WWW Wednesdays 5/27/20

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Although time in quarantining is going slowly, at the same time, it is also going quickly at times. We are getting ready to enter into Phase 3 in Illinois on Friday.  I'll be looking forward tp getting a haircut hopefully soon and a color soon after since where I go they are just doing haircuts the first week or so.

I'm currently reading The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf.  I should finish this tomorrow, possibly today if I finish this blogpost soon

Next, I will be reading. Breakfast at the Honey Creek Cafe by Jodi Thomas and I will be listening to The Inn at Hidden Creek by Olivia Newport

I just finished listening to My Name Is Tani ...  and I Believe in Miracles by Tanitoluwa Adewomi

Have you read any of these books or want to?

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? 5/18/20

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet up and share what you have been, and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment and er… add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn here at The Book Date.

I'm still quarantining; my state still has their stay at home order in place, although we are now in Stage 2 and on target for Stage 3. I never realized what a homebody I was.

What I read last week:

Last week, I read Escape by Carolyn Jessop, and I listened to And Then They Stopped Talking to Me by Judith Warner, Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ririe Brink and An Author's Odyssey by Chris Colfer. I started reading An Author's Odyssey, but I wasn't enjoying it the way I had the others in the series, so I decided to listen to it since the audiobook was available on Overdrive through my library

What I am reading now:

I just DNF'd last night my current read A Fine Line: How Most American Kids Are Kept Out of the Best Public Schools, but this morning I picked up The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf

Up next:

I'm literally only a couple pages into The Weight of Silence, but I think next I will read Breakfast at the Honey Creek Cafe by Jodi Thomas, since I have it as n e-ARC and it comes out at the end of the month. And later today, I'll start listening to Ethnic America by Thomas Sowell.

I'm hoping it will be another productive week.  Also, lets hope for no rain; yesterday, we had a drenching rain all day.The ground is saturated; we've got some water in our basement.  Have you read or want to read any of these books

April Reading Update -

Sorry, this is so late!

In April, I read a total of 9 books. 

Breakdown:

5  audiobooks 

4 kindle books. 

6 library books

1 Audible

 2 ARCs

My Favorite Book This Month

I had an a very good reading month again; even better than last month.  I had 3  5 star books, 3  4 star books, and 3  3 star books. It was a littlr difficult, but I'd have to ay The Blackbird Girls came out on top this month, I couldn't wait to get back to it .  The story was incredibly engaging and informative.  I'm so glad to have read it!

Least Favorite Book

None of my books were under 3 stars, but I think Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons was the lowest-ranked

Books that I'm currently reading

I've ben reading on my kindle and since the audio was available, I decided to listen to it alternately.

Book Beginnings/The Friday 56 05/15/20

Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice and Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader. The idea is to share a sentence or so from the first page and the 56th page of the book you are currently reading!  Also, I will now also include a brief synopsis.




The fifth book in Chris Colfer's #1 New York Times bestselling series The Land of Stories!

The Masked Man has captured all the royal families from the Land of Stories with the help of his army of literature's greatest villains, including the Wicked Witch of the West, the Queen of Hearts, and Captain Hook. With his sinister plan finally in motion, he is eager to destroy the families and take his place as emperor.
Alex and Conner know they are no match against the Masked Man's legion of villains, but they realize that they may be in possession of the greatest weapon of all: their own imaginations! So begins the twins' journey into Conner's very own stories to gather an army of pirates, cyborgs, superheroes, and mummies as they band together for the ultimate fight against the Masked Man.
Meanwhile, an even more dangerous plan is brewing--one that could change the fates of both the fairy-tale world and the Otherworld forever.
Conner's tales come alive in the thrilling fifth adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling Land of Stories series.

Book Beginnings

Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

Prologue

The Favorite Student

Willow Crest Unified School District spared no expense celebrating the retirement of a beloved principal

Chapter One

The MaskedEmpire

The air was filled with so much smoke, you could barely see the sky

My thoughts: The prologue 1st sentence just reminds me how much I enjoyed this series, when they alter between the real world and the fairy tale world. the 1st line of Chapter One had me wondering what was burning and where-the fairy tale world or the real world.


THE FRIDAY 56

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader.
If you have to improvise, that is okay.

*Find a snippet, short and sweet.

Page 56

"And you promised me HEADS!" the Queen of Hearts roared.

I'm intrigued, I want to read more!

I apologize that I'm not posting more; one, I lose track of the time. due to these stay at home orders, which I'm sure you feel, too! And two, due to the stroke I suffered last July, my typing is very slow and posts take me longer than usual and it's quite frustrating

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 5/11/20

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet up and share what you have been, and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organise yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment and er… add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn here at The Book Date.

Hope everyone is reading and staying busy, as well as sane.  I'm trying to!  Our governor just extended the stay-at-home order to May30th and school has been cancelled for the rest of the school year or in actuality, it will be e-learning, which I have doubts  about how effective it is. especially for elementary or middle school students.

What I read last week:

Wannabe Farms is for upper primary graders or lower middle graders. It is really a cute book written in prose.  I was listening to a Map of Days, the fourth book in the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children.  Now that they are in the U.S., I am enjoying the series again.

What I am reading now:

Another middle grade book.  This one take place in Russia and is about the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986

I started listening to An Author's Odyssey by Chris Colfer, which is the 5th book in The Land of Stories series.  It is narrated by the author and I decided I'd rather read it in the near future.

Up next:

Tomorrow, I think I will start listening to Roll of Thunder. Hear My Cry.  I never read this as a kid, not sure why

WWW Wednesdays 5/6/20

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently, I'm reading



and listening to

The last book I read was


and the last book that I listened to was


I think my next book will be
 

Have you read any of these books?

Book Beginnings/The Friday 56 - 5/1/2020

Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice and Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader. The idea is to share a sentence or so from the first page and the 56th page of the book you are currently reading!  Also, I will now also include a brief synopsis.




The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.

When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.

Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.

Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.

Book Beginnings

share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

Preface

The Choice Was Freedom or Fear

Escape.  The moment had come.  I had been watching and waiting for months, The time was right. I had to act fast and without fear. I could not afford to fail.  Nine lives were at stake: those of my eight children and my own.

My thoughts: This beginning paragraph grabs you from the start and makes you want to read more. Since 2011, when I obtained my first Kindle, I have read a book of some sort on FLDS or a similar polygamist Mormon group each year.  At this time, I have been wondering how this COVID-19 has been affecting them.


THE FRIDAY 56

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader.
If you have to improvise, that is okay.

*Find a snippet, short and sweet.

Page 56

By the end of the first week, I realized that for the first time I was embarrassed to be a woman.

I'm excited to continue on delving into this book.  I just started this book last night and merely read the Preface, so I haven't come upon this passage yet.