SLJ List of Top 100 Children’s Books

This week, I found School Library Journal’s blog that compiled a list of the top 100 children’s books, as suggested by teachers and students.

With as much children’s and young adult literature that I’ve read, I’m surprised to find I’ve only read 43 of the 100. That’s 57 I have left to read! Many of them are classic examples of children’s literature, but there are a few more contemporary ones mixed in (for example, most of the Harry Potters are on the list).

So…as if I need another reading goal, I’ve decided to try for reading at least 20 of these this summer.

[Side note: this will help in my other goal of reading 100 previously unread books this year. As of yesterday, when I finished by 50th previously unread book of the year, I'm halfway through! These 20 will get me closer.]

The 57 books I have to choose from:

5. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E. L. Konigsburg

8. The Secret Garden, Francis Hodgson Burnett (which I own and have started several times, though never completed. This should definitely be one of the 20.)

10. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster.

12. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (my bookmark is about halfway through…I need to finish…also one of the 20)

16. Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh

17. Maniac Magee, Jerry Spinelli

18. Matilda, Roald Dahl

21. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Rick Riodan

23. Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder

26. Hatchet, Gary Paulsen

27. A Little Princess, Francis Hodgson Burnett

29. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (yeah, I know…also one of the 20)

30. The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper

31. Half Magic, Edward Eager

32. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Robert C. O’Brien

37. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred Taylor

39. When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead

40. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum

42. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder

45. The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman

47. Bud, Not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis

48. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, Jeanne Birdsall

49. Frindle, Andrew Clements

51. The Saturdays, Elizabeth Enright

52. The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick

53. Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

55. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson

58. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken

59. Inkheart, Cornelia Funke

60. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Avi

62. The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew), Caroline Keene

63. Gone-Away Lake, Elizabeth Enright

65. Ballet Shoes, Noah Streetfield

67. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, Bruce Coville

69. The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart

70. Betsy Tacy, Maud Hart Lovelace

72. My Father’s Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett

73. My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George

74. The Borrowers, Mary Norton

76. Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse

77. City of Ember, Jeane DuPrau

78. Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes

79. All-of-a-Kind Family, Sydney Taylor

80. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (I’ve heard mixed reviews on this, but I’m still eager to read it. This will probably be one of the 20 as well.)

81. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Grace Lin

82. The Book of  Three, Lloyd Alexander

83. The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner

84. Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge

85. On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder

88. The High King, Lloyd Alexander

92. Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine

93. Caddie Woodlawn, C. R. Brink

94. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome

96. The Witches, Roald Dahl

97. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo

98. Children of Green Knowe, L. M. Boston

99. The Indian in the Cupboard, Lynne Reid Banks

Some of these I don’t even recognize, and a lot of others I know as being older books. There aren’t as many recently published on here as I would like, and there are some that I’m shocked were left off (what about The Book Thief or The Devil’s Arithmetic?)

So…my goal is to read at least 20 of these by the end of the summer, though I suspect I could get through a lot more than that. Then, after I’ve read most of the books on this list, I’ll make my own list (of less than 100 probably) of books that I think should absolutely be read and why.

So, readers, now that you’ve made it through this lengthy list, where should I start? What books on this list of ones I haven’t encountered yet do I absolutely need to include in the 20 I’m going to read this summer?

My Favorite Caribbean Books

As you probably know if you follow this blog or know me in real life, I’m finishing up my first semester of grad school at Gardner-Webb (and my fourth semester overall) in just a few days. I’ve just completed one of two final papers that are due on Thursday in my class on Caribbean women’s writing; this one is my theory of Caribbean writing. I really enjoyed writing the paper as it’s caused me to review most of the books I’ve read this semester. Early in the semester, I reviewed some of the ones I read, but I haven’t done that as of late, so I decided to just make a post of my favorite books from this semester.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

This was the only Caribbean book I’d ever read before taking this course. The first time I read it, I didn’t appreciate it very much, and I was mostly just frustrated that it seemed to be attacking Jane Eyre, one of my favorite books of all time. After studying it in a world lit class almost two years ago and again this semester, however, I actually really like the book. Jean Rhys wrote this book in thee 1960s, as a re-writing of Jane Eyre from Rochester’s wife Bertha’s perspective. In Rhys’ story, Bertha is really Antoinette, a white Creole living in the Dominican, who is married off to Rochester (who is actually unnamed in this story). This book is a quintessential postcolonial novel and one of the first novels out of the Caribbean to achieve wide critical acclaim. It’s a quick read (just a little over 100 pages) and a great introduction to Caribbean literature.

