Last night my daughter Catherine and I went to our first mother-daughter book club of the year. We had read The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, who was a contemporary of Charles Dickens. The book was challenging—it was nearly 500 pages and written in the style popular in the 1860s when writers were paid by the [...]
The Big Read is a project of the National Endowment for the Arts, and it challenges entire communities all around the country to read and discuss one book. It’s like a book club expanded to include everyone in a city who wants to participate. In past years, I’ve participated in a similar project here in [...]
Today I’m participating in the She Writes Day of Action. She Writes is a community that gives female authors a place to showcase their work, voice concerns, further their writing skills and more. This Day of Action was conceived as a response to a list that Publisher’s Weekly posted of what it considers to be [...]
Looking for websites to help you find books for teens? Radical Parenting has posted a guest column called 10 Great Book Websites for Teens by Jennifer Wagner of Connect with your Teens through Pop Culture and Technology and writer of a Parenting Teens page on the Examiner. I’m excited that my website, Mother Daughter [...]
I recently was introduced to a Web site called Flashlight Worthy Books, 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 [...]
Today marks the start of Teen Read Week, which is sponsored by the American Library Association. If you’re looking for inspiration for good titles for teens, you can check out the 2009 Teens’ Top Ten and top ten books from past years on the ALA’s site. There are several books on the list I’d really [...]
Yesterday I attended the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association conference and got to sit in on some very interesting workshops. I also eagerly wrote down recommendations from the region’s booksellers on some of the top reads they are recommending to customers these days. I concentrated on books for middle grade readers and young adults, since the [...]
I’ve never participated in a book challenge, but I’ve decided to join my friends Julie at Booking Mama and Jenn at Jenn’s Bookshelf by embarking on the Middle Grade Book Challenge. My goal is to read one or two middle grade books each month, then post a review about it. I often do that anyway, [...]
