Time To Start My Eyeballs!

I'm at the starting line, and already running a bit late. Also, I have no idea what I'm going to feed the family tonight. But too late for worries  -- here begins the 48 Hour Book Challenge! I've got my books, I've got library books, and I've got e-books. I've got romance, science fiction, contemporary fiction, YA, middle grade, and nonfiction ready to go. I can finish books I started last summer, attack my Reading-My-Library quest picks, polish off some Cybils books or anything else languishing on my TBR lists. Or I can just read some of the latest books from authors I'm falling behind on, such as Scalzi, Robb, Cherryh, or Aguirre. Or I can attack some of the books I've been moving with me for years. Whatever, it will involve words and pages and books!


Update (Friday, 6:30)

• Finished The Eye of the Warlock, pp 165 -- 241, 30 minutes
• Finished Redshirts, 317 pp, 2 hours 40 minutes

Update (Friday, 9:30)

• Although my son highly recommended The Eye of the Warlock, I never really got into it, which is why it languished half-read on my shelves for almost a year. I did like what P.W. Catanese did with mixing various fairy tales, and how he moved Hansel and Gretel down a generation.
• Redshirts had been on my TBR list for several years, so I was delighted to find it on the hot-picks shelves of the library. Many of the twists had been spoiled for me, but I still liked Scalzi's trademark dialogue and willingness to think through his premise. The three final codas brought up the tone of the book a few notches; I think it's the first time I've ever enjoyed a story written in second person.
• Read Redskin and Cowboy, starting at page 67. 3 hours.
• I'm trying to spend some blogging time visiting pages, but my internet thinks I should go back to reading. So I'll leave my laptop up until this page updates and then close it and read faster.

Update (Friday, 10:30)

• Finished Redskin and Cowboy (384 pp).  I spent a summer vacation devouring a long pile of G.A. Henty stories back about thirty-odd years ago, so I knew what to expect when I found this copy. Daring young man who grows up to be especially big and strong (and handsome) -- check. Rotten no-good Comanches and Mexicans, complete with a variety of ethnic slurs for each -- check. Experienced guy who tags along to show our hero the ropes -- check. Strange coincidences that tie all the pieces together at the end -- check. I enjoyed it and might offer it to my aunt to help complete her collection.
• Started Ender's World, a collection of essays about Ender's Game as a change of pace.

Update (Saturday, 12:15) 8 hours 30 minutes

• Still reading Ender's World, but going to sleep now.

Update (Saturday, 9:00) 9 Hours 30 minutes

• Woke up at 8 or so to continue reading (only an hours or so later than planned)
• Finished Ender's World (284 pp), which was a collection of essays about Ender's Game from writers, teachers, military officers, and other interested parties. Nothing earth shattering, but a fun collection, and it reminded me of the other aspects of the book -- last time I read it I focused as a parent on the treatment of the kids.
• Started And All the Stars, a YA Cybils pick.

Update (Saturday, 4:00 PM) 15 hours

• Reading And All the Stars -- small font means this is a long book
• Listened to Three Bedrooms, One Corpse for 60 minutes
• Also took a break for a friend's birthday party (and, before that, for a shower)

Update (Saturday, 9:45, 19 hours, 30 minutes)

• Finished And All the Stars, 198 pp, which I enjoyed a lot and will pass along to my 8th grader. I liked the Australian setting and the team work of the kids fighting the alien invasion. The final twists were well done.
• Read Delusions in Death, 355pp,  in about four hours. I keep meaning to use the lap function on my iphone's stopwatch to track each book but I also keep forgetting to push the button so it's not very accurate. Anyway, this one was a standard if gruesome in Death book, with two mass murders rather than a long string of icky single deaths, but not much character development. All the side characters are in stable places -- maybe she needs McNab to lose a leg or something.
• I think I'll do Big Bad Ironclad while figuring out what I want to read next.

