The Wonderstruck Book Tag

Confession time: I’m a Swiftie!. After I graduated from college I listened to Speak Now basically on loop. I have all of her albums memorized beginning to end. Except for the newest one… Reputation. Not as much my thing.

So a T-Swift book tag??? YES PLEASE! When I saw this on Hammock of Books I knew I had to do it.

RULES

• Link back to the creator: Olivia from Purely Olivia
• Answer as many or as few of the questions as you’d like.
• Feel free to use any of the graphics in her post. 
• Tag however many people you’d like at the end!

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You’re Not Sorry

A book that unapologetically broke your heart

You guys are probably going to get tired of hearing me go on about Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, but it 100% qualifies for this question. I ugly cried for about 30 minutes after I finished reading it. In the best possible way. God, I am obsessed with this book.

Soul Ripping Romance Tag

Way back around Valentines Day The Orangutan Librarian tagged me in this very simple yet obviously-I-have-to-do-it tag. If you aren’t following The Orangutan Librarian yet, you are seriously missing out and you need to go fix it NOW. That being said, you are probably going to see a lot of the same things in this tag, because we are too much alike considering we are, in fact, not even from the same species.

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The Rules

• Thank the person who tagged you and create a pingback to the original author – Nel at Reactionary Tales.
• Share at least 5 (but more are welcome) romances that tugged your heart strings. They can be from books, movies, TV shows, manga; anything you can think of! They can be examples of sad tears, angry tears, happy tears or a combination of all three.
• Nominate 5 (or more) people to share their emotional traumas
• (Note: Try not to spoil the story for your readers in case they would like to check out these romances on their own)

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My Favorite Romances

Ron and Hermione

My OTP. Forever. I will fight you to the death on this one, especially if you’re going to try tell me that Hermione aught to have ended up with Harry. Or if you are going to tell me that Harry Potter is horrible.

The Dreamy Covers Book Tag

I saw this post on Darque Dreamer Reads MONTHS ago. I don’t think she tagged me, but I liked it so much that I bookmarked it. There are so many PRETTY covers out there, and I just want to share them with you all! Then I can go awkwardly hug all my books… Because that’s not weird…

Rules

1. Thank the lovely person who tagged you, spread the love!
2. Mention Tiana @ The Book Raven as the awesome) creator of this book tag!
3. Use the original tag image in your post. (However, Feel free to add whatever other graphics your heart desires!)
4. At least tag 1 fellow blogger for this tag. Even if your like me sometimes and feel a bit lazy 😉
5. List the rules

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“No Ideas But in Things”

A book cover that perfectly expresses the novel inside it

The cover designer completely nailed this one. I love the color, I love this pose from Evelyn. This cover caught my eye and then the writing caught my heart.

Why the Book is Always Better than the Movie

It’s a well known rule that the book is always better than the movie. I mean, there’s definitely some exceptions, but it’s actually a pretty reliable rule. Why? What is it that makes the book so much better? I’ve got a few ideas that I want to throw out there.

Character Thoughts

A large portion of a book is character thoughts, emotions, and internal stuff. These things don’t translate very well to screen without doing a narration. And for most movie makers narration doesn’t fit well with their vision. (It killed in Clueless, though!) So in movies we don’t get to know the characters as well, and many of the deeper points are lost in translation. The 2005 Pride and Prejudice comes to mind, with entire minutes of Keira Knightly just staring thoughtfully into the camera, all of Elizabeth’s wit and sarcasm inaudible to the viewer.

Sorting Hat Sunday: Pride and Prejudice

Elizabeth sat in the train compartment with her sister, Jane, absolutely mortified. God, that had been embarrassing. Her mother loudly pointing out kids from all the “best” wizarding families and insisting Elizabeth make friends with them, her sisters running around and screaming with nobody stopping them. Lydia had even tried to get on the train! And then that boy she’d been sitting with had smirked at her like that before getting up and moving to another compartment. Could there even be a worse first day at Hogwarts?

A rather ugly girl knocked on their compartment door. “Excuse me,” she asked timidly, “can I sit with you?”

“Of course you can!” Jane answered, moving over to make room. “I’m Jane, and this is my sister Elizabeth.”

