50 Books in a Year: Book #6 Forgive My Fins

          I have always had this fascination with two lovely mystical creatures; mermaids and unicorns. So, when I was digging around for another book to read I'm so glad I found this book by Tera Lynn Childs called Forgive My Fins. There's a book giveaway that closes soon at this lovely blog called Forever Young Adult! Giveaways and I are not friends so I just, literally on Saturday, downloaded it on my Nook.

          Let's talk about mermaids for a minute...if I wanted to get really embarrassed I'd show you pictures I drew when I was in elementary and junior high. I'm not going to do that, ever! I would like you to know that my deep love of all things mermaid started with the Sea Wees. We'd get a set of these toys everytime we'd go to Wal-Mart. They were perfect for bathtime play as they were mermaids who came with floaty sponges and their tails make excellent razors for fake leg shaving. I wish I had some...I guess I know what I'll be doing for a diversion today!

          And, there are so many good mermaid movies! I was totally enchanted with Splash as a kid (it wasn't until later I even recognized that this movie may not have been appropriate for a 7 year old...it had a friggin' mermaid, come on!), my niece and I just had a delightful discussion about Aquamarine, such a good movie about a teen mermaid, and I just watched for the first time Fishtales with Billy Zane, then there's the under-rated Lady in the Water. And, don't even get me started about The Little Mermaid, even if it is a "Disney-fide no one dies" version. I even like it when mermaids aren't so nice like in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Peter Pan!

          So, this book is about a mermaid princess, who can't tell anyone she's a mermaid, who is major in love with the captain of the swim team...sounds lovely and teen and cute right!? Frankly, I hope she gets with her biker boy neighbor...and, if I know my teen dramas...I can't wait to start reading!!!

Feel free to read: The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Feel free to watch these Disney's Silly Symphonies...two of my favorite mermaid cartoons.

Tera Lynn Childs has also given me a great idea for a school project! More information can be found at: Books, Boys, Buzz

Character collages

Collage. I do this for every book. Because I'm a visual learner, I find it invaluable to have a pictorial compilation of my characters. Lots of writers do collages, but here's my method. You'll need some printer paper, scissors, a glue stick, and some magazines.

• Step One: Flip through as many magazines as possible. I like TeenVogue, CosmoGirl, InStyle, and Lucky the best. I tear out anything that reminds me of any of the characters in this book. I do collages for all of the main characters and most of the secondary ones, so as I tear stuff out I divide into piles by character. The more I have to choose from the better. At a minimum I need something that will make a good background, a headshot or two of and actor or model who looks like the character, and some clothing and accessories they would own.
• Step Two: Build the collage. Start by gluing down a background image that fills up most of the page (this way you won't end up with whitespace left over at the end). Then select a few of the headshot and clothing images, trim them to just the desired element, and arrange them over the background. I always lay these out before I glue so I make sure they all fit. Then snip out the small pictures and accessories and stick them wherever they fit.
• Step Three: Finalize the collage with words. This usually requires flipping back through the magazines looking for two things. 1) Words that resonate with your characters. 2) Ransom-note-type letters that you can cut out and use to form your character's name. Sometimes I even outline the letters of the name in a silver Sharpie to make it stand out more.

I'm sensing some Lit Muse book club book ideas! And, I don't even care that this book is part of a series!

The Five Love Languages

Several years ago I was involved in a church small group and we read The Five Love Languages. I have

since lent this book to countless people, but have forgotten what it meant to me to begin with and how it influenced my thoughts and actions. I really like that book because Dr. Chapman talks about the 5 types of love languages and then gives you ways to help you better yours to others and ways to help you communicate with those who have a love language diferent than your own.

I've taken the quiz again and you can too!

5 Love Language Quiz

Here are the love languages according to Chapman:

Words of Affirmation

Actions speak louder than words.

Quality Time

Giving someone your undivided attention.

Receiving Gifts

Everyday gestures and little gifts mean so much.

Acts of Service

Feel loved through the actions of others.

Physical Touch

Literal physical presence, acts of affection and availability.

This is me:
Acts of Service
Can vacuuming the floors really be an expression of love? Absolutely! Anything you do to ease the burden of responsibilities weighing on an “Acts of Service” person will speak volumes. The words he or she most want to hear: “Let me do that for you.” Laziness, broken commitments, and making more work for them tell speakers of this language their feelings don’t matter.

This is my husband:

Words of Affirmation

Actions don’t always speak louder than words. If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you. Hearing the words, “I love you,” are important–hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirits skyward. Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten.

While some of the stories are cheesy I remember feeling that I did really understand where Dr. Chapman was coming from because of the examples he gave and the fact that if you aren't communicating your needs to someone or translating what someone else is saying in their way of loving, you are missing out on the best parts of a relationship. I really enjoyed this study and think I need to read the book again...as soon as I get it back from who borrowed it!

