Big Read, Big Books quiz

I have the feeling I've taken this or a very similar quiz before, but as [expletive] United Airlines ruined my plans to go home for my uncle's funeral yesterday (and consequently make a little progress on the reading front along the way), I have nothing new to post. So a tip of the bloggy hat to Sarah Miller, from whom I shamelessly swiped this list.

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list. The instructions: Look at the list and:

• Bold those you have read.
• Italicize those you intend to read.
• Underline the books you LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (Great American Novel #1)
6. The Bible (I actually did read the whole damn thing in college.)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. 1984 - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (Most depressing book EVER.)
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (Okay, I have not read Cymbeline or Troilus and Cressida, but pretty much everything else.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (taught it; and let me tell ya how much my 12th graders loved it when I read the "f*** you" part at the end)
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (Great American Novel #2)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (gaaaaak)
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (I gave you two weeks of my life with Anna Frakking Karenina, and that's all you get)
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (tried; failed)
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (train couldn't come fast enough)
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis (counting this since I read #36 below)
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (would you like some allegory with your tea, missus?)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (tried; failed)
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (read once; on The LIST to read again)
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan (got through 50 pages and wanted to throw it across the room)

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (on The LIST)
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (read once; on The LIST to read again)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (get a job, loser)
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (I take that back: THIS is the most depressing book ever.)
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (HATE)
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White (Great American Novel #3)
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams (silflay hraka, my 10th grade English teacher)
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (not part of #14?)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I got 53, with 9 intentions. Not bad.

Favorite Authors Meme

I've been tagged by The Bookworm for the Favorite Authors Meme.

Here are the rules:
Link to the person that tagged you, post the rules somewhere in your blog, answer the questions, and tag four people in your post. Don't forget to let the tagees know they were tagged, so leave a comment on their blog! And remember to let your tagger know that your entry is posted.

1. Who's your favorite all-time author, and why?
I suppose I should be a good English major and say Shakespeare. He sort of defines "all-time," no?
2. Who was your first favorite author, and why?
A tie between Judy Blume and Ellen Raskin, since they wrote my two favorite childhood books, Superfudge and The Westing Game, respectively.
3. Who's the most recent edition to your list of favorite authors, and why?
Emily Jenkins. She is my best example of kick-ass picture book voice in my writers'-conference workshops.
4. If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, what would pop out of your mouth?
E. L. Konigsburg. Mo Willems. Harper Lee. Lois Lowry. Joan Bauer. David Sedaris. Mimi Smartypants. Susan Beth Pfeffer. Andrew Sullivan. Janet Evanovich. And countless others I can't think of right now, I'm sure.

I tag:
Librarian Mom
Mindy at propernoun.net
Adrienne
Liz B at ACAFATC

I am a dash

. . . which is extra funny if you know that I call my freelance editorial business "EMdash." Get it? Ha! (Okay, "ha.") And that part about money just made me pee my pants a little bit.

You Are a Dash

Your life is fast paced and varied. You are realistic, down to earth, and very honest. You're often busy doing something interesting, and what you do changes quickly. You have many facets to your personality, and you connect them together well. You have a ton of interests. While some of them are a bit offbeat, they all tie together well. You friends rely on you to bring novelty and excitement to their lives. (And while you're the most interesting person they know, they can't help feeling like they don't know you well.) You excel in: Anything to do with money You get along best with: the Exclamation Point

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

This is deeply true and slightly depressing

Your Score: Rabbit

You scored 19 Ego, 18 Anxiety, and 16 Agency!

IT was going to be one of Rabbit's busy days. As soon as he woke up he felt important, as if everything depended upon him. It was just the day for Organizing Something, or for Writing a Notice Signed Rabbit, or for Seeing What Everybody Else Thought About It. It was a perfect morning for hurrying round to Pooh, and saying, "Very well, then, I'll tell Piglet," and then going to Piglet, and saying, "Pooh thinks--but perhaps I'd better see Owl first." It was a Captainish sort of day, when everybody said, "Yes, Rabbit " and "No, Rabbit," and waited until he had told them.

You scored as Rabbit!