“I’m Charlotte,” she responded, sitting down, smiling. “Anyone want a Chocolate Frog?”

Back to School Book Recs

Well folks! It’s official, summer vacation is over. I now have an ENTIRE WEEK of the 2018/2019 school year under my belt, and I am determined to make it a good one.

I heard someone say recently that August feels more like the new year than January, and for me that is so true. I find myself making all kinds of New Year’s Resolutions, about being a teacher and just about life in general. So if your New Year’s Resolution is to read more, or to promote a culture of reading in your family, this is the post for you!

I’m going to be recommending my favorite book for kids in each grade level K-12. I can’t guarantee that each book is going to be right for every kid in the world, but I’m trying to recommend things that I think most kids will like. I’m especially paying attention to books I think would be enjoyed by both boys and girls.

So here we go! Back to school recommendations coming your way.

Elementary

Kindergarten – Hop on Pop

This is kind of a long book, so if you’ve never read anything substantial with your kids before, you might want to ease into this one! I recommend subtly skipping pages in the middle so they feel like they’ve accomplished something big.

What I love about Hop on Pop is that beginning readers can work on their phonics and sight words with the big words at the top of the page, but then parents can read the longer sentences. But by the end of the year they should be able to read everything in this book, with help, of course. I also love how silly and fun this is, perfect for young imaginations! It is impossible to go wrong with Dr. Seuss.

Six Degrees of Separation: Atonement to Wolf Hall

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly blog event hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. This is my first time participating, and I’m pretty excited. My brother-in-law play 6 Degrees every weekend, movie version of course, and I always thought about how this could be applied bookishly.

If you’ve never played the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, the idea is that any actor can be connected to Kevin Bacon by going through other actors they were in movies with in six actors or less. You don’t have to connect to Kevin Bacon if you don’t want, you can use any two actors. For example, can you connect Julia Roberts to Steve Carrell? I can do it in one…

This month we’re starting with Atonement by Ewan McEwan.

The Literary Dinner Party Tag

If you could invite one book character to dinner, who would it be?

SCREW THAT! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PICK JUST ONE?!?!?!?!

Luckily for me (and all of my dinner plates…) I saw this awesome tag on Kristin Kraves Books that lets me pick more than one person. Yay! It was created by NEHOMAS2 over on BookTube, so go on over and show those ladies some love.

So, who will be at my dinner party? I can’t wait to find out!

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A Character Who Cooks or Likes to Cook

Agnieszka from Uprooted

Art by Taryn Knight

I feel like between her actual cooking skills and her much improved magic, Agnieszka could make us something very delicious. And maybe as long as she’s here make me some nicer clothes. And then perhaps we could be gal pals.

OMG This Song! Book Tag

I saw this tag on River-Moose Reads, and it combines two of my favorite things, books and music, so I saved it for a rainy day. It’s not actually raining right now, but that’s not the point. The POINT is that a) you should go check out River-Moose Reads right now and b) I want to do this book/music tag!

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My Jam

A song you must listen to every time it comes on, no matter how old or how many times you’ve listened to it

A book you’ll never get sick of

At one point I was re-reading Pride and Prejudice every year. When ever we “play” the desert island game, if I could only take ONE book it would probably be the collected works of Jane Austen. I could just read about Elizabeth and Darcy until the end of time!

The Great American Read Recap

Last night PBS launched a new mini-series called The Great American Read. They have compiled a list of the 100 most popular books in America, and over the course of the summer have asked viewers to vote for their favorite. The winner will be crowned Americas Favorite Book. The 2-hour launch was last night, and they touched on all 100 books. They featured some books over others, interviewing celebrities and authors about their favorite books.

Here are some of the books they featured:

• The Lord of the Rings
• Tom Sawyer
• Things Fall Apart
• Harry Potter
• The Catcher in the Rye
• The Outsiders
• Gulliver’s Travels
• The Color Purple
• Gone With the Wind
• Dune
• Charlotte’s Web
• Pride and Prejudice
• Invisible Man
• Bless Me, Ultima
• Tales of the City
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Great Gatsby

I loved listening to people talk about why they love a book and how it impacted their lives, sometimes in huge ways. Because of the show I’ve added several books to my tbr, and I’m itching to re-read a few that I might not have completely understood in my younger years!