Update (Saturday, 10:45, 20 hours, 30 minutes)

• Finished Big Bad Iron Clad, 127pp,  a fun and hopefully informative comic book about Civil War history, told as a Schezerharzie-style story from spy Nathan Hale postponing his hanging. I enjoyed it, and my eighth grader liked it enough to immediately request the other book in the series.
• Poked around on the Internet and left a few comments on blogs, but connection problems make that a bit less fun.
• I think I'll read some more in Shadow's Claim (starting on page 26) but won't commit to finishing it. I'll just go where my fancy takes me until I get sleepy.

Update (Sunday, 5:00, 22 hours)

• Well, I fell asleep around midnight but just woke up thanks to the sprinkler system
• I got tired of Shadow's Claim so I started Throne of the Crescent Moon as well; I'll alternate those unless I also pick up a third book

Update (Sunday, 11:30, 25 Hours)

• Dang, I fell asleep again, and then I kept dreaming I was reading. Now the plot of Throne of the Crescent Moon is all confused. I'll go back to Shadow's Claim which doesn't really try to be consistent anyway. And now I won't make my 30 hour goal. Humph.

Update (Sunday, 3:30, 29 hours) Finish Line

• I finished Shadow's Claim, 481 pp, which was silly but entertaining. There was a happy ending! And lots of sex! With orgasms, even.
• I came really close to finishing Throne of the Crescent Moon but ended up 34 pages short. Only 333 pages done. 
• Total books read: 8, 7 finished.
• Total pages: 2462

This year I did something very unusual for me -- I read a single book at a time, with only a few exceptions. I think that helped keep up my page count. I managed to visit a few other blogs, but my internet has been troublesome lately so that discouraged much socializing. I also listened to about an hour of an audio book, but I don't think that counts towards my page count. Thanks again to Ms Yingling for hosting this year! I'll go sign up on the Finish Line.

Talk With The Animals

Last week I read two books about people talking to animals, which is funny to me since they are completely opposite books.  Kenneth Oppel wrote a realistic book about a boy whose scientist parents experiment by adopting a chimpanzee and teaching him sign language. Ben thinks he has a furry brother; his parents think they have a chance at some good research grants. Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle never questions whether his chimpanzee is really speaking or not; all the Dolittle books grant every animal its own language and dialects, from Chee-chee down to nut grubs. Oppel's character has girl problems and daddy issues and ethical dilemmas; Lofting's Tommy has a vague desire to ride a beautiful horse.

Half Brother, Kenneth Oppel. It's hard for me to judge this book because Oppel did not write the book I wanted to read. The premise of a family adopting a chimpanzee and teaching him Sign Language fascinated me, but most of the book was about the human brother's relationships with girls, his dad, and sometimes his chimp brother. I found myself zoning out during the bits about the boy trying to connect with a neighbor girl and the whole adventure bit at the end of the experiment drowned the interesting parts about the emotional cost to the family under a lot of dashing about with rescue missions and fund raising stunts.

Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures, Hugh Lofting. So, this is one of the old printings, before people realized how problematic the African characters were. Highly prized among purists now. These stories don't tie together into a novel, although some group together into tiny character arcs. I mostly read them to enjoy the enigma that is the doctor's boy Tommy, who a pure every boy with no apparent talent or personality.

Gearing Up For 48 Hours of Fun

I I'm not sure I like this plan of reading one book at a time. It seems so lonely, so constrained. I mean, if a TV show ends on a cliffhanger, I don't refuse to watch anything else until I know how the story ends, do I? On the other hand, I really need to finish a lot of books really soon.

So I'll do my best to control my grasshopper ways, and tunnel through my reading in a very ant-like way.

I'll go sign in at Book Journey's round-up of what people have read, are reading, and will read. I'm also heading for  Teach Mentor Texts since I read many youthful books.

