[Pons Posts: 2,465 Status: Offline]

Just started Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn. My son recommended it to me and I can hardly wait to get farther into it.

[olmue Posts: 3,528 Status: Offline WWW]

The Name of the Star, by Maureen Johnson. I'm enjoying it immensely. After a really stressful and frustrating day yesterday, it was wonderful to escape completely in this fast-paced ghostly mystery. Also, the MC has a great, non-snarky but nevertheless believable teen voice.

[ChristineSarmel Posts: 228 Status: Offline WWW]

Nothing is getting done at my house since I started MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND by Matthew Dicks. Written from the POV of an autistic child's imaginary friend. It's a great read.

[jodyjl Posts: 389 Status: Offline]

Finished Daniel Handler's (aka Lemony Snickett) WHY WE BROKE UP. I enjoyed it. He is over-the-top at times and wordy now and then, but the storytelling is grand.

Also...who can't relate to at least one teen-age break-up.

[LTMadison Posts: 109 Status: Offline Cover art avatar by 2020 WWW]

Any one else read David Leviathan's new book about a MC who wakes up each morning in someone else's body (always different)? Talk about high concept. The host is always the same age as he is -- he's been doing this for 16 years -- but is just as likely to be a girl as a boy. Leviathan handles the obvious complications pretty well, but it seems to me to be more of a conceit than a great book.

[Michael Sussman Posts: 184 Status: Offline WWW]

Just finished Helen Simonson's debut novel, MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND, which I highly recommend. It is slow-paced, but gorgeously written, with unforgettable characters and a tremendously moving love story.

[Bigfoot Posts: 35 Status: Offline WWW]

I've always wanted to read Katherine Paterson's THE GREAT GILLY HOPKINS. I'm finally getting around to it this fall because I'm taking a children's librarianship class that involves reading a lot of award-winning books. Just finished reading THE WITCHES OF WORM by Zilpha Keatley Synder which has a wonderful creepiness and building of tension about it.

On the picture book front, love Anne Marie Pace's VAMPIRINA BALLERINA and GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS by Jeff Mack. Leda Schubert's picture book biography MONSIEUR MARCEAU: ACTOR WITHOUT WORDS is a beautiful book.

Next up, RULES by Cynthia Lord.

[MysteryRobin Posts: 688 Status: Offline]

Just finished Helen Simonson's debut novel, MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND, which I highly recommend. It is slow-paced, but gorgeously written, with unforgettable characters and a tremendously moving love story.

Agreed - I loved this.
It's adult lit, but I just picked up Susanna Kearsley's The Winter Sea. The lead character is a writer, and I generally stay away from that (too close to my life!) but it's really well done, and set on the Scottish coast with historical fiction woven in. Loving it so far.
I'm knee deep in my YA, so holding off reading similar things for a bit. I'm catching up on my MG and Adult.

[C. Lee]

I've done a bit of genre jumping and started reading a sci-fi novel called Cassa Fire. It's what I'd call Top Gun meet Battlestar Gallactica story. Kind of good with character and fast-paced plot. So far no females in sight. This is definitely one for the boys. :-)

[majanecka Posts: 77 Status: Offline]

Just finished Sammy Keyes and the skeleton Man.  Great.

[AnneB Posts: 3,753 Status: Offline]

Just finished The Reinvention of Edison Thomas, by Jacqueline Houtman, and I'm thinking, wow, this is one terrific middle-grade book. I couldn't put it down.

[C. Lee]

I just read a great sci-fi story called Cassa Fire. It would be a super teen read for a boy.

[ChristineSarmel Posts: 228 Status: Offline WWW]

Loving SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS 

[J-Bert Posts: 257 Status: Offline WWW]

Just finished THE TEMPLETON TWINS HAVE AN IDEA. Very fun/funny middle grade with a Lemony Snicket-esque narrator.

Currently reading THE PUZZLING WORLD OF WINSTON BREEN and am enjoying it.

Also recently read adult nonfiction 168 HOURS: YOU HAVE MORE TIME THAN YOU THINK. A very interesting book on time management. Not so much a "how to", but more case studies of various people who have successfully juggled many different priorities in their life.

[olmue Posts: 3,528 Status: Offline WWW]

Reading the Chronicles of Prydain, Holes, and Daddy Long-Legs to my girls.

Just read Kiersten White's Supernaturally to myself.

Also reread Heather Dixon's Entwined and Kerstin Gier's Ruby Red recently. More books like this, please?

Next up: One of Our Thursdays is Missing, by Jasper Fforde--gotta love the crazy bookworld!

In nonfiction, Orson Scott Card's Characters and Viewpoint. So far, it's my favorite book by him ever.

[C. Lee]

Just started Uncontrollable. I love my Kindle. It goes with me everywhere and I read so much more these days.

[J-Bert Posts: 257 Status: Offline WWW]

Finished WINSTON BREEN (satisfying MG mystery) and just started THE RAVEN BOYS by Maggie. Woah, totally sucked in! It's both a good/bad book to be reading right now. Good because it's so well written it's inspiring, bad because I just want to drop everything and readreadread but I have important priorities to tend to like a baby, husband, ailing pets, my own writing. . .

[MysteryRobin Posts: 688 Status: Offline]

What did you think of Ruby Red, Rose? I've been wanting to read it!
Just finished the first book of The Incorrigibles with the kids. They were so sad when it ended. I guess we'll be picking up book 2 (but I wasn't super sad when it ended. I found it kind of a hard read aloud)
We're reading The Hobbit now. Loving that!!

