I've already shared two lists of books, but I think it's important to say - again - that reading levels differ widely, and in multiple ways. For instance, I know that as a child, my linguistic level (in English) was higher than that of some of my peers, but I often read books for children who were younger. I was still reading what was clearly children's literature, while friends of mine had 'graduated' to murder, romance and thrillers. A list of any kind must be taken with a pinch of salt, and this one is no different.With that out of the way, here are six young adult books I read and loved last year. Ben's parents want to conduct an experiment. They want to study different aspects of the same thing - his father is a behavioural scientist who is convinced that chimpanzees can learn a human language if the environment is conducive, and Ben's mother is writing a … [Read more...]
Moonrise
I've been so busy working with my online creative writing programme that I simply haven't had the time to write about all the books I've been reading. Two of them stand out, and one of those is Sarah Crossan's Moonrise.This is the fourth book that I'm reading by this wonderful writer, and it seems as if I can't get enough of her work. I began with the one I enjoyed most of all - One. I went on to Apple and Rain, which I loved for completely different reasons. Apple's poetry teacher, Mr Gaydon, is one of my favourite fictional teachers of all time! Toffee, somehow, was a little too sordid for me, so I didn't review it on my blog. Yet, it left its mark. I can't forget it.And now, Moonrise.With every beautiful verse novel I read, I realise how much I love this genre. The words are simple and sparse and for me, they create maximum impact because of this. A book like Moonrise … [Read more...]