This week I read:

• Lottery, Patricia Wood. This has been on my TBR list since 2010, and I really enjoyed it. The characters were definitely black or white, but the book was cheerful about it so I didn't mind.
• Half Brother, Kenneth Oppel. YA. A more realistic story from the author of Airborn.
• Dr Dolittle's Puddleby Adventure, Hugh Lofting. Kidlit. I've been partway through this since last summer, so I was glad to finish. It's short stories without much cohesion, so it wasn't a problem to wait so long.
• The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner. A journalist gets paid to wander the globe looking for a happy place -- nice work! Although individual bits were interesting, I didn't find that the whole gelled very well.
• Tessie, Jesse Jackson. Kidlit. Another book left over from last summer, so my "currently reading" list gets a bit more believable.
• Impulse, Steven Gould. YA. I read this last month, but I reread it for our family book club. Very popular with all three, and now P is reading the first in the series and we're all waiting for the next book, due late year or so.
• Clementine and the Spring Trip, Sara Pennypacker. Kidlit. I still like Clementine, but this one was fairly standard without ringing many new notes.
• Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller, Joseph Lambert. YA. A Cybils pick for the graphic novel category. Interesting presentation of the Helen Keller stories.

What am I currently reading? Technically I have 14 books open, but really I'm only trying to read four, plus a book of short stories I'm dipping in.  And the audio book.  The bookmarks left in the others will be tackled in their own turns, plus the books I'm just ambling my way through rather than seriously trying to read.

• How To Save a Life. Sara Zarr. Another pick from the Best of the Best lists.
• The Duchess War, Courtney Milan. NOOK. I have good expectations for this author.
• Shadow's Claim, Kresley Cole. A Vaginal Fantasy pick.
• The Avion My Uncle Flew, Cyrus Fisher. Kidlit. Leftover from last summer.
• Some of the Best From Tor.Com 2011. (NOOK) This is from my favorite review site.
• The Wake of the Lorelei Lee, L.A. Meyer (audio). Disc three, and they prepare to sail
• Keep Me Forever, Rosemary Laurey. Dipper. She's a vampire, he seems to be a werewolf.
• The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, Martin Gardner. Dipper. I like his thoughts on prayer.
• The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens. Dipper. Wow, lawyers make life depressing.
• Senrid, Sherwood Smith. Dipper. A rescue! But by the wrong guy?
• Abraham Lincoln: Prairie Years, Carl Sandburg. Congressman Abe heads for D.C.
• A Parent's Guide to Developmental Delays,  Laurie Lecomer. The gross motor section brought back a lot of memories.

What will I read next week? From the library I'm looking at Cybils pick And All the Stars and the Reading My Library choice Ordinary Magic, and from my shelves I'm hoping to finish The Eye of the Warlock. On my NOOK I have Georges as a change of pace after The Duchess. And during the weekend of the 48 Hour Reading Challenge I'll read anything that looks tasty, especially from my groaning library shelves. Probably Scalzi's Redshirts and Robb's (something or other) In Death and anything else I picked up because I couldn't resist it. Those make for good reading in crunch times.

2013 Challenges:

1. Cybils: 27/74.  I've started the younger graphic novels but sometimes have to pry them from my sons' hands to get at them.
2. Where Am I Reading?: 25. Halfway, unless you count D.C, which I'm trying not to. It was fortunate for me that Helen Keller lived in Alabama.
3. Crazy Quilt Colors: 5/9. I'm still hoping for luck here.
4. Science Book Challenge: Nothing so far, although Geography of Bliss tried to be scientific at times. Maybe I'll review that.
5. Reading My Library: Not this week.
6. Best of the Best 2012: 40/25. I'm not doing this years, since I'm still working on last year's list.
7. Summer Reading Goal: I need to finish up the last few so I can start again in June.
8. 48 Hour Reading Challenge! Coming up next weekend!

Lovely Day at the Library

All the kids declined to accompany me but I managed to have a pleasant yet restrained time at the library anyway. I ogled books all over but only brought homes the ones on my hold shelf.

See, I clearly have far more books out right now than I can possibly read before the library calls them home, and I hate letting go a book before I'm ready. Luckily the 48 Hour Book Challenge is next weekend; maybe that will help me plow through a pile of must-reads.