ABOUT RABBIT: Rabbit is generally considered Clever by his many friends and relations. He is actually a much better reader and writer than Owl, but he doesn't consider it worth mentioning. Instead, Rabbit's real talent lies in Organizing Plans. He organizes rescue parties, makes schemes to reduce Tigger's bounciness, and goes on missions to find out what Christopher Robin does when he's not at the Hundred Acre Woods. Sometimes, however, his Plans do not always go as Planned.

WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT YOU: You are smart, practical and you plan ahead. People sometimes think that you don't stress or worry, but this is not the case. You are the kind of person who worries in a practical way. You think a) What are my anxieties about and b)what can be done about them? No useless fretting for you. You don't see the point in sitting around and waiting for things to work out, when you could actually work them out today and save yourself a lot of time and worry. Your friends tend to rely on you, because they know that they can trust you help them work things out.

You sometimes tend to be impatient with people who are less practical in their ways. You don't have much patience for idiots who moan about things but never actually DO anything about them. You have high expectations of everyone, including yourself. When you don't succeed at something, or when something goes wrong despite your best efforts to prevent it, you can get quite hard on yourself. You need to cut yourself some slack and accept that everyone has their faults, even you, and THAT IS OKAY. Let yourself be faulty, every now and then, for the sake of your own sanity.

Link: The Deep and Meaningful Winnie-The-Pooh Character Test written by wolfcaroling on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test View My Profile(wolfcaroling)

Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.

Privileged meme

From E. Lockhart via ACAFATC, the "Are You Privileged?" meme. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to feel good or bad about myself when I finish.

From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

Bold the true statements.
1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college(and grad school)
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college(and grad school)
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
(I'm not sure if this really counts, since my brother-in-law is a lawyer, but he's only been my brother-in-law for a couple years. My dad taught college courses after I was an adult.)
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children's books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
(piano, swimming, gymnastics, voice)
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
(Just after I turned 18, when I went to college.)
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
(I don't know how they did it, but I went to college without taking out any loans.)
16. Went to a private high school
(Very proudly a public school girl. Some of my friends from the next town over used to worry that they'd get shot if they visited me at my school. Wimps.)
17. Went to summer camp
(Only a couple times, and it was in high school, for dorky things like choir and careers in education.)
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
(Motels on road trips.)
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
(Heh. Second daughter all the way. Also, I wore my dad's clothes most of the time in high school.)
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
(No, although I always thought that the prints of Picasso's Don Quixote and the blue guitar man were unique to us, and was therefore surprised to see them in museums.)
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course
(taught by my dad, in fact)
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
(This TV is still alive and currently in my master bedroom.)
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

Grand total: 25

Heh. So unsexy.

Your Score: Marcie

Wishy-Washy: 50%, Mental: 84%, Physical: 31%

Marcie is Peppermint Patty's best friend, and secretly loves Charlie Brown. She is always willing to help Patty through class and with homework, and plays on her sports teams even though she would rather be doing something else. Always address people you respect as "sir".

Link: The Peanuts Character Test written by timberlineridge on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom for the link.

Well, that's a surprise

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

Dude, I'm friggin' Einstein

Cash Advance Loans

Does this mean Fuse and I are long-lost sisters?

You're Catch-22!

by Joseph Heller

Incredibly witty and funny, you have a taste for irony in all that you
see. It seems that life has put you in perpetually untenable situations, and your sense
of humor is all that gets you through them. These experiences have also made you an
ardent pacifist, though you present your message with tongue sewn into cheek. You
could coin a phrase that replaces the word "paradox" for millions of
people.


Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

Guess this means I have to read it next.

Heh.

Apparently my only problem words are "kill" (used twice) and "suck" (used once, but I think they're not counting correctly).

But the Munchkin says I'm Cookie Monster

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Note: Currently reading Sara Miles's Take This Bread and not liking it as much as I thought I would. Maybe I have read too many liberal Episcopal female spiritual journey memoirs. . . Also, jealous of everyone who participated in the 48-Hour Book Challenge. Next year, I swear.

Okay, I'll play

Your Score: Pure Nerd

91 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 21% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

-------
Note: I'm currently reading Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope, which is interesting but dense and not really bloggable. More LIST items to come soon. (And hi, Auntie G. I am so embarrassed that you're reading this.)

Does this count as Poetry Friday?