Prospero’s Daughter by Elizabeth Nunez

This book is one of the most recently published book we read in class–it’s only been out since 2006. This book is another retelling–this time of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. I haven’t actually read this play, so some of the connections were lost on me; however, this book is spectacular even without prior literary knowledge. I had a hard time putting it down (though some parts are difficult to read), and I really enjoyed the read (probably because it’s one of the only books in the class that has a truly happy ending). The book is the story of Dr. Gardner (a.k.a. Prospero) who flees his native England to avoid scandal and takes over an estate on the island of Chacachacare off the coast of Trinidad. His daughter Virginia, who was three at the time they leave England, grows up on the island and becomes more Caribbean than English. She also falls in love with a Caribbean boy named Carlos, whom her father highly disapproves of. He attempts to separate them at all cost.

This book isn’t just a romance novel. It’s incredibly well-written, with beautiful descriptions of the land and insightful portrayals of the characters. Nunez is brilliant at showing versus telling, and the book serves as both a novel to be critically acclaimed and to enjoy. Furthermore, I fell in love with the island of Chacachacare (which actually exists) so much so that I added visiting the island to The List.

Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat

This is the book I chose to read for my final project for my class. This is a collection of nine short stories and an epilogue. Danticat is Haitian, and all the stories either take place in Haiti or in the lives of Haitian immigrants to the United States. It’s honestly one of the most moving pieces of literature I’ve ever read, and the one on this list that I recommend most highly. For a full review, see this post.

Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Conde

Yet another incredible book that I could hardly put down. This is the story of Francis Sancher, whose body is found in the marsh at the beginning of the novel. Through a series of vignettes told from sixteen different characters’ perspective, we as readers begin to understand the intricacies of life in the village of Riviere au Sel. Each character talks about his or her experiences with Francis (some of the women are in love with him, some of the men loathe him, others are indifferent but have some story to tell, etc.). We end up learning about the characters themselves in their reactions to Francis, and we also learn that Francis was an enigma, and we never could fully understand his story.

From the beginning, Conde’s narrative style reminded me so much of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, particularly his story “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.” In both GGM’s story and Conde’s book, a dead man acts as a catalyst for change in a small Caribbean village. However, Conde’s story, because of its length, is a great example of characterization, and I’m frankly amazed at Conde’s ability to give voice to so many distinct people. It’s brilliant.

Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat

In this memoir, Danticat proves that she is just as adept at nonfiction as short stories. This book, published just three years ago, is one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. Danticat tells the stories of her father and her uncle. As a child, Danticat’s parents immigrated to New York, leaving her and her younger brother in Haiti to be raised by her father’s brother Joseph. As a result, Danticat essentially has two fathers, which both her father and uncle recognize. As an adult, Danticat watches her father’s decline in health around the same time that her uncle flees Haiti, seeking asylum in the U.S. Because of a ton of political reasons that angered me as I read the book, her uncle is declined the asylum he seeks; he is also treated horribly in a detainment center. Danticat tells this story in a way that celebrates the lives of her two fathers while revealing the injustice of society in both Haiti and America. It’s truly an excellent read.

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

Note: there are spoilers in this summary; however, if you were to read the back of the book, you’d find out the info anyway, as I did.

Alvarez, like Danticat, is a Caribbean writer who has actually achieved a great deal of popularity in the United States. This book is another excellent work. Alvarez tells the story of the Mirabal sisters, who lived in the Dominican Republic under Generalissimo Trujillo’s dictatorship. She fictionalizes their story, imagining their childhood and the decisions they made to join the revolution against Trujillo. Two of the four sisters were imprisoned themselves, and their husbands, plus their sister Patrice’s husband, were also imprisoned. Trujillo intentionally moved the men to a prison farther away from the sister, knowing they would have to travel down a danger pass to visit their husbands. One night, just a few months before Trujillo is overthrown and killed, he has the Mirabal sisters ambushed and executed.

