There are books that you enjoy reading and can think of one or two friends to recommend it to. There are books that you love and recommend to all of your friends. Then there are books like Wonder, that you are convinced everyone in the world should read and you would press it on random strangers, telling them how wonderful it was. Yup, Wonder is definitely one of those books.

August Pullman has a birth defect that caused his face to be deformed. People have difficulty looking at him, and he has become a master at noticing even the most subtle reaction. For the most part, he has been in a cocoon of love – his mother has homeschooled him, and his family loves him unconditionally. But then fifth grade comes, and his parents have decided that it’s time for him to go to school like everyone else.

Anyone who remembers their school days remembers that fifth grade was not an easy year. Kids are growing up, trying to figure out who they are, trying to fit in with the cool kids. And then along comes August, brave and terrified, and his classmates’ reactions to him are both typical and life-affirming.

As a teacher myself, I can vouch that this book is spot-on in describing life in a school. The students, the teachers, the parents – they are all out there, just as they are in Wonder. I’ve read plenty of middle grade fiction, but this one gets the prize for a realistic view of daily school life.

And one of the amazing things about this book is that we don’t just see August’s point of view. We start there; we can see life through his eyes. And then in the next section, we switch to his sister’s point of view – and suddenly everything is different from how we saw it at first. R.J. Palacio gets so completely inside the heads of her characters that you can’t help but see everything that way, too.

August is a wonder, and so is this book. So true to life, so poignant. So filled with hope. So inspiring. Family, friends, random strangers – please read this book.

Sometimes I’m way behind the reading trends. For example, pretty much everyone has read Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell by now. So I’m not going to write a traditional review. I figure there might be a few holdouts like me who haven’t decided if they’re going to read the book or not. To help these people out, I’ve written two lists – one of why you should read Eleanor & Park, and one of why you should not. As with everything on this blog, these lists are entirely my own opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree, or to share your own opinion of this book.

Why You Should Not Read Eleanor & Park
   - The swearing. It’s sprinkled liberally throughout the book, and if this is something you typically avoid, you might want to avoid this book.
   - Verbal, sexual, and physical abuse. Not tons, but not really appropriate for younger readers.
   - The ending. It satisfies, but barely. Though I’m not sure there’s a better one.

Why You Should Read Eleanor & Park
   - The characters. Eleanor and Park are real and vulnerable. We all knew kids like them in high school. We may even have been kids like them in high school.
   - True love. First love. Love that is not puppy love or just a hook up. Love that matters.
   - The writing. Rainbow Rowell describes a situation or a feeling with just the right phrase. Every single time.
   - The setting. How often do you get to read a book set in 1986?
   - Dual points of view. You get the story from Eleanor’s angle and from Park’s angle. It makes you care about the characters just that much more.
   - The ending. It’s brilliant. It’s realistic, and it leaves you wanting more.

You can probably tell by the fact that my shoulds outnumber my should-nots that I really enjoyed this book and am glad I read it. If you’re on the fence about reading Eleanor & Park, I hope my lists helped! If you’ve already read it, let me know what you thought about it in the comments!

This past week was Bout of Books, so that's about all I posted. You can check out my updates and challenges posts, if you like. It was a ton of fun, as always, and I'm happy to report that I met all of my goals! Read-a-thon success!

A Constant Heart by Siri Mitchell (If you like Elizabethan England, you would enjoy this book. Lots of history hidden amongst the fiction.)
The Case of the Love Commandos by Tarquin Hall (For fans of Alexander McCall Smith - only set in India)
Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye by Zac Unger (Polar bears are my favorite animal, so this book was a must!)
The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron (Still checking the Newbery Award winners off my list)

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa (This is one of those books I picked up because I needed it for a reading challenge. It's both interesting and strange so far.)

A Passion Most Pure by Julie Lessman (I've heard lots of good things about this author and this series, so I'm excited to get to this one.)

