"The Road Out--A Teacher's Odyssey in Poor America"

The Road Out--A Teacher's Odyssey in Poor America by Deborah Hicks is a true story about a young teacher who teaches seven young girls in a poor neighborhood. The parts of the book I enjoyed were:

(1) When the teacher was trying to get through to the girls, and having a hard time;

(2) How each girl had her own personality and outlook on life; and

(3) The last few chapters that let you know how the girls are doling.
Not a must read, but is a good read. I think any teacher would really enjoy, but even if you aren't a teacher, you may like it. I did!
(Gerard's review, 5 stars)

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!

"The Dinner" by Herman Koch

The Dinner by Herman Koch is about two married couples who get together to discuss a horrible crime their sons committed. In my opinion, it starts slow but once it focused on the main story, it took off. I loved the ending and thought it was a good read, not great so give it four stars.
(Gerard's review, 4 stars)

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!

Tuesday Teasers: 3 For You--Contemporary Fiction

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should  Be Reading. Anyone can play along, so I thought  I  would play for fun! Just do the following

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page (well, we cheat and choose specific ones)
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on  that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away!   You don’t  want  to  ruin the  book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can  add the book to their TBR  Lists  if they  like your teaser.   

Gerard's

Come on, Elle, I thought. React. Prove my gut reaction wrong.

From page 4 of The Promise of Stardust by Priscille Sibley. (My review posted on Saturday, but this is so good, I just had to do a teaser from it!)

What would this evening have been like if, no more than an hour ago, I had simply waited downstairs until it was time to go, rather than climb the stairs to Michel's room?
What would the rest of our lives have been like?

From page 11 of The Dinner by Herman Koch.

Karen's

Gone. Taken. Just like me. I can't do this again.

From page 98 of Did You Miss Me by Karen Rose.  (Click the link for Gerard's review of this one.)

Happy Reading!

"Dumping These Four"

Gerard orders books from the library all the time and waits for them to come in.  Often, he'll get a truckload all at once which is what happened last time.  When this happens, he doesn't stick with a book if he's not into it.  This morning he brought me these four and said, "I'm dumping these" and plopped them down for me to include in our "Dud" list (Click our Duds tab above for more we gave up on and why).  

Please keep in mind, just because the books didn't appeal to us, doesn't mean it's a bad book.  Everyone has different tastes so you may like some of these.  If you did, please leave your thoughts in a comment here.

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!

"How They Grow: Owl" and "The Miracle of Easter" (Reading online)

Did you know you can help organizations get more books in the hands of children for free just by reading children's books online at We Give Books?  These are the two I read this morning:

Ages 0-3 (science)

How They Grow:  Owl by DK Publishing is a cute picture book that shows how the owl looks and what it does from the time it is hatched until it's full grown in 12 weeks.  See, even reading these children's books, you can learn things quickly.  For example, I didn't know it takes 12 weeks for an owl to be full grown.

Ages 4-7 (history)

The Miracle of Easter by J. M. Malone is a nicely illustrated book that quickly tells the story about Jesus beginning with his wondrous works through his resurrection.  I was disappointed though with the ending because the book did not tell how after He rose from the dead, he was actually still on Earth for awhile before ascending to heaven and seen by many people.  I feel this book is a bit misleading and would not recommend it for that reason.

(Karen's reviews)

I do recommend that you check out this site to help kids get books.  It's all free!

Have you read this one? What did you think of it? If you reviewed this too, feel free to share your link to your review in the comments. Happy Reading!