The Mirabal sisters–known as Las Mariposas, or “the butterflies”–are revolutionaries, but they’re also sisters, and Alvarez very aptly writes to reveal the numerous, sometimes contradictory, roles they play.

The hardest part about reading this book was knowing the ending, knowing that three of the sisters would die. Each sister has one chapter in each of the three sections of the book in which she tells her story, but the story begins and ends with Dede, the surviving Mirabal sister. From the beginning, the reader knows that three of the protagonists are going to die. It’s really difficult to get so attached to a character, knowing that she won’t make it to the end of the book. It’s even harder when you get attached to three characters. Nonetheless, this is an incredibly evocative story, and yet another one that I highly recommend.

Child Heroes

Today, CNN had a link to an article on Techland about the best child heroes featured in films. It’s a great list (and I’m so stoked that they included Dumbledore’s Army rather than just Harry himself).

A lot of those heroes, I’ve noticed, originally appeared in works of literature: the DA, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, the Pevensies. So I decided to make a list of my favorite literary heroes who happen to be under the age of 18. I’m putting them in alphabetical order because deciding which one is most important would require too much decision making.

Anne Shirley: the hero of quite possibly my favorite literature series, Anne of Green Gables saves Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert and the whole town of Avonlea from dissolving into a bored, lonely life.

The Boy: Cormac McCarthy’s unnamed character in The Road. He carries the fire–and the hope for a future.

Jack: the young bard in Nancy Farmer’s The Sea of Trolls. Jack battles ogres and Vikings and all sorts of fierce, mythical or historical figures in order to get himself and his sister Lucy back home.

Jonas: the Receiver of Memories in Lois Lowry’s The Giver. He lets the memories escape and reveals the true essence of humanity to a people who have only known conformity.

Leisel Meminger: the protagonist of The Book Thief; she holds onto hope throughout all of WWII that peace is coming and that knowledge and a future are worth fighting for.

Lucy Pevensie: sure, the Pevensies were all mentioned in Techland’s list, and they’re all worth of hero titles. But without Lucy, the Pevensies never would have found Narnia, much less become kings and queens.

Meg Murry: her love is the secret for moving through that wrinkle in time and getting her father, Cal, Charles Wallace, and herself back home.

Stargirl: the hero of two Jerry Spinelli books. Stargirl is unique (and even strange) in a town full of average high school students. But she enchants them, and falls in love with one of them, and changes their lives, even though they reject her in the end.

Todd & Viola: the protagonists of Patrick Ness’ brilliant Chaos Walking trilogy (of which only the first two books, The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer, have been released). These two thirteen-year-olds fight an army of truly evil men who not only physically control every town they conquer, but who also control the thoughts of every person they rule. I’ll find out in September, when the final book Monsters of Men is released, how Todd and Viola’s story ends.

Winnie Foster: from Natalie Babbitt’s beautiful novel Tuck Everlasting. She doesn’t drink the water.

This is in no way a complete list. These are just the first ten who came to mind, and you should know by now that I do like my lists in groups of five or ten.

Resolutions/Suggestions/Goals

So last night, six days into the new year, I sat down and decided on five things I want to do this year.

1. Don’t check my email before I go to work each morning (unless I’m expecting a vital email about weather advisories or something). Now that I have a functioning laptop again, I can feel that addiction to the internet resurfacing. I don’t always need to know what’s going on in the virtual lives of everyone I’ve ever met. I can wait until I get to work, when I check my work email, to check my personal email and Facebook page as well. I’ll be less inclined (hopefully) to waste precious minutes reading status updates. Plus, I might be on time for work every day.

2. Read 100 books I’ve never read before. Last year, I read 100 books. Well more than half of those were first-time reads, but I want to push myself even farther this year. Re-reads are great, but I have so many books that I’ve been intending to read for years.

