Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Another enjoyable book:

Midwesterner Gary D. Schmidt won Newbery Honor awards for Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boys and The Wednesday Wars, two coming-of-age novels about unlikely friends finding a bond. Okay For Now, his latest novel, explores another seemingly improbable alliance, this one between new outsider in town Doug Swieteck and Lil Spicer, the savvy spitfire daughter of his deli owner boss. With her challenging assistance, Doug discovers new sides of himself. Along the way, he also readjusts his relationship with his abusive father, his school peers, and his older brother, a newly returned war victim of Vietnam.

Blood Red, Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick

This is on my side table, waiting to be cracked open. 

I'll never get through my "to read" list, but I have fun trying! 

Russia wakes from a long sleep and marches to St. Petersburg to claim her birthright.  Her awakening will mark the end for the Romanovs, and the dawn of a new era that changed the world. Arthur Ransome, a journalist and writer, was part of it all.  He left his family in England and fell in love with Russia and a Russian woman.  This is his story. 

                                                      

This is the Story of You by Beth Kephart

Just started reading this-one of many on my list to read over winter break!

On Haven, a six-mile long, half-mile-wide stretch of barrier island, Mira Banul and her Year-Rounder friends have proudly risen to every challenge. But when a superstorm defies all predictions and devastates the island, when it strands Mira’s mother and brother on the mainland and upends all logic, nothing will ever be as it was. A stranger appears in the wreck of Mira’s home. A friend obsessed with vanishing is gone. As the mysteries deepen, Mira must find the strength to carry on—to somehow hold her memories in place while learning to trust a radically reinvented future.

Welcome Back!

Hard to believe we're back at school already!  Hope you got in a lot of reading this summer.

Here's the new book that I just started:

"Matt and Mike are best friends, just two working-class guys trying to earn some money in Montauk for the summer. When they meet Driana, JoJo, and Stef, three friends who live a much different life of privilege, Matt and Mike find themselves in a sticky situation where temptation rivals sensibility. Worlds collide when the group ventures out to sea aboard a small boat that Stef sneaks out from her dad's dock. As the waves rise and the fragile vessel weakens, things go horribly wrong. Adrift at sea for days, who will have what it takes to survive?"--

Book recommendations/summer reads from Mrs. Mendoza 

IHHS Library Media Specialist:

New York Times Bestsellers

Best Beach Reads

American Library Assoc. Best Fiction for Adults

Cincinnati Public Library-Hot Titles

American Library Assoc. Best of the Best for Teens

New Young Adult Romances  

Mrs. Mendoza’s GoodReads Shelf

The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin

Our Marketing teacher recommended this to me. We're thinking of having a faculty book club discussion on it in the fall.  Great way to recharge for the new school year... 

What if you could change your life without really changing your life? On the outside, Gretchen Rubin had it all -- a good marriage, healthy children and a successful career -- but she knew something was missing. Determined to end that nagging feeling, she set out on a year-long quest to learn how to better enjoy the life she already had.