A to Z April: M Review - Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle/Meg by Steve Alten

Today I have another kind of religious book to share, although it also has a science fiction edge and is part of a YA series. The other book is a science fiction series I love, and an author that I devour all of his books!

First is Many Waters (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet) by Madeleine L'Engle.  I know a lot of people have heard of and probably read A Wrinkle in Time at some point in their childhood.  As did I.  But at the time I also then wanted to read every book by that author, especially those that were in a series.  The reason I chose this book is because there was one thing that really stood out for me. Something that others may know more about from the book The Red Tent by Anita Diamont.  The tent that the women stay in, separate from the men, during their "time of the month".  I know that it was not a good thing, it was a way of discriminating against women, they were considered "unclean" during that time.  But today all I can think is that how awesome would it be if I could just sit and rest and be away from the rest of the annoying world during that time.  :-)  Right girls?  That's not all the books is about obviously, that's just what stood out in my head.  Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
A touch of computer keys, a blast of heat, and suddenly the Murry twins, Sandy and Dennys, are gasping in a shimmering desert land. If only the brothers had normal parents, not a scientist mother and a father who experiments with space and time travel. If only the Murry twins had noticed the note on the door of their mother's lab: EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS. PLEASE KEEP OUT.

But it's too late for regrets. There's a strange -- and very small -- person approaching, with a miniature mammoth in tow....

At last it's Sandy and Dennys turn for an adventure -- an adventure that turns serious when they discover that "many waters" are coming to flood the desert. The twins must find a way back home soon, or they will drown. But how will they get back to their own time? Can they?

Second is Meg by Steve Alten.  This is an awesome science fiction story about the giant Carcharodon megalodon, an ancient prehistoric shark that has found its way from a hiding place deep in the ocean up into our world.  I could totally see the SyFy channel doing a movie of this series, but what I'd really love is if the people who did Jurassic Park would do this, using all the awesome technology and special effects to make it into the movie it deserves to be.  This actually is a series, there are 4 books in the series.  And this author has other great books as well.  Here is the blurb for this first book in the series from Goodreads:
On a top-secret dive into the Pacific Ocean's deepest canyon, Jonas Taylor found himself face-to-face with terror. The sole survivor of the mission, Taylor remains haunted years later by what he saw. Written off as a crackpot, he insists that the prehistoric shark known as Carcharodon megalodon still swims the deep underwater chasms.

Only an urgent call for help from one of his oldest friends can persuade him to return to those deadly waters. Now Taylor will relive his darkest nightmare, only to find that what he saw before was only the beginning. For what lies deep beneath the waves is a horror that could turn the tides blood-red until the end of time....


So, did you read A Wrinkle in Time when you were younger?  Are you a science fiction fan?  I love all things dinosaur and other prehistoric creature related, so Meg just fascinates me no matter how unrealistic the story may be.

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A to Z April - F: Fantasy

For the letter F I'm going to choose a genre of fiction that is not actually one that I read a ton of.  There are some of my very favorite series that fit into it though, so it is worth mentioning.  The more I'm around authors and bloggers, I've learned that the type of fantasy I really don't get into is called "high fantasy".  Like Game of Thrones or The Lord of the Rings for example.  While I can enjoy a movie or tv series with it, I just have trouble actually sitting down and reading it.


1.  My all time favorite fantasy series is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe series by C.S. Lewis.  I used to read those books over and over when I was a kid.  My copies of them are dog-eared and tattered, and to me look well-loved.  The pictures below match the covers of the books that I own, and I've posted them in the story's chronological order, as opposed to order of publication.


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2.  My 2nd all time favorite fantasy series is by Madeleine L'Engle, the A Wrinkle in Time series.  What is funny to me today is that I keep hearing about the "tesseract" in the Marvel Comic movies, and this book is where I first remember seeing that word.  So now whenever they mention it in those movies, the book is what I think of first.  This is another dog-eared series of books that I read over and over.  But I didn't own all of them, used to check them out from the library.

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3.  My 3rd and final favorite fantasy series is a newer one.  It didn't come out till I was a grown-up.  I was teaching at my 3rd teaching job, and working part time at a B. Dalton bookstore.  I resisted at first, but when I picked up a copy of the first one at the suggestion of a fellow bookseller, I was hooked.  That series is the Harry Potter series.

So, are you a big fantasy reader?  Have you read all of these?  What are your favorite fantasy series? 

