My 20 Books in 2009

TITLE: Cool To Be Kind (Random Acts and How to Commit Them)

AUTHORS: Val Litwin, Brad Stokes, Erik Hanson, Chris Bratseth



DESCRIPTION: In August of 2002, four twenty-something friends in Canada packed a motor home and embarked upon a three-month nonprofit marathon known coast to coast as The Extreme Kindness Tour. Their mission: to commit as many random acts of kindness in as many communities as possible. This record documents their heartwarming stories of friendship and kindness and provides readers with ways to start their own kindness movements and get involved in their own communities. From mile zero to St. John's, The Extreme Kindness Tour staffed soup kitchens, broke horses, roofed houses, delivered flowers, sang songs, visited hospitals, raised funds, and staged rallies determined to make someone's day and encourage them to "pay it forward," connecting the world through kindness.

DATE FINISHED: Jan. 31, 2009

TITLE: The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

AUTHOR: Lilian Jackson Braun




DESCRIPTION: This is the 16th installment in Braun's popular "The Cat Who..." series. Jim Qwilleran and and his Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, journey to a peaceful island paradise that is rapidly being developed into a luxurious resort, where a series of mysterious ""accidents"" has been occurring.

DATE FINISHED: Feb. 7, 2009

TITLE: Deadly Decisions


AUTHOR: Kathy Reichs



DESCRIPTION: Violence is escalating, and spilling onto the streets of Montreal. A nine-year-old girl is killed in crossfire on her way to ballet class. The body of a teenager killed in North Carolina is found hundreds of miles away. Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan has to pick up the pieces: she knows she shouldn't let emotion get in the way, but when nin-year-old Emily's body is wheeled into the morgue she cannot help but react. An exhumation uncovers the bones of another inocent in a clandestine grave close to a biker gang headquarters. With her boss in hospital and sparring partner Detective Andrew Ryan mysteriously unavailable, Tempe alone begins a perilous investigation into the lawless underworld of organised crime...


DATE FINISHED: March 29, 2009

TITLE: The Stone Diaries


AUTHOR: Carol Shields




DESCRIPTION: This fictionalized autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett, captured in Daisy's vivacious yet reflective voice, has been winning over readers since its publication in 1995, when it won the Pulitzer Prize. After a youth marked by sudden death and loss, Daisy escapes into conventionality as a middle-class wife and mother. Years later she becomes a successful garden columnist and experiences the kind of awakening that thousands of her contemporaries in mid-century yearned for but missed in alcoholism, marital infidelity and bridge clubs. The events of Daisy's life, however, are less compelling than her rich, vividly described inner life--from her memories of her adoptive mother to her awareness of impending death. Shields' sensuous prose and her deft characterizations make this, her sixth novel, her most successful yet.


DATE FINISHED: April 7, 2009

TITLE: Death du Jour

AUTHOR: Kathy Reichs



DESCRIPTION: Death du Jour is the second novel by Kathy Reichs in the Temperance Brennan series. This novel finds Tempe trying to link a series of seemingly unrelated deaths in both Quebec and the southern United States. Katy, Tempe's daughter, appears more extensively in this book, as does Detective Andrew Ryan.

DATE FINISHED: April 2009

TITLE: Your Boy: Raising A Godly Son In An Ungodly World

AUTHOR: Vicki Courtney



DESCRIPTION: When popular speaker Vicki Courtney released the best-selling Your Girl in 2004, and Beth Moore declared it "A must read for every daughter’s mother," it wasn’t long before a fast-growing audience was naturally requesting Your Boy. After all, parents are seeking help to grow godly sons as well. And as the mother of two boys herself, Vicki rises to the occasion with this inspiring, tell-it-like-it-is new favorite.

DATE FINISHED: April 2009

TITLE: Where The Heart Is

AUTHOR: Billie Letts



DESCRIPTION: Oprah Book Club® Selection, December 1998: A funny thing happens to Novalee Nation on her way to Bakersfield, California. Her ne'er-do-well boyfriend, Willie Jack Pickens, abandons her in an Oklahoma Wal-Mart and takes off on his own, leaving her with just 10 dollars and the clothes on her back. Not that hard luck is anything new to Novalee, who is "seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight--and superstitious about sevens.... For most people, sevens were lucky. But not for her," Billie Letts writes. "She'd had a bad history with them, starting with her seventh birthday, the day Momma Nell ran away with a baseball umpire named Fred..."

