I feel like I haven't been reading much the past few weeks, but I guess I have managed to finish these three; all somehow associated with the kids and their reading, though one of them is not an actual kid book.
Book 21: The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg: the story of 4 kids, their teacher, and their academic quiz bowl experience. As I think I mentioned earlier, the first few chapters were startling reminiscent of the plot of Slumdog Millionaire (or the other way around, I guess, since this book came first). The chapter intros describe part of the quiz bowl, ending with a particular question; then the rest of the chapter is a flashback, detailing some experience one of the four main characters had that explains why they know about the subject of the question. I found these first few chapters interesting and engaging--lots of neat little connections between the characters--but things got kind of...tedious as the book went on. So...it was enjoyable enough, I guess, overall, but it's no Basil E. Frankweiler. Oh, also: a major plot point involves one of kids saying that "posh" and "tip" entered the language as acronyms and then pushing the point until he's awarded credit after the judges initially tell him he's wrong. The problem is that posh and tip weren't ever acronyms; apocryphal stories, both (well, definitely posh; most likely tip). I remembered this vaguely when I read it, and looked it up to verify. This bothered me.
Book 22: The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien. We all know this one, right? A read aloud, with Ari and Milo. They LOVED it; I thought, "wow, this book seemed better when I was in high school!"
Book 23: No Passengers Beyond this Point by Gennifer Choldenko: I bought this for Ari for Easter, and I was so intrigued by the premise that I had to read it myself. A fun and thought-provoking little dystopian fantasy. India, Finn, and Mouse are siblings being sent off to live with their uncle after their house is foreclosed on, despite their widowed mother's best attempts to save it. She's a teacher and has to finish out the school year, so she can't join them until later (the youngest kid is six, and they barely know the uncle, so the premise requires a bit of suspension of disbelief, but you have to get the adults out of the picture somehow in this kind of book). When their plane lands, however, they're picked up by a driver with a feather covered taxi, and things get progressively odder from there. I can't say much more without giving away too much...it's a really interesting book, with a lot to recommend it, although the plot doesn't wrap up quite as tidily as one might like. The twist ending went over Ari's head a bit, leading to a big, "OH!" when I talked to him about it, but he liked it and tore through it really quickly.
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