Summer Lovin'

Girlfriend Material
By Melissa Kantor

The cover of this book just screams “summer beach read.” I actually avoided this one for a bit because it looked a little too cute for my taste. (Yes, I’m working to get past that whole “judging a book by its cover” thing.) But after a man came into the library and asked for a copy for his daughter recently, I was intrigued enough to flip through the first few pages.

Summary
A summer on Cape Cod sounds great, right? Generally, yes, but unfortunately for Kate, she’s been dragged to the coast against her will as part of her mother’s need “for some me time” that arises from a dispute with Kate’s father. Though Kate’s summer had been going great in her hometown of Salt Lake City, she suddenly has to fly east with her mother to stay with their family friends, the Cooper-Melnicks, and their daughter, Sarah, whom Kate hasn’t seen for several years. Though Kate begins the journey with a happy fantasy about bonding with Sarah and spending the summer living it up east coast style, her dreams are quickly dashed when she realizes Sarah isn’t too keen on the idea of having a new BFF for the summer.

Luckily, Sarah’s friends aren’t as icy as she is, and Kate soon meets the handsome Adam, with whom she begins a lovely summer romance. Determining how to maintain the easy breezy affair, however, becomes a challenge, and Kate has to ask herself many questions about what she wants and needs in order to move forward and remain true to herself.

Worth staying up past bedtime?
Rating: Good Night’s Sleep

Overall, a great, light read, especially for summer. I read this book shortly after the spring semester ended and it provided a great mental break. Kate was a good character, and I like that she was both smart and cool. She’s an aspiring writer, and makes some references to classic literature throughout the book, which I appreciated. I also found her incredibly relatable when she was debating what to do about Adam. Her internal dialogue was so similar to how thoughts and situations play themselves out in my head ... I’m guessing I’m not the only person who does this. That being said, there were a few times when I just wanted her to SHUT UP and do something! This girl can spend a lot of time considering the “what if’s?” of a situation, and after a few occurrences of “maybe when he said ‘see you later,’ he meant it like ‘whenever we run into each other.’ Or maybe he meant he’d find a way to see me later ... or maybe ...”* I had to resist shaking the book to make her stop debating and start doing. But in the end, I was happy with how things played out, and definitely enjoyed this for a good, light read!

Recommended for ages 13 and up.

*Not actual dialogue from the book.

Creating Happy Summer Readers!

I was preparing to write a little blurb about summer reading when I stumbled on this great post about nurturing a summer reader on Shelf Consumed, a blog by a lovely school librarian in the North Texas area. This post hits all the right notes, and I especially love the list of ways to “nurture your reader.” There's great advice in here, whether your summer reader is six, 16, or 60!

I’ll be back with a sweet summer reading story soon ... reluctant readers converted to eager readers! Love it!

Dance, Dance, Dance

Prom

by Laurie Halse Anderson

As I started typing this review, I realized I have yet to share with you an earlier title by author Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak, which is an amazing and powerful book. I’ll put that on the to-do list! For now, onto Prom ...

Summary

Ashley Hannigan is a high school senior in Philadelphia. She comes from a lower-middle class family (members of which drive her insane, though she really does love them all), is dating a guy who dropped out of high school the previous year, and she has no plans beyond high school except to find a job and live with her boyfriend. Oh, and she could care less about the senior prom, even though one of her best friends is on the planning committee. But when the faculty advisor for the prom is caught stealing the money for the event just over a week before the big night, Ashley gets pulled into the maelstrom of activity that is the cobbling together of details, donations, and bribes of arranging a new prom.

Though she’s a reluctant participant, Ashley can’t let her best girl down. And somewhere in the process, she begins to reevaluate some aspects of her life she didn’t think were all that important before. By the time prom night rolls around, Ashley has made some discoveries about herself and her life that no one saw coming.

Worth staying up past bedtime?

Rating: Early Morning Hours

Seriously, go out and get a copy of this book. For anyone who has read Speak, well … this isn’t the same, though it deals with some tough teenage issues. I actually saw the cover and did a double-take because it looked too cutesy for the Anderson I know. However, as soon as I read Ashley’s dialogue, I knew I had found another gritty but admirable teen character. When we first meet her, Ashley has already resigned herself to a future of low-expectations. The examples that have been set for her defined her course, and she doesn’t see herself being any different. But when she gets pulled into helping her best friend save the prom (a task she is literally pulled out of bed for and bribed to do), she begins to realize that some of the stupid teenage ideals that she has shunned aren’t as meaningless as she once thought. And as she helps pull together a seemingly impossible event, Ashley learns that she may have more talent than she thought, and dares to see her future in a new light. She's a tough girl, and there were a few times I wanted to smack her across the back of the head because she couldn't see her own worth, but Ashley has a good heart and I was rooting for her from the start.

Recommended for ages 14 and up.

And Here's to You, Mr. President

All-American Girl

by Meg Cabot

I feel like I’m a little late to the Meg Cabot party. I’ve read several of the Princess Diaries books (love ‘em!), but nothing else from this lovely author. When the spring semester ended a few weeks ago, I was desperately in need of some fun and light reading. I grabbed a copy of All-American Girl from the library for a trip to D.C. and it was just the book I needed to kick off my (slightly) slower-paced summer!

