A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett

Perhaps you've thought that I've given up on blogging about the books I've read.  That is not true.  The fact is, I've been so busy that I haven't finished a book since July.  Fortunately, that changed this morning.  I hope to be back on track(ish) now.

The main reason I haven't been reading is the general busyness of my life, especially my studies.  My courses this semester involved a lot of reading, which didn't leave much time for reading for fun.

But another reason is that the book I was reading was A House in the Sky.  This is the true story of a Canadian woman who was taken hostage in Mogadishu, Somalia, and held there for 15 months.

As you can imagine, this was not pleasant reading.  What Amanda, and her fellow captive Nigel Brennan, endured was unbelievable and heartbreaking.  At the end of a long, busy day, it was hard to want to pick up a book that involved so much devastation.

This was my book club's chosen book for October.  I finished it this morning.  Not bad.  (haha).  I wasn't able to attend the meeting where it was discussed, so I don't know how the other women in my group felt about it.  A women's group from my church will also be discussing the book in January.  I'll be interested to hear their thoughts.

It is helpful to know that Amanda wrote the book herself.  Otherwise as you are reading it, you would never believe that she could make it out alive.  But I would love to read or learn more about her adjustment back into "normal" life.  In the epilogue she talks briefly about some of the PTSD therapy she received, but I still can't imagine how difficult the transition was for her.

It is a powerful story of what a person can endure, but it is not a book you will read for fun.  If you read it, or have read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts too.

This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall by Gordon Korman

Sorry, we finished this book weeks ago, but I never got around to blogging about it.

After we finished the Chronicles of Narnia we were looking for a new series to read together as a family.  A friend reminded me of the fun Canadian series about MacDonald Hall and we thought we'd give it a try.  Are we ever glad we did!

This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall was written by Gordon Korman when he was 12 years old and published when he was 14.  It is a very funny book, about the adventures of two mischievous students, Bruno and Boots who keep things interesting at their boarding school, MacDonald Hall.  I remembered loving these books as a kid and hoped the kids would love them too.

They did.  There are many times when we were laughing so hard we had to take a break from reading.

Bruno and Boots get into serious trouble at the beginning of the book, so they lose the privilege of rooming together.  They are assigned new roommates, probably the last two guys in school they'd choose as their roommates.  Their new mission becomes finding a way to get put back together again in their old room.

We all loved this book and laughed a lot.  I only had one problem with the book.  The book was published in 1979, but this version has clearly been updated.  On one page we were reading about one of the new roommates having a 3D LED TV in his room.  I'm a purist who would like the original text to be left as it was written.

But aside from that minor bit, we highly recommend this fun book!

Crazy Adventure by A. McDormand, A. McDormand and M. Peddle

Well, this was my surprise read of the summer.

After spending a rainy afternoon playing some fill-in-the-blank story games, some of my day care crew decided they wanted to write a book themselves.  The next day, "Crazy Adventure" was born.

As the book was being written I was asked if I am troubled by nightmares.  I said that I had them from time to time.  The response was, "I hope this doesn't give you any tonight!"

This is the story of a day care, with a day care provider named Sue, who is afraid of snakes.  The kids find a treasure map and as they head out in search of the treasure, they run into some obstacles along the way.

As the adventure continues, they encounter crocodiles and snakes.  One of the snakes bites Sue and she is suddenly transformed into a snake.  They find some medicine that transforms snakes into humans, but (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!) it doesn't work and Sue stays a snake forever.

This is a very funny story, with great characters.  There is fantastic art throughout the book as well.  I highly recommend this book, but seeing as how I have the only copy, you might need to swing by my house to have a read.  I hope these authors come up with more books, I'm looking forward to reading anything else they publish.

Be Careful What You Wish For by Jeffrey Archer

Picking up where Best Kept Secret left off, this is book #4 in Jeffrey Archer's Clifton Chronicles series.  At the end of the previous book there is a serious car accident and you know one of the young men travelling in the car has been killed and the other is alive.  But which one lives and which one dies?

You find out the answer pretty quickly once this book starts, and the story of Clifton/Barrington family continues.

I found this book to be much more enjoyable than the previous book.  Where the previous book seemed like a collection of short stories, this one had more threads that wove through the whole book, which helped keep my interest better.

But as far as Jeffrey Archer books, I would still say this is far from his best (First Among Equals).  This book is full of stock market trading and board room meetings which dragged a bit.  The family company decides to get into the luxury cruise ship business and their enemies start plotting to bring them to ruin.  Will the ship get built?  Will the business succeed or fail?  Who will be the chairman of the company to lead the business in the right direction.  I'm not a lover of books about big business, and I've hated being a part of board meetings when my previous job required them, so this really wasn't my thing.

