Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

★★★★

"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think.  It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the worlds."

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."

I listened to this book on audio with my one-year-old daughter, Isabelle.  We read a lot of picture books and I read a few chapter books to her when she was born, but now that she's crawling around it's a bit difficult for her to sit still for a picture books - let alone an entire chapter.  So, we listened to this one instead.  It took us many nights of bedtime (with about a chapter every few nights), but we finally finished it!  

What a classic!  I read this book at some point when I was younger - no idea when but it must have been sometime before 2000 when I started keeping track of the books that I read.  I enjoyed it just as much the second time around.  Anne is such a unique and interesting character and I loved her tragic yet hopeful story.  I forgot how much she grows and chances by the end of the book and rooted for her page after page.  I don't remember if I ever read any of the other books in the series, but I hope to at some point in the future.  

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

★★★ 1/2

"Do I dare disturb the universe? Jerry suddenly understood the poster - the solitary man on the bench standing upright and alone and unafraid, poised at the moment of making himself heard and known in the world, the universe."

Jerry Renault challenges the traditions of his Catholic high school when he refuses to sell chocolates for an annual fundraiser.  The school is run by the Vigils, a secret society of students that give Jerry an “assignment” to not sell the chocolate for ten days.  To everyone’s surprise, Jerry decides not to participate in the sale after his assignment is over and a ripple of disruption is caused throughout the Vigils, the students, and the administration of the school.  Students begin to follow Jerry’s lead and not sell chocolates themselves, but the Vigils have other plans.  The novel explores how different students are affected by Jerry’s lack of participation in the sale.  In the end, Jerry is fearns the consequence of disrupting the authority of the Vigils and questions if his decision was worth it.

I was glad that I got the opportunity to read this book.  At first glance, the story is simply about a chocolate sale, but the author is able to bring up so many other important aspects and themes as the story unfolds.  The story was very unique in that it questioned the authority of not only administration at the school, but of other students as well.  It raised many thought provoking questions, not all of which were answered, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions and about the story’s meaning.  

I wouldn’t say that I necessarily enjoyed reading the novel at the time, but I had a great appreciation for it afterwards.  It had a very serious and often dark tone tone making it a little hard to get through.  The book also jumped back and forth between so many characters that I sometimes had trouble keeping them straight.  After reading the novel, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ending.  I ultimately wanted the story to have a happy ending and see the positive results of Jerry’s decision, but I did understand that author’s choice of ending the book with a raw and realistic conclusion.  I would recommend this novel to others based on the important questions it raised and the unique style of the author.    

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

 ★★★★

"It seemed funny that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one.  Maybe the two worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset."

I read this one from my young adult literature library school course this semester.

Fourteen-year-old Ponyboy lives with his older brothers, Sodapop and Darry, and is a member of the Greasers, a gang of urban youth from a poor part of the city and rival gang to the Socials, also known as the Socs.  The story opens when Ponyboy is jumped by the Socs and the gang comes to his rescue.  That night, Ponyboy and his friend Johnny are attacked again by the Socs when they are seen with the Soc’s girlfriends.  Johnny ends up killing one of the members and he spends the next week with Ponyboy hiding out in a country church away from town.  Johnny decides to turn himself in, but ends up dying  several days later after the  boys save a group of children when the church starts on fire.  After another member of the gang is killed, Ponyboy becomes depressed, but finds a way to deal with the events when he writes about them for his English assignment.

I generally enjoyed reading the book.  I have not had the chance to read it before and was glad to have the opportunity to read it for this course.  It took me a little while to get use to, but I grew to really like the simple writing style that the author used to portray Ponyboy.  The novel had a fast-paced storyline, which made it easy to get through regardless of the tough events and subject matter.  I also loved the ending where Ponyboy is able to reflect on the tragedies that he faced and begin to rebuild a better life for himself.  This book was very unique in that it brought attention to many different aspects that go along with being an “outsider” in any type of social, class, or economic situation.  The author was able to write the book in a way that makes it relatable to students even if they did not grow up during the time period.  I wish that I would have had the chance to read it as a teenage, but I still was able to take a lot away from the novel as an adult.  Based on this, I would highly recommend the book to others.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

★★★★★

"The worst part of holding of holding the memories is not the pain.  It's the loneliness of it.  Memories need to be shared."

Updated: 5/20/2014

Since Lois Lowry's fourth and final book of the Giver Quartet, "Son" came out a few years ago, I figured I should re-read the whole series again.  Luckily, they are quite short and I listened to this one in less than two days.  

