How Books Saved Me From Commute Madness

As some of you know, on most days, I commute to and from Chicago. Although the commute hasn't been too bad, I am bothered by the thought of wasting so much time in the car. I bring books or magazines with me everywhere and when I find myself in a moment of downtime, I fill that moment with words. I enjoy sneaking in a page or two at red lights; however, once I hit 90, there aren't anymore lights and it's a pretty long stretch from the last light on 47 to home. Since I don't think anyone will be inventing devices that guide people's cars down the road during rush hour traffic any time soon, I have decided to explore the wonderful world of audiobooks. I am always fretting that there is never enough time to read all of the books I want to read, especially the ones from the GKHS collection. I like to be able to talk with our students about the books we have and I have finally stumbled upon an efficient way to be able to review and recommend a lot of them.

After school, I am headed to Sulzer Regional Library in Ravenswood and then Merlo Library in my lovely Lakeview neighborhood, in hopes of scouring their audiobook bin for books that match those in our collection. I feel this is multitasking at its best. Not only will I be able to break up the boredom of the commute, but I will also be better serve our students. Although I'm still old school and feel that nothing beats the feel and smell of a book, I am grateful to audiobooks for helping me out and for making reading an enjoyable experience for readers who may have struggled in the past.

Another day, another movie...

So, I was checking out Yahoo! movies and saw that The Lovely Bones is coming to theaters soon...

http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/movie-stills/gallery/1971/the-lovely-bones-stills#photo0

Again, I will be missing this movie as its another one of my favorite books of all time and movies always seem to betray the tone of a novel, but I am a bit intrigued as it is being directed by Peter Jackson.

Sold by Patricia McCormick

I highly recommend the young adult book, Sold by Patricia McCormick. Although this book is fiction, it is a jarring and horrifying representation of the child prostitution slave trade in India. The book is written in journal format, in which the main character, Lakshmi, describes the process of being sold by her stepfather to a cruel brothel owner and then becoming her slave. The most heartbreaking aspect, outside of the fact that Lakshmi has her innocence brutally ripped away against her will, is the fact that her naive nature leads her to misunderstand her fate until the grim moment that it's not possible anymore. She is forced to leave the mother and brother she loves and becomes trapped in a nightmare, from which she fears she'll never escape.

While reading this book, I couldn't help but think of the painfully gripping documentary "Born Into Brothels", which focuses on children living in the red light district in Calcutta. Both the book and the movie are a call for people in a position to help to avoid sitting idly by and speak out against this terrible crime against children. I wept as I read Sold, not only because of the terrible things Lakshmi had to endure, but also because her character represents thousands of real girls across the world, who must face the hopelessness of their fate. Somaly Mam, a woman who was forced into prostitution as a young girl, wrote a book called The Road of Lost Innocence, which is a nonfiction account of her life as a child prostitute. Today, Mam risks her own life and the lives of her family members to speak out against the sex-trafficking industry and to help young women escape the misery of the brothels. for more information about Mam and this topic, visithttp://www.somaly.org/ All of these stories mentioned above are heartbreaking, yet resound with hope and reminders to appreciate the good in our lives. If you are interested in reading Sold, it is available in the library.

Welcome Mrs. Beynon!

Hoooooooray! Everyone is catching the blog bug. Thanks for joining Mrs. B. I think we should both go to Sam's, buy Kleenex in bulk, read My Sister's Keeper, and weep and talk about it.

Thanks for helping keep us going!

Thanks to Mr. O for joining us. Hopefully, more people will do the same so we can make this an even more successful than last year.

My faith is restored in the Twilight series!

I just finished reading New Moon and I must say that I am super duper excited to read the others. I'd like to give another shout out to Mr. Eich for inspiring me to start again. After a year-long break, I decided to get back into the swing of reading the books and I was pleasantly surprised by how hard it was for me to put down New Moon, even while driving. : ) I found Twilight to be drawn out and a little dull, except for the end. Although I still feel that the writing is juvenile at times and the Romeo and Juliet allusions annoy me to no end, I can see what the Twilight hype is all about. The fact that Meyer has been able to get so many kids and adults excited about reading is superb and I'm sure librarians, parents, and teachers everywhere would scream thanks from the rooftops. Go Stephenie, go Stephenie.

The Time Traveler's Wife- Does the movie measure up?

Miss Wilkins shouts NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO from the rooftops. Anyone else care to share?