:lol: Possibly!

:lol: Only regional to my dh! Yes, it is a reference to Candy Crush, which I was sure I would never play but when I can't bring my mind to focus on anything else, it is mind-numbingly addictive. Dh always asks me if I'm "crushing the candies." :laugh: Were the retellings in Dutch or English? Care to share the titles? I have this on my shelf! I found it at a thrift store in almost perfect condition. I've forgotten that I wanted to read it!

Ooh, the green flash! That's very Pirates of the Caribbean! If The Castle in Transylvania is not spoken for, I would be interested! I had planned for Aly to read this at the end of last school year, but we never got around to it! I thought it sounded like a neat story, very similar to the Michael Vey books by Richard Paul Evans, which Aly loved. :lol: We have seen Jaws way too many times for me to be comfortable in the water! We had a similar experience in the Gulf when Skye was young. Dark thing swimming up the beach, people jumping out of the water, scared the heck out of me. It turned out to be two very large leopard rays. I read Jaws in high school. Aly and I just read about Catherine the Great in our history. I'm going to add this book to my massive tbr list. I found her story fascinating! I liked how you described your week :laugh: Our first few weeks of 9th grade have been a little rocky. We will be doing IEW in co-op so I'm glad to hear a favorable review. I really need to get a good look at it since I'm the one that's going to be teaching it. ;) For Aly Worldview & Latin have been the rocky parts. Both will be co-op classes but both had work to begin before co-op meets. We've had some tears over it. It's about time you got back to Robert Jordan! I can't believe it's been almost two years since I did my year long read of them! I, like Rose, have reread them each time a new book came out, so I'm very familiar with the first books. I finished painting my family room the day the new furniture came. I actually had to put the second coat of trim on after the furniture was delivered. Painting is exhausting!! Aly and were left to get the old furniture out of the basement and promptly got the loveseat stuck in the stairwell :rolleyes: :lol: For at least twenty minutes. :glare: It took a hammer to get it unstuck. It was kind of funny. I also painted Aly's room. So I've made very little progress on To Kill a Mockingbird. I've fallen into bed exhausted and ready to do nothing but crush the candies. Book club is Thursday so I'm hoping to finish it.

Thanks! Aly is more mature at 15 than Skye was. Part of that is that Skye has Asperger's and struggled in some of those social areas, and part of it is the fact that having a sister six years older matures you faster :rolleyes: I am an only child. I knew when I had kids that they would be different. I had no idea just how different they would be!!!! It's crazy! But so fun! Ok, I'm embarking on a crazy home project week! :willy_nilly: We bought new furniture for our basement (tri-level) today and I just can't let it come into the house without finally doing something about these white walls. Sooo, I'm going to paint our family room tomorrow morning so it will look nice with the new furniture. I really STINK at painting so this is going to be a crazy endeavor. One I hope I can pull off. I also have Aly's room to paint this week! I must be crazy!!

Thanks! We took down her bunk bed today. She is getting her room redone for her birthday. No more Pepto Bismol pink bedroom. :laugh: She's going gray walls and red and black accents. Ok, I'm trying to see what I missed here! I read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead right after reading Hamlet a few years back. I found it utterly chaotic and confusing, far from the amazing that you described it. I double checked to make sure we were talking about the same book :laugh:. So what am I missing? I didn't enjoy it at all.

Is it by Daniel O'Malley? I'll add it to my TBR list, thanks! I hope you have a great holiday!

Another week has passed without me finishing a book :glare: I am enjoying To Kill a Mockingbird. Technically, it is a reread since I read it in 8th grade Honor's English. Some of it is familiar. Some, not so much. I am hoping to finish it this week since much of my planning is now behind me. Today is my baby's 15th birthday. She has brought such joy and laughter into our lives, and we are so thankful for her. She has reminded me that she is not her sister. She wants to take Driver's Ed and is counting down the days till she can get her temps. (Though that is six months away). We've celebrated with bang bang shrimp and pavlova, and I'm totally stuffed! Happy Labor Day tomorrow!

Some of the past challenges have been what Robin has had going on here at the BaW. Most come from the 2015 Reading Challenge that my friend found online this year. So May was "read a play." June was our "read a classic romance" month because it was light and fluffy for the start of summer. July was "read a favorite book from your childhood" month because one of our members was heading to Alaska for the birth of a grandchild and would be reading to the other grandchildren. August was "read a book you were supposed to read in school but didn't" month to celebrate going back to school. September is "read a banned book" month (nodding here to Stacia :D ). This is exactly what we do! We usually have a notebook to write down books that the others have loved. It's also nice to have friends who say, "I loved that book but Ang you wouldn't like it!" Or, "You have to read this!" Book club was mostly my idea so I get a lot of say ;) I'm also the one who doesn't have the broadest reading mind (Shocked aren't you :lol: ) so picking it by challenges makes it so I don't have to read some horribly sad or out of my box book :lol: Actually it's worked out really great. If one of us doesn't get to a challenge, we still have stuff to discuss because at least we've read other things. So everyone can participate all the time.