3. Devote at least one hour a week to scrapbooking or crocheting. Two activities that I love–and they both tend not to happen when I’m super-busy. If I pledge to be crafty at least once a week, then I know for sure I’ll have a little bit of stress-free time.

4. Help my parents clean and organize their house. I had a great time organizing and hanging out with my parents over Christmas. And they really appreciated my help and encouragement. I tentatively plan to go home every few weeks and help them tackle some new section of the house.

5. Mark at least 12 things off The List this year. That’s an average of one per month, though I’m ahead of the game with two marked off already. Potential items to mark off: #9: Write a travel guide (or blog); #60: St. Simon’s Island Lighthouse; #66: The Greenville Zoo; #81: The Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum; #92: Andalusia; #93: riverboat down the Mississippi. And who knows what else I’ll add and mark off this year?

Call ‘em resolutions. Call ‘em suggestions. Call ‘em goals. Call ‘em whatever you want. Most of these are things I would do anyway (or at least plan to). But I’ve discovered I’m much more accountable to a written list.

Any suggestions for more resolutions I should make?

Get excited.

A list of things that I’m super excited about right now:

1) I applied to the M.A. in English program at Gardner-Webb University…to start in January (hopefully, with Coa!). It seems like such a sudden change, but I’ve known for months now that the M.A.T. program isn’t right for me. I don’t want to teach high school, and the student teaching and certification progress to do that would be a waste of my time and energy. With the M.A., I can take just English classes (yay!), write a thesis, begin teaching full-time at the college level (hopefully!), and eventually decide where and in what concentration to get my Ph.D. I applied to G-W last week, and I’m working on getting the rest of my documentation in. Then, I’ll work on financial aid. With the peace I feel about this decision, I’ll be shocked if everything doesn’t work out perfectly.

2) Next week is Thanksgiving Break! It’s going to be wonderful to have a few days off from work and school. I’m going to Sullivan’s Island with Chris on Wednesday (and eating at Poe’s Tavern!); Thursday is Thanksgiving Day with my family; Friday, my family is going shopping in Charleston; and Sunday is a surprise for my mom (that you’ll all hear about soon)!

3) On Tuesday, I got my tickets to see Switchfoot at the Orange Peel on December 4! They’ll be playing the entire Hello Hurricane album from start to finish, plus some “old favorites” and “a few surprises”! YAY!

4) The end of the semester fast approaches. I’m finishing up final projects, grading my students’ final essays, and looking to Dec. 7 with mixed feelings. I’ll give my last final exam that day and take my last final exam at Converse. On that day, I’ll officially finish my first semester of teaching college English, which has been marvelous and challenging, and I’ll also officially end my academic career at Converse after a year and a half. I’ll definitely miss my very first students, and I’ll also probably miss the people and experiences I’ve had at Converse. But, alas, life continues on.

5) This morning, Michele, Harvin, and I had a discussion about Christmas. Right now, we’re planning a little trip. We’ll all drive up to Pennsylvania the weekend before Christmas, stay a few days, take a day-trip into New York City, and then we’ll leave Michele up there for Christmas with her family while we drive back home in time to get back to our families for Christmas. It looks like I’ll be heading back up north for the second time this year! I’ll see new states, and I’ll be in NYC at Christmastime! It’s gonna be amazing, and I hope we can make it work.

So there we are. Changes, adventures, life.

Beauty and Truth, part 3

One year ago today, I started this blog. Happy anniversary to me! This is my 83rd post, which averages to about one every 4.5 days. Not bad at all.

My very first post was a memoir I wrote about a year and a half ago–an exploration on beauty–or the lack thereof–in my life. Interestingly enough, that subject is something that still intrigues and perplexes me. A year later, it still weighs on my mind often.

A few weeks ago, I assigned my students the chapter on Beauty from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature. Before I visited Massachusetts a few months ago, my opinion of Emerson was very different. I respected him for his influence on American literature, but I didn’t really appreciate him for his own literary worthiness. That’s changed so much in just three months. I’ve read Nature in its entirety once and my favorite sections many times since. My copy of Selected Essays, Lectures, and Poems, bought at the Emerson House in Concord, MA, is battered and worn already. Purple highlighter marks a plethora of worthy passages. Emerson’s ideas are constantly running through my mind.