Still, finding herself alone and penniless in Sequoyah, Oklahoma is enough to make even someone as inured to ill fortune as Novalee want to give up and die. Fortunately, the Wal-Mart parking lot is the Sequoyah equivalent of a town square, and within hours Novalee has met three people who will change her life: Sister Thelma Husband, a kindly eccentric; Benny Goodluck, a young Native American boy; and Moses Whitecotton, an elderly African American photographer. For the next two months, Novalee surreptitiously makes her home in the Wal-Mart, sleeping there at night, exploring the town by day. When she goes into labor and delivers her baby there, however, Novalee learns that sometimes it's not so bad to depend on the kindness of strangers--especially if one of them happens to be Sam Walton, the superchain's founder.

DATE FINISHED: April 2009

TITLE: Called: Hello, My Name Is Mrs. Jefferson. I Understand Your Plane Is Being Hijacked. 9:45 Am, Flight 93, September 11, 2001

AUTHOR: Lisa D. Jefferson & Felicia Middlebrooks



DESCRIPTION: With one ring of the phone, Lisa Jefferson went from GTE Airfone supervisor, suburban wife, and mother to the listening ear of a nation shattered by tragedy. Called tells the gripping account of 9/11 from her vantage point...the moment she took the call from Todd Beamer on United Airlines Flight 93...hearing the immortal words, "Let's Roll"...seeing her life transformed, simply by responding to the call. Jefferson sends a stirring challenge to all of us--whether it comes during quiet obscurity or international adversity, we must be prepared to answer God's call.


DATE FINISHED: August 2009

TITLE: The Reading Bug

AUTHOR: Paul Jennings



DESCRIPTION: The one person who will do more than anyone else to help your child learn to read ... is you.

Parents are the best reading teachers in the world.

An easy-to-read, practical guide packed with simple strategies to help your child learn to love books. Paul Jennings cuts through the jargon and controversy to show how every parent can infect their child with the reading bug.

* Brilliant booklists for parents and children
* The whole reading experience explained
* Great cartoons and anecdotes
* Practical advice from bestselling writer and teacher Paul Jennings

Paul Jennings is Australia's bestselling children's author. He worked as a special-education teacher and lecturer before becoming a full-time writer.


DATE FINISHED: August 2009

20 Books in 2009 Reading Challenge

It's my first time to join a reading challenge. Found this one that's just right for me.

20 Books in 2009 Reading Challenge

The goal for this challenge is to read 20 books in the 2009. Here are the rules:

1. You can read as many books as you want by any author or in the same series.
2. If the book is a re-read, it must be from a year ago.
3. Comics, catalogs, manga, journals and audiobooks do not count.
5. Fiction or nonfiction; paperbacks, hardbacks, advanced copies, e-books count.

Click here if you want to participate, too.

Watch Out for the Baobabs!

Looking back at our US trip last summer, I can say that one of the magical moments for me was seeing a baobab tree. This was at the Disney Animal Kingdom safari. The tree reminded me of The Little Prince. Without a doubt, that book is one of the milestone pieces that got me hooked on reading.

Thank you, Lord, for life's simple pleasures like books and baobabs.

Exerpt from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobabs are too many, they split it in pieces...

"Sometimes," he added, "there is no harm in putting off a piece of work until another day. But when it is a matter of baobabs, that always means a catastrophe. I knew a planet that was inhabited by a lazy man. He neglected three little bushes..."

So, as the little prince described it to me, I have made a drawing of that planet. I do not much like to take the tone of a moralist. But the danger of the baobabs is so little understood, and such considerable risks would be run by anyone who might get lost on an asteroid, that for once I am breaking through my reserve. "Children," I say plainly, "watch out for the baobabs!"

Bye, Michael Crichton!

Michael Crichton, the author behind thriller Jurassic Park, as well as books such as Congo and Disclosure, died today after a courageous battle with cancer. He was 66.

He was my favorite author of all time. I love the readability of his text. I also admire how much information (wether fiction or not) is put into all his stories. I read a tribute to him which goes, "Through his books, Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand. The world knew him as a great story teller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us - and entertained us all while doing so." I couldn't agree more.

Michael Crichton's books really helped fuel my love for reading. He was a blessing to literature indeed.

I'm Raising A Reader! (and you can too)

Sept. 13, SATURDAY. We just came home from the Manila International Book Fair. As with any trip to a book sale, I'm totally beat. I'm tired from all the walking and I'm certain I spent more than I should have. Not to mention, I went home empty-handed again. But look who's smiling ear to ear with all his book purchases. My son, Blue can't decide which book to read first. I can't forget how tightly he hugged me when I allowed him to get one more book. He said, "You're the best, Mom!" Well, I guess I have no right to complain.