Summary

Samantha Madison, a high school sophomore at a private school in Washington, D.C., seems like your average, tortured-artist type teenager. She wears all black and shuns any type of conformity or popular teenage stereotypes. Samantha is also an artist, and one day after an art class (which she was forced to take because her parents thought she needed an outlet for her creative energy), she unwittingly throws herself into the national spotlight when saves the President from a would-be assassin standing on the street corner next to her.

Suddenly, everyone - from news reporters to the popular kids at school who never used to give her the time of day - wants to talk to her. While Samantha’s older sister, who happens to be a member of the popular crowd, loves the newfound celebrity, Samantha is more concerned with other issues: namely, how to convince her sister’s boyfriend, Luke, that he is with the wrong Madison girl. There’s also the issue of her confused and jumbled feelings about fellow art class student David, who just happens to be the President’s son.

Worth staying up past bedtime?

Rating: Early Morning Hours

I’ll be honest - I was worried this book would be a little too cheesy when I first picked it up. I am so glad I was wrong! Samantha is hilarious, and the book is peppered with her very entertaining “top ten” lists that relate to her current dilemmas and irritations. Cabot made the book fun and attention-grabbing, and found a good balance with the plot of saving the President’s life from being too over-the-top corny. I think Samantha was a relatable character, and I loved reading about a teen living in D.C. - I don’t think I’ve encountered too many characters in that city.

Happily recommended for ages 12 and up!

Just A Few More Minutes! Pleeeeease?

Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late

by Mo Willems

I fell in love with Mo Willem's work when I read Knuffle Bunny. The art is funky and fun, and the story is both hilarious and relatable. His other books are a bit more off-the-wall, but still enjoyable. I picked up a copy of Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late while at the library recently, and I just had to share it with you all.

Summary

As with some of Mo Willems' other pigeon books, Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late speaks right to the reader. We (the readers), have been asked not to let the pigeon stay up late. The pigeon immediately begins to bargain and distract, denying any signs of sleepiness ("that wasn't a yawn! I was stretching!"), and asking about other activities, like having a hot dog party, or watching an educational show about birds on television instead. He eventually wears himself out and falls asleep on time.

Worth staying up past bedtime?

Rating: Early Morning Hours - Well, technically it would be hard to stay up until the early morning hours with a picture book, but this one is worth a few extra minutes beyond bedtime! The pigeon's attempts to stay up are perfectly in tune with what a child might try to do, and his sleepy yawns were convincing enough that I began to yawn as well (although I admit to being completely affected by seeing ANYTHING yawn - if my dog yawns, it makes me yawn, no joke). Definitely a great laugh before bedtime!

Recommended for any age, particularly those who are reluctant to go to bed.

Eye of the Tiger (Mother)

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

by Amy Chua

I did this once, and I’m going to do it again. I want to tell you about a book that’s not for kids, but about them. As with Hungry Monkey, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a memoir from a parent.

Have you all heard of this book? It caused a bit of an uproar when it came out. For anyone interested in parenting styles and the ways people can and do raise their kids, I think this book is a must-read. Detailing her technique of Chinese parenting, Amy Chua made a lot of people mad when her book hit the shelves, mainly because she is sooooo strict with her kids. The bits and pieces of her parenting style I learned from early reviews were rough: constant music practice, no sleepovers, no grades lower than A’s. I was curious to read it, if only to find out how extreme Chua really was. I finally got around to putting it on my request list at the library, and when it arrived, I surprised myself by tearing through it in less than four days.

Summary

Amy Chua is the oldest daughter of Chinese immigrant parents. She was brought up “the Chinese way” which means that she and her sisters were held to the highest standards (and more) by her parents. Only perfection would do, and even then, they could probably do better. While it was a tough upbringing, Chua was grateful for it, and attributes much of her success (she’s a highly successful professor at Yale Law School, as well as the author of a few other books) to the values and strict standards she was raised with. So when she became a mother, Chua wanted to raise her girls in the same way. Her Jewish-American husband agreed to let her handle this aspect of their children’s upbringing, and so began her traditional Chinese parenting regime.

Battle Hymn revolves around Chua and her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu. From the beginning of their young lives, Chua lets her girls know she expects nothing less than 110 percent from them. They practice their instruments for two hours every day; they do not attend sleepovers; they do not participate in extracurricular activities; they do not earn any grade less than an A. The list goes on and on. Chua does not sugar-coat her story, and is completely honest about the difficulties she encountered, both with her children and other members of her family. She is opinionated and demanding, and has no problem playing the bad guy. What is surprising about her story are the realizations she slowly makes, and the questions she is forced to consider when her parenting standards begin to show no sign of affect on her youngest daughter.

Worth staying up past bedtime?

Rating: Good Night’s Sleep - Yes, I did plow through this book in four days, but it wasn’t one that I had to force myself to part with in order to turn out the light. It was a relatively quick read, but a fascinating one at that. Chua is an interesting person. I was alternately shocked by her firm and uncensored opinions and curious about the ideas behind such an extreme parenting style.

As my only experience in this area is on the daughter side of the mother-daughter relationship, I cannot say how I view this as a parent. But it made me consider some of the ways in which American parents allow their children to behave and the standards they do (or don’t) hold them to. Whether you think Chua’s methods sound insane or somewhat reasonable, this book provides great thinking points for anyone who has or works around youngsters.

Recommended for anyone who has/teaches/works with kids!