Book Preview: Burned

Peta picked up another great book from the top of our shopping list and this time it comes in hardcover! Yay! We love hardcovers, don't we girls?

This is book seven of the House of Night series.

1. Marked
2. Betrayed
3. Chosen
4. Untamed
5. Hunted
6. Tempted
7. Burned
8. Awakened (due in January)

Riding the wave of vampire fiction created by Stephanie Meyer, PC and Kristin Cast have created this popular series which keeps getting snapped up. We have extra copies of books 1 and 2 on the way as well!

Here is the Amazon product description for the first book called Marked:

When sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird gets Marked as a fledgling vampire she must join the House of Night school where she will train to become an adult vampire. That is, if she makes it through the Change. But Zoe is no ordinary fledgling. She has been chosen as special by the Goddess Nyx and discovers her amazing new power to conjure the elements: earth, air, fire, water and spirit. When Zoey discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite group, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look within herself to embrace her destiny - with a little help from her new vampire friends. Not suitable for younger readers.

And here is the product description for Burned, book seven:

Amazon Description:

Y'all need to get yourselves together. Here's a newsflash from the only High Priestess you have left at this dang school: Zoey isn't dead. And believe me, I know dead. I've been there, done that and got the fricken tee-shirt. Zoey Redbird is the youngest High Priestess in House of Night history and is the only person ? vamp or fledgling ? that can stop the evil Neferet from raising all kinds of immortal trouble. And she might just have a chance if she wasn't so busy being dead. Well, dead is too strong a word. Stevie Rae knows she can bring her BFF back from her unscheduled va-cay in the Otherworld. But it's going to take a lot more than hoping to bring Zoey back. Stevie Rae will have to give up a few secrets of her own ...

Thanks again to Peta for her amazing generosity in sending us this beautiful hardcover book!!!

Book Preview: Blood Promise

Today we got a beautiful brand new copy of Blood Promise from Peta who ordered it from Book Depository for us. Thanks so much Peta!!!

Many of the girls are reading the Vampire Academy series and loving it. They will be so happy to know we have this one which is book number 4 out of 6 (#6 due in December). Check out the cover! Isn't it awesome?! I like the new design better than the older ones because of the purple lettering and the interesting use of "Vampire Academy" at the top of the cover. Nicely done!

If you haven't heard of the Vampire Academy series, here is a description of the first book -

Amazon Description:

St Vladimir's Academy isn't just any boarding school - hidden away, it's a place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They've been on the run, but now they're being dragged back to St Vladimir's where the girls must survive a world of forbidden romances, a ruthless social scene and terrifying night time rituals. But most of all, staying alive.

Book preview: Pirates! by Celia Rees

Today we got four books from Canada! Yay! First of all, we got a book called The Gatecrasher by Madeleine Wickham. You may know Madeleine by her pen name "Sophie Kinsella"and you have probably at least heard of her Shopaholic books.

Next up, we have Dedication by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. If you've read The Nanny Diaries or enjoyed the movie, you may want to read this book as it was written by the same writers.

Next up we have Welcome to My Planet by Shannon Olson. This sounds like another book that you girls will enjoy.


We got Pirates! by Celia Rees which took third place in the Teens' Top Ten books of 2004. I've been trying to get this one for a year.

Amazon Description:

Pirates! is a classy and welcome addition to Celia Rees's successful oeuvre, that of novels with a historical background, such as the phenomenally bestselling Witch Child and Sorceress. Swashbuckling in the tradition of every pirate tale, from Treasure Island to Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates! is truly gripping from first page to last and never fails to be totally entertaining throughout.

Nancy Kington and Minerva Sharp are two young women from very different backgrounds who, in time, become united in a common, pirating cause. Nancy, the daughter of a successful Bristol ship owner, had her life all planned out. She lived in comfort and hoped to marry her childhood sweetheart William. But disaster strikes and she is aghast to experience her circumstances turning upside down when her father dies. Soon she finds herself shipped out to land they own in the West Indies to marry for the good of the remaining family.

