Summer Vacations End

I've just come back from a lovely vacation. This time I visited my lovely brother and brought along a car load of kids, all of them now long-legged and giant-sized, and we soaked up Utah heat, splashed about in Utah waters, and reminded me that I certainly won the Family Olympics. There were sparklers involved again, as well as larger fireworks that go BOOM.

The kids went out to soccer games, pitted themselves against their cousins in volleyball (we need to start practicing more than once a year if we ever hope to keep up), were forced to participate in Family Fun, and spent a long of time hanging out with each other.

I'm having a lot of fun with my Book-A-Day summer plan, even going so far as planning out my books for the week when I get back from my library run, but I'm also barely finishing anything. My book bag strains at the seams. It's definitely a lot more relaxing than previous years' attempts at finishing a book each day.

What have I read this week and last week? (Again, two weeks since I didn't post while away from home). I shall tell bookjourney's crew about it, and, since so much of my reading is kidlit, also link to Teach Mentor Texts:

• Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library, Chris Grabenstein. This Cybils pick was a lot of fun.
• Death's Daughter, Amber Benson. Sadly, I am too old for this Vaginal Fantasy pick.
• Mrs Pollifax and the Second Thief (audio), Dorothy Gilman. A fun audio for my 800 mile drive.
• Ouran High School Host Club Vol 1, Bisco Hatori. Quirky rec from my school book club, but I don't think I'll pick up the next volume.

Last week:

• How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, Orson Scott Card. Interesting perspective on how books get written.
• Prisoner B-3087, Alan Gratz. Another Cybils books, wildly different from the Lemoncello book.
• Derik's Bane, MaryJanice Davidson. Mildly amusing, but the included story afterwards really put me off. Kidnap and rape are a bad start to a relationship, no matter how quippy.
• Mrs Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish, Dorothy Gilman. I like Pollifax on vacation.
• The Girls of Atomic City, Denise Kiernan. World War II from a different perspective.
• English Fairy Tales and More English Fairy Tales, Donald Haase. This finished off my Reading My Library, Kids Section Quest.
• The Midnight Tunnel, Angie Frazier. A Canadian mystery!

What am I currently reading? Ha ha ha ha! I'm at 18 books so far.

• The Lions of al-Rassan, Guy Gabriel Kay. Last month's Vaginal Fantasy pick. Sometimes I'm a bit behind.
• Yonder Comes the Other End of Time, Suzette Elgin. Hey, I never knew the Judas Rose author also wrote inter-galatic telepathic space spy stuff!
• Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh, R.L. Lafevers. I hope her mom pays a little attention to her in Egypt.
• A Rising Thunder, David Weber. More Honor Harrington. Or at least more Manticore.
• Archangel's Storm, Nalini Singh. I skipped this one in the series, so I'm fixing that now.
• Crown of Renewal, Elizabeth Moon. This is a complicated history of an imaginary land, but Moon makes me want to know what happens.
• Shards of Time, Lynn Flewelling. And we are off to the mysterious island, with dark dreams warning us of tension.
• The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison. This is what I read on my phone.
• Cathedral of the Wild, Boyd Varty. Happy toddlerhood in the camp.
• Tinker, Wen Spencer. I'm rereading to see how it works with Wood Sprites. Stuff really happens fast.
• The Golden Leopard, Lynn Kerstan. I'm ready for the couple to start interacting more.
• Inkheart, Cornelia Funke. Act one seems to be over.
• The Son of Neptune, Rick Riordan. I like knowing much more than Percy Jackson, both about his past and about his companions. Also, they are heading for Alaska!

Reading intermittently, and deliberately slowly. These never change much:

• Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vacca. I like reading about reading. Here I'll read about how teachers think kids learn.
• Nerds, Michael Buckley. Some school is getting a new principal.
• Out to Canaan, Jan Karon. Some reunions, which probably mean more to people who read the earlier books.
• The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens. Quite dull. People go to prison.

What's up next? I'm concentrating on library fire drills and the summer recommendations from my school book club.

2014 Challenge Progress:

1. Cybils: 50/77. Five months for 27 books, but these are the YA so it's harder.
2. Where Am I Reading? 29/51. Gosh darn it, I already had Ohio and Tennessee! I need Alaska, Arizona and Arkansas. Also Colorado. I have a Connecticut rec -- any more?
3. Alphabetically Inclined: 18/26. Currently reading a Y.
4. What's In a Name?: 6/7. Weather is surprisingly hard. Would "Heat" count?
5. Book Bingo: Finished a square!  Seven boxes into the next one since I last calculated.
6. Gentle Spectrum Challenge: 10/10 colors, but I still need a cheesy title. The Other Goose would count, but I want a longer entry.-
7. Small Fry Safari: 7/8. No change. Still need something precious.
8. PoC Speculative Fiction 9/5: Three books this week would qualify. Maybe four, but I forget how dark the protagonist of Skin Heat was.
9. Best of the Best 2012: 52/25.  I am stalled.
10. Reading My Library: Library temporarily closed, so on hiatus.