February's book report....

The first week of February I went a literacy conference and gathered a list of young adult (and a few adult fiction and professional) books to read.  So, as I continued my Elizabeth Peters progression, I threw in a little variety.

1.  As mentioned earlier, our family watched A Little Princess (the movie), which inspired me to read A Little Princess (Frances Burnett) the book.  It was entertaining and fun to re-read.  And fast. I think it took less than two hours.
2.  The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog (Elizabeth Peters)
3.  -The Choice (Suzanne Woods Fisher)--I bought this book for free from Amazon.  It is about an Amish family and was a typical book about an Amish family.  I enjoyed reading it while my family was skiing.  Nothing too deep or thought provoking, but entertaining.
4.Paradise Valley (Dale Cramer)--another free book about an Amish family.  This one was book 1 (of 3), actually interesting enough that I purchased books two and three and did research to figure out what was true.  Apparently in the early 1920's there were several court cases regarding compulsory education for Amish children.  After losing, several families actually moved to Mexico for a few years and started an Amish community there.  While this series is fiction, the author's dad was born to one of the real Amish families living in Mexico who returned to the US.
5.  The Captive Heart (Dale Cramer)--book 2...see above
6.  Though Mountains May Fall (Dale Cramer)-book 3
7. The Boy on the Porch (Sharon Creech)--another impulse from the library, about a couple who end up being foster parents and in typical Sharon Creech style it "just ends"...good book, short
8.  Laura Ingalls Wilder Country (William Anderson)  Mr. Anderson presented at the Literacy conference, I thought I'd read his book and see how it was.  I've visited or read about most of the sites.  It was a quick, short, non-fiction read.
9.  Levi's Will (Dale Cramer)--this one is kind of a sequel to the first three--taking place about 20 years afterward.  I was too cheap to buy it from Amazon, so I had to wait to get it from the library.  I wanted to know "what happened to everyone"...while I didn't answer all my questions, it was entertaining.
10.  Fallout (Todd Strasser)--this was suggested at the literacy conference as a great piece of historical fiction...The premise is what would happen if the atomic bombs had been dropped on the .US in the 1960's and the main family were the only ones in the neighborhood with a shelter.  I kept hoping it would "get better", but since the historical premise was something that most definitely didn't happen, I had a hard time suspending my disbelief, so to speak ,and enjoying the book.
11.  The Hippopotamus Pool (Elizabeth Peters)  I just can't go wrong with these...can't go wrong...

We also listened to books 1 and 2 of the second 39 Clues Series--Cahills vs. Vespers.  Still entertaining..

That's all for now...stay tuned for something more interesting than my book reports!