On Abandoning Books

I am a rule follower, and as such, it's hard for me to abandon books. Growing up, my dad had a "7 chapter rule" that I observed strictly - if I had read to chapter 7 and still didn't like the book, the gods of literature would permit me to abandon it in good faith. As I grew, I changed it from 7 chapter to 10%, because with some books, chapters are very long, and with others, they are short. 10% to me seemed more fair. And I am all about fair.

I don't often abandon books, but as I've done it twice in the last month, I felt I should explain. I believe very strongly in the following statement:

One should not waste time reading a bad book because 

there are far too many good books that need reading.

I am happy to say have read very few bad books, mainly because of the above sentiment. 10% is plenty of time for an author to win me over. And these authors? They did not win me over. I must concede, however, that reading from a list someone else compiled, as I have done this time around, lends itself to abandoning books far more than one I would have constructed myself. My lists are based 90% or more on recommendations of people I know and trust. These books? Not so much. I have abandoned three of the 26, and I don't feel so much as a smidge of guilt.

Let's start with the very first one I abandoned years ago:

I can't remember if I gave this book the full 10% or not, because it's been awhile, but I do remember knowing early on that this book and I were not meant to be. I'm trying to remember now why I read it originally, but I can't. Hmmm. Well, regardless, it got tossed. Good riddance.

Next one, the one I abandoned three weeks ago:

This book wasn't terrible...I just felt like I'd already read it five or six times before. There was nothing notable or unusual or original that I could find, and I have a huge stack of books I really do want to read, so I decided to sianara this one as well.

And lastly:

I'm just going to go ahead and admit that I am kind of prudish when it comes to books, and I don't only mean about sexuality. I'm also that way about abuse, violence, excessive drug use, language, and basically all the things that make movie ratings go up. I am not a fan of these things, and while I understand and appreciate the place many of them have in literature, I am growing increasingly weary of the excess. Additionally, one of the reasons I so love to read YAL is to expand my bookshelf at school, and I would never recommend these types of books to 12-year-olds. This book was filthy. FILTHY. And the protagonist was a shallow loser. Not worth my time. CHUCKED!

Abandoning books is a healthy practice. I tell this to my students all the time - don't waste time on a bad book. Just as life is too short to waste on bad people, life is too short to waste on bad books. Spend time on the good ones! I am formulating my summer list now (which includes classics - a challenge!) and will post it soon. For now, here's my current progress:

1. I Am Malala by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai review here
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky review here
   
3. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood review here
4. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher review here
5. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls review here
6. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving review here
7. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver review here
8.  Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah review here
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddonreview here
10. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (read before I started blogging)
11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz *abandoned* 
12. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie review here
13. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (read before I started blogging)
14. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
15. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer review here
16. Bossypants by Tina Fey review here
    
17. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey review here
18. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (read before I started blogging)
19. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (read before I started blogging)
20. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen *abandoned*
21. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell review here
22. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb *abandoned*
23. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - can we have a moment for whoever created this list? "Harry Potter" is not a book. It's a series of books. Sheesh.
24. Looking for Alaska by John Green review here
25. The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak review here
26. The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseini review here

Only one more to go!

Book: The Hiding Place

The Hiding Place

by Corie Ten Boom

Length: 272

Format: Paperback
Price: $6.49 on Amazon

How I heard about it: My mother read it to me as a child and it was my choice for our Book Club

Basic Premise: Corie has lived a simple, happy life with her parents and sisters above the family watchmaking shop. But when the German occupation comes to their town of Harlem in Holland, her entire family becomes involved in an underground network of do-gooders who hide Jews and smuggle them out of danger. That is, until they are caught themselves. 

My Take: 10 out of 10 (scale here)
This is one of those books you read and remember forever. My mother read parts of it to us when we were young (it would have been wildly inappropriate to read all of it to a young child) and I had been meaning to reread it as a adult. This was the PERFECT time. There are so many beautiful moments in this book and so many lessons to be learned. If they were learned by a 55-year-old woman who was starving in a flea-infested concentration camp while working 16 hours a day in the very harshest of conditions, surely I can get out of bed and go to work without grumbling, right?

But what I love most about this book is the abiding faith of both Corie and her sister, Betsie. They believed in the power and glory of God even amidst these circumstances, and they knew it was the only thing that would get them and their fellow prisoners through this atrocious experience. I loved discussing it at Book Club. At various points, we had tears in our eyes as we shared what we learned and how we want to change our own lives and hearts.

It was an incredible read and I heartily recommend it to anyone!

Kindle Book: Audacity

Audacity

by Melanie Crowder

Length: 400

Format: Kindle
Price: Free via the Overdrive app

How I heard about it: It was put forward as a possible book for our novel adoption next year

Basic Premise: Russian-born Clara seems to be the only one in her family who understands what it means to work. While her father and brothers study the Torah, she is out making a living for her family, who desperately needs the money her job at the shirtwaist factory provides to scrape by in this new country.

