I’m a little proud of my picks for the awards! I predicted both winners and 3 honors, just missing one prediction. Not too shabby!
And here is a little poetry for this frozen friday:
I love heaps of ice
piled high but only when
in my waffle cone
So what do I think is going to win at this Monday’s ALA awards? Here are my best predictions and my dream winners for just two of the many awards:
Newbery:
Predicted Winner: When You Reach me by Rebecca Stead
My favorite: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Caldecott:
Predicted Winner: The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
My Favorite: Red Sings From Treetops by by Joyce Sidman, Illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski
though I also love All the World and 14 Cows for America
Wish I was there!
A roundup of my holiday book binge with bite-size reviews:
The Espressologist: Light and fluffy as foamed milk.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: amazing. Alexie is master at using laughter to accentuate the wrenching truth.
Rampant: Killer unicorns and well written to boot, what’s not to love? (on ipod)
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon: The only problem is the award sticker is going to hide the beautiful cover.
Life As We Knew It: Took me some time to buy the voice, but after the disaster it pulled me in. Haunting with its high stakes and personal sacrifice.
On Writing: Stephen King weaves a personal and universal author’s tale. (on ipod)
Alvin Ho: Charming, funny, love the cultural details to give Alvin identity.
Looking For Alaska: Finally getting around to this. masterful.
Suite Scarlett: As a twitter follower, I was lured by the free version on MJ’s site and now I think I’ll pick up the sequel when it drops – good work marketing department! (on ipod)
Fire: Kept me up until 4am reading – both an atmospheric and compelling book. Can’t wait for Bitterblue.
And, as always, a pile of picturebooks including much buzzed Higher, Higher! and The Curious Garden – both were lovely in entirely different ways!
Still in the pile: Feed, When You Reach Me (I so wanted to read before ALA!), Masterpiece, An Abundance of Katherines, and so many more that I had to leave at the library less I seem greedy… my TBR bin is always full to overflowing.
This last month I feel like my life has been on spin cycle. Back around thanksgiving, one of my colleagues asked how my semester was going. I answered that had been a tough semester and that I felt like it was going to end in a chaotic crescendo and Hubby and I were just hoping to hang on.
Boy, if I had known those words were going to be prophetic, I might have chosen them more carefully.
Soon after, Hubby went in for major (unexpected) surgery. The recovery is a tough, long one, but he’s hanging in there and is on the mend. I finished out a very busy/difficult semester while trying to manage the husband’s recovery at the same time. I can’t say I did a great job of either, but I did what I could. The final weekend of the semester, however, gave us our hardest moment of the season.
Our dear puppy (not really a puppy) suffered a major stroke (we think) and we had to make the clear, but painful, decision to put him to sleep. It was heartbreaking. We are the type of people that consider pets to be part of the family, and saying goodbye to our friend and companion was, and is, such a difficult experience.
Because of those two things, and many others, I am so glad to see 2009 in the rearview mirror. Hello, 2010, please come in and stay awhile.
We also had a good measure of joy over the holidays. We were able to spend Christmas with my side of the family. This was a treat as we are normally separated by an ocean, but we all were together in Switzerland for the holidays. I love that the words family and familiarity are cousins because that is what I loved the most about our time together. Even though we rubbed against each other in old habitual ways, the familiarity of being with family was something I cherished and now miss.
I also, of course, binged on books (as I tend to do over school breaks) and will be updating with a post on all that I read soon.
Until then, a final poem for puppy.
my feet grow colder
now you keep my memories
ever warm instead
Life has hit with the force of a midwestern blizzard (we got a real one too) and I’ll be traveling for the holidays. See you in the new year!