Friday Five: Unrelated (oops!)

I love doing surveys and questionnaires. I love reading peoples answers to surveys and questionnaires. They are a weakness of mine, and in looking for topics for my blog to make it easier for me to post everyday once school started...I found this. So, Fridays we're taking a break from talking about reading and books and words to answer silly surveys and questionnaires. Feel free to post your answers below, on your own blog, or both!!! Ideas from Friday5.org



Unrelated

1. What’s your favorite kind of cracker?
2. What part of your residence gets the best natural lighting?
3. What song have you frequently listened to lately?
4. What could you use a little break from?
5. What’s going on in your town this weekend?

Answers
1.  Townhouse
2.  The tiny tots room, mostly because it has curtains that let in light...pink princess light
3.  Well...the James Bond soundtrack is stuck in the CD player in my car...at first this was cool...but, now it is apparent that the radio only plays sucky songs (and the kiddo has thieved my iPod, she likes "The Mad Men" Volume I soundtrack --what can I say?, I believe it is under the couch...dead) and I'm stuck with, well..."You Only Live Twice, they say.." please sing along if you can...
4.  um, I don't know...lesson plan writing? this cough that won't leave me?
5.  Well, I'm sure the some of the children will be doing inappropriate things at all hours of the night...other than that... nothing else...why don't you see for yourself...besides we've just dug ourselves out from under one thousand feet of snow!

Sidenote: My days are mixed up because of the snow, I answered this like Thursday night and didn't post it. I suck!!!

You Will Be Assimilated, Resistance is Futile...

For me science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects.
~Gene Roddenberry, creator of "Star Trek"

I've always been a bit of a science fiction nut...always. And, I don't care how I get it (in Fantasy, dystopic, apocalyptic, robots, aliens, et cetera), as long as I get it!

          Even the silliest aspects of SF require a certain intelligence and willingness to learn. Science fiction makes you SMART! I remember when I was a kid hanging out with my uncles (SF fiends themselves) reading their comic books (X-Men were my favorite), listening to soundtracks from movies like Superman and Xanadu and reading, oh the delicious reading, Tolkien, Terry Brooks (The Sword of Shanara series, especially), Star Wars books, Star Trek books, and my favorite series The Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny.

          On my own I found such authors as Isaac Asimov (The Norby Chronicles are my favorite), The Never-Ending Story and Phillip K. Dick and The Dune books. When I was in 8th grade someone left on our doorstep (still don't know who did, but if you are that person, thank-you!) The Chronicles of Narnia. I had read the first in the series, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, when my friend Dan in 4th grade lent me the copy he got for Christmas. I read the rest of the series, one a day every night for a week several years later while I was babysitting in 8th grade. When my sister Kim stole those copies for her own personal library (she's a SF crazy too, except for her obsession comes in the way of Harry Potter, The Golden Compass and the like), I bought my own. I love young adult and children's classics too. I read all of The Wizard of Oz series by the time I was in 7th grade. I love The Phantom Toll Booth, Alice in Wonderland, William Sleator's Interstellar Pig and Singularity, Madeline L'Engles Time Quintet (this used to be a quartet! now I have to go find that other book, frick and frack!), The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy in four, and all those Pern Dragonrider books (which, thanks to my uncle, I have a complete set of).
          My favorite is dystopic literature. I used to teach The Giver to my remedial sophomores and we'd have such a lovely time talking about what it means to be perfect and to live in a perfect world. I think that teens and kids better understand that we don't want to live in a perfect world and that perfection shouldn't be what is desired. I do a science fiction unit now where we read Anthem, watch Pleasantville and Gattaca, and read the short stories "Harrison Bergeron", "Four O'Clock" and others all with aspects of dystopia. We talk about why people read and write SF, we talk about the lessons that we are supposed to learn.

          When I first met my husband he thought it was cool that I liked two things 1) root beer (no, really, he hadn't met her girl who liked root beer as much as I do) and 2) that I love, love, love SF. For the last few days we have been doing nothing, but playing with the kid and watching the SF of my childhood. He really likes Buck Rogers and The Greatest American Hero; my favorites from way back. We've also been watching The X-Files, my favorite SF show of all time (don't worry! there are books too and I've read them!). I try to get all my friends to watch The X-Files (Season 6 is my favorite), many of them have and love it. I'm watching Season 9, as I type this. I don't just like this show because of David Duchovny, although he is a tasty treat, I like it because every episode challenges you to find its deeper meaning.

          In some way all SF is written as a warning, it takes something that we do in our society, turns this aspect on its head and ask, "What will you do differently now that you know? What will you change about today in order to have a better tomorrow?"

