The Year of the Dog

Well, I had great intentions of posting books as I read them, but until today I could not remember my username for this new account...EEEK! Too, too many usernames and passwords swirling in my head.

I read two books yesterday making for a wonderfully relaxing Saturday. The first,Year of the Dog by Grace Lin, is a very sweet nearly biographical year in the life of a young Taiwanese girl growing up in up state New York. When the book opens, we meet Grace--Pacy, her Chinese name--helping her family prepare for their Chinese new year celebration. They are welcoming the Year of the Dog. The reader travels with Pacy through the lunar calendar year as she searches for what she hopes will be her great talent and purpose.

SPOILER!!! Grace enters a national writer/illustrator contest with a story titled Ugly Vegetables and places 4th place. This is such a cool connection for young students to make with this book because years later, Grace Lin published that very book that she first conceived in elementary school!

Childhood memoirs can often be dark and cathartic for the writer, Year of the Dog does not have even a hint of "ax grinding." The author's notes state that she had a very happy childhood filled with much reading. However, she always wished there had been a character she could identify with in books and she wanted to write this book to give Chinese-American students a chance to see themselves in the text.
I would recommend this book to teachers looking for a good model of narrative story telling. Throughout the book Grace's mother tells stories that would serve as perfect examples of how students can take their own experiences and create a story.
I enjoyed reading this book and think it is a perfect book for students of all backgrounds from grades 3-6.

Inspired Reader turned Blogger

I am a school librarian and as such, an avid reader. I was inspired by my cousin and the many blogs I read to try out a little blogging. My plan is to review the books I read as I finish them...that's about it. So to get started...

I flew back from Oregon yesterday--long 4 hour flight-- and I read An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. I cannot lie I have a bit of a crush on the author's writing. This is his second book and his first Looking for Alaska won the 2005 Printz award for the Best Young Adult Novel. All this said, onto the book...

We meet Colin Singleton lying face down on his bedroom carpet two days after he graduated from high school AND one day after he was dumped by his 19th girlfriend named Katherine. Though this beginning has all the makings of a wonderful angst-filled teen drama, it does not take the dramatic-throw-yourself-across-your-bed-and-weep path. Nope, because Colin isn't your typical angst-filled teen. Colin was (is) a child prodigy, started reading at age two, speaks 11 languages, etc. You might say he is a bit of a nerd, make that a capital N-erd. His only friend, an overweight Muslim with man-boobs (and a great sense of humor), Hassen sweeps in and plans a road trip for the two of them to get out of Chicago for the summer and to help Colin forget about his latest lost Katherine, aka, Katherine XIV. As the two boys summer unfolds they--

• live in a pink mansion in nowhere Tennessee
• get jobs recording local oral history of said Tennessee town
• eat lots of Hardee's Monster burgers
• fall in and out of love/lust
• take part in a wild hog hunt
• get in a good old fashion cool kids vs. the nerds punch fest
  

Throughout the whole book Colin is obsessed with being remembered for something. He works on a theorem that plots dumpers and dumpees on an XY axis that can plot each breakup. He works in several variables: age, attractiveness, etc. His working on this theorem is a thread that ties the rest of the the side trips and subplots together.

I really enjoyed this book. It is heavily character driven. It is also smart and clever. I loved the author's use of Colin's extensive knowledge to throw facts, figures and other strange amusements into footnotes. The style of the book is unique--math graphs, footnotes, an appendix. I highly recommend this book for high school students and adults alike.


P.S. The dedication is also very sweet...I told you I have a bit of a crush on this author's writing!