Minerva is part of the staff at her new plantation home and they immediately become friends--despite the delicate nature of their differing positions as merchant's daughter and slave. But Minerva has complications of her own--particularly from an abusive overseer. Nancy is eventually driven to murder him, and together they become fugitives. Joining a pirate ship comes naturally to both of them and a wild, wild life of seafaring and adventure begins.

With detailed research that leaps from every page, Rees's narrative is atmospheric but never heavy. She moves the story along at a jaunty pace, making it impossible for the reader to get bogged down. Rich and exciting, Pirates! is another triumph and unlikely to be bested by another pirate novel for some years to come. -- John McLay

Thanks to our Canadian friends, Erinkate and Veronique for sending the books!

Book Preview: Gone by Michael Grant

I picked this book up at Icklebooks today. I remember reading the review at Steph's blog and I knew I wanted to read it. I even had it on our shopping list.

And when I popped into Icklebooks and saw it just sitting there I thought, "It can't be..."

It was. I remember reading about the premise of this book and thinking, "That's awesome!" Then I read the first chapter and thought, "OMG, this is the best thing since Hunger Games." I can't wait to finish reading this book.

Okay, here's what I've read so far. There are a bunch of teens in their classroom and their teacher just disappears before their eyes. Soon they discover that all the adults have disappeared. In fact, anybody over the age of 15 has vanished. You can imagine the chaos that will follow. The three main characters run off to their houses to discover that their parents aren't anywhere to be found.

OMG. What's going on? What's going to happen next? I love this type of book. I can't wait to read more. I'm thinking: Lord of the Flies. Will the young people in this small town be good little people and take care of one another or are they going to get really evil? I wonder. Will they organize themselves? How will they eat? Imagine all these kids getting into cars and driving around. What would happen in a situation like this where kids have the run of the world and can do anything they want without adult supervision. Imagine the possibilities!

Here is the Amazon Description:
Suddenly there are no adults, no answers. What would you do? In the blink of an eye, the world changes. The adults vanish without a trace, and those left must do all they can to survive. But everyone's idea of survival is different. Some look after themselves, some look after others, and some will do anything for power...Even kill. For Sam and Astrid, it is a race against time as they try to solve the questions that now dominate their lives...What is the mysterious wall that has encircled the town of Perdido Beach and trapped everyone within? Why have some kids developed strange powers? And can they defeat Caine and his gang of bullies before they turn fifteen and disappear too? It isn't until the world collapses around you that you find out what kind of person you really are. This book offers a chilling portrayal of a world with no rules. When life as you know it ends at 15, everything changes.

SRR Bulletin Board

The answer to the question "Who is Peta?" has finally been answered. I put up pictures of some of the books she has donated to us as well as a list (at the bottom of the bulletin board).

Right after I finished putting it all up, the bell rang and students started filing down the stairs. A lot of them stopped to look at the stuff on the board. Some of them pointed at specific covers and seemed to be discussing the books.

Isn't that great?

Books Donated by Peta

To date, Peta has donated a total of 317 books to the SRR!!!

For those of you who read my blog, it is no surprise to you that Peta has been a huge supporter of the SRR. I like to keep an updated list of books she has donated to us so I'm setting up this post (sorry, but it is very long, which is a good thing actually). Look at the list. Have you read any of the books she has sent us?

