To all my friends in the real world

I dearly miss each and every one of you. I miss running with Bonnie and Elizabeth (somehow it's easier to push myself when I'm with you guys). I miss talking to Ruth on-line while we're at work. I miss having any sort of a social life whatsoever. Actually, that's not true... I have a fun social life, it's just with a whole different set of people. Somehow in the last month I feel like all my friends from the first two years of college have disappeared. I'm now embarking on a new trek through the next two years (or hopefully year and a half)

I blame my English classes for part of this. And the fact that most my friends are in the Accounting program for the rest of it. Although that is really no excuse because I see John Callister almost every day in the library. But... in case you're wondering why I'm writing about this on my book blog I'll tell you. I have been doing an enormous amount of reading. In the last 3 weeks I have read The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Martin Dressler: A Tale of an American Dreamer, and chapters of countless textbooks. Oh... and I'm now in the middle of Moby Dick. I really do not care for Melville's style of writing. I wish he would've decided to leave the writing of "The Great American Novel" to someone else... someone who would be much less verbose and use one style of writing. Let me tell you... that blog is forthcoming and it will be quite the blog.

Anyways... I'm now starting 3 papers for classes, and I have 2 midterms and 1 quiz next week. Which means that I have a lot to do for every single one of my classes... don't you love it when the semester really starts? So my 3 papers. One is for History of the English Language. I'm writing about English as a universal lingua franca and the problems that come through technology (namely the fact that people can now learn English without ever speaking face-t0-face with a native English speaker). For my Shakespeare class I'm writing my paper on adaptations of Shakespeare for children and the pros and cons of adapting Shakespeare for a younger audience than it was intended for (namely the fact that I found a book in the HBLL titled Romeow and Drooliet). My third paper is an analysis of one passage from Moby Dick. Unfortunately I can't use the passage that I was planning on using because my professor decided to discuss it at length today in class. Maybe I can talk him into letting me use it still??

So that's what I'm up to right now. I haven't stopped reading by any means, but last night I looked longingly at my complete collection of the Wizard of OZ books and wished that I had time to read it.

The most important book you'll ever read...

... is the one you read to a child. So I lied, I haven't actually quit reading for the summer. I've been reading a book called The Read-Aloud Handbook. I think it should be required reading for all new parents or expectant couples or teachers. The most important thing I've learned so far from this book (I'm only on page 34, but I had to share my thoughts with you in case I don't finish the book before school starts) is that the difference between high achievers and middle level students is their love of reading. Especially with the way schools are "supposed" to teach reading (through phoenetics... thank you No Child Left Behind for yet another dumb idea), children are being turned off to reading. So it's important for parents to read to children from a very early age (the author suggests beginning to read to your child in the last trimester of your pregnancy so that the baby already associates certain books with comfort) so that the child associates reading with pleasure and not with worksheets, etc.

This book has me thinking about changing my Master's degree from Youth Librarianship (for a public library) to School Librarianship. Parents need to encourage their children's teachers (throughout all of elementary school) to read out-loud to their children (with no reading quizzes at the end) and have SSR (Sustained Silent Reading). One principal in an at-risk Boston elementary school turned his school's reputation and testing scores around in two years by having 10 minutes of read aloud time each morning and 10 minutes of SSR each afternoon. If 20 minutes a day can make that much of a difference once the child is already in school, imagine what a difference it could make if you start reading to your child from infancy.

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

Here it is folks. The last of Becca's summer reading. With only a week left until school starts I've decided that I'm don't want to get immersed in a book that I can't finish before school starts and the reading piles up. But this book was a great way to end my summer reading and get geared up for school. The title of the book pretty much sums it up. One of the biggest contributors to the OED (which is commonly considered to be THE authority on all matters of english definitions) lived in an insane asylum the entire time that he was helping to define words and find illustrative quotes.


I really don't know what else to say about this book. It was a good read for a non-fiction book, but since it is a true story it doesn't have quite the drive that fiction does. It's harder to bring in symbols and foreshadowing and all those things that make fiction really fun. There's less "coming full circle." That's not to say that I don't recommend it. It was a great book. You just need to know that it's not fiction and therefore not going to be quite as fun.