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Opening Day!

Baseball is one of my favorite sports (along with hockey) and today is Opening Day! My beloved Chicago Cubs have their home opener tomorrow, against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field. One of these days I will find the time and the money to enjoy a game at Wrigley Field, maybe next summer. But for now I will just revel in the fact that my beloved sport is back for another season.

Being a librarian I had to share my love of baseball with my young readers and thus created a "Swing into Spring" baseball themed display (sorry no pictures, kept forgetting my camera at home). So I thought I would share with you some of my favorite baseball related books. There are plenty of baseball non-fiction and player biographies, head to your local library and swing into spring with a great baseball read!

Lou Gehric: The Luckiest Man by David A. Adler, illustrated by Terry Widener, Voyager, April 1, 2001.

Henry Aaron's Dream by Matt Tavares, Candlewick Press, January 12, 2010.

Baseball Hour by Carol Nevius, illustrated by Bill Thomson, Marshall Cavendish Children's Books, February 1, 2008.

The Aurora County All-Stars by Deborah Wiles, Harcourt, August 2007.

Raymond & Graham: Bases Loaded by Mike Knudson, illustrated by Stacy Curtis, Viking Juvenile, March 2010.

Lucky: Maris, Mantle, and My Best Summer Ever by Wes Tooke, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, February 2010.

Brooklyn Nine by Alan M. Gratz, Penguin Young Readers Group, March 2009.

Time for change

So you may have noticed that I have not been posting much the last month or so.  Well let me explain.

This has been a year of many changes.  More change than I thought was possible in such a short time period.  But God has a plan and I'm just along for the ride. 

My husband and I bought our first home and moved in late January, early February.  Very exciting to actual have a place to let our puppy run while she is outside.  Plus now we don't have to take her out on her leash (that got old really quick at our apartment).  So I have been busy packing, then unpacking and getting things in place and making this our home. 

Then in mid-February my husband lost his paternal grandfather, then I week later I lost my paternal grandfather.  Reading and reviewing was just not on my mind.  Now all seems to be settling down a bit, but I have just not wanted to read any of the books that I have received through advance means.  Plus I am finding I just can't put my reading on a schedule and expect myself to read those books.  Because it is just like when I was in school if I have to read something, now I don't want to read it.  I loose interest in the book.

After some thought I have decided that I'm going to change the focus of this blog a little, in an effort to better reflect who I really am. 

1. I am no longer going to be reviewing books per say.  I want to have more of a conversation about the books I'm reading.  I started this blog with that in mind, but got lost along the way.  No more rating books, just my reactions and who I think as a librarian would enjoy this book.

2. I am no longer going to accept or request books for review.  I have plenty of books that I can check out from the library that I work at and the library where I live.  Plus the bookcases of books that I have not yet read, because I've been focused on new stuff almost exclusively this year.  It is so easy to keep up on new books to order for work, I'm not worried that I am going to get behind.  I want to better serve my patrons and what better way than to read from my library and really get to know the books there.   

3. I will not be participating in memes on a weekly basis.  I have tried in the past and failed, I just get bored with posting the same type of post over and over again, so I'm just going to stop.  That was so freeing. 

4. Reading is not my only hobby.  I love sewing (which I am getting back into while I've been taking a break from reading), hiking, photography, gardening, spending time with family, helping out at church, and a whole host of other activities.  To help make this blog my like me, I have decided that I am going to write about my other hobbies/activities and make this more personal for me. 

It's time to shift the focus of this blog.  I hope by doing this I will continue to blog and enjoy it more than I have the last 6 months or so.  I don't like it when a hobby starts to feel like a job.  I have a full-time job to keep me busy.  Blogging to me should not be my job and lets face it I'm not that good at keeping up with posts.  These changes should help put a little more me into this blog.

When I'm not Reading...which seems to be a happening a lot lately

It seems like these days I'm just not in a reading mood.  I think I burnt myself out last year reading over 200 books in one year and this year seems like a good year to focus on other hobbies that I enjoy. 

Since moving into our house in early February, I have been cleaning, unpacking, painting, and sewing.  I'm sewing again and I could not be more happier.  I love creating things with my own hands.  Gives me a sense of accomplishment and since we are on a budget I can decorate our home without breaking the bank (I love cheap crafts!). 

So with other things going on, I have made an effort to keep myself busy.  And busy I have been.  I've been sewing all week, creating things.  Let me share:

 I found this pretty green fabric at one of my local fabric stores for a few bucks.  Created a valence, added a little ribbon, and now my kitchen window looks a little more dressed up.