[Pons Posts: 2,465 Status: Offline]

I just finished three of Mary Downing Hahn's ghost stories, Dark and Deep and Dangerous, Wait till Helen Comes, and All the Lovely Bad Ones. I enjoyed them all. She really has a gift for telling ghost stories and she knows how to keep them from crossing the line into gory or too scary for MG. I'd like to read more, but the stack of books by my bed is calling to me.

Incidentally, I think it is great that so many of you are reading novels to your children instead of stopping at PB's. I wish I had done more of that, although I do remember one night when we read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever straight through. We laughed and laughed.

Laurel  : (This smilie reminds me of my cat.)

[olmue Posts: 3,528 Status: Offline WWW]

I liked Ruby Red--it was just the kind of escapist book I needed at the time. (Umm...also the same general type/feel of book I was going for in a ms that still lives only on my hard drive...sigh.)

Now reading My Life Next Door, by Huntley Fitzpatrick. I'm always glad to see large families in books--they are hard to write (all of the characters, oh my!), but if you can control that, they can be delightful. And this one is!

[LindaB Posts: 332 Status: Offline I want to write!]

I just finished The Wednesdays by Julie Bourbeau. What a fun read! A good mid-grade book that's funny and unusual. It's about a town that is in terror of Wednesdays. Anyone who goes out or even opens a window on Wednesdays finds something bad happens. Never on Thursday or Monday, just Wednesday. Of course, Max wants to go outside on Wednesdays but finds out he would have been better off staying home.

[amberturner Posts: 142 Status: Offline WWW]

Just started Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Rides Again with my daughter. Pretty funny read so far...

[anningalls Posts: 8 Status: Offline WWW]

I just read Margaree King Mitchell's new pb, WHEN GRANDMAMA SINGS. I love it! Her last book was a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. I think this one will have a good chance as well. See what you think.

Ann

[Raynbow Gignilliat Posts: 596 Status: Offline]

I just finished Yesterday by C.K. Kelly Martin. So, so, so good. Loved it.

[AnneB Posts: 3,753 Status: Offline]

Just finished Eye of the Storm, by Kate Messner. Glad thunderstorm season is over with for a few months!

[terrylynn Posts: 144 Status: Offline writing outdoor adventures WWW]

Just finished some fantastic books:

STARLING - loved it!
THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER - don't know why it took me so long to read this! One of my fav's of the year!
AUDITION AND SUBTRACTION - so cute
SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE - great! Reminded me of reading Judy Blume as a kid

EVERY DAY - didn't love as much as I thought

[J-Bert Posts: 257 Status: Offline WWW]

Finished RAVEN BOYS by Maggie Stiefvater. I liked it so much it shot SCORPIO RACES, which has been waiting patiently in my To Be Read pile to the top of the queue and I just finished that as well. Both great reads.

I started CASUAL VACANCY by JK Rowling but I don't know if I'm going to finish it. I'm finding the characters unsympathetic to the point I really don't know if I want to devote any time getting to know them further. So I'm putting that down for the moment and trying THE DIVINERS by Libba Bray instead.

[Pippa Posts: 386 Status: Offline Never give up! WWW]

Ack, I'm having a terrible time finding a story I want to finish at the moment. Had high hopes for RAVEN BOYS but couldn't keep going ... and before you stone me, I have the utmost respect and adoration for Maggie, I've just never connected with her stuff (and I keep trying to).

Got through the first few chapters of MALCOLM AT MIDNIGHT and wished I loved it more. It's great and deserves to be loved but it just didn't grab me.

Tried an upper MG by Chris Ryan (lots of action and good ecological message) but that left me ho-hum, then picked up The CASUAL VACANCY and decided it was too much work figuring out who was who, though there were definitely great characters in it - and I hated all the swearing, so went back to THE HOBBIT, which frankly, is so badly written it's tough going.

I'm enjoying my crit partners' work more than anything in print at the moment, but will keep trying - I know there's awesome stuff out there. Anyone else in a slump?

[MysteryRobin Posts: 688 Status: Offline]

As a side note - I love that we're censoring ho-hum....
Pippa, I was going to suggest The Hobbit - we're reading it right now. You don't like it? Maybe you're in a place where it's just hard to read. I get in those places. The Hobbit has been a breath of fresh air for me after slogging through a few things that were tougher to read.
Maybe you need a new genre - a nice cozy mystery or chick lit to break you out of your slump.

[olmue Posts: 3,528 Status: Offline WWW]

Pippa, I'm in a slump, too. My TBR list is unusually small for this time of year (although Raven Boys is on it--I adored Scorpio Races), and I'm just not finding a lot right now that I can really sink myself into. I have authors I love, but they don't happen to have books coming out right now, and erm, don't stone me, but I've never cared much for dystopian. And my library is reeeeally small and slow to acquire books (on the new shelf now are a ton of creature-love-triangle books, which has been in a bit of a glut for quite some time). I want something that makes me feel the way I did when I read my favorite fill-in-the-blank-with-past-hot-genre-books, *including* the sensation of reading something that was new and not done to death.

OTOH, it's also true that sometimes like Mysteryrobin said, your mind is in a hard place for reading, and things that you might like at other times just look blah. Hopefully we get out of the slump soon!