My Take: 8 out of 10 (scale here)
This is another book written in free-verse poetry. It's set in the early 1900s in New York at the time of the factory union strike. Having just read Uprising and studied the event from a historical perspective with my students, I felt like I really "got" the last half of this book which deals with the injustices rendered to immigrants in factories such as these during this time. The first half was less clear. It begins in Russia where Clara lives with her family in a shetl, which I had to look up - it's a small Jewish village. Her father and brothers spend all day studying and she is not allowed to go to school. Having come off the heels of studying Malala, this was appropriately infuriating. (I would love to do this with students and explore this issue, because they got really fired up about it this year!) I did have to email my history-teacher dad at one point though and ask what was up with Jews. Why were they hated so much? I mean, I know Hitler hated them, but this was Russia before Hitler's time. Why were they so discriminated against? He said that, as with all discrimination, there is no real explanation for why. But they did seem to bear and unusually large brunt of hatred, and perhaps it was because they were "God's chosen people."

I really adored this book. I think it would be hard to teach because it will be hard for kids to buy in, but I enjoyed it!

Book: Brown Girl Dreaming

Brown Girl Dreaming

by Jaqueline Woodson

Length: 336

Format: Hardback
Price: Free (borrowed from a friend)

How I heard about it: It was put forward as a possible book for our novel adoption next year

Basic Premise: Jacqueline Woodson tells the moving story of her upbringing during the height of the Civil Rights struggle in the South.

My Take: 8 out of 10 (scale here)
This book is written in free verse poetry (which I used to hate but have come to really love) and is beautiful. That is the word for this writing. I know she is very prolific, but this is the first of her books I have read, and reading this one made me want to read more. I am in full support of adopting this book mainly because it has so many points with which kids can connect. Single-parent family. Extended family, like grandparents, living in the home. Feeling isolated and alone because of something that makes you different, whether it be skin color or a disability or a religious affiliation, all of which are discussed and examined. It is a beautiful book and I would love to teach it!

Mother's Day Craft

Both sets of grandparents are at the stage where they have everything they need and most things they want (and of course the things they don't have and want are things like a Caribbean cruise or new golf clubs), which makes gift-giving really hard. So, over the last few years, I've tried to have the kids give "authentic" gifts, and not of the weird pasta necklace variety - real, heartfelt things that they might actually want to display. Pinterest has been invaluable in this department and when I saw this, I thought:

-that is cute

-the kids could do that

-it looks hard to screw up

The first thing I did was sit down with the kids and have them describe Grandma using single words. This was both productive and entertaining. The second thing was to gather materials:

I hoped on Amazon and ordered scrabble tiles and took both kids to Hobby Lobby to pick out a frame.

Next, we colored the GRANDMA tiles with a pink Sharpie. Paint may have been prettier, but I let Brother do the coloring, which gave it a more "authentic" look.

We then arranged them and used super duper strong adhesive to secure them to the backing.

Thankfully, we spelled everything right, because that glue was NOT coming up.

Obviously, the adjectives were selected by the kids. Grandma may have to hang it in the laundry room or somewhere similar, but at least it's "authentic."

Book: The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle

by Jeannette Walls

Length: 304

Format: Hardback
Price: Free via the library

How I heard about it: It's on my list.

Basic Premise: Jeannette Walls tells the troubling story of the nomadic, impoverished childhood she spent with her brother and two sisters, and her parents, who seemed to constantly be in a hurry, but never seemed to have anywhere to go.

My Take: 9 out of 10 (scale here)
I really loved this book. I knew nothing about it prior to reading (which is the truth about most of the books on this list) and since I read The Silver Star a few years ago, I was expecting something similar. At once, I realized this was going to be VERY different. She opens with one of her earliest memories; boiling hot dogs on the stove in the family Winnebago at the age of three while her Mom painted outside. The water boiled over resulting in significant burns and a lengthy hospital stay, until her father "broke her out" of the hospital and the family skipped town. This was the family's pattern for most of her young life - stay until someone starts to wonder what's going on at home, and then flee. I loved this story because it gave me a perspective on what it's like to be a small child who has to grow up quickly. I have known many of these kids in my ten years of teaching, and reading this made me feel as if I understood a bit. Not much, but a bit.

I LOVED this book.

List Progress:

1. I Am Malala by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai review here
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky review here
   
3. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood review here
4. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher review here
5. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
6. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving review here
7. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver review here
8.  Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah review here
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddonreview here
10. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (read before I started blogging)
11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
12. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie review here
13. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (read before I started blogging)
14. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
15. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer review here
16. Bossypants by Tina Fey review here
    
17. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey review here
18. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (read before I started blogging)
19. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (read before I started blogging)
20. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen *abandoned*
21. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell review here
22. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb *abandoned*
23. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - can we have a moment for whoever created this list? "Harry Potter" is not a book. It's a series of books. Sheesh.
24. Looking for Alaska by John Green review here
25. The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak review here
26. The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseini review here