:glare: I lost a post! So I guess I'll just sum up... Been crazy busy planning Aly's Freshman year, my co-op classes, and pre-school for Skye's little charge. That plus a sinus infection has left no time for reading, really. I'm hoping that I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird and still rereading Harry Potter 5. My IRL Book Club picks a "challenge" for the month (much like Robin does here) and we read within the challenge. That way we don't all have to read the same book. We discuss the books we have read when we get together. I have a feeling I would be very poor at reading a book someone else chose :lol: We spent most of the day at a Colonial Fair which was so much fun (thought it is extremely hot here). Skye made her own costume and dressed the part :)

Happy Anniversary!! Dh and I celebrated our 25th earlier this month! Time DOES fly! Safe travels and have fun!! No new books read, I'm still neck deep in school/co-op planning. I'm in the middle of Harry Potter 5. Aly picked The Three Musketeers to begin the year with. I'm debating if I want to read it with her. I'm not sure what I will read next.

I enjoyed Treasure Island earlier this year. I'm a huge fan of Pirates of the Caribbean and found some of the similarities fun. I admit to finding the dialogue a little hard to follow sometimes. Punctuation seemed to be in weird places. But overall I thought it a good book. Dd14's perspective - she thought it was ok and didn't dislike it.

Warning! - Skip this review if you are a huge fan of The Red Badge of Courage :lol: I finished “A book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t.†The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane is the only book I ever remember not actually reading in school. I was a follow the rules kind of girl, but just could not get into this book and ended up just bs-ing my way through the assignments. So 26 or 27 years later, here I am actually reading it. By chapter 3 I knew why I had never read it in school. The language of the book is a bit bi-polar with Crane writing these flowery passages one minute and then back-woods slang the next. In fact, I felt that he was trying to use as many similies and metaphors as possible. To me, the subject matter just did not lend itself to his flowery descriptions. I thought it was pretentious and overdone. The flow of the story itself was choppy and hard to follow. At one point, I actually looked up the end of a chapter in another copy thinking that there was a typo or a page missing. Nope! I felt the same way about the ending, too. And then there is our main character, Henry. To quote another book…his mood swings gave me whiplash. I didn’t find his illuminations enlightening or deep, only whiny and mean spirited. The whole thing was chaotic…chaotic storyline, chaotic character, chaotic language. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THIS IS A CLASSIC. Even Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-5 flowed better than this, and his book was all over the place. GLAD TO BE DONE with it! Oops! Forgot my quote: “An’ allus be careful an’ choose yer comp’ny…I don’t want yeh to ever do anything, Henry, that yeh would be ‘shamed to let me know about. Jest think as if I was a-watchin’ yeh. If yeh keep that in yer mind allus, I guess yeh’ll come out about right.†That makes book #32 for me.

I finished the second in The Maze Runner trilogy, The Scorch Trials. This one was less enjoyable than the first book. I really don’t like it when there is so much deception that you have no idea what is real and what is not real. It kind of made me grumpy. Also, I am still not connecting with the characters. It’s unusual for me to keep reading a book when the characters are just meh. However, I do want to know how it’s going to end. On a side note, the Cranks remind me of World War Z. JUST OK. And then I finished up the trilogy with The Death Cure. I will admit to being a little frustrated with the beginning of this book. More of the same was what I kept thinking. About halfway through, the story started coming together, and I admit to being fully engaged. This book brought out some emotions in me that ran a wide gamut. In the end, I thought that it was a strong close to the series. (Though I admit I wondered early on if they were headed in that direction for the conclusion, it just went a crazy unexpected path to it). GOOD ENOUGH TO RECOMMEND TO A YOUNGER AUDIENCE, one who wouldn’t get annoyed by the lack of vocab and character development. :D

There is a reason I did not read The Red Badge of Courage in high school :glare: :ack2:

idnib :grouphug: :iagree: I get so annoyed going into the library anymore. Every time I go looking for a classic, I can guarantee they don't have it but they have shelves of YA crap and Manga books. :rolleyes: Jane - glad ds went to the ER. Aly had poison ivy on the face once. It was alarming how quickly she swelled.

The book that stands out in my head that I "sneaked" would be my mom's copy of Shanna by Kathleen Woodweis. I've been thinking about the book(s) that I have reread the most. The first that popped into my head was The Belgariad by David Eddings. I started reading that series, and the subsequent The Mallorean, in the 90's and have continued to do so these past 25 years. The first couple books of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Tiime series also have quite a few rereads on them, at least 14 or 15. My brain is too tired to think about the name game right now but I'll be keeping it in the back of my mind.