I am the sonnet, never quickly thrilled; Not prone to overstated gushing praise Nor yet to seething rants and anger, filled With overstretched opinions to rephrase; But on the other hand, not fond of fools, And thus, not fond of people, on the whole; And holding to the sound and useful rules, Not those that seek unjustified control. I'm balanced, measured, sensible (at least, I think I am, and usually I'm right); And when more ostentatious types have ceased, I'm still around, and doing, still, alright. In short, I'm calm and rational and stable - Or, well, I am, as much as I am able. What Poetry Form Are You? Thanks to Fuse for the link.

The Famous MotherReader Interview Meme

I asked for it, I got it.

The universal questions:
1. What’s your favorite quote?
"Let me play the lion too."
There's a scene in A Midsummer Night's Dream where Peter Quince is assigning roles in the mechanicals' play, and Bottom keeps butting in, wanting to play every part -- including the lion, in this case. I have a bad habit of taking on too much and wanting to be all things to all people, so sometimes I need to remind myself that I don't have to be the lion, too.

Runner-up: "This too shall pass." Just as applicable when the children are sleeping angelically as when they're burning down the house.

2. How would you spend $1,500 that you won in a radio contest?
If I'm thinking short-term, I'd buy a kickass new laptop. If I'm thinking long-term, I'd stash it in my (as-yet-nonexistent) Going Back to Grad School Fund.

3. Where do you like to go to get away from it all?
The library. I just wish I could go there by myself more often (and not be on the clock). I also have a weakness for The Coffee Store, as we call it in my house. (Munchkin, spelling: "S-T-A-R-B-U-C-K-S. Coffee store!")

4. If you had the complete attention of everyone in the United States, but only for thirty seconds, what would you say?
"It's Feb-ROO-ary, nuke-LEE-er, and jew-EL-ry, people."

The personal question:
5. How are things going with the new baby and another little one at home?
It's more manageable than I thought, actually -- mostly because (knock knock knock on wood) the Munchkin seems to be entering a slightly more mature, slightly less infuriating stage, and because (KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK) Baby John is a wicked good sleeper. Also because I have reached a detente with the television set.

I love watching the two of them interact: her smothering him (literally) with love, and him staring in wonder at this loud, fascinating, possibly dangerous creature who keeps poking him. I also benefit from my longstanding position as Slag-Ass Mommy, so the little things (matching clothes, dry diapers, reasonably nutritious and varied food options) don't tend to concern me much. If the children are still alive by the end of the day, I've done my job.

I'm Feeling Lonely...

...so I'm doing a meme even though no one tagged me. This one's stolen from MotherReader, who stole it from Big A little a, who stole it from The Miss Rumphius Effect. (Okay, "stealing" is perhaps perjorative.)

1. What are your five most important books?
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. THE Great American Novel.
Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry. Anastasia is the reason I live in Massachusetts.
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Made me want to be a writer. (A very, very bad writer, as it turned out.)
The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Riverside edition. What I did in college.
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber. First time I realized that grownup books could be funny, too.

2. What is an important book you admit you haven’t read?
For someone who claims to be a big reader, the number of important books I haven't read is rather staggering. Let's just say for now that I've never read any Gary Paulsen and I've never read any of the big Russian novelists (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc.).

3. What classic (or childhood favorite) was a little disappointing on rereading?
The Westing Game was one of my two Big Childhood Books (Superfudge was the other). Rereading it as an adult was not in itself disappointing -- it's still a kickass book, and I still want that t-shirt -- but the context in which I read it was. I reread this for my first and only book club meeting, an informal group of Boston-based children's book people, and the rest of them all hated it. They thought it was too gimmicky, too coincidental, too transparent in its plotting. Granted, we read it along with the other Newbery books from that year -- The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox and M.C. Higgins the Great by Virginia Hamilton -- so I could understand somewhat how a semi-comic contemporary mystery would seem less impressive in context. But still. I sort of felt like somebody stabbed my puppy.

4. What book do you (or did you) care most about sharing with your kids?
I'm so glad my daughter loves Click Clack Moo, the oeuvre of Mo, and the Lilly books. I am excited to read her Charlotte's Web and the aforementioned Westing Game. (I assume my son will love books, too -- he just hasn't articulated his tastes yet.)

