Long Overdue Update

I don't really know why I haven't been blogging. There have been plenty of potential topics: the best way to deal with an outbreak of head lice on your children, the worst time to go the University of Michigan emergency room for possible appendicitis (Saturday night at 1 am - I got seen around 6:30 am, turned out to be a ruptured ovarian cyst), books I've read recently, my daughter's horseback riding lessons, and the excitement of replacing screen doors, dishwasher controllers, and sump pumps. A lot of actual life, but not anything I've been inspired to document. I think writing elsewhere has filled the need to write that blogging used to satisfy.

One place I have been able to blog is over at The Newbery Project. Writing about the most recent children's or YA book that I've read is pretty easy. Here's the ones I've done in the last few months:

The Door in the Wall, by Marguerite de Angeli (14th century English boy becomes crippled but still manages to save the castle; 1950 winner. Very old-fashioned story, the kind that Lois Lowry wrote about in the bibliography of The Willoughbys).

Crispin: The Cross of Lead, by Avi (14th century English boy becomes a wolf's head, encounters bad guys and good guys involved in the Peasants' Revolt; 2003 winer).

Kira-Kira, by Cynthia Kadohata (Japanese-American family in Iowa and Georgia in the 60's and 70's - good YA girls' story; 2005 winner).

Jacob Have I Loved, Katherine Paterson (1940's Chesapeake Bay, another YA girls' story full of angst; 1981 winner).

Up a Road Slowly, by Irene Hunt (first half of 1900's, another angsty YA book that will appeal largely to girls; 1967 winner).

Amos Fortune: Free Man, by Elizabeth Yates (late 1700's Africa, Massachusetts, and NH; 1951 winner and one of the most outdated I've read. But not as bad as Daniel Boone).

The Wheel on the School, by Meindert DeJong (turn of the 19th century Holland story about a group of schoolkids who try to get storks to nest on the schoolhouse).