Monday, July 2, 2012

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?




While I can’t say I’ve been reading a book a day as some of you bloggers out there are doing, I did read a few books this week. I tried to balance some newer books with some older ones. My daughters have many books on their shelves that we have collected over the years and I took some of their recommendations of great reads that I didn’t get to when they first came out.

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban was one of the books that my daughter, Clare, put into my hands. I’m sure that Clare initially loved it because of the cover with striped toe socks. (Clare is a sock-a-hol-ic.) Within the cover is the strong first person voice of Zoe Elias. I marked up some passages that would be great for teaching voice and subtlety and, as a writer, I am re-inspired that a novel can take place within a short period of time with everyday issues and fifth grade challenges. Zoe and her family are quirky and memorable with some laugh out loud interactions and other I-want-to-jump-into-the-pages and yell at some of them to make different decisions! 

I love books that have messages of perseverance, resilience and empathy and this book has all three. If you missed A Crooked Kind of Perfect but enjoy a quick read with a strong girl narrator, I highly recommend it.

3 comments:

  1. Yay! I picked this up through my book swap and hoping to get to it this summer and maybe even hand it off to my almost 11yo, who also likes a cute pair of socks! :)

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  2. Melanie
    I am definitely going to get hold of A Crooked Kind of Perfect, sounds like my kind of read, and a good book for my class library as well.
    Kathryn

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  3. I read A Crooked Kind of Perfect about five years ago. I remember because I was either pregnant or had recently had my son who is now 5. I loved it. I thought it was such an interesting look at a family. Zoe is great. I wanted to yell at some of the characters, too. It made me really realize how important I am as a mom. :)

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