ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS

I can't believe I never read ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins. However, when the ARC of LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR (also by Perkins) arrived yesterday, I felt obliged to read the first one. Honestly, I HAVE had the first one on my to-read list for a while, but it continually got usurped by something more pressing.

Girls will LOVE this novel! Anna is an American girl from Georgia whose novelist father decides she would be better off at an American School in Paris, France for her senior year. She leaves behind a best friend and a "new-ish" love interest.

Within days, Anna meets Etienne St. Clair, a senior who is American but has a French father, and grew up in London (hence his British accent). Through a series of mishaps and bizarre circumstances, Anna makes her way through her senior year with plenty of surprises in store for the reader.

I engulfed this book in one night. Not really a boy read.

Mockingjay

Okay. Just about everyone has weighed in on this long awaited finale, so I'll keep this short and sweet.

I LOVE SUZANNE COLLINS. okay- that's enough.


No, really....this book definitely portrayed a slightly different mood than the others, but it should have. I loved the interplay between characters but found the ending leaving me with a desire to re-read the novel and digest it a bit more. After all, I ate it in GULPS! Couldn't seem to get through it fast enough.

As a school novel, I think Collins offers teachers a plethora of thematic topics to discuss: war, imperialism, bravery, choices, death- whether it's justified or not, survival. The whole trilogy is rich in themes that either affect students now or will in the future. I'm so curious to see what the students think, but I won't be able to ask them until next week!

Some Picture Books

I love Amy Krouse Rosenthal and my kids and I gobble up everything she writes. Her upcoming book, Bedtime for Mommy, will continue to delight children. A little girl goes through the bedtime routine of bath, stories, and tucking mommy into bed and then heads off to get daddy ready. LeUyen Pham is the illustrator and her paintings add depth and humor to an already wonderful book. Release date is March 30, 2010 by Bloomsbury.

February 2010 will see another Bloomsbury book sure to be a hit. Too Purpley by by Jean Reidy and Genevieve Leloup is about a little girl who can't find the perfect outfit to wear. What mother of a little girl hasn't been frustrated by this completely female trait? Each page is full of stripes, polka dots, plaids and other varieties of outfit combinations. Of course, my daughter loved the purple page!