Who are you, and how do you Armchair?

a long way gone. Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

a long way gone. Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980 and by 1992 his country was involved in a civil war no one quite understands. At age 12 Ishmael finds himself homeless and hopelessly searching for his family with a group of boys.   At 13 he is "found" by the government army and becomes a soldier.  He is handed his gun, given some drugs, and sent out to kill the rebels.  He is a survivor and this is his powerful story.

Ishmael suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome and this memoir details some of the most harrowing events a child should never have to witness nor take part in.  During the time of Sierra Leone's civil war, the country turns upside down.  Children are no longer trusted or cared for, they are feared and become drug addicted prized soldiers used by the government.  Families are scattered, atrocities are committed and everyone is scared.

Unfortunately children around the world are made into soldiers, and some as young as seven try to hold up guns that weigh more than they do.   Young girls that are soldiers frequently endure rape.  Governments recruit, resort to abduction, use children as slaves while getting them addicted to drugs and brainwashing them.  This is a world wide problem that exists in many countries.  According to the dust cover flap on my book it states that there are more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, and it is estimated that there are some 30,000 child soldiers.

I read this book aloud to one of my world studies classes and as a class we learned a lot.  Many of my students had never heard of Sierra Leone and now are knowledgeable about their recent history and the social issue of child soldiers.  As a read aloud, the book moved slowly but that gave us time to journey with Ismael and connect with him.  Several of my students commented on how they really liked this book. 

Here are two websites that I used to help me teach this book which would be beneficial to any reader wanting to learn more.  www.alongwaygone.com  This is the author website which has great video footage of Ishmael talking about his book.  Also www.child-soldiers.com will present the facts and some solutions and way for people to get involved and active in the issue of preventing children from becoming soldiers.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

In the North American futurist nation of Panem, lies the Capitol and the twelve districts that surround it.  The Capitol sponsors The Hunger Games and every district must submit two players to fight in the games, as punishment for a past uprising.  Each district must supply one girl and one boy between the ages of twelve and eighteen and they are called tributes.  The 24 tributes are then held in an arena to fight to the death on Live TV.  The last tribute standing wins The Hunger Games.

District Twelve contestants are Katniss and Peeta.  They are whisked away from their families and face a certain future of death.  Their only hope is Haymitch, a drunkard who won the games years ago and is to be their mentor.

This is a heart stopping, wild ride of a novel that you won't be able to put down.  It is Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Running Man [Blu-ray] 
meets today's reality TV shows, like Survivor, and then add in the Gladiator games from the Roman Colosseum in Ancient Rome.  In fact, the Colosseum was used for the same purposes as the Arena in The Hunger Games.  The Colosseum held re-enactment battles, executions, animal hunts, and gladiatorial contests that were fought to the death.  The Hunger Games is what could happen if our need for entertainment proceeds our consciousness of civility.

The Hunger Games is a book that has young adult and adult readers talking.  The Hunger Games bridges the age gap between readers and has parents and teens or teachers and teens excitedly talking about it.  I will be passing my copy onto my 12 year old son and my 14 year old niece just borrowed me her copy of Catching Fire (book #2 of the trilogy) and students and I talked in depth about the book and the people being cast in the film this week.  It is fun to share books with other excited readers and this book, excites people.

If you haven't read this book yet, now is the time to jump on the band wagon and read it.  The film is being cast and set to be released in the Spring of 2012.


 

Friday Blog Hops

Friday Follow and Friday Blog Hop

Thank goodness blogger is back up and running.  I was starting to worry and all because I am a fishing widow this weekend and I wanted to do some writing.

Here are the Friday Questions:

Q. The Blogger Apocalypse made me a little emotional. What is the most emotional scene in a book that you have read lately?

A.  Most emotional scene I read was in The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine.
I am reading this book aloud to my 6th hour class and there is a part where a 10 year old girl had her virginity sold to the highest bidder and reading her rape aloud to the class was very difficult and really emotional for me.

Q:  Are you going to Book Expo America (BEA) and/or the Book Blogger Convention (BBC) this year?

A.  No, I wish I was but since it is held at the end of May, it is nearly impossible for me to ever attend at the end of a school year.  Graduation is on June 2nd this year and I just can't leave when there is grading and teaching still to be done.  Maybe some day they will change the date to late June and I can go.  A girl can dream.  Are you a teacher?  Do you see teacher/book bloggers in attendance at BEA or BBC?
I am participating in Armchair BEA and am excited for that.

Have a great weekend!!

Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace

 Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace

It's Spring and do you know what that means?  It's time to read a book about Baseball, the time honored, all American sport.

Batter up.
Ruby is a teenager in New York City in the 1920's.  She lived through the Flu epidemic that killed thousands of people in 1918, including most of her family.  She survived by killing squirrels in the park with a baseball and using her long pitching arm.

Ruby throws the fastest pitch in town and to feed her family she becomes a Coney Island sideshow where she meets Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and other notables of the time.  Eventually Diamond Ruby signs with a minor league baseball team and leads her team in strikeouts.  Fame comes at a stiff price because everyone wants what Ruby has and so she becomes a target for the mob,  rum runners and crooked cops.  This nail biter of a book will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Ruby is loosely based on the true story of female baseball phenom, Jackie Mitchell.  In real life Jackie struck out baseball greats, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.  She never got a chance to play major league baseball because just days later, the baseball commissioner at the time, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned all women from baseball.  Landis deemed baseball too strenuous for women and they were never allowed to play major or minor league baseball again.  This sad piece of history holds true today as well.  I for one would love to see a woman compete on a major league team.