Still, I've grown attached to these characters and it's interesting to see how their personal lives develop. But I feel like their stories are mostly told by now.  There will be a fifth book next year.  I hope this is the end of it.  If you're reading the series, keep going, but if you haven't started, I think you can find better series out there.

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

I am so sad that we are now done the whole Chronicles of Narnia.  We read the end of The Last Battle tonight and now the whole series is done.

I can't say enough about what an amazing experience it was to read these books again with my kids and to see their reactions to the stories that I've loved for so long.  They listened to every detail and loved trying to guess what was going to happen next in each book.  They fell in love with the characters and feel like they've made new Narnian friends.  There were times when they were jumping for joy, cheering, and clapping as we read a new victory for the "good guys".  There were times when they were sad, and even times when we had to think of funny stories before bed because they were scared by what we'd read (the description of Tash in The Last Battle for example).

This final book tells the story of the end of Narnia, after a battle with Shift the Ape and some Calormene soldiers who are trying to take over Narnia.  Shift dresses a donkey up to look like Aslan and so gets all the creatures doing his bidding.  There are only a few who remain loyal to the real Aslan, and Jill and Eustace are pulled in from England to help fight this final battle.

I think the last page of this book is one of my all-time favourite endings in any book I've read.  The last chapter was filled with so many reunions with characters from earlier books that the kids were going out of their minds with excitement.  It was just such a great way to finish the series.

Now I really don't know what to read next.  They just want to go back and start the whole series again, but I want to move onto something new.  I can't convince Wesley to go for Anne of Green Gables (too girly), so I'm trying to find something they'll both enjoy.  I'm thinking of Charlotte's Web.  I'm not a Tolkien fan myself, so I don't really want to do The Hobbit.  I'd appreciate any suggestions!

The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

I enjoyed this book.  What a light, fun summer read.  It's not going to be a literary classic, but if you're looking for something light to take along on your vacation, I recommend this one.

Martha Andersson is a resident of the Diamond House nursing home in Stockholm.  After being taken over by new owners, there have been cutbacks to the care at Diamond House making life pretty miserable for Martha and the other residents there.  Some of her lifelong friends, Brains, Rake, Anna-Greta and Christina are in there with her, and they need to come up with a plan to make things better.  They've been cut back to one meal a day, with a few snacks, no alcohol, no outside time, no recreation and a limit on the amount of coffee they can drink!  How can they live like that?

One night, Martha and Brains watch a documentary about the prisons in Sweden and the quality of life experienced by the prisoners there.  The prisoners get three square meals a day, daily outside time and the opportunity to take classes.  Martha quickly realizes that life is better in prison than in the nursing home and starts making plans so that she and her friends can end up there.

Being new to the crime lifestyle in their late-70's and early-80's, they've got a lot to learn, but they learn quickly and soon begin their life of crime.  This funny story follows their escapades through their successes, failures and the attempts by police to determine who is behind this new crime ring.

Again, it's not classic literature, but it's fun.  If you liked, "The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and then Disappeared", you'll like this one.

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

We are sad to be approaching the end of the Chronicles of Narnia as we finished this book.  Only one book remains.  As with the others, we loved this book and the adventures we read about along the way.

I know I've read this book before, but as we started it, I had very little recollection of what the story was.  We found it to be one of the darkest books of the series.

My guest reviewer, Darcy, found the book to be terrifying in some spots. There was even one night after we'd done our pre-bedtime reading, that I needed to tell them some funny stories to lighten the mood because they were a bit freaked out by what we'd read.

Picking up where The Voyage of the Dawn Treader leaves off, this book follows Eustace and his new friend Jill as they enter Narnia after running away from some bullies at their awful school.  Once there, a scuffle between the two friends ends with Eustace falling off a mountain and Jill meeting with Aslan.  He tells her it is her job to find King Caspian's missing son, Prince Rilian, and gives her signs to follow that will help her in her quest.  Jill manages to mess up the first few signs, which makes their task even harder.

Once she meets up with Eustace (who Aslan had guided safely to the bottom of the mountain) they set off on their quest along with their new friend, the eternal pessimist, Puddleglum.

A long journey follows, including a trip to the middle of the earth.  There are funny times, scary times and sad times along the way.  But there were times that were so exciting that Wesley was jumping out of his chair and clapping and cheering.  I love seeing him so excited about a book.

So, now we've begun The Last Battle and we will be sad to see the end of it.  Any suggestions for what we should read next?