Bloggin 'Bout Books Blog

Well hey everybody. I'm back! I'm alive! I'm in Boston(ish)! And I missed a couple weeks of Top Ten Tuesdays, but I'm just going to let that go, and hop back in with a review. For one of my classes for my MA, I got to reread The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. It's definitely been more than a decade since I read this series. It was interesting going back to it because when I originally read it, I had no idea  it was "supposed to be" about Christianity and the story of Jesus and God and all of that allegory. I simply didn't see it. I actually almost got into a fist fight with a kid in 10th grade when he brought it up. I was so 100% not aware of or reading it for that reason. This read-through, I obviously had a better grasp of the intended (? -- but I'm going to go with yes because Lewis writes a lot of religious works) allegories. Honestly, it was a hard book for me to start reading. A large part of that is because...

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is probably one of the best books I've ever read. I first read To Kill a Mockingbird in my sophomore year of high school. And it was amazing. I loved it when I read it then. But almost 10 years have passed, and my book club decided to read it, so I sat down Thursday and read it all over again.  And I think I loved it even more this time. There's basically three parts to this story: the first and main part is the childhood of the main character Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. This book was originally published in 1960, but it was set during the 1930s. Scout is a hell of a main character to come out of that time combination. She's sassy and relentless. She's damn near fearless. And she is exactly the opposite of what good society considers a little lady to be. The second part of the story is the tale of Scout's neighbor Boo Radley. He's a shut-in who has become more or less a town legend. Nobody has seen him i...

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen might just be my least favorite of her novels.  I've read Mansfield Park before. During my junior year of college, I took a class on Miss Jane Austen, and we read all of her novels. Some of them I was surprised to find I enjoyed. Some of them I find that I dislike less now that I've had some distance between us. And some of them I just generally dislike. Mansfield Park falls into that latter category.  So a brief synopsis (with some spoilers if you find Austen's works unpredictable). Fanny Price gets adopted by her rich aunt and uncle. She has two snotty girl cousins and two boy cousins: one who is snotty, one who is the love interest. After she spends six years growing up with the cousins (from 11 to 17) there are a snotty brother and a snotty sister who move in down the way. The brother (Mr. Crawford) toys with Fanny's cousins hearts. The sister (Miss Crawford) originally wants to catch Fanny's snotty boy cousin, but...

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett may be a little dated, but it's still a darling story to feed children's imagination. Elmer Elevator is a young boy who finds an alley cat. The alley cat is a little scrawny and sad looking so Elmer takes him home. Elmer's mother is not fond of the alley cat, so Elmer decides to run away. He speaks with the alley cat about his love of flying and the alley cat tells him about a dragon that he knows who is living life in captivity. Elmer decides to rescue the dragon. This book is very short (only 77 pages) and broken down into chapters. While it does have a pretty solid amount of pictures, they are fairly detailed, dated line art so the pictures may not appeal to some young children. However, I think this book would make a great bedtime story or reading time story where a book needs to be parceled down into smaller chunks. There are 10 chapters of about 3 pages a piece, so it's already broken into manageable chunks. It...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll  is a very entertaining classic. I think everyone knows the story of young Alice who follows a White Rabbit into the world of Wonderland where everything is just slightly (or significantly) strange. For some reason, every time I've picked up Alice's Adventures before, I've put it down without making it more than 10 pages or so. But this time, I managed to finish it. It's a quirky sort of book, but I enjoyed it. It did make me think of The Phantom Tollbooth (here's my review of that classic), but I preferred Carroll's novel to Juster's. There's some great play on words and delightful misunderstandings because of homophones and characters not paying attention to each other. I think this is a worthwhile classic, but I don't actually have that much to say about it. Middle Grade March Count: 5

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is not my favorite "classic" novel I've ever read. I've often heard this novel grouped with the novels by the Brontes and the Austens, however I think it falls very short of either of those. I didn't find any of the characters very relateable until the very end. Maxim is aloof and distant. The Narrator is really nothing short of pathetic. And Rebecca sounds like the very worst sort of person imaginable. Even the side characters are turn-offs. The only character I felt was a decent person was Ben. Now, I know you all are screaming, Hayley, your favorite book is Wuthering Heights!! How is that any different?? Well, I feel that the characters in Wuthering Heights have redeeming qualities (primarily their love for other people). In Rebecca, the love errs on the wrong side of infatuation, and it's very disturbing as it appears to be very one-sided. There were several quotes I liked: "We can never go back, that much is ...

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster  is a very thought-provoking children's classic. To be honest with you guys, I resisted reading this book for ages. When I was in I think fourth grade, I was reading Harry Potter (as one does, y'know) and all these adults I would talk about it with were like "Oh, you should read The Phantom Tollbooth!" And I looked at a copy of it at the library and was like hell no that sounds stupid and nothing like Harry Potter. So I didn't. And to be totally honest, I only sort of regret that choice. I regret it because I think this book would have meant a lot more to me if I'd read it when I was younger. I regret it because I think my enjoyment of this book was less than if I had read it when I was younger. But I don't regret it because I didn't like it that much. Like it was okay .   There were some entertaining characters and interesting situations, but nothing that really made me go, oh yes this  is the book I...