11/22/63

Reading book #11 now.  It's exactly 849 pages and I'm on page 161.  My goal is to finish by Friday.  Today is Tuesday.  We teach our kids here to calculate the number of pages they'd have to read to finish a book within a 2 week time period.  That technique helps them judge whether or not that book is too overwhelming for them or not...some kids just can't determine that yet.  So right now I have 688 pages left.  If you're good at math, you know that I have to read 172 pages each day to be finished by the end of the day on Friday.  But, I want to be finished by the beginning of the day on Friday so I can loan this book to a friend, so I really have a goal to read 230 pages each day.  Whew!  That's a lot of reading!  Gonna give it a try!  So far, I'm loving the book.  Basically, it's unlike any other Stephen King story I've read before.  Here's what I know so far...Jake Epping, a high school English teacher, is introduced to a time travel portal that takes him back in time to the late 50s, early 60s.  He has the opportunity to change history if he can just keep Lee Harvey Oswald from shooting JFK.  Of course, King can't just lay it out there like that; his plots twist and turn and throw you a curve ball every now and then.  I'm waiting on the "spooky monster" to jump out from the closet at any time and devour the main character.  That's usually what I expect from a King novel.  And I usually don't read King.  I respect his authority as a writer and his craft, but it's just not my "kinda" book.  However, I do recommend Lisey's Story and his collection of short stories, "Full Dark, No Stars" to adults.  If he just wouldn't use such horrible language!  Luckily, so far, cross my fingers, knock on wood.......he has only used 2 or 3 blackguard words so far in this novel.  Let's hope that continues.  ;)

As for my work, I'm getting all kinds of requests to "publish" a What Mrs. C. Thinks You Should Read book list.  I'm working on that now.  Starting with 6th grade girls.  Here's what I have so far...

Savvy by Ingrid Law
So B. It by Sarah Weeks
Faith, Hope and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Rules by Cynthia Lord
Call Me Hope by Gretchen Olsen
True, Sort of by Katherine Hannigan
Uglies Series by Scott Westerfeld
Warriors Series by Erin Hunter
The Mysterious Benedict Society Series by Trenton Stewart
The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
Gregor the Overlander Series by Suzanne Collins
The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley
11 Birthdays series of three companion novels by Wendy Mass