Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 71

November 8, 2018

"Return to Gone-Away" by Elizabeth Enright

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.  I would have LOVED this book as a kid!  Not that I didn't love it now, cuz I did, but I would have read it over and over and over and over as a kid, just like I did the book that preceeds it, Gone-Away Lake .  

This book picks up where that one left off, with Portia's family renovating the abandoned mansion that her parents bought the previous summer.  It's all about fixing an old house, and I have ALWAYS wanted to fix up an old house (in th...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on November 08, 2018 16:20

November 2, 2018

"Soldier On" by Vanessa Rasanen -- Guest Review on SDMW

Wow.  This book is intense.  It deals with the struggles faced by a married couple who are separated when the husband is deployed to the Middle East.  I love how it gives a clear picture of two Christians with mature faith who still struggle to live out their faith in their daily life.  

There are no easy answers provided here -- simply reading the Bible and praying and going to church don't fix every problem, though turning your back on Word and Sacrament certainly ex...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on November 02, 2018 07:49

October 31, 2018

"The Hound of the Baskervilles" by A. Conan Doyle

I've read this book 4 times since I started this blog in 2013.  I read it in 2013, led a read-along of it in 2014, read it again in 2016 but didn't review it, and now I've read it again.  Can you tell I love it?  It is, in fact, my favorite Sherlock Holmes story, and I get in the mood for it every October.  Some years I read it, some years I watch a filmed adaptation of it, kind of depends on what I've got going on.

This year, I'm teaching it to several homeschooled high sc...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 31, 2018 17:03

October 30, 2018

Top Ten Tuesday: 'Tis Now the Very Witching Time of Night


This week, That Artsy Reader Girl gave us a bit of a freebie.  It's supposed to be something Halloween-themed, but the exact prompt is up to us.  I decided to focus on dark, macabre, or eerie books.  Now, the truth is that I don't like scary books.  Or scary movies.  At all.  Unless they involve vampires; then, I'm okay.  So none of these are especially scary or horrifying, except maybe Dracula (cuz vampires).  But they ARE dark.

I'm sharing a...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 30, 2018 06:54

October 29, 2018

"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

Every time I read something by Ray Bradbury, I think, "Why don't I read more Ray Bradbury?"  I really need to remedy that and just... read more of his stuff.  I mean, I've read 3 of his novels and 2 collections of short stories, but I know he wrote a lot more than that.  Vanessa Rasanen has me convinced I need to try Something Wicked This Way Comes, so that's going on my TBR list.

I love this book.  I loved it the first time I read it, between freshman and sophomore years o...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 29, 2018 16:00

October 27, 2018

"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" by C. S. Lewis

Is it weird that I liked this book WAY BETTER when I read it now, as an adult, than I did as a kid?  I'm thinking that maybe I'm old enough to read fairy tales again, like the dedication to this book says.  I read the series when I was in my early teens and just didn't care for them.  I've never been a huge fan of allegory, so that was part of it.  But I think I was just in the wrong time of life for them, like I was for The Hobbit.  

Anyway, I totally dug this bo...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 27, 2018 07:06

October 12, 2018

"The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne" by Catherine Reef

I've wanted to know more about the real lives of the Brontës ever since I read Becoming Jane Eyre  a few years ago.  I wanted something less sensationalized, more truthful, and that's exactly what The Brontë Sisters gave me.  I found this in the junior non-fiction section at my library, and I think it would be suitable for kids 12 and up, but not for younger readers.  It does discuss things like alcohol abuse and opium addiction, and it touches (non-graphically) on som...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 12, 2018 07:43

October 10, 2018

"Wonder" by R. J. Palacio

There's a reason this book is super famous and got a movie made of it.  That reason is that it tells a very compelling story about characters you begin to care about quickly.

I am sometimes resistant about very popular, famous movies that "everybody is reading now."  I get skeptical and suspicious.  Not sure why -- part of my stubbornly individualistic personality or something.  So it took me a few years to finally read this.  But I'm glad I overcame my inner resistanc...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 10, 2018 17:57

October 5, 2018

The Bibliophile Sweater Tag


I wasn't tagged with this specifically -- I found it at The Book Hound, and RM Lutz tagged anyone who wanted to steal it, so... here I am, stealing the tag.  Like a year after it was posted.  Because that is exactly what my life is like right now.

I'm not just busy these days, I am STUPID BUSY.  Like, so busy it makes me stupid sometimes.  I hate it.  I need to unload something from my pile of life, but every time I try, something else jumps on the haywagon and I'm ove...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 05, 2018 14:05

October 3, 2018

"The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin

This is one of my favorite books.  I have a strict rule of not allowing myself to read it more than once every 5+ years because that way, I won't fully remember it, and every re-read will still have a bit of surprise to it.

I'm having my 3rd-6th graders read this for our homeschool co-op, which gave me a great reason to re-read it myself.  Neither of my kids in that group had read it before, and it's been so much fun watching them experience this mystery.  My almost-11-yr-old re...
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 03, 2018 12:18