I'll start my unplanned hiatus with what is certainly going to be one of my top reads for 2011: Gary Schmidt's Okay for Now, an outstanding coming-of-age tale set in the late 1960's.
I couldn't tell you why Patrick Stump holding ice cream came up when I looked for a picture of the book to put up, but there you go.
Anyway, this book is sort of a side story to his kids' story "The Wednesday Wars", which I've never read but have heard about since elementary school. His new book is about Doug Swieteck and growing up in a small town in upstate New York. Having spent his childhood in Brooklyn, Doug isn't expecting to enjoy life at the "Dump", as he calls his new house. It takes a local girl named Lil Spicer and adventures with James Audobon's "Birds of America" book for him to open up and enjoy the world around him.
One of the best parts about this book is the fact that Schmidt is able to instill emotion in the reader from the beginning pages. Books that can get me to make happy or sad faces as I'm reading it based on what's happening in the story must be good, otherwise I would be much more neutral and not really care about what I was reading as much. The story was well-paced and a hell of a lot of fun to read. I wasn't happy about getting to the end, only because I wanted there to be more to read. Definitely a priority novel to read this summer and I will be very upset if you don't.
Up next, I'll get started on Rick Riordan's books. I read both "The Lost Hero" and "The Throne of Fire" recently so I'll most likely make a few entries, one for each of his series. Keep me posted on anything you're reading now, whether you agree or disagree about a book review, or really just wanna talk to me about books. Seeing as I work in a bookstore I kind of enjoy those conversations.
Peace,
Justin
Oh PS, here's a picture from Audobon's book. I think these are awesome pictures, it would definitely be worth learning more about Audobon and his work in the future..
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