Feature & Follow Friday #3 - Blog Hopping Happiness!

Feature & Follow Friday is hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee's View and is a way for book bloggers to make new friends, gain new followers and find new folks to follow yourself!

So, what's new for this week....?

Q. What were some of your favorite picture books as a kid? If you have kids, what are your favorites to read to them? 

WARNING!! I read just as much as a kid as I do now, so I will make my best futile attempt to keep this from becoming it's own book. And, I may throw in a couple of non-picture books since I tended to like those better...I was a conundrum of a child at times :)

 One of my all-time favorites, both as a kid and to read to my nieces & nephews....

 I had honestly forgotten about both of these until I started thinking about this week's question, though I'm not sure how....Clifford and the Berenstein Bears ROCK! They always had a large selection of the BB books at the library & school book fairs and I would stockpile allowance money to buy them everytime, and then my mom would make me share them with my brothers.......

One of those non-picture books that will always be a childhood favorite, and one that I will even re-read now (honest...I just bought it on Kindle last week!). There was something so romantic about the kids living in the museum and solving the mysteries. This story definitely gets some credit for sparking my love of history!

 Sadly this one was not around when I was a kid, but EVERY baby that is born to a friend or family member of mine these days gets a copy of it. It may not be well known everywhere, but it is certainly a classic to anyone who has raised children around YNP!

 I received my first copy of this from my aunt for on my 6th birthday and we had a lover affair that ended only when the books spine could no longer keep up with me. My dad and I would read some every night, and it was always a negotiation on what we would read (Dad: You get one long one and 2 short ones...Me: Ok. Me after reading the long one: Dad! That was NOT long!). I used to be able to recite "Sick" and "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout" made me laugh every time my dad read it, no matter how many times I heard it!

And how can you NOT love this one? Another that I buy several of a year because every child I know must have one!

So which ones will you never forget? Join the hop and let us know! Add yourself to the list below to join the fun, check here for the rules and to ask questions on the Feature & Follow, and follow me via GFC (preferred) or BlogLovin if you feel like coming back for another visit. Happy hopping!

Daily Delights - For the LOVE of Doggies!

NO. I. do. not. want. a. bath! Seriously though, don't we all wish that our fury friends could talk rather than just squeak, squeal, squawk, whine and yip? I can handle when my best friends' one-year olds do this because at least they will learn to talk eventually, but with critters I am perpetually stuck attempting ESP. But even worse than that? They can't talk to us, but they can still think! Sure, they don't understand human language the way we do so don't think in an internal monologue that we'd understand, but that doesn't mean they don't have their own internal monologue. Is there a doggy equivalent to "is she really wearing that?!", "did she really just say that?!" or worse, the "damn I hate that b*%#" as you're walking away?

My favorite insight into life with the four-legged kind is Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain. Whether you're an animal lover or not, it is extremely difficult to not fall in love with Enzo. But reading this novel comes with a warning: don't start until you're ready to not stop! If you are like me and fall instantly in love, you will be laughing, crying, burning your dinner because you forgot it was even cooking and then looking over to see that it is now 3am and you have finished the book....and may even feel like re-reading in the very next day!

Looking for Alaska - John Green (2006)

Looking for Alaska by John Green
RATING: 3.5/5
THE Low Down

Miles "Pudge" Halter's only friends are the books that his father constantly reminds him to stop highlighting and the only guests at his going away party are a couple of kids he occasionally sits with at lunch who probably only came because their parents made them. But his books tell him that there is more than this, and he thinks his ticket to finding it is hiding in the woods outside Birmingham, Alabama at Culver Creek Preparatory School. He doubts his decision from the moment he arrives to find a lack of air conditioning, a room that looks nothing like what his JFK biography told him boarding school looked like, and once again being the outsider. Until he meets Alaska Young. Alaska is a whirlwind - holding guilt about her mother's death, bucking the system while still wanting to be a part of it. The whirlwind turns Pudge's life on end, launching him toward his "Great Perhaps", makes him question everything, answer what he can, and try to hold onto his heart. And then the storm is over. Torn between whether knowledge truly is the best thing or just a path towards more pain, Pudge and friends delve deeper into who, and what, Alaska really was and in turn are forced to face these very questions about themselves.

 

MY Low Down

I both loved and not-so-much loved Looking for Alaska, and for such a wide range of reasons. First off though, it is a well written and *mostly* creative novel. It draws you in the from the beginning and keeps a quick pace that holds onto you. I liked the characters. I liked the message. I liked the story. I didn't love any of it.

The premise of Miles and Alaska is great, but just a little too typical. I love Alaska's passion, maddening mood swings and inspiring energy, but I have also loved it in every other character like her in every other story I've read or watched that had such a character (my knee jerk comparison was Drew Barrymore in Mad Love). They are endearing and intriguing, but they need something to separate them from all the others before them.