 I found this cute pink long-sleeve shirt, but decided since spring and summer are almost upon us that I would turn this into a short-sleeve shirt and use the extra from the sleeves to create the ruffled neckline.  This was super simple and gave this shirt a whole new look.

I love pillows, you can never have too many pillows.  Found some cheap pillow forms (the two larger pillows) and some cool upholstery fabric and went to town.  I free-handed the smaller pillows from the scraps.  And there are many more pillows in my future as well.

I have been enjoying my break from reading and it is allowing me some time to explore my other hobbies that I have enjoyed over the years.  2011 has been a year of changes and I like it. 

Mini Book Review: Bless the Mouse

Bless this Mouse by Lois Lowry.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, March 21, 2011.
Digital ARC received from publisher via netGalley.

 This is the story of a community of church mice and their head mistress Hidegarde.  Her duty is to keep all of the mice safe and much sure baby mice are nesting in a safe spot and not getting notices by the church members.  If they are noticed to often then the Great X will come and devastate there population numbers.  Plus it is almost the time for the Blessing of the Animals and they are praying it doesn't rain or else they will have to face another arch nemesis the Cat.

All in all this was a nice gentle tween read.  I would give this to older tweens because of the expansive vocabulary but a reader who is not discouraged by unfamiliar words would also enjoy this one.  This is a pretty gentle, quiet read and with the many books out there it is nice to have a low-key novel to read once in awhile.

I loved the illustrations scattered throughout to help break up the pages and at the beginning of chapters.  I can't wait to see the finished product and see the final art work.  If you are a fan of Lois Lowry I recommend reading this one.

Book Review: The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group by Catherine Jinks.  Harcourt Children's Books, out April 4, 2011.
Digital ARC received from publisher through netGalley.

[synopsis from Goodreads]

I still hadn't fully absorbed the terrible possibility that I might actually be a werewolf. A werewolf. I kept stumbling over that word; it made no sense to me. How could I be a werewolf? Werewolves didn't exist.

When Tobias Richard Vandevelde wakes up in hospital with no memory of the night before, his horrified mother tells him that he was found by the police. At Featherdale Park. In a dingo pen.

As if that isn't weird enough, suddenly a very menacing looking guy and a priest show up at his door.

As the mystery unfolds, Toby finds himself keeping company with some very strange and sickly looking people - members of a suburban vampire support group. And when he's abducted in broad daylight, he will need all their help to break free ... and to come to terms with his own incredibly rare condition.

The crew from the Reformed Vampire Support Group is back and this time they are helping werewolves like Reuben.

13 year old Toby awakes up one morning in a hospital after being found in a dingo pen and Toby has no idea how he got in the dingo pen and then the hospital.  This starts a hole series of events leading him to the Reuben and Father Ramos.  Needless to say Toby ends up being kidnapped and ends up in the same facility that Reuben had been held in before the Reformed Vampire Support Group busted him out of there. There Toby meets another werewolf who has been held there for 5 months, Sergio and together they must figure out how to escape this facility.

Overall I enjoyed this novel. For me there wasn't as much humor as there had been in the companion book, but this one was filled with plenty of action which worked for me. If you are looking for a book unlike Twilight and other vampire werewolf books pick this one up and enjoy. My only gripe about the book was near the end a zombie thread is introduced and I'm not sure I how I liked that, since I would guess that it is a set up for the next book but that is my opinion. Other than that this was a good read, recommended

Wither

Wither by Lauren DeStefano.  Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, March 22, 2011.
Review copy received from publisher through GalleyGrab.

[from Goodreads]

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.

Is is just me or have a read this book before?  Lately I have been feeling like that with the new crop of dystopian novels that are coming out right now.   I think it is time to take a break from this genre and read different genres to just give me a break. 

I don't know why but Wither just didn't really work for me personally.  I have seen plenty of people who have enjoyed it, I just didn't.  I think it mostly has to do with the fact that I didn't really like Rhine.  When I don't like characters it makes it hard for me to enjoy the book, that is just the type of reader I am. 

The book has interesting elements, that essentially everyone from the newer generations have become ticking time bombs and they have limited time.  The father-in-law Vaugh, just creepy to me, anytime he showed up I just got chills down my spine.  I know this book will be popular at my library, I will be purchasing a copy for my teens since this book will never be on my shelves and as a teen librarian that makes me happy.  Just because a book doesn't work for me, doesn't me I won't have teens who will be itching to read this one.  Even if you are finding that you are getting tired of dystopian novels, at least in my experience teens are still enjoying reading them so make sure to keep plenty of different types stocked on your shelves.