5. Name an acclaimed book, either classic or contemporary, that you just don’t like.
King Dork by Frank Portman. Hated it. I am also lukewarm about Goodnight Moon, though I confess it is/has been the first regular bedtime book for both of my children. Freaky, ugly-ass rabbits aside, there's something lulling about that text that's unmatched by any other book I've tried.

With a dreamy, far-off look, and her nose stuck in a book...

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

(Thanks to MotherReader for the link and to my daughter for the lyrical post title.)

83

All right, I'm game.

The rules: Mark the selections you have read in bold. If you liked it, add a star (*) in front of the title, if you didn't, give it a minus (-). Then, put the total number of books you've read in the subject line.

*Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
-The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
*Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
-The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss (Even as a child I hated the pointless anarchy.)
*Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
-Love You Forever by Robert N. Munsch
-The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (ooh, Christian allegory for toddlers!)
*The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
*Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls (sob)
The Mitten by Jan Brett
*Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (only as a parent, not as a kid)
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
Where the Sidewalk Ends: the Poems and Drawing of Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
*Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
-Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
-Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss (sadly, I confess I also have the "in utero" version. It was a gift, I swear!)
Strega Nona by Tomie De Paola
*Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Bill Martin, Jr. (teacher always creeps me out)
*Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
*A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
*How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by John Archambault
*Little House on the Prarie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
*Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
The BFG by Roald Dahl
*The Giver by Lois Lowry
-If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
*James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
*Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
*The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O'Brien
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
-The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister (gaaaaaak)
Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
*Corduroy by Don Freeman
-Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
Math Curse by Jon Scieszka
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls
*Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
*Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary (I. Am. Ramona.)
The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
Are You My Mother? by Philip D. Eastman
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
*The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (luuuuuurve)
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
The Napping House by Audrey Wood
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
*The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
*Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
*The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
Basil of Baker Street, by Eve Titus
The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
The Cay by Theodore Taylor
*Curious George by Hans Augusto Rey
Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox
Arthur series by Marc Tolon Brown
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
*Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes (though I love JULIUS more)
*Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
*Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Stuart Little by E. B. White
*Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
The Art Lesson by Tomie De Paola
-Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
*Clifford, the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell (the Munchkin was Emily Elizabeth for Halloween this year)
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss
The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
*The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
-Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney (No, don't guess. Please.)
The Paper Bag Princess by Robert N. Munsch

Tag! I'm it.

Oh, my. The lovely MotherReader, a fellow Mo-phile and non-MLSed library employee, has tagged me for the Five Interesting Things About You meme. I feel like I've been invited to sit at the popular table.

Let's see.

1. My lips don't meet. Really. I can close my mouth, of course, but there's a little teeny weeny hole right in the middle where my top and bottom lips don't match up. A fun trick at parties (though it tends to leave one open to rather filthy suggestions).

2. Once I killed a mouse by whacking it really hard with a shovel. It squished.

3. I am a terrible eater. I didn't eat pizza until I was 20, and still I am a cheese-only girl. I didn't eat oranges until I was 21. Harmless foods that normal people like -- fish; tomatoes; oatmeal, for Pete's sake -- I cannot stand, and I can't even blame it on allergies or political reasons or anything other than my own childish weird-itude. Imagine how much fun it was to have that first Easter dinner with my in-laws. (Lamb. I had to eat lamb.)

4. I judge cars and houses based on their faces. A house with no face is a blight on the neighborhood. A car with happy handles is good (see 1980s-era Ford Escort and Chevy Caprice); a car without happy handles is bad (see 1990s Ford Taurus, anything by Renault).

5. I am vaguely superstitious about numbers, especially dates. I love that my birthday adds up to 100 (or 2000, if you use all of the year digits). I picked my wedding date and my daughter's birthday (scheduled section) based partly on the pleasing symmetry of the dates.

Of course, now these don't seem interesting to me at all. I will slink back to my proper place at the band nerd/smart kid exile table . . .

P.S. Nominate your favorites for the Cybils!
P.P.S. I'm not supposed to tag someone now, am I? I don't know anyone . . . Gaak, I'm such a novice.

What Teen Angst Novel Are You?

What Teen Angst Novel are You? - funny, lots of results, with pix, from the author of The Boyfriend List

LOOKING FOR ALASKA, by John Green. Sad, Funny, boozy, thought-provoking. Go read it. It's you.
Take this quiz!








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