The underlying themes Alaska pulls you into though are well constructed and presented, and in a way that many of all ages can relate to. We have all been the outsider, loved and lost, rebelled against the system. Green writes his way through the days of angst-ridden teenagers in a believable way that makes you think that YES, that could have been me, and what would I have done? How would I have reacted.

Unfortunately though, I also got hung up on the number of things that just struck me as so unrealistic. As I've said before, I'm completely ok with creative license where appropriate. This is not the kind of story where I want that exercised. This story is serious, down to earth in dealing with real issues and sky ward in energy. I did not need it go skyward in liberties though. For example...has anyone else ever heard of a school with only a few "expelable offenses" that are so black and white that the students can basically prank, riot and raise the most ridiculous kind of ruckus, but are safe because they didn't "officially" commit an expelable offense? And smoking in their dorm room? Really? These details may seem nit picky, but if you want me to buy into the serious themes of the story and that these could be real kids dealing with real life issues, their setting needs to be realistic.

Overall though this is an almost great book, one which I can certainly see a lot of value in. I can easily see it being a 4 or 5 star read for others who see things from a different angle than I do as it is well written, engaging and gutsy in taking on tough subjects.

View all my reviews

Daily Delights - Yellowstone Wildfires

Image from National Weather Service - August 2013

What a difference a day can make! Fire is a natural part of a forest ecosystem and something many people contend with year after year. When they happen in Yellowstone each year though, there is always the perpetual question of "what do we do?". To let it burn means to allow the forest to follow it's natural course, but also drastically alters the landscape and risks the safety of visitors and historic structures. To suppress it protects these things, but to the detriment of the forests natural life cycle. And weighing even heavier than these questions, is the question of who gets to decide?

Alston Chase's Playing God in Yellowstone goes into this and other controversial subjects, essentially telling the National Park Service that it is destroying the world's 1st National Park. Whether you agree with him or not, it is still a compelling read that will get you thinking about what should or should not be done with our land, as well as who you think should get to decide.

Daily Delights - Paradise Valley, MT

Photo by John Salvato - Emigrant forest fire August 2013

Comprised of the 50 mile stretch between Livingston and Gardiner en route to Yellowstone National Park, the Paradise Valley of Montana is exactly as it's name implies. In this beautiful place, you will find the meandering Yellowstone River, historic lodges, soaring peaks and working ranches, which all lend to the amazing combination of scenery and old west atmosphere. If you look hard enough, you will also find the quaint little "ghost" town of Old Chico, nestled into the hills behind the historic Chico Hot Springs Resort.

To get a little taste of the Paradise Valley of old, check out local author Edie Mellgren's new novel, The Vindication of Lucas Goddard. I just got it today and haven't had a chance to get into it yet, but I'm hearing good things. Look for my review sometime in the next couple of weeks!

Feature & Follow Friday #2 - Blog Hopping Happiness!

Feature & Follow Friday is hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee's View and is a way for book bloggers to make new friends, gain new followers and find new followers of your own!

So, what's new for this week....?

Q: It is up to you to do a Kickstarter campaign for your favorite book!!! Who are you casting for the main characters? 

Given that I am TERRIBLE at envisioning who I would cast as my favorite main characters and admittedly don't always love the choices that are made (or go further and say do not love at all when it comes to Kristen Stewart and Twilight....I will NEVER like her!). But I digress.

Instead of trying to picture something I will do terribly, I'm going to think about a recent choice that has received A LOT of attention, and in a lot of cases angry fans Twitter screaming to the world - Charlie Hunnam as Christian Gray. Say what you will about whether you think he will make a good Christian, but I personally am completely OK with this choice for one essential reason......

 

...he sure is nice on the eyes. I mean, this is Yummy Reads, right?

And let's be honest folks, the books weren't good (don't take that as I didn't like them, because I was thoroughly entertained, as embarrassing as that can be to admit at times). Do you really think the movies are going to be actual GOOD movies? Doubtful. So if the movie itself isn't great, I'm thrilled that one of my all-time fave hunky actors is at least going to be walking around showing it off for a couple hours :)

So who would YOU cast in your favorite book's movie? Or who has been cast that you loved, or not-so-loved? Join the hop and let us know! Add yourself to the list below to join the fun, check here for the rules and to ask questions on the Feature & Follow, and follow me via GFC (preferred) or BlogLovin if you feel like coming back for another visit. Happy hopping!

Weekend Wanderings - Playing on Yellowstone Lake

Yellowstone Lake is the largest alpine (7000+ feet above sea level) in North America, and one of my favorite places to escape from the world. With 110 miles of shoreline and a deepest point of over 400 feet, it is no small or calm space - it takes at least an hour to cross in a pretty quick boat, and it's not uncommon to see whitecaps and 3-4 foot swells (or larger!) when an afternoon storms rolls off the mountains. Many of those miles of shoreline abut some of the most remote wilderness in North America, rivaled only by Alaska in it's distance from the nearest road. So, can you think of a better place to take a really adorable little guy out for his 1st birthday? As his mom is a former guide on the Lake and mom and dad were married on an island in the middle of it, I certainly can't!