Too exhausted as I was, I quickly fell asleep that night. I was awakened by Blue snuggling near me. I checked the time, and it was nearly eleven o'clock. The lights were still on and Blue was still reading his new book. I had to remind him that it's way past his bedtime. He promised to close the book as soon as he finished the chapter he was reading. When he woke up the next morning, he quickly reached under his pillow to commence reading. I had to remind him to have breakfast first. Throughout that day, he was too absorbed in his book that it was doubly hard to call him for meals and other routines. As a mom, it irks me that I have to wait and call him several times. But deep inside, I'm giving myself a pat on the back. "Congratulations! You have raised a reader!"

Rewind...Rewind...Blue didn't suddenly wake up one morning wanting to read books. It's a lifetime of exposure to books that molded him to be this way. Here I'll outline our colorful journey into the world of books:

I started reading to him when he was still a baby. We started with picture books where I would just point out pictures for him. We also had animal picture books where Blue learned to mimic animal sounds. Suffice it to say, reading to Blue at that stage really helped his language development. He learned to speak with ease and clarity, not to mention a vocabulary that any mom would be proud of.

We moved into more complicated topics as the years passed. From reading, Blue learned about dinosaurs and wanted to know more about them. This explains our big collection of dinosaur books (both fiction and non-fiction). He just couldn't stop reading about them. During this stage, Blue learned that books are his friends. There's an endless fountain of knowlede that can be sourced from books.

During this time, too, Blue began to notice that mommy was reading books as well. He started asking me about books that I was reading. He would gladly snuggle up and listen to what my books were all about. Sometimes, he would move away and say, "Your books are corny!" Who cares? At least he has learned that books are part of mommy's life, and can very well be a part of his.

When Blue started reading (around 4-5 years old), we shifted into leveled reading books. Blue loved to show off his reading progress. Wow! When he reads, I can't help but cry. Blue flew from books that had 1 sentence per page to those that had short chapters.

By the time Blue was six, I knew that he was hooked on books. He couldn't sleep without reading first. Sometimes he wants to read on his own. Most nights, he would still request that I read for him. This was the hardest part for me. Sometimes, my throat would be hurting so bad from reading his chapter books. Once, I just read him a page from a cookbook just to satisfy his reading routine. (Hahaha! Imagine how much he complained when I did this!)

Blue would be turning 7 before the year ends. Right now, he's into Captain Underpants, Geronimo Stilton and other chapter books. The label says these are for 7 to 10 year olds. I can't help but be proud that my six year old is reading books that are beyond his age.

*****

As you can see, it wasn't an easy task. It's really a COMMITMENT to read to your child on a DAILY basis. You would have to set aside the day's worries and stress; moreso, squeeze out your last ounce of energy for a storytelling session. You would have to learn to invent different voices to animate what you read. You would have to seek divine providence for extra patience when your child says "Read it again!"

But the fun part is you never run out of topics to talk about. There's always a talkathon on inventing different story endings; or a long chat on what-would-you-do-if-this-happened-to-you? You get to spend nights under the covers with a flashlight and a book. (How many people my age can still do that?) And most of all, it's snuggling with your child every night; and getting to hear, "Thanks for the story, Mom. I love you!" over and over again.

And the cherry on top...I have a reader. In this time of PSP, Wii and endless TV, I'm glad that my son can make time for reading in his daily routine. Somehow I feel assured that he would have a lifelong thirst for learning. I can't wait for him to start reading books that I have read myself. But for now, I will just continue to read with him daily. I hope that more parents would start doing this as well. It's a battle we can surely win...with one bedtime story at a time.

25 Best Loved Filipino Children's Book Characters

My husband thinks I am more excited than Blue to visit this exhibit. Well, who wouldn't be excited? Imagine seeing your favorite children's book characters come alive -- in rubber foam 3D, that is! And, boy, I'm so glad we didn't let the rain stop us from going! The exhibit really didn't disappoint.

For me, the thrill was in seeing characters from books I've read in my childhood. There was Juan Tamad, Pagong and Matsing and Ibong Adarna. For Blue, the delight came from imagining the characters in books he has yet to read. Ampalaya, Barumbadong Bus and Filemon Mamon fired his interest. We both marvelled at the intricacy of how Raquel (from Ang Mahiwagang Buhok ni Raquel) was made. In that instant, we weren't mother and son anymore. We were two readers transported into an imaginary world of books. It was a fantastic moment.

In the end, the best thought came from Blue. He said, "Mom, why is the exhibit ending soon? What a waste if other kids wouldn't get to see it!"

Check out some of our photos in Frozen Frames.


Read more about the 25 Best Loved Filipino Children's Book Characters here: http://www.pbby.org.ph/links-ncbd-2008.html