphabetize books!

Best bookshelves EVER.

3. I finally organized by YA & Adult Lit collections. I've slowly been adding all of my books into Delicious Library, and my goal is 75% closer after this week. In our new house, we put seven bookcases in the living room so all (ok, most) of our books could live in one central place. The bookcases are loosely organized, but this week I went the extra step and alphabetized a couple sections after cataloging the books in Delicious Library. It was such fun "finding" old books that were in odd locations on the shelves. Delicious makes it easy to know at a glance what books I own, what books I have lent out, and the current worth of my collectables (or at least the going rate on Amazon).

4. Book sale! I hit up a library in town that had a bag sale and nabbed close to 100 books for $10. I grabbed some old classics including The Happy Orpheline and All-Of-A-Kind Family Uptown. Good stuff.

5. Summer Reading Infographic. Stuck on a finding a book for the summer? Check out this nifty chart from Teach.com posted this week on Flavorwire: