Book Lists on Flashlight Worthy.com

I recently was introduced to a Web site called Flashlight Worthy, which has tons of recommended books in lots of categories. I have spent some time checking it out, and if I didn’t stop myself I could easily spend all day there clicking on list after list. Flashlight Worthy says it has over 300 lists of books in more than 50 categores. There’s none on mother-daughter book clubs yet, but I hope to change that soon (more on that later).

One thing I like about Flashlight Worthy is that you can research books without knowing a specific title. That solves the problem of finding new books when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Each book at Flashlight Worthy includes a synopsis along with a link to Amazon.com, where you can buy the book or even just peruse the reviews.

Here’s a sampling of some of the featured lists on the site:

Favorite Reissues of Neglected Books

9 Children’s Novels Both Boys and Girls Will Love to Hear

The 10 Best Books of 2009 for Book Clubs

The Best Children’s Fantasy for Adults

Obviously, there are many more lists you can check out. Here’s where I’d like your help. I plan to create a list for mother-daughter book clubs to submit to the site. I have books in mind, but if you have a title you think makes a great mother-daughter book club selection, list it in the comments here and I’ll add it to the list. Tell me what ages you think the book is appropriate for.

 

Kim Culbertson’s Reading List

Kim Culbertson, author of Songs for a Teenage Nomad (which is a great summer read too), has sent in her summer reading list for herself and her daughter. She says it’s a partial reading list, but it’s certainly ambitious.  Here it is:

My five year old daughter and I are looking forward to reading (and re-reading):
Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman
The Girl and The Elephant by Nicole de Cock
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Ella Sets Sail Carmela and Steve D’Amico
Anything Angelina Ballerina by Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig
Falling Up by Shel Silverstein
An assortment of Beatrix Potter

YA books I plan to read this summer:
Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass
Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti
King Dork by Frank Portman

And those grown-up books I’m looking forward to:
How To Buy A Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson (I’ll re-read this for my book club in August!)
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
The Scenic Route by Binnie Kirshenbaum

Summer Reading List

Ah yes, summertime and the living is easy. No 5:40 a.m. alarms, no rushed breakfasts, no making quick lunches and helping kids fly out the door by 7 a.m. While there’s still plenty of work to be done in the summer, I welcome the slower pace and the opportunity to relax a bit and spend time with my daughters.

We read together a lot more in the summer. Without a heavy homework load looming every evening it’s easier to find time to snuggle up together with a good book. Even my 18-year-old still enjoys having that kind of “mom time.”

What’s on our list to read this summer? Well, the list is certainly too long, and we will only make our way through part of it. But it includes a combination of classics and new books that we expect to get happily lost in during the next few months.

Here’s a look at some of the books on our lists as well as summer reading suggestions for younger readers.

Ages 7–8
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede—a princess defies the stereotyped expectations of her position to forge her own way and help her friends when they need her.

Frindle by Andrew Clements—When Nick is assigned a report on how entries are added to the dictionary, he is inspired to coin his own new word. His teacher is not amused, and a war about words ensues.

Piper Reed: Navy Brat by Kimberly Willis Holt—Follow the adventures of Piper, a middle child with a winning voice, and catch a glimpse into the life of a military family.

The Real Thief by William Steig—Gawain the goose guards the royal treasury, and he is fiercely loyal to King Basil. When jewels and other treasures go missing, Gawain is unjustly accused. He escapes and hides out until he can discover the real thief.

The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill—Miss Agnes arrives on the Alaskan frontier to take over a one-room schoolhouse in 1948. She’s different from any teacher the students have ever had, playing opera music, reading books about Greek Myths, and even learning sign language so she can teach a deaf student.

Ages 9–10
11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass—Amanda and Leo are best friends who have shared birthday celebrations for each of their last ten years. A rift keeps them apart on their eleventh birthday, and they find themselves waking to relive their birthday every day until they find a way to come back together.

Boy by Roald Dahl—Find out where Roald Dahl got his inspiration for the wacky and wicked characters that populate his books when you read these tales from his childhood. You’ll read stories of Dahl pulling pranks on candy-store owners and his older sister’s fiancé, harrowing accounts of crude-for-today medical procedures, and life inside British boarding schools.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman—A baby orphaned by an attack on his family finds refuge in a graveyard, where he is named Nobody, or Bod for short, by the long-dead inhabitants. The graveyard’s night guardian provides human sustenance, while its ghostly residents teach him how to live.

My Louisiana Sky by Kimberly Willis Holt—When her grandmother dies, Tiger Ann must decide whether she’ll stay with her mentally slow parents in their small Louisiana town, or move in with her glamorous aunt in the big city of Baton Rouge.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum—Filled with many adventures of Dorothy Gale and her little dog that you won’t find in the movie, this classic is the first in a long series of books about Oz.

Ages 11–13
Alligator Bayou by Donna Jo Napoli—Sicilian immigrant Calogero finds it difficult to fit into life in a small Louisiana town in the late 1800s. He’s not supposed to socialize with whites or blacks, and tension between the races is building.

Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison—Fourteen-year-old Georgia worries about her breasts, her looks, and learning how to kiss a boy while dealing with her neurotic cat, clueless parents, and her baby sister still in diapers.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson—Since Hattie’s parents died she has been shuttled from one relative to another. When an uncle in Montana dies leaving her his land claim, she finally gets a chance to create a place for herself. First she has to find out if she can handle the hard life of a homesteader on her own.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett—Mary is an orphan left to mostly fend for herself in her uncle’s English castle. When she discovers her crippled cousin Colin, she finds a way to bring life back to a hidden garden and the family that has taken her in.

Tangerine by Edward Bloor—Paul is legally blind and overshadowed by his football-hero brother. When his family moves to Tangerine County, Fla., Paul rejects his upscale school for one with a poor reputation so he can play soccer. As he discovers more about the accident that blinded him, he turns his town and his family upside down.

Ages 14 and up
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green—Colin has had nineteen girlfriends named Katherine. While on a summer road trip with his friend, he creates a plan to study the reasons they have all broken up with him, then apply a mathematic formula to find out the length of any future relationship.

Impossible by Nancy Werlin—Lucy is almost seventeen when she discovers a curse that leaves all the women in her family pregnant, insane and abandoning their child when they are her age. With the help of her foster parents and her friend Zach, she must find a way to break the curse before it all comes true.

Light Years by Tammar Stein—Maya leaves Israel for college in the U.S., but she can’t leave the feeling she is responsible for her boyfriend’s death by a suicide bomber. Her story alternates between both countries, highlighting the distances between the two cultures.

Torched by April Henry—Ellie’s parents are aging hippies arrested by the FBI for growing marijuana. When Ellie agrees to infiltrate an eco-terrorist group for the FBI in exchange for her parent’s freedom, she begins to see good and bad in both organizations.

West With the Night by Beryl Markham—As a child growing up in Africa, Beryl Markham faced down lions and wild boar. As an adult she trained racehorses, learned to fly airplanes, and became a bush pilot. Eventually she became the first pilot to fly solo west with the night, crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to North America.

If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to sneak in a few books that are just for me. Here’s what’s on my list:

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines—Gaines has the uncanny ability to tell a big story in a simple way so the messages that come through tend to last. Although I saw the mad- for-TV movie based on this book years ago, I don’t remember much of the story. But if it is anything like A Gathering of Old Men or A Lesson Before Dying, also by Gaines, this small book spanning nearly 100 years of U.S. history should be a big treat.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows—I have heard nothing but rave reviews for this book set in both London and the island of Guernsey during and after World War II. It’s been described as lovely, sweet, charming and thought provoking; sounds like a perfect summer read to me.

The Last Cavalier by Alexandre Dumas—Over the years I have read most of Alexandre Dumas’s published books, so when I heard about a newly discovered work of his that has only recently been published, I knew it had to go on my list. This promises to be another grand adventure set during the Napoleonic years.

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie—Ever since I first read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian I’ve been a fan of Alexie’s and intrigued to read more of his work. This book is also set on the Spokane Indian Reservation. It follows the fortunes of Thomas-Builds-the-Fire, a reservation Indian who uses a magical guitar to form a band. The book promises an unflinching look at life both on and off the reservation.

Stone’s Fall: A Novel by Iain Pears—While I’m not expecting this book to be a light summer read, I am intrigued by its setting: London, Paris and Venice in different time periods ranging from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. I’ve read An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Dream of Scipio, also by Pears, and can’t wait to see what intrigue he has cooked up this time.

What’s on your summer reading list? Share your reading choices with us by commenting here.

Madeleine’s Last Official Book Club Meeting

Last week Madeleine and I went to the last official meeting of our mother-daughter book club. I think we’re all in denial because it was just like a regular ol’ meeting. No fanfare or anything out of the ordinary. We just can’t quite admit yet that our little girls are all grown up and will soon head off on their own.

The girls graduate soon, and then they’re all off to college. As a sign of just how much has changed since we all started out together when the girls were 9, we finished by reading an assortment of David Sedaris books. That’s a far cry from the sweet books we read back then.

We talked about a few of our favorites over the years. Many people said their favorite book of all was the one we started with: The Hermit Thrush Sings by Susan Butler. There was the time we went together as a group to hear Richard Peck talk about his books and writing and read from his yet to be published The Teacher’s Funeral. We read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and went to see a theater production adapted from it. And of course, our weekends away have been great fun every time we’ve been able to schedule them.

We’re still trying to figure out how to keep our group together in some way. The moms are talking about signing up for a  series of author lectures. And we plan to have a reunion every year when the girls come home from college. We’re not all on Facebook yet, but that may be an option at some point.

Here’s the list of books we’ve read during our eight years together. Our favorites are followed by stars:

2001

• The Hermit Thrush Sings – Susan Butler*
• Dealing with Dragons – Patricia Wrede*
• Ginger Pye – Eleanor Estes
• Julie of the Wolves – Jean Craighead George*
• Our Only May Amelia – Jennifer Holm*
• Ella Enchanted – Gail Carson Levine*
• Nancy Drew Mysteries – Carolyn Keene
• Bat 6 – Virginia Euwer Wollf*
• Stargirl – Jerry Spinelli*

2002

• The Heart of a Chief – Joseph Bruchac*
• Jacob Have I Loved – Katherine Paterson
• Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank*
• Boy – Roald Dahl*
• Boston Jane – Jennifer Holm*
• Walk Across the Sea – Susan Fletcher*
• The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett*
• Joey Pigza Loses Control – Jack Gantos
• Coraline – Neil Gaiman

2003

• Everything on a Waffle – Polly Horvath*
• Goddesses:  Heaven Sent – Clea Hantman
• Tangerine – Edward Bloor*
• A Year Down Yonder – Richard Peck*
• Going Solo – Roald Dahl*
• Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging – Louise Rennison*
• Fair Weather – Richard Peck*
• A Step from Heaven – An Na
• Mates, Dates and Inflatable Bras – Cathy Hopkins*
• The Second Summer of the Sisterhood – Ann Brashares*

2004

• Biting the Moon – Martha Grimes
• A Matter of Profit – Hilari Bell*
• The Adrian Mole Diaries – Sara Thompson
• The First Part Last – Angela Johnson
• The Princess Diaries – Meg Cabot*
• Hoot – Carl Hiassen*
• Holding Up the Earth – Dianne Gray
• Missing Persons:  The Rose Queen – M.E. Rabb
• The Pearl – John Steinbeck

2005

• Hope Was Here – Joan Bauer*
• West With the Night – Beryl Markham
• Speak – Laurie Halse Anderson*
• Search of the Moon King’s Daughter – Linda Holeman
• Keeping the Moon – Sarah Dessen
• The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd*
• Ready or Not – Meg Cabot

2006

• Light Years – Tammar Stein*
• A Certain Slant of Light – Laura Whitcomb*
• The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
• The Life of Pi – Yann Martel
• In the Time of the Butterflies – Julia Alvarez
• Girls for Breakfast – Jimmy Woo

2007

• Millions – Frank Cottrell Boyce*
• Driver’s Ed – Caroline Cooney
• The Crucible – Arthur Miller
• The Higher Power of Lucky – Susan Patron
• The Pilot’s Wife – Anita Shreve
• Uglies – Scott Westerfeld*
• Voices from the Street – Jessica Morrell
• Twilight – Stephenie Meyer*

2008

• What’s Eating Gilbert Grape – Peter Hedges*
• Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen*
• Looking for Alaska – John Green
• This Boy’s Life – Tobias Wolf
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey*
• The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls

2009

• Jane Austen novels*
• Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
• The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan*
• Various titles by David Sedaris*

Young Reader’s Choice Awards Are Here

The winners for this year’s Young Reader’s Choice Awards have been announced. This year the votes went to Kate DiCamillo’s Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, John Boyne’s Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and Stephenie Meyer’s New Moon.

The Young Reader’s Choice Awards are interesting for several reasons. The nominated books all have to have been in publication for three years, the nominees are submitted by students, librarians and parents who live in the Pacific Northwest, and only 4th–12th grade students living in the Pacific Northwest can vote.

I have not read any of the winners this year, and I’m a bit confused that New Moon won since the rules state that sequels in a series can’t be nominated. It may be that the rule has been updated but not changed on the Web site.

I look forward to putting the winners as well as other nominees on my reading list this summer. Find the complete list of nominees for this year and winners and nominees in past years at the Young Reader’s Choice Awards Web site.

Class of 2k9 offers great new choices in fiction

One of my recent discoveries for finding new books has been the Class of 2k9 Web site. This concept of first-time middle grade and young adult authors banding together as a group started in 2007, and the Class of 2k9 Web site has links to authors and books from both 2007 and 2008.

This year’s list includes authors of 21 books. I’ve read two of them so far, Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry and Jane in Bloom by Deborah Lytton. I enjoyed both of them and recommend them to mother daughter book clubs.

On the site you can find out what’s going to be released in the next month or two, and find out information about the authors and their books. When I checked today I found  links to blogs, recipes, and other resources that you can use to plan your next mother-daughter book club meeting.

Young Reader’s Choice Nominees

Voting for The Young Reader’s Choice awards finished up last week, and results will soon be announced. Each year, the Pacific Northwest Library Association presents this award. Nominations are accepted from children, teachers, parents and librarians in the Pacific Northwest, which includes the U.S. states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington as well as two Canadian provinces—Alberta and British Columbia. Only books that have been in publication for three years can be nominated, and only Pacific Northwest students in 4th through 12th grade can vote. Voting takes place between March 15 and April 15.

Here’s a look at all the nominees for 2009:

Junior Division

• Room One: A Mystery or Two – Andrew Clements
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane – Kate DiCamillo
• Homework Machine – Dan Gutman
• The Year of the Dog – Grace Lin
• Rules – Cynthia Lord
• Gossamer – Lois Lowry
• The Higher Power of Lucky – Susan Patron
• To Dance –  Siena Cherson Siegel

Intermediate Division

• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Fable – John Boyne
• Half-Moon Investigations – Eoin Colfer
• Ark Angel – Anthony Horowitz
• The Pinhoe Egg – Diana Wynne Jones
• Fablehaven – Brandon Mull
• Dairy Queen – Catherine Gilbert Murdock
• Small Steps – Louis Sachar
• Endymion Spring – Matthew Skelton

Senior Division

• The Road of the Dead – Kevin Brooks
• Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist – Rachel Cohn
• An Abundance of Katherines – John Green
• The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl – Barry Lyga
• New Moon – Stephenie Meyer
• Life As We Knew It – Susan Beth Pfeffer
• American Born Chinese – Gene Luen Yang
• The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

For more information about past nominees and award winners, visit the Web site:

http://www.pnla.org/yrca/

Write4Kids Features Mother-Daughter Book Club as one of “Best Children’s Lit Blog Post of the Day”

I was very excited to see that the blog post I wrote comparing The Secret Life of Bees book and movie was featured by Children’s Writing Web Journal as a “Best Children’s Lit Blog Post of the Day” yesterday. The journal serves writers of children’s literature, and as you may imagine some of the information featured is also very relevant to reader’s of children’s literature. Since the Children’s Writing Web Journal is combing the Web to find the best blog posts relevant to children’s lit, you may want to check out it’s list often for ideas about what’s going on in the book world.

Here’s a link to the post and the YouTube video that goes with it, at write4kids.com/blog.

Read the Classics this Summer

If your mother-daughter book club doesn’t meet in the summer, this may be a good time for you to pick up a classic, either to read on your own or for a book club meeting scheduled for the fall. For most clubs, this is the one time of year you can devote to reading longer novels, and there may even be more time for moms and daughters to read a book together. This can be an advantage since many classics were written long ago and may not be as easy for young readers to grasp. Most titles will be readily available on the shelves of your library, where you’ll find yourself anyway if you’ve signed up for a summer reading program.

Here are some thoughts for classics in different age groups:

Younger readers
Caddie Woodlawn–Carol Ryrie Brink
Charlotte’s Web–E. B. White
Little House on the Prairie–Laura Ingalls Wilder
Matilda–Roald Dahl
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle–Betty MacDonald
The Boxcar Children–Edith Nesbitt
The Indian in the Cupboard–Lynne Reid Banks
The Secret Garden–Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Trumpet of the Swan–E. B. White
The Wizard of Oz–L. Frank Baum

Middle Readers
A Wrinkle in Time–Madeleine L’Engle
Anne of Green Gables–L. M Montgomery
Little Women–Louisa May Alcott
Peter Pan–J. M. Barrie
The Call of the Wild–Jack London
The Hobbit–J. R. R. Tolkein
The Jungle Book–Rudyard Kipling
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe–C. S. Lewis
To Kill a Mockingbird–Harper Lee
Treasure Island–Robert Louis Stevenson

Older Readers
A Tale of Two Cities–Charles Dickens
David Copperfield–Charles Dickens
Dracula–Bram Stoker
Huckleberry Finn–Mark Twain
Jane Eyre–Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice–Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility–Jane Austen
The Count of Monte Cristo–Alexandre Dumas
The Hunchback of Notre Dame–Victor Hugo
Wuthering Heights–Emily Bronte

Summer Reading Suggestions

The end of the school year always brings a wild flurry of activity. The last choir concert, the last track meet, the volunteer appreciation breakfast, and so many other last minute things thrown into the schedule it’s overwhelming.

But looming in the background is the promise of lazy summer days lying in a hammock and reading. Not that I ever seem to achieve that, but it’s an ideal to strive for. My daughters on the other hand, seem to get that hammock time in at least once a week.

I’m compiling my list of recommended summer reading, and I’d like to hear from any of you who have suggestions. I’ll publish a list with everyone’s recommendations in early June.

Already I know Frank Cottrell Boyce’s new book Cosmic will be on my list, and I can’t wait for it to come out. And my two book club selections will take me into the beginning of summer. I’ll be reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox with Catherine, who’s just finishing 8th grade, and This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff with Madeleine, who’s finishing her junior year in high school.

What’s on your list? Leave a comment here or drop me a note at info@motherdaughterbookclub.com.