Some of my favorite excerpts:

To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath.

The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty. [ . . . ] Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All.

When I assigned the chapter to my students, most of them balked at reading Emerson. He uses big words, they complained. Their eyes examined me skeptically as I raved over his genius. But when I gave them a writing assignment and had them give me a definition of Beauty, I received so many insightful definitions. And while they perhaps didn’t enjoy Emerson as I do now, their writing was proof that they were thinking about beauty outside of just my classroom. And they were incredible insightful.

After reading Emerson, many of them listed things in nature as being beautiful: sunsets, the ocean, rainy days. Others talked about beautiful people or love or gave a literal definition. But I also had each of them make a list of things they find beautiful, and as a good writing instructor, I made one in my journal as well, which I’ll  include here.

So what is Beauty? Have I decided? I think so. Beauty is Truth. Beauty is anything that makes me realize how powerful God is, how excellent his creation is, and how valuable my life is as a result. So here’s a very short list of beauty in my life:

1. Mornings on Camp Creek Road on my way to work, which the trees make a canopy over the road, and the Blue Ridge Mountains are enveloped in fog
2. Switchfoot’s Learning to Breathe; the Civil Twilight album; The Earth is Not a Cold, Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky. Plus, a whole lot more incredible music
3. Driving down a long stretch of road
4. Everything about autumn–the weather, the colors, the scents
5. Renewal and rebirth in spring
6. The ocean at night, stretching to the horizon to meet a sky full of stars
7. Being surrounded by my family at Radius
8. My bulletin board, filled with memories of adventures my best friends and I have had
9. The smell of coffee brewing
10. LOVE
11. Stacks of books
12. The color purple–not the book, which I haven’t read–just things that are purple
13. Edward Hopper paintings
14. Great works of literature
15. Long, colorful scarves
16. Christmas lights
17. Connemara, Carl Sandburg’s house in Flat Rock, NC
18. The Concord River flowing past the Old Manse and under the North Bridge in Massachusetts
19. Redbirds
20. Lighthouses

I could go on forever, but twenty is enough for now.

Happy Halloween!

Happy October!

Things I love about this month:

1. Pumpkin everything–candles burning in my room, bagels and cream cheese at Einstein’s, the literal pumpkin that Michele bought yesterday (we’re going to carve it, as I’ve never carved a pumpkin before).

2. Coffee! “Perfectly Pumpkin” to make in our Keurig at home and Einstein’s new chestnutty “Autumn Roast.” Yum!

3. Cooler weather–I can wear sweaters and drive with my windows down with the heater warming my feet.

4. Fall for Greenville! Civil Twilight is playing at 9 tomorrow night! (And their album is currently #29 on the charts! YES!!!!!)

5. Fall Break. Two days off from work next week, and then my own Fall Break from classes. It’s totally time for a break.

I love autumn.

It’s the end of the world as we know it…

or, Ten Things I Love Regarding the Apocalypse and/or Alternative Civilization Societies.

The Victorians in Britain were known for their sensational fiction and ghost stories. Why were these tales so popular during the writers’ lifetimes? The writing reflected an anxiety about the culture: one could be haunted by some secret sin, and a ghost could seek revenge for that well-hidden transgression. Additionally, Victorians greatly valued domesticity, and women were idealized as angels of the home. A haunted house was the embodiment of insecrurities plaguing those places where one should feel safest.

In the same way, I think a lot of texts in current popular culture regarding the apocalypse or some futuristic post-civilization society reflect the fear in America (or maybe even the West) today. Since the Cold War, we’ve feared nuclear attack and the end of the world. Technology is changing so quickly that it’s impossible to know where our culture’s dependency on  technology and innovation will be even a year from now. Rapid change brings out anxieties and fears: will we get to a point where technology utterly destroys? Where we devolve into a society where survivial is our only concern?