1. Catcher in the Rye

2. A Series of Unfortunate Events #2

3. Peter Pan in Scarlet Illustrated Edition

4. Tales of Beedle the Bard

5. Know Your Brain

6. The Rough Guide to Books for Teenagers

7. Introducing Shakespeare

8. Rebel Angels

9. The Truth About Forever

10. Twisted

11. Up Close and Personal Miley Cyrus

12. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

13. If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince?

14. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

15. Fire Study

16. Magic Study

17. Poison Study

18. Eyes Like Stars

19. Catching Fire (Hunger Games 2)

20. Coraline

21. Guitar Girl

22. Skellig

23. The Fall of Fergal

24. Terry Deary's Terribly True Horror Stories

25. The Story of Tracy Beaker

26. Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror

27. Tales of the Greek Heroes

28. The Lottie Project

29. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

30. Bad Girls

31. Glubbslyme

32. Graceling

33. Much Ado About Nothing

34. The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

35. Burning Up On Tour with the Jonas Brothers

36. Twilight Movie Companion

37. Crime Scene: The ultimate guide to forensic science

38. Tithe

39. Valiant

40 The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips

41. House of Secrets

42. Elsewhere

43. The Twilight Companion

44. Ironside

45. Clay

46. Where Rainbows End

47. A Place Called Here

48. If You Could See Me Now

49. 13 Little Blue Envelopes

50. Shadow Web

51. The Hunger Games

52. Parasite Positive

53. Stargirl

54. Vampirates of Demons of the Ocean

55. Before I Die

56. Charlie Eggleton's Talking Skull

57. Wings

58. The Garden
59. Marked
60. Betrayed
61. Untamed
62. Hunted
63. The Thief Lord
64. Wicked Lovely
65. A Company of Swans
66. On Writing
67. Everything Beautiful
68. Does My Head Look Big in This
69. Ink Exchange70. The Forest of Hands and Teeth
71. Chosen
72. Evermore
73. Poison by Chris Wooding
74. Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund
75. So You Think You Know Harry Potter
76. Mirror Mirror by Nancy Butcher
77. The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter by David Colbert
78. Prom Nights from Hell by Various including Stephenie Meyer
79. Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen by Dyan Sheldon
80. 1599 A Year in the Life of Shakespeare by James Shapiro
81. The Earth My Butt and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler
82. Capt. Hook by Hart Helquist
83. Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
84. Persopolis by Marjane Satrapi
85. Wendy by Karen Wallace
86. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Austen and Grahame-Smith
87. Secret Heart by David Almond
88. Jack Sparrow the Age of Bronze by Rob Kidd
89. Jack Sparrow the Sword of Cortes by Rob Kidd
90. Jack Sparrow Silver by Rob Kidd
91. Jack Sparrow City of Gold by Rob Kidd
92. Troll Trouble Goat Pie by Alan MacDonald
93. Troll Trouble Trolls United by Alan MacDonald
94. Troll Trouble Trolls Go Home by Alan MacDonald
95. Chelsea and Astra by Mary Hooper
96. A Midsummer Night's Dream by Andrew Matthews
97. Stage Struck by Stevie Silver
98. High School Musical 3
99. The Arctic Fox by Mary Ellis
100. Jeremy Strong The Hundred-Mile An-Hour Dog
101. The Pain and the Great One Soupy Saturdays by Judy Blume
102. The Midnight Library Blood and Sand by Nick Shadow
103. Sammy and the Starman by Anne Cassidy
104. The Magic Puppy Star of the Show by Sue Bentley
105. The Knowledge The Gobsmacking Galaxy by Kjartan Poskitt
106. The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
107. Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer
108. Juby's Rook by Michael Lawrence
109. Beware Princess Elizabeth by Carolyn Meyer
110. The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket
111. I, Coriander by Sally Gardner
112. Peter Pan in Scarlet Illustrated Edition by Geraldine McCaughrean
113. Oh My Goth
114. Best New Manga
115. Manga Shakespeare Hamlet
116. The Silver Sword
117. What a Week to Break Free
118. What a Week to Make it Big
119. Cub in the Cupboard
120. Guinea Pig in the Garage
121. Hamster in the Hamper
122. Vampire Academy (copy 2)
123. Charlotte's Web
124. Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
125. Vampire Academy Shadow Kiss
126. Vampire Academy Frostbite
127. Poison Study (copy 2)
128. Fire Study (copy 2)
129. Fallen
130. Beautiful Creatures
131 - 138 Hannah Montana Set

139 The Tide Knot

140 Gangsta Rap

141 Peeps

142-143 Time Traveller's Wife (two copies)

144 Looking for Alaska

145 13 Reasons Why

146 Tantalize

147 My Sister's Keeper

148 Vegan, Virgin, Valentine

149-159 Roman Mysteries (series of ten)

160 That Summer
161 Blood Promise (Vampire Academy 4)
162 Burned (House of Night 7)
163 Horror High: Toxic Beauty
164 Horror High: Killer Instinct
165 Ghost Hunters and the Mud-Dripping Monster!
166 Dream Master Nightmare
167 Bug Muldoon and the Killer in the Rain
168 James and the Giant Peach
169 Kiss of Death
170 The Courageous Cats Compete
171 Love, Shelley

172 Curse of the Blue Tattoo

173 Endymion Spring

174 Ghost Stories (HC)

175 Speak

176 Usborne Big Book of Puzzle Adventures

177 Ryland's Footsteps

178 Paper Towns

179 The Short Life of Bree Tanner (two copies)

180 Fire

(And 136 other books)

New Bulletin Board Outside SRR

Well this ought to get a few students' attention!