Well, The Maze Runner books are keeping me wanting to know what happens next. Though I'm a little tired of the trials. At least they are quick reads ;) LOL on your Red Badge of Courage story. I don't know remember how I bs'd my way through but I did. I will be sure to give my review of it so you are prepared :001_tt2:

Nope! I am lucky to ride in the front seat of a car anymore without getting sick. And even that vanishes if we get caught in a lot of stop and go traffic or lights. My dd's finished quite a few books while traveling this summer. I was envious ;)

Last week I picked up The Maze Runner by James Dashner because it was a book Aly wanted me to read this year. I try to read at least one book that the girls pick each year. The Scorch Trials, the 2nd in the series, comes out at the theater in September so I thought now might be as good a time as any. If I hadn’t already seen the movie, I may not have stuck with it. The language and vocabulary…shudder!! The characters…simplistic. However, I did stick with it. I didn’t really connect with any of the characters but maybe one (Newt). And I certainly can’t say that the writing was very good. But through all of its faults, I still wanted to know what happens next enough to pick up the second book. (That certainly didn’t happen with Divergent, even though it was a better written story, I didn’t care what happened next!) TWADDLE FOR TEENS lol! That's book #29 for me. I'm still two behind! I'm already well into The Scorch Trials and will probably finish out the trilogy before reading my challenge for Book Club. The challenge for the month of August is to read a book you were supposed to read in high school but didn't. The only book I didn't actually read in high school was The Red Badge of Courage :ack2: I only skimmed it to answer the questions. Here's hoping that some maturity may make it more palatable this time around.

:grouphug: mum2, feel better!

Jenn - Happy Birthday!! And loved the youtube video (I finally got a chance to watch it today!). Do you know The Devil went down to Georgia or Rocky Top :laugh: Robin - Happy Birthday to your boy! Love his big eyes in the second picture and his Jurassic Park tee!

Yes it was The Lost Sisterhood. And yes, I loved it! I also loved the same author's book Juliet. Are you enjoying A Beautiful Blue Death? I read the first book of the Magnificent Devices series, Lady of Devices. I didn't realize the second was out. Robin - LOVE the baby photo! What a cutie patootie! Jenn - Looking forward to listening to this. Right now I'm introducing my nephews to Star Trek The Next Generation. The younger one (11) bought a Next Gen. book but doesn't know any of the characters. I'm keeping them for a week so I told him we would remedy that :laugh: Ugh, I'm very annoyed about multi-quote not working. Oh, Mum2 - I really enjoyed Remarkable Creatures! Ali in OR - I'm glad you liked Dear Mr. Knightley! And does The Martian have a lot of bad language? I, too, thought the preview looked good and was interested in reading, but I seem to remember someone mentioning it was pretty rough. But I may have got it confused. I'm pages from finishing The Maze Runner.

:hurray: :iagree: :thumbup: :hurray: Preach it sister! I absolutely LOVE what you said! And I so TOTALLY agree with you! I have seen kids connect and interact with books when left alone to read them and just sit and discuss afterward how they feel about the book and taking in how others felt about the book. I have taught three lit classes (Shakespeare, Austen, and Narnia) and every. single. time. the kids are engaged by this method.

So I finally settled into my comfort zone…a Georgette Heyer book. I was able to finish Arabella before we left for Boston. Another sweet Heyer tale was just what I needed! I got a little bogged down with Arabella’s brother’s story. It seemed a little out of place to give so much detail to it. I was ready to get back to the rest of the story. I truly enjoy the humor that Heyer weaves into her stories. More often than not I find myself grinning or chuckling at the characters, and Arabella was no different. ANOTHER SWEET HEYER READ. While waiting for the girls to be done hanging with their friends, I picked up a graphic novel at Books & Co. to read for my Reading Challenge. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi was definitely out of my comfort zone. I found myself wondering why I hadn’t picked up a Manga book. I don’t know how I feel about it. I think I’m still processing. One thing is for certain, my modern history is lacking more than I thought. The ostrich in me doesn’t want to dwell on some of these things. I would have understood it more if I would have understood the history behind it, but I was 8-10 when it was happening and don’t remember. It will certainly provoke some researching. INTERESTING, BUT NOT SURE IN A GOOD WAY. I may have to come back and rate this one later. These were books #27 and #28 so I'm a little behind.

Could I count The Historian as a mystery or thriller? I think so! I'm updating my Reading Challenge. Also for the Reading Challenge, today I read my "graphic novel" while waiting in Books & Co for the girls who were hanging out with friends.