"Diamond Ruby is the exciting tale of a forgotten piece of of baseball's heritage, a girl who could throw with the best of them." From the back cover.

Wallace has hit a home run with Diamond Ruby.  It is a historical novel of New York, the roaring 1920's, the flu epidemic, immigration, the rise of crime, women's rights, the house that Babe built and of course baseball.  Ruby is one strong woman you don't want to mess with and you will be rooting for Ruby's team and family throughout the entire book. 

Diamond Ruby is in a league of her own.

Whiteout Contest

Whiteout Contest

Hometown Track Minnesota Author in the Spotlight, Brian Duren, is graciously offered to give away and personalize three copies of his award winning book, WHITEOUT.  All Booksnob followers are eligible to win and the contest will end on May 31st at midnight.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

Living comfortably in Paris with his French lover, Claire, Paul believes he has left his past behind. But when the phone rings in the middle of the night, and a voice he hasn't heard in years tells him his mother is dying and begs him to come home, the nightmares begin. Reluctantly Paul returns for the funeral to the small town and the isolated lodge in northern Minnesota where he grew up. During the following days he discovers things that contradict his understanding of his past and he sets out to find the truth. His quest draws him back among the dead, and he hears the voices of his parents talking of dreams, desires, and loss. Inexorably their story leads him to ask the questions-the very question his family has always wanted to prevent him from asking: What really did happen in that whiteout thirty-five years ago?

Please Fill out Form:
Open Internationally until May 31st.
Please leave comment.
Must be a Booksnob Follower

Mommy Rhapsody (Mother's Day Opening 2010)

Happy Mother's Day!
Enjoy.

The Pun Also Rises Contest

The Pun Also Rises Contest

The publisher is offering each TLC tour host one copy of the book to give away as part of the tour (US/Canada only).  So I am happy to host the contest here for followers of Booksnob.  This is a great, entertaining book for those who love a play on words.  The contest will end in two weeks on May 18th at midnight.
Please check out my book review here:
The Pun Also Rises Book Review

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.
A former word pun champion's funny, erudite, and provocative exploration of puns, the people who make them, and this derided wordplay's remarkable impact on history.

The pun is commonly dismissed as the lowest form of wit, and punsters are often unpopular for their obsessive wordplay. But such attitudes are relatively recent developments. In The Pun Also Rises, John Pollack-a former World Pun Champion and presidential speechwriter for Bill Clinton-explains why such wordplay is significant: It both revolutionized language and played a pivotal role in making the modern world possible. Skillfully weaving together stories and evidence from history, brain science, pop culture, literature, anthropology, and humor, The Pun Also Rises is an authoritative yet playful exploration of a practice that is common, in one form or another, to virtually every language on earth.

At once entertaining and educational, this engaging book answers fundamental questions: Just what is a pun, and why do people make them? How did punning impact the development of human language, and how did that drive creativity and progress? And why, after centuries of decline, does the pun still matter? 

Rules of the Contest
Fill out the Form.
Must be a Book Snob Follower
Must be a resident of U. S or Canada
Leave a Comment with your favorite pun.
Contest Ends on May 18th at Midnight


Good Luck

The Pun Also Rises review

The Pun Also Rises.  How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and make Wordplay more than Some Antics by John Pollack

All Puns are not created equal.  So says the amazing former world champion punster who won the pun-offs held in Austin, Texas in 1995.  A pun is essentially a play on words.  There are many different types of puns as Pollack explains and most people begin using puns as children. 

Puns are everywhere.  After I started reading this book, puns started stalking me.  I heard them in songs, saw them in TV sitcoms, read them in the newspapers and on billboards.  I've fallen into the art of punning and I couldn't get up.  Punning takes a certain amount of skill and knowledge as Pollack points out.  Your brain actually switches hemispheres to find the play on words.  Not everyone gets it and some even get mad and condemn the pun as a low form of humor.  I for one appreciate a good pun.  I laughed heartily while reading this book and even stroked my ego with intelligent wordplay.

Holy Shiite, Punning has been around for as long as we have had the spoken word. Language began in the Middle East and culturally diffused throughout the world and the pun hitched a ride from one location to the next.  Puns can be found in every language, in every sacred text and just about anywhere you look.  This book is a lot of fun for the curious mind and language lovers.

What is your favorite pun?

One of mine is:

When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

Hometown Track- MN Author Spotlight #10

Hometown Track- MN Author Spotlight #10

Happy May Day!  I am really excited about this month's Hometown Track Minnesota Author in the Spotlight.  Drum roll please.....

I would like to introduce Brian Duren, author of Whiteout.  Whiteout is a Finalist of the Indie Excellence Book Awards as well as Reader Views and Reviewers Choice Award in 2010.  This book should definitely be on your book reading radar.

In May you can expect a book review of Whiteout, an author interview, a contest and if we are lucky a guest post by Brian.  So stay close to Booksnob's blog so you don't miss the exciting month I have planned.

If you would like to check out Brian website you can find it at www.brianduren.com