Hosted by My Little Pocketbooks

Hosted by Book Reviews from a Christian Gal

This was harder than I thought it would be! Here's my sentence:

These are the books I used (I just pulled some off my giant stack of library books):
- Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye by Zac Unger
- Vienna Nocturne by Vivien Shotwell
- Jerusalem Vigil by Bodie & Brock Thoene
- One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Hosted by Christian Bookshelf Reviews

This challenge was also harder than I expected! I came up with a lot of matching pairs and a few groups of three, but it was hard to find four in a row. And then I just had to keep scouring my shelves to see if I could possibly find a fifth to add to the list!

Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg
The Code Book by Simon Singh
The Book of Lost Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien
Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Hosted by Kimberly Faye Reads

I've spelled out my name before for a previous read-a-thon's challenge, so I decided to do my blog name. This was actually easier than I thought. I guess when you own as many books as I do, you can find just about any letter you need. . .

The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen
Italian Days by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

Symphony by Jude Morgan
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
A Splendor of Letters by Nicholas Basbanes

I'll be updating this post daily as the week goes on, so check back to see my Bout of Books progress! You can see my goals here.

Time spent reading: Two hours and 17 minutes
Number of pages read: 168
Book I read from: A Constant Heart by Siri Mitchell
Blogs commented on: Five
Challenges completed: Zero

Time spent reading: Two hours and 6 minutes
Total time spent reading: Four hours and 23 minutes
Number of pages read: 145
Total number of pages read: 313
Books completed: One
First book finished at: 6:22 p.m.
Books I read from: A Constant Heart by Siri Mitchell ; The Case of the Love Commandos by Tarquin Hall
Blogs commented on: Seven
Challenges completed: One (Book Spine Poetry)

Time spent reading: Two hours and 9 minutes
Total time spent reading: Six hours and 32 minutes
Number of pages read: 170
Total number of pages read: 483
Total number of books completed: One
Book I read from: The Case of the Love Commandos by Tarquin Hall
Blogs commented on: Eight
Challenges completed: One (Create a Sentence)

Time spent reading: Two hours and 37 minutes
Total time spent reading: Nine hours and 9 minutes
Number of pages read: 161
Total number of pages read: 595
Number of books completed: One
Total number of books completed: Two (I may have to cheat a bit and read a really short one in order to meet my goal of completing four books. . .)
Books I read from: The Case of the Love Commandos by Tarquin Hall ; Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye by Zac Unger
Blogs commented on: Seven
Challenges completed: Zero (Two total - see them here)

The work week is just about done! I've been spending about six hours a day in my classroom, getting it ready for the upcoming school year. That really cuts into my reading time! But today is Friday, so I'm only planning to spend about half that amount of time at school. Hopefully, this afternoon I'll be sitting on my front porch with a glass of lemonade, reading about polar bears in the Arctic!

Time spent reading: Three hours and 7 minutes
Total time spent reading: Twelve hours and 16 minutes
Number of pages read: 183
Total number of pages read: 778
Number of books completed: One
Total number of books completed: Three
Book I read from: Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye by Zac Unger
Blogs commented on: 6
Challenges completed: One (Book Chain - which means I have 3 total, and this goal is complete! Yay!)

I didn't quite as much reading time in yesterday as I hoped, mostly because I spent way too much time searching my bookshelves for the Book Chain challenge. That was a really fun one! I've got a lot I want to get done today (really fun stuff, like cleaning the bathroom - please note the sarcasm), but I'll do my best to get some reading in!

Time spent reading: Two hours and 14 minutes
Total time spent reading: Fourteen hours and 30 minutes
Number of pages read: 193
Total number of pages read: 971
Number of books completed: One (It was a short one. I knew I'd never hit my goal of four otherwise. :)
Total number of books completed: Four
Books I read from: The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron; Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
Blogs commented on: 7
Challenges completed: One (Spell It Out)

Time spent reading: Two hours and 25 minutes
Number of pages read: 130
Number of books completed: Zero
Book I read from: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
Blogs commented on: 10
Challenges completed: Zero

Time spent reading: Sixteen hours and 55 minutes
Number of pages read: 1,101
Number of books completed: Four
Blogs commented on: 50
Challenges completed: Four

And those totals mean that I met all of my goals (two hours a day, 4 books completed, 5 blog comments a day, three challenges). I dub this read-a-thon a success! Can't wait until the next one!