This seems to be a trend, and one that I’m particularly interested in, although I didn’t really understand my own fascination with it until I sat down to write this list (with actual pen and paper on an old-fashioned wooden desk–shocker!). In the past few years, a lot of the books/movies/TV shows that I’ve really enjoyed have depicted this theme, and I decided it would be fun to make a list of my favorite texts involving the apocalypse. [Note: the order of this list is only the order in which I thought of them.]

1. Absolution, Muse. Their best album (out of an incredible catalog).  [Side note: I haven't bought or even heard their newest album, which came out last week. That album may nullify this point.] I would even argue that this is one of the greatest albums in the history of music. Yeah, it’s that good. This album from a trio of conspiracy theorists/musicians is all about the apocalypse. Examples:

• from “Apocalypse Please”: “It’s time we saw a miracle / Come on, it’s time for something biblical/ [ . . . ] This is the end of the world”
• from “Thoughts of a Dying Atheist,” one of the last tracks on the album: “And I know the moment’s near / There’s nothing you can do / Look through a faithless eye / Are you afraid to die?”

2. The Road, Cormac McCarthy. An incredible, haunting, sparse novel about a man and his son fighting for survival in post-apocalpytic America. Beautiful in its darkness and tragedy.

3. Jericho. A TV show cancelled after a cliffhanger first season, brought back after outraged fans protested, and cancelled again for good after a disappointing, short second season. The setting is a small Kansas town filled with tenacious, ingenius residents who manage to hold onto the remnants of civilization and humanity after most of the major cities in the United States are annihilated by hydrogen bombs. I spent part of last weekend rewatching some of season one when I wasn’t writing papers or grading or planning or anything responsible.

4. I Am Legend, a book by Richard Matheson, and several movies. The book and the most recent film starring Will Smith are the ones I am acquainted with, and the stories are so vastly different that they should be considered separate texts. Essentially, each is the store of the last man left alive (in the movie, it’s NYC, and I don’t remember the location of the book). He has a strange resistance to the vampiric disease that has infected every other human and most animals. He devotes his life to searching for the cause and the cure. The book and the movie each end in a vastly different way. And each is stark and disturbing in its own way.

5. The Giver, Lois Lowry. A classic children’s book about a society of people whose lives are utterly conformed to the set laws of society. A boy named Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver of Memories, and he alone knows the pain, triumph, and love of society, a terrifying and weighty existence. Be sure to read the sequels Gathering Blue and The Messenger. The trio is a great commentary on the importance of both love and pain.

6. The Uglies series, Scott Westerfeld. With its own vocabulary and awesome technology like hoverboards, these books about a futuristic, post-Rusties (a.k.a – us) society are sometimes fun and often thought-provoking. The series deals with some of the same issues as The Giver–what happens when society seeks to conform an entire race? What happens when a select group refuses to conform? (Also–check out the cover to Specials to the left–they have these awesome tattoos called “flash tattoos” that sound painful and super awesome at the same time.)

7. Independence Day. I like films with Will Smith and the apocalypse, apparently. An alien race trying to destroy America + Will Smith + super-nerdy Jeff Goldblum? What’s not to love, really?

8. “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” R.E.M. “…and I feel fine.” Really…why worry?

9. The Host, Stephenie Meyer. Really, how could I not include my favorite Meyer book? The whole world (and many other planets in far-off galaxies) has been taken over by a mild, peaceful race of souls who end all wars and violence and set up a calm and gentle society. With two problems: some humans have escape capture and are carefully hidden, while other humans refuse to succumb to the sould placed within their bodies. In my opinion, this is Meyer’s best work, even if it is slow-moving at first.

10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. What happens when we begin to fear knowledge rather than revere it? This happens. Firefighters set fires to destroy books rather than putting fires out. Men hide, secretly memorizing the words of great philosophers and writers, so their words will not be lost forever. And one man realizes the value of knowledge and thinking for oneself and attempts to break away from the society that is so binding and restrictive.

We shed what was left of our summer skin.