I can't say enough good things about this book!  It's one of those books that can be re-read again and again and you still find something new and interesting about it.  I loved Lowry's ability to create a dystopian world in less than 200 pages.  She had me hooked from the very beginning.

The reality is that there are both good and bad parts of life.  In Jonas's society, all of the "bad things" have been taken away to create a "perfect" world.  Everything is the same.  Everything is provided for.  There is no pain.  No suffering.  Everything is decided in the best interest of the people.  When Jonas is choose to receive special training from the Giver, he begins to realize that the world that was created, is also missing the love, pleasure, and pain of life before.  As he is slowly introduced to the memories of the past, he also sees the true horrors of his society.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is the simple layout of a world where everything bad is taken away.  Every negative thing about life could have a solution, but at what cost?  

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (audio)

★★★★★

"But it's so easy, when you never meet people, when you never know the Earth itself, it's easy to forget why Earth is worth saving.  Why the world of people might be worth the price you pay."

First read: 5/14/2009

Update: I read this book about five years ago and finished listening to the "Ender's Game Alive" audio version.  I enjoyed it just as must as I did the first time I read it!!  I don't remember everything, so I'm not sure how different it was from the original (I've heard mixed reviews), but I really liked all of the different fast members and added sound effects into the reading.  The first time I read it, I remember being really surprised at the ending.  With all of the young adult science fiction/dystopia coming out in the recent years, it was nice to go back to the of the early one.  Now, on to see the movie!

1984 by George Orwell

★★★

"War is peace.  Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength."

1984 is one of those books that I've always meant to read, but never got around to until now.  I'm still not quiet sure how I feel about this book.  When I first started it, I must have picked it up and put it back down again at least a dozen times. It took me until about page 80 or so before I was actually able to stick with it.  It was interesting and thought-provoking, but not really something I actually enjoyed reading it.  

Orwell creating in erie, but realistic future in which the world is run exclusively by "Big Brother," an organization that controls not only all political aspects of the world, but people's minds as well. Winston Smith is a typical citizen - he follows the rules of the party and works for the Minister of Truth, where he rewrites the past.  Even though he secretly despises Big Brother, he would never reveal this to anyone. Then he begins a relationship with his co-worker Julia and is thrown into a world of uncertainly and betrayal.

What surprised me the most about this novel was how realistic Orwell's perception of the future was - especially after learning that it was written in 1948, almost forty years before the novel takes place.  

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

★★★

"Of all the weapons she had commanded, Elizabeth knew the least of love; and of all the weapons in the world, love was the most dangerous."

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

★★★

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment."

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

★★★

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said.  A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made.  Or a garden planted.  Something your hand touched someway so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.  The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said.  The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime."

"There must be something in books, something we can't imagine, to make a women stay in a burning house; there must be something there.  You don't stay for nothing."

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

★★★

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly in to the past."

"I hope she'll be a fool - that's the bast thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

★★★★★

"From that time one, the world was hers for the reading.  She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends.  Books became her friends and there was one for every mood.  There was poetry for quiet companionship.  There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours.  There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to fee a closeness to someone should could read a biography.  On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived."

" 'People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,' thought Francie, 'something complicated and hard to get.  Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains - a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you're alone - just to be with someone you love.  Those things make happiness.' "

"She was made up of more, too.  She was the books she read in the library.  She was the flower in the brown bowl.  Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard.  She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly.  She was Katie's secret, despairing weeping.  She was the shame of her father stumbling home drunk.  She was all of those things and of something more...It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life - the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike."

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

★★★★

"No matter how dreary and grey our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than any other country, be it ever so beautiful.  There is no place like home."

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

★★★★

"I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books.  As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still.  But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.  You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it.  I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis."

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

★★★

"Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

★★★

"It is because good is always stronger than evil.  Always remember that, Antonio.  The smallest bit of good can stand against all the powers of evil in the world and it will emerge triumphant."

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

★★★★

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."

"I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen."

"Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you , for it's wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling

★★★★★

"It takes much bravery to stand up to our enemies but we need as much bravery to stand up to our friends."

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

"Ah music!  A magic far beyond all we do here!"

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

★★★★★

"Below me Rontu was running along the cliffs barking at the screaming gulls.  Pelicans were chattering as they finished the blue water.  But suddenly I thought of Tutok, and the island seemed very quiet."

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

★★★★

"It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else's point of view without the proper training."

"Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life.  If you happens to miss the one you care about, then everything else becomes eerily easy."

The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman

★★★★

" 'That's the duty of the old,' said the Librarian, 'to be anxious on the behalf of the young.  And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.'  They sat for a while longer, and then parted, for it was late, and they were old and anxious."