It's Bout of Books week! Let the reading commence! (After my three-hour teacher meeting, lunch with my fellow teachers, and several hours of working in my classroom. . .) The craziness of August has begun. But I'll still get some reading time in!

The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon - Review
Bout of Books - Goals (I may be over-committing myself here, but I'll try!)

The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Imperfect Harmony by Stacy Horn (Music lovers will enjoy this book, especially if you've sung in a choir before.)
Wonder by R.J. Palacio (I loved, loved, loved this book. Find a copy and read it!)

A Constant Heart by Siri Mitchell (Christian fiction set in Queen Elizabeth's court. Very good so far!)

The Case of the Love Commandos by Tarquin Hall (With a title like that, who could resist?)

This is the second time I'm participating in a Bout of Books read-a-thon, and I'm really excited! I'll be reading in and amongst all of the many, many, many things I still need to do before school starts in September. My classroom is not the least bit ready. But I'm sure I'll be able to squeeze some reading time in despite my long to-do list!

• Read at least two hours every day (preferably more!)
• Read four books
• Comment on at least 5 blogs every day
• Participate in at least 3 challenges

Well, yesterday was my last Library Day of the summer, and I may have gone a bit overboard. . .

I'll have plenty to keep me reading next week! I'll probably start at the top and work my way down, so The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto will be up first. We'll see what I'm in the mood for next!

This book is fascinating and scary, all at the same time. Anana Johnson’s father, the head of the North American Dictionary of the English Language, disappears without explanation one Friday night. As Ana tries to find out where he’s gone, she discovers much more than she bargained for – a plot to delete words from the dictionary and replace them with nonsense words and definitions. And then people begin displaying signs of “word flu,” where the words they speak make less and less sense to the people around them.

The Word Exchange is a commentary on technology. Specifically, our reliance (or over-reliance) on technology. The more you rely on something else, the less you feel able to do yourself. It’s a point that needs to be made nowadays, as we learn about the invasive permissions required for the new Facebook messaging app. Or consider the possibility that the government is recording our phone calls. Even an advertisement I heard on Pandora as I was reading this book freaked me out – how Pandora knows what mood you are in and will play the appropriate playlist. Just exaggeration in advertising, I know (I hope). Still freaky to think about.

The Word Exchange is thought-provoking at the same time as it’s hang-onto-the-edge-of-your-seat. Not many books can provide both at once. But The Word Exchange delivers. A compelling plot with characters you care deeply about that makes you examine your 21st-century life and consider the future of technology.

A Little Folly by Jude Morgan - Review
Bout of Books Sign-Up & Classics Club Spin List (Looks like I'll be reading Waverly by Sir Walter Scott for my Classics Club spin!)
Saturday Snapshot - the tiny country of San Marino

The Secret Life of William Shakespeare by Jude Morgan (Kind of a slow read, but a perfectly plausible plot for Shakespeare's life)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (This was an unusual book, but it wouldn't be Neil Gaiman if it wasn't unusual, right?)
The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon (Amazing book!)
Glamorous Illusions by Lisa Tawn Bergren (I love traveling in Europe, so a series about the Grand Tour is right up my alley!)

The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan (I've been desperately trying to finish my stack of library books before they're due on Wednesday. This is the last one. I've almost made it!)

Imperfect Harmony by Stacy Horn (Having sung in choirs since I was in first grade, I am really excited about reading this book!)

Earlier this summer, my husband and I took a trip to Italy. We had a wonderful time, and we came back with nearly 2,000 pictures! Don't worry, they won't all make it into Saturday Snapshot posts. :) But I'm sure quite a few Italy pictures will be coming your way over the next few weeks.

We also went to the country of San Marino, which is just 24 square miles and is completely surrounded by Italy. The capital city is up on a hill, which gives you stunning views. The clouds were just rolling in as we got there, which created one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip.

Walking along the path between the towers made me feel like I was in Narnia!

Later in the afternoon, it cleared up and we could see all the way to the Adriatic Sea.