I picked up:

• The Fire Lord's Lover, Kathryne Kennedy. June Vaginal Fantasy pick.
• Joshua's Song, Joan Harlow. This is for my kid, who was interested in the Boston Molasses Disaster.
• Follow Follow, Marilyn Singer. Another book of reverso poems. I'm looking forward to this.
• The Four Corners of the Sky, Michael Malone. This is on my TBR list, although from three years ago and I have no memory of why I put it there. I just have to trust myself.

I have a total of 57 things out on my library cards, which is a bit excessive. This is actually down from last week, because I had forgotten about the books out from the city library. Oops. But at least three are CD's, and I'm hoping the graphic novels will go quickly. But I'm definitely over my age, so no book buying for me this week.

I'll go share my Library Loot at the event co-hosted by Claire from the Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader, where all the library addicts compare their treasures. And I think I'll sign up at Tynga's Stacking the Shelves, which asks for all the books acquired, which this week is just the library stuff.

Kidlit Tuesday: Kids On Their Own

Since I'm about three months late, I'm trying to group some of the kidlit I've read into loose groups. This weeks batch is books about children, almost exclusively girls, left without parental support for some reason. For some reason I haven't read books lately where the boys are orphaned. Maybe I just read more books about girls? After all, we are more interesting, right?

In some of these, the plot is an adventure and the parents are gone mostly so the kid can act heroically. Although there is some worry about the lost ones, clearly they need to be out of the way. Zita doesn't seem to trouble about her worried folks back on the home dimension, and Leanne, friend of the Cyborg,  doesn't have a personality as much as a plot purpose, so her worries about her arrested mom come and go depending on what the plot would prefer. My kids never worry about the missing parents in these books either, which concerns me a bit. I ask them if they'd notice if I were gone, and they say probably, although if magic or robots start appearing they might be too busy. Fair enough.

In increasingly emotionally complex books, the parents are removed in a more realistic way. In Summer of the Gypsy Moths, two twelve year old girls desperately want to avoid foster care and so they conceal the death of their elderly guardian and survive alone in a house for a summer. May B.'s parents and employers manage to abandon her in a lonely sod house on the Kansas prairie with no way to get out or call for help. These last two are a good contrast, as May is capable of all the tasks she needs for survival, but is unwillingly alone and desperately lonely, while the lesser skilled Gypsy Moth girls not only have each other for support but could end their isolation at any time by admitting the truth. So while May cooks and manages and desperately tries to contact anyone, the Gypsy girls constantly fend off well-meaning adults to keep their isolation going while scrambling to feed themselves.

Cyborg: Clone Wars 2, Patricia, Frederick, & John McKissack. The writing is uneven enough to make me wish the author above had been pushier with her coauthors -- the characters' motivations and actions were often inexplicable (why didn't Houston tell anyone their ally was lying? Why did Leanne suddenly decide to give herself up without discussing it with her friends? Why did Toby suddenly show up a few pages before his help was essential?) It's like they think story doesn't matter if you are doing SF, especially SF with a message.

Legends of Zita the Spacegirl, Ben Hatke.  My kids and I reallly like these graphic novels, with their attractive art and fast moving story lines. I found it interesting that Zita makes some big mistakes (stealing a spaceship) although my kids agree with her that it was just necessary. I also worry about her parents back home, which doesn't trouble the boys at all. We'll keep looking for more Zita.

The Summer of the Gypsy Moths, Sara Pennypacker. Classic story in the tradition of My Side of the Mountain, the Tillerman cycle, and other independent child tales, with two young girls fending for themselves after their foster parent dies. As an adult, I found the dead body creepier than my younger self would've, but the authentic voices of the girls and their often hilarious attempts to cover up their solitude more than made up for it. Very different from the Clementine books, but still good.

May B., Caroline Starr Rose. RML. Ooo, I strongly dislike poem novels. So I got mad when she did something silly even though she was only a kid. I liked that she went off on her own, even though only a coincidence saved her life.