Top Ten Tuesday - Books/Authors I'm Thankful For

I'm not an every week participant in the Top Ten Tuesday, but being Thanksgiving week, seeing this on blogs I follow I figured I'd join in.  This is sponsored by The Broke and the Bookish.  And the perfect theme for this week is the top 10 books and/or authors that we're thankful for.  And like some of the other posts I've seen, not all of my posts will be specific books or authors exactly.

1.  First I have to say I'm thankful for the Nancy Drew series, which in a way means I'm thankful to my mom.  When I was young, 3rd grade I think, there was a bunch of the series for sale at an outlet store.  My mom bought like the first 10 in the series I think!  I took them home and devoured them.  A great beginner series, and also thanks to my mom, who at the time didn't see quite how obsesses I would be with reading.

2.  I know many people out there aren't a fan, and have lots of criticisms.  But I LOVE the Twilight series.  The story just sucked me in.  And, to see how much this series got people excited about reading again, that makes my day.  

3.  I have to also mention the Harry Potter books.  For making such a huge pop culture following along with the movies and the books, where it was cool, in some crowds, to be discussing fictional characters and how things would work for them.

4.  Next would be the Percy Jackson series.  Once again the students I saw that were former reluctant readers, and they got pulled right into reading, and never looked back, really just made me happy to be a teacher again.

5.  And along the same lines would be The Hunger Games.  Having students come up to me and talk about things that were missing from the movie, that totally made my day.  To have kids knowing how the books are always better than the movie was just music to my ears!

6.  Stephen King is an author I'm thankful for.  His scary stories were ones that again I was able to share with my mother, or maybe vice-versa.  At first I wasn't allowed to read them.  But I remember the summer before my freshman year of high school, my mother had left one of them sitting out, and I read it.  And from then on, I was unable to put his books down.

7.  V. C. Andrews is an author that I loved, and the books I read over and over and over!!  Sick as the stories really are, there are a lot of things from those books that have stuck in my head.

8.  All the Buffy the Vampire Slayer books.  Not the comics, but the actual books.  They gave me something to continue reading when the show was over.  And always bring me right back to hanging with the Scooby Gang.

9.  I'm going to combine the Wrinkle In Time series with the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series.  Both of these are books I read over and over as a child.  Again, they are reference points for me for several things, many situations in life bring to mind things that happened in these stories.  Even the movie The Avengers the summer reminded me that I'd learned about a tesseract first in A Wrinkle in Time.

10.  This is kind of a general one, going out for all those awesome authors that are out there and available to talk to on social media.  How cool to be able to so easily interact with these people who are my rock stars.  A couple specific shouts go out to Cara Lynn Shultz, who was so cool to actually meet up with me last year when I visited NYC for the first time.  Also Maureen Johnson who is so funny on Twitter.  I could go on and on, but pretty much almost every YA author on Twitter is who I'm thinking of.  Heather Brewer, Beth Revis, Jodi Meadows, Rachel Vincent, Aimee Carter, Jay Asher, Nancy Holder, there are so many I could go on and on!!!

So, what books or authors are you thankful for this Thanksgiving season?

I'm thankful for Nancy Drew

I'm a huge fan of Beth Revis, I loved her debut novel Across the Universe. She is having this awesome contest in honor of Thanksgiving by asking fans to post about their favorite titles and the winner will receive all 19 of the signed books listed, as well as some awesome swag!
So I decided to do this, as hard as it will be to pick just one book.
One of my first choices would have been the author's first choice, the Narnia series. Like her, this was a series that I read over and over. I still have my copies of the books, and they are tattered and dog-eared, showing how much I read them and loved them. To me, a book that is loved isn't all pristine and perfectly new looking.
But I didn't want to be copying, so instead, I chose the book series that I really see as my entry into being the avid, obsessed reader that I am today. I remember one weekend, I think I was in about 3rd or 4th grade probably, we were at the JCPenney's outlet store across the Missouri-Kansas state line. We went there probably once a month looking for good deals. I remember stopping with my mom in front of a display of these yellow books. I don't remember the whole experience, but I think my dad went on with my brother while my mom and I stopped and looked. For some reason, she bought me a large number of them. I think at least 10 were bought at that time. I took them home, and devoured them. And soon bought almost all of them. I am missing a few, but still consider buying them at the bookstore I work at just to complete my set. I don't know what it is about them, but I loved stepping into the world. I loved the mystery, Nancy and her friends Bess and tomboy George. Her boyfriend Ned. It was like hanging out with friends. From this book I moved on to probably Narnia next, or maybe A Wrinkle in Time, another series I got sucked into and loved. But I am thankful that this series got me started on the path to loving reading the way I do now.