Wonderful Wednesdays (on Thursdays) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Hello All,

We've had like one zillion (I would never use hyperbole) snow days. These snow days have given me ample time to hang out with my kidlet and my husband, time to trash the house to the brink of absolute destruction, watch old school TV (which I will go into more in-depthly in a later post, maybe Saturday) and blog surf. Blog surfing has become a delightful new past-time and yesterday I found a book blog ning (yes, my friends a whole ning for book bloggers) and within it I have found some deLIGHTful book blogs.

The one I am going on about today is called Tiny Library and she has started a meme on Wednesday that I'm going to do on Thursdays seeing as Wednesdays are taken up with my Music Challenge. I'm so pumped!

From Tiny Library:

Wonderful Wednesdays is a meme about spotlighting and recommending some of our most loved books, even if we haven't read them recently.  Each week will have a different theme or genre of book to focus on.

This week's theme is biographies.

The biography I would like to talk about is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloots.

I first heard of this book on The Colbert Report, now don't laugh I get a lot of my non-fiction books from recommendations from The Colbert Report.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot Featured on the Steven Colbert Report

I love that this book is about science and race relations in the early 20th Century and I found it sad that I had no idea that the HeLa cell was from an actual person who, in essence, didn't know that the cell was being used. Actually, I asked around while I was reading this book...no one I knew had any idea about the true story behind the HeLa cell.

I also used this book as my non-fiction focus for my students for their first semester Book Talk and I am proud to say that 3 students picked up and read the book. I love this book, it is at once informational, tragic, breath-taking in its scope and research and life-affirming. It is through Rebecca and Henrietta's youngest daughter, Debra, that we learn about this sensitive, beautiful black woman and how she changed and still changes the way we look at science, although most of her family lived in poverty and haven't received much recognition because of it.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day Five

Day Five: A song that reminds you of someone
            There are many songs that remind me of people. Actually, I have a soundtrack to my life, I have whole entire playlists in my head for people, places, events, whole seasons. These, however, are private and personal playlist that I'm sure would offend some or are too close to the heart to share.
            So, growing up my mother had hundreds of records and we played a lot of records. There were many nights that the TV wouldn't be on and we'd just be listening to our favorite records dancing on this purple and blue afghan she made, like we were Solid Gold dancers (if you don't know what a Solid Gold dancer is and you've got 9 minutes watch this) minus the spandex because we'd be in our nightgowns instead. Our favorite records included Del Shannon, The Beach Boys and this one called Dick Clark's New 20 Years of Rock n Roll and our favorite song on this record (if one can pick a favorite from such an awesome record) was Knock Three Times by Tony Orlando and Dawn. I mean what little kid wouldn't love this song, it has actions "knock three times on the ceiling if you want me (which for us meant the floor), twice on the pipes (banging on something metal) if the answer is no". We'd listen to it over and over and over. I mean there are some of you out there who remember how you used to be able to program records to replay songs, right? It would play the song and then there'd be that long pause as the arm of the needle moved back to the beginning, the bump, bump of the space in between songs and then more Tony Orlando. We'd jump around so much that the record would skip and Mom would worry we'd break the needle...we didn't care.
          And, who'd be doing all this craziness with us...our mother, of course. Banging spoons on metal pots, dancing on the couch, sliding on the afghan on the tiled floor, banging on the walls and the dining room table and stomping in her shoes right along with us. Heck, she's the one who gave us the idea! She taught us all the words...or at least made sure we didn't sing the wrong words and she taught us to love music. This song will always remind me of her and of my sisters and those times we spent listening to records in our apartment.

Feel free to join in by commenting below (I really do love comments, on fb or here), or doing this challenge on your own blog.

The 30 Day Song Challenge

Day 01 – Your favorite song
Day 02 -- Your least favorite song

Day 03 -- A song that makes you happy
Day 04 -- A song that makes you sad
Day 05 – A song that reminds you of someone
Day 06 – A song that reminds of you of somewhere
Day 07 – A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 – A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 – A song that you can dance to
Day 10 – A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 – A song from your favorite band
Day 12 – A song from a band you hate
Day 13 – A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 – A song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15 – A song that describes you
Day 16 – A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 – A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 – A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 – A song from your favorite album
Day 20 – A song that you listen to when you’re angry
Day 21 – A song that you listen to when you’re happy
Day 22 – A song that you listen to when you’re sad
Day 23 – A song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24 – A song that you want to play at your funeral
Day 25 – A song that makes you laugh
Day 26 – A song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27 – A song that you wish you could play
Day 28 – A song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29 – A song from your childhood
Day 30 – Your favorite song at this time last year

Work of the Week: Graupel

I can't sleep because I have this horrible cough that not even Nyquil will suppress and I figured with the weather being what it is (not that I'm complaining, no school! woot.) we could use a little precipation word.