What Have I Been Reading Since I Got Old?

I guess what happened on my birthday was that I got too old to blog. Then I remembered that you are only as old as you feel, which I guess makes me about three, judging by my attitude towards chores and such. And three year olds can definitely blog, right? So here I am, accounting for my reading for March, April and May.

One thing I'm trying to do is focus my reading. Since I have a new and beautiful reading bag that is too small for the miniature library I tend to tote about, I'm trying to concentrate on one library book and one personal book, plus my NOOK for emergencies. Since my library pile recently burgeoned alarmingly, I'm hoping this helps me get through a lot quickly.

I'll go sign in at Book Journey's round-up of what people have read, are reading, and will read. I'm also heading for  Teach Mentor Texts since I read many youthful books.

This week I read:

• Bob, Son of Battle, Alfred Ollivant. A dog story annoyingly crammed with impenetrable dialect and motiveless adult villains. I might have put up with it in my animal-story loving youth, but I would have been wasting my time. But I'm glad I finished this summer reading left-over.
• The Iron King, Julie Kagawa. YA. NOOK. The main character spent the entire book shell shocked and ignorant, which was believable but not enjoyable.
• Cold Cereal, Adam Rex. Kidlit. Strong comedy but a bit weak on characterization. Part of my Reading My Library quest.
• A Dog's Way Home, Bobbie Pyron. Kidlit. A more enjoyable dog story, but I found the last fifty or so pages of coincidence-ridden drama a bit over the top. Another RML book.
• The Tricksters, Margaret Mahy. YA. Interesting characters but the fantasy vs reality themes didn't mesh for me. Another summer reading left-over.
• May B., Caroline Starr Rose. Kidlit. My distaste for poem novels kept me from enjoying it. Another RML book.
• Deadly Games, Lindsay Buroker. NOOK. A fun romp in the Emperor's Edge series.
• Olivia Kidney: Secret Beneath the City, Ellen Potter. Kidlit. Lots of quirky characters, but the combination of a main character who disdains reading and starting at the third book kept me from enjoying it. RML pick.
• Barrayar, Lois McMaster Bujold (audio). I loved it, and my kids were happy to have it on in the car. I heard a different version on a long car ride, so it brought back happy memories.
• Paranormal Properties, Tracy Lane. Kidlit. I'm having my kids read this to get their opinions.
• Living Hell, Catherine Jinks. Kidlit. Australian book with the kind of depressing ending I used to get from John Christopher. I miss the good old days when happy endings weren't assured.

Earlier in May I read:

• Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince, Nancy Atherton. In these cosy mysteries, not only are there no deaths but there are usually no bad guys.
• Seraphina, Rachel Hartman. YA. NOOK. A Cybils finalist. I liked it.
• Necessity's Child, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.  A solid Liadan entry.
• An Apple for the Creature (short stories), ed. Charlaine Harris. I got it for the Sookie story, but I enjoyed most of them.
• Freak Show, James St James. YA. I was never sure where the author painted the reality line, but it was an interesting book with a great voice.
• The Con Job, Matt Forbeck. For my Leverage addiction.
• The Song of Scarabaeus, Sara Creasy. Fun Vaginal Fantasy pick.
• A Rule Against Murder, Louise Penny. Real life book club book.
• Ivy and Bean Make the Rules, Annie Barrows. Kidlit. Cybils finalist.
• Dead Ever After, Charlaine Harris. Sookie settles down.
• Marty McGuire Digs Worms!, Kate Messner. Kidlit. Cybils finalist, with a foolish kid.
• Aftermath, Ann Aguirre. I like a SF Romance that is willing to mess up the romance.
• Ghost Planet, Sharon Lynn Fisher. The main Vaginal Fantasy book, but I had real consent issues with the romance and then the science got confusing.

