Until I Find You by John Irving

Where I Live by Eileen Spinelli

I was at the library for story hour with the little ladies that I nanny, and this was on the shelf. The sticker covered the author's first name, but the last jumped out at me....SPINELLI. Jerry Spinelli is one of my favorite authors, and this is told in verse-ish story poem....sold. Then I opened the book and saw that the author is actually his wife, Eileen.

Diana loves writing and astronomy, has a cozy little life (much as we all do in third grade) that revolves around her family, her best friend, and her house. Then her dad loses his job and they have to move. With phenomenal pencil drawings by Matt Phelan to accompany this gem of a succinct little story, I'm sure I'll return to read it again and revel in it's message.



"She tells us:
be brave,
be messy,
write what we feel,
tell the truth,
love who we are,
share,
keep a notebook,
take it everywhere,
open our eyes
and our hearts."

Boom! by Mark Haddon

The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Things That Are by Andrew Clements

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Songbook by Nick Hornby

The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Guess what? I don't like Jane Austen. Never have. As a college sophomore, I was convinced that I would love her and attempted to write a paper on Pride & Predjudice. Much like that paper, I never finished the book. I tried. Several times. Ditto Persuasion, which was chosen for my book club. During the second attempt, I realized I should just give up when I read 4 pages before I realized that I had read them the day before. (This almost 100 pages in-gack!)

I could go on about how I think she spends to much time on exposition and she has no gift for dialogue, or how it completely infuriates and baffles me as to why she constantly switches how she refers to the main characters....But if I did that, I might offend you. Which I did to a complete stranger at Pablo's as I was venting about this book to my friend Jess. I'm still not over it. Oh, wait. Totally over it.