If you read Forest of Arden (like you are doing right now), you already know who Peta is.

Book Preview: Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

What if all your ex-girlfriends were vampires? Yikes!

Another one of the twenty amazing books that Peta sent us this week is Scott Westerfeld's Peeps. A lot of girls have enjoyed the Uglies trilogy so they will probably be interested in this one. Also, if you like vampire types of books, this sounds pretty good.

Westerfeld's book is another one on the Teen's Top Ten list, hitting #5 in 2006 - just after Harry Potter, Twilight, Eldest, and Libba Bray's Rebel Angels - all great and popular books! I've been looking forward to this one for a long time...

Here is the blurb:

Okay, let's clear up some myths about vampires. First of all, you won't see me using the V-word much, in the night watch, we prefer the term Parasite Positives, or Peeps for short.

The main thing to remember is that there's no magic involved. No flying. No transforming into bats or rats either. We're talking about a disease.

After a chance encounter with a mysterious woman one night, Cal Thompson's life is changed forever. He's been infected with an insidious parisite. The good news: he's only a carrier - still sane, without the worst of the symptoms. The bad news: he's infected all his former girlfriends - and now they've turned into what Cal calls peeps. The rest of us call them vampires. And it's Cal's job to hunt them down before they create even more of their kind...

Wow, doesn't that sound incredible? Hehe...you may need to wait for me to read this before it will hit the SRR.

Book Preview: Thirteen Reasons Why

There are thirteen reasons why your friend died. You are one of them.

This is another book sent by Peta this week and it sounds amazing, doesn't it? It's another book with a serious and dramatic edge to it I think, but the premise is very interesting.

Here is what it says on the blurb:

Clay Jensen returns home to find a strange package with his name on it. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker - his classmate and first love - who committed suicide two weeks earlier.

Hannah's voice explains there are thirteen reasons why she killed herself. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.

All through the night, Clay keeps listening - and what he discovers changes his life .... Forever.

Awesome. I feel a waitlist coming on. Yep, if you want to be the first girl to read this book you'll need to leave a comment in the comment section of this post!

Book Preview: Looking for Alaska

This book is one of the ones Peta sent us this week. Doesn't this sound great? Here is the blurb:

In the dark beside me, she smelled of sweet and sunshine and vanilla, and on that thin-mooned night I could see little more than her silhouette, but even in the dark, I could see her eyes – fierce emeralds. And not just beautiful, but hot too.

When Miles Halter leaves for boarding school, he goes to seek what dying poet Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps”. Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, self-destructive and dead sexy. Alaska pulls Miles into her labyrinth, catapulting him into an unimaginable future…

Vivid, passionate, intensely moving and shocking, this is a stunning debut novel by young American author John Green.

This book was a top ten book on the Teens' Top Ten list of 2005, placing third just behind Dessen's The Truth About Forever.

If you haven't heard of the Teens' Top Ten list, you need to check them out HERE. Every year 8,000 teenagers vote for the best books of the year and we have a lot of them in our collection now. If you read a teens' top ten book, you will probably love it - they are usually really good. You can see which ones we have in the SRR by going HERE.

More great books are on the way!

It has been a great day for the SRR!

Our book angel Peta has informed us that she pre-ordered two copies of Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3) which is due out August 24th. Yay! Thanks so much for your generosity Peta. So many girls are eagerly awaiting the third book and I can see the waitlist developing right away.