In April I read: 

• Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein, Susan Goldman Rubin. NOOK. From last year's Best of the Best YA books.
• The Young Man and the Sea, Rodman Philbrick. Kidlit. RML pick.
• Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst. YA. Cybils finalist. My older son liked it a lot.
• Wild Magic, Tamora Pierce. Kidlit. For our April family book club.
• Dark Currents, Lindsay Buroker. NOOK. Fun second book in Emperor's Edge series.
• Impulse, Steven Gould. YA.  The guy from Jumper has a teenager; life is just. Now conveniently chosen as our family book club book for May.
• Why We Broke Up, Daniel Handler. YA. Best of the best pick, which I hated. I don't think children should be encouraged/allowed to date until they are twenty or so.
• Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch, Nancy Atherton. Wow, there were actually some non-goodhearted people in this one, which was a bit of a shock. Most of them were merely misled, though.
• Bossypants, Tina Fey (audio). Lost of fun, even though I've never seen her TV show.
• How Clarrisa Burden Learned to Fly, Connie May Fowler. Good book about a woman growing into herself.
• The Emperor's Edge, Lindsay Buroker. NOOK. Fun fantasy book we read at our real book club.
• Shards of Honor, Lois McMaster Bujold (audio). Good car book.
• Summer of the Gypsy Moths, Sara Pennypacker. Kidlit. RML pick that I enjoyed although the situation was a bit overwhelming for the characters.
• Kris Longknife: Furious, Mike Shepherd. I can never tell whether Shepherd is making a statement about strange female behavior or if he thinks this is true to life.
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Jesse Andrews. YA. Cybils finalist that is not quite as depressing as the title implies.
• The War With the Newts, Karel Apek. Old SF that loses something because it was so timely.
• Blackwood, Gwenda Bond. YA. Intriguing paranormal looking at the lost colonists of Roanoke.
• The Serpent's Shadow, Rick Riordan. Final book in the Egyptian trilogy. OK but I wish Sadie had been less air-headed.
• The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, Eleanor Estes. Kidlit. A bit too slow to hold my interest.

And back in March, after my birthday, I read:

• Bloody Jack, L.A. Meyer. Kidlit. Girl from the streets of London puts on trousers and joins the Navy.
• Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World, Sy Montgomery. YA. NOOK. From Best of the Best lists.
• Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi (audio). The boys really liked this one.
• Lioness Rampant, Tamora Pierce. Kidlit. We read the whole quartet for family book club.
• The King of Attolia, Megan Whelan Turner. YA. A reread of an old favorite.
• The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, Tamora Pierce. Kidlit. Alana heads into the desert.
• Read-Aloud Poems, ed. Gloria Hale. Kidlit. To my kids' relief, I did not follow the advice in the title (much).
• In the Hand of the Goddess, Tamora Pierce. Kidlit. Alana learns to juggle career and boys.
• Soup's Hoop, Robert Newton Peck. Kidlit. Leftover from the summer. Cute book about boys in New England back in the day.
• Naked in Death, J.D. Robb. I reread this for the Vaginal Fantasy book group.
• Steel's Edge, Ilona Andrews. I had some problems with the pacing, but in general it delivered a fun, action-filled tale of magic and partnership.

What am I currently reading? Technically I have 15 books open, but really I'm only trying to read three, plus a book of short stories I'm dipping in.  And the audio book.  The bookmarks left in the others will be tackled in their own turns, plus the books I'm just ambling my way through rather than seriously trying to read.

• Half Brother, Kenneth Oppel. I like the parts with the chimp brother better than the parts with the other humans.
• The Lottery, Patricia Wood. What happens when you win?
• Some of the Best From Tor.Com 2011. (NOOK) This is from my favorite review site.
• The Wake of the Lorelei Lee, L.A. Meyer (audio). Disc two, and finally the plot starts.
• Keep Me Forever, Rosemary Laurey. Dipper. Nice change of pace.
• The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, Martin Gardner. Dipper. I like his thoughts on prayer.
• The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens. Dipper. Wow, lawyers make life depressing.
• Senrid, Sherwood Smith. Dipper. Things are looking bad for the good guys.
• Abraham Lincoln: Prairie Years, Carl Sandburg. Time to think of marriage, Abe.
• A Parent's Guide to Developmental Delays,  Laurie Lecomer. How to spot various physical difficulties in the early grades. Wow, I should have read this when Susan gave it to me.

