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Comment Challenge

A week ago Pam and Lee started the “Comment Challenge”.  The idea is to “read, enjoy, and comment” on at least five blogs a day.  Fabulous.  And actually it takes about 15 minutes a day to participate.  Of course, in my usual fashion I forgot to comment over the weekend so I spent Monday and Tuesday playing catch up. But my goal is to visit blogs I have not visited before as well as those I have come to know and love.

What I Am Reading  (or Have Read)

I found a pin I used to wear ALL the time: “So many books, so little time”. This is sooo true!!

There are lots of nonfiction picture books arriving at my doorstep each day for the CYBILS.  Thankfully they are thin.  Look what you have to read if you are on the Fantasy panel.   The nonfiction picture books are really fun.

I finished North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley.  What a poignant coming of age book.  Terra (don’t you love the name) has a “flawed face”, a port-wine stain which covers most of one side of her face.  Throughout the book, she struggles as I am sure many would with body image issues (althought the rest of her body is model perfect).Her secret ambition is to begin a new life by going away (far away) to college and studying art. 

Living in a small town, struggling with an overbearing father and a mother who has lost her self, and a loser boyfriend, Terra’s world tilts as a result of a car accident.  She meets Jacob, who embodies a Goth Chinese boy look (and was born with a cleft palate), and his mother (passengers in the car she has hit) who alter her map.  They happen to be heading to a resort in the small town where Terrra lives.  Friendships develop, a trip to China, as well as a geocache adventure are mapped out well in this book.  Terra’s compass is reset to true north as she discovers where true beauty is found and where her journey leads.

Headley does a beautiful job of incorporating port-wine stains and cleft palette as part of the geography of the story.  Readers will want to know more about these issues that are not part of common conversations.  The topic of body image is portrayed in such a manner that all readers can relate. ( I certainly did).

YA readers will want to head north of beautiful when this book comes out in February 2009.  This genre was not available when I was in high school (millions of years ago). That’s a pity.

Book: North of Beautiful
Author/Illustrator: Justina Chen Headley
Publisher: Little, Brown, and Company
Date to be Published: 2009
Pages: 372 pages
Grade: 12 years and older
ISBN: 0-316-03317-0
Source of Book: The author

I just finished reading The Shack by William Young, a powerful tale and interesting take on the Trinity.I am also reading March by Geraldine Brooks for my book club.  It was a bit of a challenge to get into (one of those think about books).  I am very glad to be listening to Little Women as I read March,

I also am reading I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are you Okay? Tales of Driving and Being Driven by Naomi Shihab Nye and have My Name is Sally Little Song on my bed stand.

What are you reading?

Happy Reading.

MsMac