Work in Progress

I'm Amy Garvey, an author, and this is an incomplete collection of things that catch my eye or my imagination.

Showing posts tagged books

Read so far this year …

I’m trying to keep track of what I’m reading a little better, so I’m making lists all over the place. 

So far in 2013, I’ve read: 

The Chaperone, Laura Moriarity

Beautiful Darkness, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl 

A Brief History of Montmaray, Michelle Cooper 

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn* 

Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear**

The Irresistible Henry House, Lisa Grunwald

Invincible Summer, Hannah Moskowitz*** 

* Holy CRAP, this book is everything everyone says it is. Fascinating, infuriating, shocking, funny, and unforgettable. 

** This is kind of  a cheat, because I didn’t finish it. I liked Maisie very much, and I was interested in the story she was investigating, but the pace was a little too slow for at the moment. I’ll probably go back to it. 

*** I cried so hard. SO hard. This book really  blew me away. 

It’s still Women’s History Month! I really fell down on the job when it came to posting, sadly. Making up for that this week! 

I read a book about Jane Addams when I was a kid — there was a series of books called Childhoods of Famous Americans that had distinct orange covers (see above!), and all of them featured black and white silhouette illustrations. I LOVED them. I had my mom’s, which included Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, and Jane Addams. 

Those books (which I think are still published in, updated I assume, paperbacks) introduced me to women I might never have learned about otherwise. Jane Addams was one of them. 

Philosopher, sociologist, author, suffragette, and the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Jane Addams was a real pioneer. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONTMARAY, by Michelle Cooper. Another book I loved so much, I made my mom read it.  Who can resist a book with a castle, and a ghost, and secret tunnels, and swords with names, and a mad king? It was also a really interesting look at the events leading up to WWII, which I am really shamefully not very educated about. Plus, the narrator is someone you know would be your best friend the moment you met her.  I can’t wait to read the next two in the series. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONTMARAY, by Michelle Cooper. Another book I loved so much, I made my mom read it. 

Who can resist a book with a castle, and a ghost, and secret tunnels, and swords with names, and a mad king? It was also a really interesting look at the events leading up to WWII, which I am really shamefully not very educated about. Plus, the narrator is someone you know would be your best friend the moment you met her. 

I can’t wait to read the next two in the series. 

“Then began an experience that turned my life around…working on a book with a black kid as hero. None of the manuscripts I’d been illustrating featured any black kids—except for token blacks in the background. My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along. Years before I had cut from a magazine a strip of photos of a little black boy. I often put them on my studio walls before I’d begun to illustrate children’s books. I just loved looking at him. This was the child who would be the hero of my book.”

—Ezra Jack Keats (via schoollibraryjournal)

Love. 

(via teachingliteracy)

abcofreading: Waking to Consciousness with the Word: Reading to Children …though “books” first entered my world on the breath of my sweet mother, I soon went on to hold them, and absorb the rest of what they were: entities, all but with souls of their own. Books, things made by hands, containing, like birds, songs and spirits, put into my lap so early, became everything to me. In a way, since I encountered them, I live at one remove from the real world, or what passes for the real world. Thus, in place of fully inhabiting one real world, I have consciously gained entry into worlds without number. Embarrassing TMI on the way … When I was three, I’m told, I used to take my potty training seat into the hall closet, with a pile of books, and sit in there reading them until someone came looking for me.  It’s less embarrassing to admit that when I was older I used to walk down the stairs reading a book, and try to bring it to the dinner table. I mean, I think that’s less embarrassing, right? 

abcofreading:

Waking to Consciousness with the Word: Reading to Children

…though “books” first entered my world on the breath of my sweet mother, I soon went on to hold them, and absorb the rest of what they were: entities, all but with souls of their own. Books, things made by hands, containing, like birds, songs and spirits, put into my lap so early, became everything to me.

In a way, since I encountered them, I live at one remove from the real world, or what passes for the real world. Thus, in place of fully inhabiting one real world, I have consciously gained entry into worlds without number.

Embarrassing TMI on the way … When I was three, I’m told, I used to take my potty training seat into the hall closet, with a pile of books, and sit in there reading them until someone came looking for me. 

It’s less embarrassing to admit that when I was older I used to walk down the stairs reading a book, and try to bring it to the dinner table. I mean, I think that’s less embarrassing, right? 

(via teachingliteracy)