Brenda Branson's Blog (8)

Hot off the press!

Book One: The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan. This is a must “check out” if you like solving mysteries. It even has it’s own website, 39 Clues, which you definitely want to check out, as well. This is just the first in the series with 9 more books to come, all written by popular authors. We’ll be featuring this in our Scholastic Book Fair, September 12 - 19, 2008, along with lots of other… Continue

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a very unusual story of a young Pakistani man, Changez, and the impact that 9-11 has on his life. Changez was a Princeton graduate and immediately hired by a very prestigious firm in NY. While living in NY, he developed a relationship with Erica, a unstable, but very outgoing girl. Changez enjoyed the American (NY American) lifestyle until the attacks on the Twin Towers when the native New Yorkers began to treat him differently because he was Muslim. He no longer… Continue

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (2008 Newbery Honor Award)



At Camillo Junior High School, Wednesday afternoons are spent in Hebrew classes, Catechism classes, or if you’re the only Presbyterian like Holling HoodHood, left behind at school with a teacher that absolutely despises you. Or so Holling believes. On Wednesday afternoons, Mrs. Baker assigns Shakespeare after Shakespeare reading assignments for Holling. He is convinced that she is out to make his life miserable because… Continue

As a native of North Carolina, I’m always excited to find another local author and I look forward to following Sarah Addison Allen in her writing career. This latest book, The Sugar Queen, is set in the mountains near Asheville, North Carolina and the setting is absolutely beautiful, and even if you’ve never been, you’ll still see the beauty of the Appalachian mountains in her descriptive writing.



The Sugar Queen, Josey, is a wealthy, young, girl indebted to her mother and forever… Continue

Thank you, Becky, for your suggestion to read Stephenie Meyers' The Host. I immediately went to Amazon and saw this review and was instantly intriqued. Can't wait for the book to get here. In case someone else is interested in viewing Stephenie Meyers' interview for Amazon, here it… Continue

I've started a summer reading challenge at my blog, Novel Lovers. As a member of two book clubs, I'm itching to get one of the groups to take a "literary road trip." This is a great way to get to know your own literary neighborhood or pick a place you'd like to visit - just to add more reasons to make that trip!

My 6th grade lunch bunch book club just participated in our first video conference with another middle school today. It was very successful and the kids loved it! Our discussion was about Crossing the Wire, a novel about a young Mexican boy, Victor, that found himself the soul provider for his family after his father dies. Victor has always been happy at home growing and selling corn, but the with the produce prices dropping significantly, he… Continue

The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas a great 1930’s story that evolves around a group of women who meet weekly for quilting. The book catered to all you emotional wants in a good book, it was humorous, suspenseful, and sad at times. My greatest gift from this book was the intense loyalty the group had for each other in bad times as well as the good. The characters got a bit confusing to me and I struggled to keep up with who was saying what.



I did like the way the story ended.… Continue