I am joining Callapidder Day‘s Spring Reading Thing. I am a little behind in starting, but I am ready! I only just started Son of a Witch, so it will be my first book. I am not one who can read a whole bunch of books at a time. I will pick up my first non-fiction when I am done with Liir.

For the Spring Reading Thing I am going to read 5 fiction, 3 non-fiction, and 5 DCF books. (I am not at home making this list, so I will update it later.) Summaries from Amazon listings.

Fiction

1. Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire – Son picks up where Maguires highly successful Wicked (HarperCollins, 1995) left off, with the death of Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West.

2. Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire – A dark and vivid retelling of Snow White transposed to the Italy of the Borgias. Lucrezia is the evil stepmother and five-year-old Bianca de Nevada grows into the role of Snow White.

3. Eldest by Chris Paolini – Surpassing its popular prequel Eragon, this second volume in the Inheritance trilogy shows growing maturity and skill on the part of its very young author, who was only seventeen when the first volume was published in 2003. The story is solidly in the tradition (some might say derivative) of the classic heroic quest fantasy, with the predictable cast of dwarves, elves, and dragons–but also including some imaginatively creepy creatures of evil.

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Non-Fiction

1. Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd – Describing himself as a Shakespeare enthusiast instead of an expert, Ackroyd focuses on the bard as an extraordinarily talented theater professional rather than rhapsodizing about the intricacies of the man’s genius. He interweaves Shakespeare’s life story with England’s dramatic history and the fascinating world of the emerging Elizabethan theater.

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DCF

– full list

1. Hattie Big Sky by Larson, Kirby – lone in the world, teen-aged Hattie is driven to prove up on her uncle’s homesteading claim.

2. Escape! The Story of the Great Houdini by Fleischman, Sid – Here are the stories of how a knockabout kid named Ehrich Weiss, the son of an impoverished rabbi, presto-changoed himself into the legendary Harry Houdini.

3. Bread and Roses, too by Katherine Paterson – Paterson has drawn upon the facts of the famous 1912 Bread and Roses strike in the mills of Lawrence, MA, and the sympathetic response of the citizens of Barre, VT, to tell the story of two children enmeshed in complex events.

4. Gossamer by Lois Lowry – Fantasy is gossamer in this tale of memory’s role in bestowing dreams and inflicting nightmares.

5. Alabama Moon by Watt Key – oon, 10, has spent most of his life in a camouflaged shelter in the forest with his father, a Vietnam veteran who distrusts people and the government. Pap has educated him in both academics and survival skills. His life suddenly changes when the land is sold to a lawyer and his father dies.

updated April 14, 2007