Summer Days, Reading Away

Still relaxing, but I should start moving back into my life soon. Of course, I haven't quite decided how vigorous I want that life to be this summer vacation; the boys come home on Thursday so maybe I'll just coast until then, although I guess I'd better get the last of school stuff packed away.

The Book-a-Day goal for the summer is still on track; I mostly just pull the next book from the shelf but if it looks too thick I'll juggle things so I get a running start. Also, I'm saving an American Girl book for the day I'll drive 800 miles; if I find another super short book I'll need that for the drive home. It's rather exciting to see space appearing on my TBR bookcase, although at the end of the summer I'll pull down some boxes of books and fill it back up.

So as I go to Book Journey's weekly round-up of what everyone has read, is reading, and will read, most of my selections are children's books, and some of those are books I've been waiting to (re) read for decades. I don't think I'm exaggerating. After I've read my book-of-the-day choice, I go back to read other stuff, especially the library books that Absolutely Must Go back this week.

I'll go sign in on the update posts that, where everyone notes what they read, are reading, and intend to read. Teach Mentor Texts echos this with a concentration on children's books which clearly is appropriate for me.

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• Woods Runner, Gary Paulsen. Monday. Good book.
• School of Fear: Class Is NOT Dismissed, Gitty Daneshvari. Tuesday. 2nd in the series. More of the same, which is fine.
• Chester Cricket's New Home, George Selden. Wednesday
• Down These Strange Streets, anthology. NOOK. Good airplane reading. 
• Airman, Eoin Colfer. Thursday. My son liked this more than I did.
• Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Alan Garner. Friday. I thought I had read this, but I was wrong.
• Astonishing X-Men Book 1 (Vol 1 & 2), Joss Whedon. Comic books!
• On the Blue Comet, Rosemary Wells. NOOK. Good time-slip book.
• Doctor Dolittle's Garden, Hugh Lofting. Saturday. Old fashioned science fiction.
• Treasure of Green Knowe, Lucy Boston. Sunday. Great book.
• The Clockwork Three, Matthew Kirby. RML. I liked how it came together.
• Astonishing X-Men Vol 3 : Torn, Joss Whedon. More comic.
• Astonishing X-Men Vol 4 : Unstoppable, Joss Whedon. Sad comic.
• World War II On The Home Front: An Interactive History Adventure, Martin Gitlin. Historical choose-your-own adventure. I find it more depressing to die horribly in a historical nonfiction book.

What am I currently reading? I left some in-progress books at home during my gallivanting, and I cherry picked from my options to things I thought I'd enjoy.

• Redskin and Cowboy, G. A. Henty. I think I need a running start for this one, so I went back and got - 
• Roscoe's Leap, Gillian Cross. Today's book. I think it has a haunted house.
• A Secret Prince, Violet Haberdasher. I read the first from RML, and my son demanded the sequel, and now the library wants it back.
• Team Human, Sarah Rees Brennan & Justine Larbalestier. Started on the plane.
• Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine. Fun stuff.
• Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey. Online book club book. I'm late.
• Buffy and the Heroine's Journey, Valerie Frankel. Present from librarything early readers.
• Willie Mays, The Life, The Legend, James S. Hirsch. TBR. Probably more than I needed to know about him, but interesting enough.
• The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller. Still missing.
• Phoenix In Flight, Sherwood Smith & Dave Trowbridge. NOOK. Interplanetary rich people plot things.
• Close Range, Annie Proulx. I dip into this for a page or two in between other books.
• The Borrowers Afield, Mary Norton. Another dipping book.

What will I read next? I'm still pulling from my reservoir of purchased-but-unread books, and I'm now reading library books that must get turned in this week. Or else I don't get to read them until I check them out again -- what a terrible fate! Avert!

Challenges:

1. Cybils: 61/73. Unchanged. 
2. Global Reading Challenge: 13/21. Apparently everything in my shelves is set in Europe (UK) or the US. Hmm.
3. Where Am I Reading?:  30/50.  Reviews are overrated. Hey, School of Fear is in Connecticut, and that got reviewed!
4. Science Book Challenge: 1.141/3.14159. I think Delusions of Gender will qualify.
5. Reading My Library:  Finished one, pausing to get my library exposure under control.
6. Eclectic Challenge: 10/12. I need literary and a classic. Lowbrow me finds these hard.
7. Best of the Best: 27/25. Nothing this week.
8. Summer Reading Goal: On target. This is hard!