Monday, January 21, 2008

A New Year - A New Challenge

As part of my New Year resolution I decided to begin to read again...FOR PLEASURE.

I joined this marvelous book challenge, BAM. The goal is to read a book a month that meets the criteria of a set theme. Then the reader shares the review, posting on a blog.

For January the theme was TIME.

I decided to read two books this month. One book was a youth fiction, since I am still teaching. The other book was hopefully an adult level. LOL

The two books read were The Winter Room and The Worst Hard Time.

Here are my reviews!

The Winter Room
Gary Paulsen

We all have favorite authors for different genres. For youth fiction, my favorite writer is Gary Paulsen. To me the man is a literary artist. He can provide a sensory experience for the reader through his words. Not only do you see what the character is experiencing, but what he is emotionally feeling, smelling, hearing and tasting. You ARE the character. No higher praise can I think of for a writer than this.

The Winter Room does not disappoint this reader. Indeed in the foreword it is interesting to find that the writer addresses the senses as they apply to the story. It is these senses that are closely observed throughout the story as time marches by. For indeed, time is a major theme in the story, as adults grow old and young boys grow into adults.

Time on a farm is cyclical and follows through the seasons: summer, spring, fall, and winter. The Winter Room is where the family passes time during the cold winter nights as two elderly men share stories from their past and the old country. Shown through the eyes of a young boy, Eldon, the reader shares the lives, emotions, and maturation of the character and his older brother, Wayne.

There is a bitter sweetness to this tale. The short book is reminiscence of Paul Gallico’s work. Easily it may be read in one sitting. However, The Winter Room is worthy of multiple readings for the subtle nuances and the value of life’s lessons the story projects. I highly recommend this book for those who truly want a rich sensory experience.


The Worst Hard Time
The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Timothy Egan

The Worst Hard Time is a historical non-fiction. For those who enjoy history this book might be for you.

Outlining the causes of the Dust Bowl in the Great Plains of the 1930’s, Timothy Egan introduces us to the people who chose to stay within this ‘dying’ land. Through drought, dust storms, twisters and grasshoppers, the American farmers still dreamed of the life that they envisioned making from the land, never giving up.

The book is rich with ‘trivia.’ Growing up I remember my parents singing the song, “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You.” Worst Hard Time revealed that Woody Guthrie wrote this song on Black Sunday, when the dust storm was so dark people could not see inches in front of their faces. They literally thought it was the end of the world.

I enjoyed the facts and little known information that I garnered from this book. I was saddened from the way some of these farmers’ lives played out. However, sadly the book did not hold my interest the last five chapters except for the fact I wanted to find out about the individuals I started to care about.

Unfortunately, the book’s progression seemed disjointed. The storyline of the different people seemed broken and fragmented. Understandably, the author was following the timeline of the Dust Bowl. However, the flow of the story was what broke my interest.

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