What will I read next week? From the library I'm looking at Death Comes to Pemberly and How To Save a Life, and from my shelves I'm hoping to finish Tessie. On my NOOK I have The Geography of Bliss and The Duchess War.

2013 Challenges:

1. Cybils: 26/74. I finished Easy Readers and Early Chapter books (and I don't understand where they are drawing that line), Fiction Picture Books, and I've assembled all the younger graphic novels reading for reading.
2. Where Am I Reading?: 24. I've now read at least three books from North Carolina -- what's up with that?
3. Crazy Quilt Colors: 5/9. No luck yet. I counted "bloody" for red?
4. Science Book Challenge: Need to re-sign up, especially since Righteous Minds would count.
5. Reading My Library: Started last block of juvenile fiction, R-Z.
6. Best of the Best 2012: 40/25. I'm not doing this years, since I'm still working on last year's list.
7. Summer Reading Goal: I need to finish up the last few so I can start again in June.

Library Troubles and I'm Here Again!

I hesitate to say "I'm back" because who knows when I'll post next, but I'm here to celebrate my library visit.  I had a fun and restrained time at the library, which is good because a few weeks ago I had to kill time waiting for kids at two different places, and I slaughtered the minutes both times at libraries with alluring shelves that left me with many tempting pages at hand.

Today I only picked up one extra book to go with the four books on my hold shelf, and two holds are really for my kids, not me. So I shouldn't really count them. And it was time to refresh my Reading My Library options, so that was another six books. Hmm. Well, it could been worse -- it could have been raining!

From my hold shelf and the new arrivals I picked up:

• Clementine and the Spring Trip, Sara Pennypacker. I just saw this on the book store and put it on my TBR list, and there it was in New Arrivals! My library rocks.
• Endgame, Ann Aguirre. The last in the Sarantha Jax series, which for some reason my library does not have in its e-book collection, so I'm switching formats here.
• Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, Maria Semple. Our next book club book (not this one, but the next one.)
• One Dead Spy, Nathan Hale. My eighth grader just read a Nathan Hale book from the Cybils list and he requested any others, so I got this for him.
• The Dark Tide, Stephen Puleo. My sixth grader is doing a disaster report so we got this, although it came one day too late as he is now at his dad's place writing the report.

In my Reading My Library Quest I have entered the last block of Juvenile shelves. I tend to try to fill in holes in my 50-states challenge with these books so I'm swimming against my natural preference for fantasy and picking more realistic fiction, especially if the description tells me the country or state. From the six shelves housing authors from Ru - Sh I selected:

• Ordinary Magic, Caitlen Rubino-Bradley. I've seen this talked about a few times.
• The Dreamer, Pam Munoz Ryan. I think this is on my TBR list, so bonus. Also, South America.
• The White Giraffe, Lauren St. John. I need more Africa books.
• Night of the Howling Dogs, Graham Salisbury. I like this author, and his books are set in Hawaii.
• Smells Like Dog, Suzanne Selfors. Cute dog picture, and it's a farm boy so I'm hoping Midwest.
• Blue Jasmine, Kashmira Sheth. Iowa City is Iowa, right?

I have a total of 56 things out on my library cards, which is a bit excessive, especially since only a few are CDs (4)  or short books (about 6) or things I got for my kids (about 3). So I forbade myself from buying any books, and I was really strict too. Sometimes I really hate me because I'm so mean.

I'll go share my Library Loot at the event co-hosted by Claire from the Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader, where all the library addicts compare their treasures. And I think I'll sign up at Tynga's Stacking the Shelves, which asks for all the books acquired, which this week is just the library stuff.