Back in May, I posted a to-do list for my summer. I expected my summer to unofficially end on August 31, the day classes started back at Converse. Instead, on August 18, I found out I’d be teaching developmental writing at NGU, and every bit of  free time I’ve had since then has been spent preparing for class or grading papers.

Nonetheless, September is here. School is back in session at both NGU and Converse, and it even feels like fall outside (at least in the mornings), although summer doesn’t officially end for three more weeks. It thus seems appropriate to wrap up my summer to-do list.

My goals:

1. Survive summer school. Done! History of the English Language was an incredible learning experience for me. I had to be more disciplined and focused than usual because I couldn’t rely on catching up in the classroom. I also learned a lot of material about the history of England (and the language, of course), and I learned about why we pronounce or spell words certain ways. It was really great. And I did well in the class, too.

2. Get my face rocked off. Most definitely. I’ve seen Civil Twilight three times (yay!) and the Winter Sounds twice. Of course, there was The Fray in June in Charlotte, which was phenomenal, and I met Jon Foreman after the Fiction Family show in Asheville. There’s still more to come, too: Muse’s new album is released in less than two weeks; Switchfoot’s new album comes out in November; Civil Twilight is playing Fall for Greenville (and we’re considering a road trip the next day to see them play in Nashville); and the Muse/U2 show is 29 days away!

3. Read voraciously. Of the four books I’d intended to read, I manged three of them: V for Vendetta, The Scarlett Letter, and the fourth volume of the Buffy comic books. Underworld, with its 800+ pages, which I attempted to start during summer school, proved to be too much of a challenge, however. Perhaps later. I read plenty of other smaller books, though.

4. Watch TV. We did indeed finish Angel early in the summer. And while I haven’t managed any of Lost yet, I did introduce Harvin to M*A*S*H, and I watched all of season 7 of The Golden Girls.

5. Play outside. Looking back, I don’t think I did enough of this. Sure, I caught fireflies with the Leisters at Look-Up one night, and I spent a few lunch breaks sitting in the grass with a book, and we finally played on a swingset in Salem, MA, but I could have played outside more. Autumn is almost here, though, and it’s my favorite outside-time-of-the-year. I can at least enjoy some fresh air when I drive with my window down.

6. Have a great birthday. Of course! My brother came to visit me for the first time, and he spent the night. Chris also came up for a few days. On my birthday, Berry, Chris, Harvin, and I went to P.F. Chang’s for dinner and then to a frozen yogurt place downtown called Blueberry Frog. Fun! Delightful! Then, the day after my birthday, I met Jon Foreman after the Fiction Family concert. Just in case I haven’t mentioned that enough yet.

7. Be consistently on time to work. Yep. I think I was only late one day, and it was only by about three minutes (thank you, slow drivers on 101). It’s continued into the semester, too, even though I have to be here earlier (8:00 on MWF, and earlier than that since I’m teaching an 8:00 class on Tuesdays and Thursdays). Go me for being punctual.

8. See the ocean again. Done. I went to Myrtle Beach for the state firefighters’ convention in July, and our hotel was right on the beach. Then, in Massachusetts, we saw the harbor in both Boston and Salem. That’s the North Atlantic, you know. It seems so much cooler than what we have in SC.

9. Write letters. Well, okay, I sent some postcards from Boston–to my parents, my brother, my grandmother, and Naomi. I could have done more, but it’s a start.

10. TRAVEL! Have I mentioned Boston yet? The most incredible, epic road trip ever? Yeah, I did that.

So there we are. It was a great summer–productive, enlightening, adventuresome. All that any girl could ask for. Now, autumn is quickly approaching, and I’m completely wrapped up in the world of academia. I’m teaching, dealing with students in the library, and taking my own classes. And I’m enjoying just about every minute of it. It’s gonna be a crazy semester!

A Summer To-Do List

Summer is here (okay, not officially, but I’m a student–summer starts when spring semester ends!). That means that (theoretically) I have more free time to do stuff that I can’t do during the school year. So I’ve made a to-do list. I’ll post when school starts back in late August, and we’ll see how I did.

