Friday, August 28, 2009

Post-Twilight Reading

A long time ago, I wondered what to read after the Harry Potter series.
I read the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, read some Neil Gaiman and life went on..but there was that momentary flash of panic after book 7.

Considering the Twilight series was what finally made our Tween into a book lover, it became very important to find something new for her to read (along the same vein, pardon the pun) after she finished the Twilight series. (Though, she does re-read them constantly, too. I've lost count..maybe she's re-read New Moon about 5 times now?) So - thanks to the Book Fairy Wendy, and some resourceful hunting of our own..we found some books for our Tween that helped get her past that "panic" after she finished Twilight.

I keep passing this list along to folks--so I figured I'll stick it here to refer to.

Our list of "What to read when you've read Twilight and need a new series to fall in love with..." (in order of how much we loved them).
It starts out YA Lit, and the list AFTER it is a bit more adult. I'll note the ones you really DON'T want your Tween to read.

1. The Mortal Instruments Series (trilogy)
by Cassandra Clare
http://www.mortalinstruments.com/mortalseries.html

The first book is: City of Bones

We loved these books so much! And, we noticed them because Stephenie Meyer apparently read them and liked them enough to review the books and put her name on the cover.. (saying she loved them, too)

She's working on a new trilogy now:
The Infernal Devices: A companion series to The Mortal Instruments
You can track progress of publication at: http://www.theinfernaldevices.com/
Book One: The Clockwork Angel, Simon and Schuster, 2010
Book Two: The Clockwork Prince, Simon and Schuster, 2011
Book Three: The Clockwork Princess, Simon and Schuster, 2012

2. The House of Night Series by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast.
There are 5 books in the series so far, and the next book is in the series is titled: "Tempted" (House of Night Book 6)and is coming out October 27,2009.

The first book in the series is: Marked

Info at: http://www.houseofnightseries.com/
Synopsis/info on book 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marked_(novel)

3. We read a couple of different series by LJ Smith.
We liked: The Vampire Diaries series, Nightworld 1, 2 and 3, The Secret Circle series.

It's also worth noting that this fall the Vampire Diaries are being made into a tv program on CW!

http://www.ljanesmith.net/booklist.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._J._Smith_(author)

4. The Summoning and The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong.
These are the first two books (available now) in a trilogy (The Darkets Powers trilogy) being written by Kelley Armstrong - who has published for adults, but these are for YA audiences. (So they're more thrilling and angsty, not so scary).

http://www.kelleyarmstrong.com/aDarkest.htm

5. Evermore, by Alyson Noël. (And a new release, a followup: Blue Moon by Alyson Noël was just released July 7.) Apparently, these books are part of the "Immortals" series.

http://www.alysonnoel.com/IMMORTALS/index_immortals.php

For the Grown-Ups:

I've really liked:

1. The Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs
(4 available, a 5th available in Feb 2010)

2. The Kate Daniels Series by Ilona Andrews
(3 available, 4th book coming in May 2010)

3. The Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris
There are 9 available now, and these are these books are the basis for the HBO show "True Blood". (The Southern Vampire Series) *WARNING - NOT for kids*

..and of course, "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer as well.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

MRA means life is never dull




Thanks to our youngest child (MRA, aka Mr. Man) - we laugh a lot. Not that our other kids didn't sometimes say funny things..but this one - he's just a total ham.

Thanks to overhearing MRA and his playmates we've discovered that the ultimate threat between Kindergarten-ish aged kids is: "If you don't X...I'm not gonna invite you to my birthday party!!"

However, Mr. Man (coming up on age 5 very soon) has figured out that line doesn't work on mom & dad, because as we've pointed out to him - we're the ones throwing the party, so we'll be there, like it or not.

So.. his new threat (wait for it):
"If you don't let me do X (where x = play Wii past his bedtime, hit his sister, sleep in our bed instead of his) ..then you can't wipe my butt!!"

Yep - he seems to be under the mistaken impression that we WANT to wipe his poopy butt and that we're somehow broken up over not getting that task when he yells for one of us from the bathroom. Ha!

Two More funnies from MRA lately:
1. He was playing with Matchbox cars in the kitchen when one rolled a bit too far and ended up waaaaay under the gas range.
I said: "Oh no..sorry honey, but it looks like that one is gone for good."
Mr. Man said: "Nope.. it's gone for EEE-VIL!"

2. He's a HUGE SpongeBob fan and was looking through the garage for a bucket to wear over his head (in the SpongeBob movie Plankton controls the whole town by putting Chum Buckets on their head that control their minds).
After talking him out of that he marched around the house with a fly-swatter in hand chanting: "On Hail Mommy!" (Plankton's minions chanted: "All Hail Plankton")

I tried several times to explain it's "All Hail" not "On Hail"...but gave up when he said: "All Hail..No" (you might have to say this out loud to see why this cracked me up)..and I couldn't stop laughing.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Someone in Public Works doesn't like us



This is the 4th time in about one calendar year. And we're 2 for 2 - each time it's snowed this week and last they've destroyed our mailbox.

We've only ever written an anonymous note saying how HAPPY we are with the city's excellent job plowing. (We wrote to thank the city because we're so impressed at how quick they are to plow us out each time. Doubly impressive because we live in the rural part of our town -- it turns to dirt road just past our house.)
We've never complained. I've never tried to pass or cut off a plow while driving..
Seriously, what did we do to this plow driver?

I'm not really complaining...after all it's poor Jeff who's there and has to deal with it. I'm sitting in Austin, TX in record breaking warmth. It's going to be 87 degrees (or warmer) here this afternoon.
I better enjoy it while I can..'cause it's going to be a tough adjustment to get off that airplane in MSP tonight to below zero windchill and fresh snow on the ground.