What's Happening this Month?

Happy July! Summer has been in progress for many days, many hot days, now! I’m sure many of you have visited the pool, or have been to the movies, or, maybe a lucky few of you, have visited some foreign countries. Whatever you have on your long list of planned things for this summer, summer reading should definitely be one of them. Whether you’re going to read because the “newness” of summer has begun to wear off, or if you’re going to read to make summer even more exciting, you can always find a list of great books right here on The Bookshelf! 

Starting off July right, on Monday, Independence Day, there will be a review of a great 4th of July read: Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson! Chains is a phenomenal perspective (written by a phenomenal author, might I add) of a young female slave during the Revolutionary War, the war from which the U.S. won its independence from Great Britain (not so Great now, are ya?). (I have to stop using parenthesis now. I don’t want to look too unprofessional.)

There will also be reviews of the following books: Countdown by Deborah Wiles – everybody should read this fun and smart book immediately; Mockingbird, a touching book about a child with autism, by Kathryn Erskine; and Wish You Were Dead, a mysterious, psychological murder mystery page-turner, by Todd Strasser.   

On to polls! The results of the RECORD-BREAKING Poll #7 will be published on Thursday, the seventh. As promised, it will be like the Guinness Book of World Records, but ten times greater (As long as you can look past poor graphic design… Drat! I’m using another set of parenthesis!) Poll #8 – We’re almost at double digits! – will be arriving in mid-July. The topic? Ereaders and Ebooks. [cue scary music] duh duh duh! You’ll hear my thoughts, my preferences, my likes, my dislikes, my compliments, my complaints, and my statements on Ereaders and Ebooks later this month.

(How do you spell “ereader”? Is it all one word? Two words? Hyphenated? Spelled with a lowercase “e” and an uppercase “R”?)

And July will end on a strong note, with STRONG Characters. Yep, that’s STRONG, in all caps. I will be writing about what it means to be a STRONG character in a book, how their thought processes work, and how they succeed, or at least face and overcome adversity. There will be three, maybe two, examples of STRONG female character and three/two examples of STRONG male characters from young adult novels. 

So. A Quick Summary for July: 4th of July Day book + review, three more definite reviews, polls and poll results, Ereaders (E-readers? e-Readers? e readers? eReaders?) and Ebooks poll/discussion, STRONG (all caps!) Characters, summer reading, and summer heat! 

– Jacob

(image via)