1. Survive summer school. It’s the first week, and HEL (or History of the English Language) is already proving to be a beast of a class. An intense amount of work to begin with, all the work is now crammed into a five-week period in which I am taking it as an independent study without the advantage of attending class. So far, each day this week has consisted of working all day, then going home and putting in many more hours of homework until falling into bed exhausted with a headache. But that sounds like complaining, so I’ll stop. I’m really enjoying the challenge, of course, and I’ve learned a ton already. Let’s just hope it all sinks in–I have my first test tomorrow!

2. Get my face rocked off. Dude–music! Shows that I definitely plan to attend:

Saturday night–Civil Twilight in Asheville!
June 11–Fiction Family at the Grey Eagle Tavern in Asheville
June 13–The Fray in Charlotte (happy birthday to me and my roommate!)
July 8–Civil Twilight (again) at the Handlebar! (And, hopefully, they’ll add other shows, too.)

Not to mention new Civil Twilight and Switchfoot albums that I know off. Plus, I have until October to become a U2 fan. Summer + music =

3. Read voraciously. Without the responsibility of going to class (at least, after June 19, when summer school will be over), I hope to read so many books. Books that I intend on reading this summer:

Underworld, Don DeLillo. I enjoyed The Body Artist so much that I wanted to see what else the man can do. This one is about baseball, and it’s over 800 pages. A challenge that I hope I’m up for.

The rest of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8 comic books that are in print. That’s 10 more issues right now. I’m not pleased with the direction the story has taken, but I need to know how it ends.

V for Vendetta. I’ve had this graphic novel for months now, and I’m just waiting for a time when I have no other books that must be read. Summer is the perfect time, I feel.

The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Can you believe I made it through 4 years of undergrad and one of grad school, and this book was never required reading for any of my classes? I’m ashamed to say I’ve never actually read it. But since I’m going to Boston in August, I plan to spend a great part of the summer reading more New England literature that I haven’t yet.

I also have stacks of young adult novels and recommendations from friends, but I welcome any more. Comment if you have any suggestions!

4. Watch TV. My roommate and I are almost finished with season 2 of Angel. We have three more seasons to go after that, so we’ll probably finish relatively soon. I also have every intention of watching the first five seasons of Lost before season 6 premieres.

5. Play outside. Hanging out at Falls Park on Friday nights with the Leisters and others from their church. Swinging at playgrounds. Laying in the grass. Maybe swimming at the pool at my apartment? Whatever. It’s summer, and I love it!

6. Have a great birthday. Harvin and I will officially celebrate together by going to see The Fray in Charlotte on the weekend between our birthdays. But hopefully, my brother and Chris and maybe some other people will come visit on or around my birthday (which is June 10, in case you were unaware), and we’ll have tons of fun. Plus, I’ll be 24, which I’ve been waiting on for years just so I can play the Switchfoot song and feel like it’s actually relevent to my life.

7. Be consistently on time to work. You wouldn’t think this would be an issue with me, but sadly, it is. My boss gets irritated if any of us arrives even one minute late to work. By his standards, I’ve been late the past 2 days. I need to do better, and I don’t like him angry.

8. See the ocean again. I’m planning on going to Myrtle Beach with my family for a weekend in July, but it’s also been well over a year since I’ve seen a lighthouse. I want to go on another adventure, so I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance to day-trip down to Brunswick to climb St. Simon’s or at least head back to Savannah and actually climb the Tybee Island lighthouse this time.

9. Write letters. Raquel is in Ecuador, and I have other friends who don’t live near me anymore that I don’t always keep up with very well. I think this is a good idea.

10. TRAVEL! The aforementioned beach trip, of course. But even better? We’re finally going to BOSTON in August! (Not to mention the stop in Baltimore on the way up to visit Poe’s grave and the stop in Hartford, CT, on the way back to see Mark Twain’s house!) This trip’s been in the works for over a year, and I’ve dreamed and planned, and now my two best friends and I are going on a whirlwind literary adventure to a place that I’m sure I’m going to fall in love with! I’m already working on some great road trip mixes that will make the trip even more epic. I’m so stoked!

So that’s it. Summer 2009, you and I are gonna have a great time!