As well, Mary (one of our good friends from the USA) sent a package of books that have already established a big fan base at the school. We'll need these titles to help out with all the requests we teachers get on a daily basis! With almost 800 students using the SRR (I think) we need multiple copies of popular titles. Thanks so much Mary. The girls will really enjoy these books!

Here is a list of the awesome books that should arrive in the next two weeks - thanks to the incredible US postal service!

• Ahern's Rosie Dunn
• Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty
• Cast's Betrayed and Marked
• Meyer's New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn
• Picoult's My Sister's Keeper and Salem Falls
• Westerfeld's Uglies and Pretties
  

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Amazon review:
On her way home from school on a snowy December day, 14-year-old Susie Salmon is lured into a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case.

As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams", where "there were no teachers... We never had to go inside except for art class... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue".

The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow".

Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons, Amazon.com

This book is exquisitely disturbing. It isn't for most people and, in fact, it isn't the type of book that I would normally pick up except that one of the teachers in the staffroom highly recommended it.

I've never found mass murderers to be of much interest and the brutality at the beginning of the story was a bit too much for me. However, I liked the fresh point of view in the book. It was interesting to read the words of a dead narrator. You watch the story unfold from the narrator's perspective (often from heaven) and you get to see into the hearts and minds of all the people connected to her. It's also fascinating to see how the other characters relate to one another as well as the amazing description of Suzie's personal heaven. I'll say it again: it's interesting.

I liked Sebold's writing style and most of the time I felt drawn forward into the story, wanting more and wondering how it would all turn out. As I entered the last 100 pages I was eager to finish it and stayed up until 1 am to do so.

I'm not sure how other readers react to this book, but I found the end to be very sad and I had to fight back tears a few times. It is a rough ride for sure. From beginning to end, this book is a difficult read because of the heavy content. This is not young adult literature. I'm not even sure I can recommend it to you unless you've read other dramatic, tear-jerker type stories and enjoyed them. Can you handle the disturbing "horror movie" type of beginning? Can you handle reading a book about murder and death and mourning?

I was both disturbed and delighted by this one. I will recommend it to others like me who wouldn't normally read this type of story but are ready to try something a bit different and who can handle the heavy content.

4/5 Stars

Forest of Arden Contest

Would you like to win $20 in book vouchers for a local bookshop?

The Forest of Arden blog has been very quiet in the last few months so I thought I'd try to revive it.

If you are a booklover and you'd like to make a visit to the bookshop at the Mall during the holiday, perhaps you could use some book vouchers to help you out. It's always nice to be able to borrow books from the SRR, but nothing beats buying your own book from a bookstore and keeping it all to yourself. And there's nothing like opening up a book that has never been read before - or is it just me that really enjoys that?

Anyway, let's have a contest that will get students interested in reading the books we have in the SRR.

The contest rules are very simple:

1. You must be a student at Mr Jason's school.
2. The deadline for entries is June 2nd.
3. The draw will be made in 9A at 7:30 on June 3rd.
4. One prize of $20 in book vouchers will be given.
5. You must reply in the "comments" section of this post and include the following:

• full name
• class
• tell us about a book you've enjoyed recently

Good luck everyone!

Sophie Kinsella fans will love this...

Deborah, a really generous lady who lives in Greece, just sent us a big package full of beautiful hardcover books! Yay!

We all love to read hardcovers, don't we? It feels so nice to hold them in our hands and to turn those crisp pages. It's almost as good as....well, chocolate.

Thanks so much for your generosity Deborah!

Here are the books she sent us:
Sophie Kinsella's The Undomestic Goddess (hc)
Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic and Sister (hc)
Sophie Kinsella's Remember Me? (hc)
Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic Ties the Knot (sc)
Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees (sc)
McLaughlin's The Nanny Diaries (large, sc)
Toews' The Flying Troutmans (hc)

Let me know if anybody is keen on being the first one to read any of the books. Just leave me a note on the shoutmix on this page.

Netball Champions for Zone 1

Congratulations to our netball teams. Both teams took first place in the Zone 1 championships! Yay!

The senior team defeated the MD team and the junior team won over the Chung Hwa team in the finals.

A special congratulations to my students, Nina from 9A and Aimi 9F.

Well done girls!

Congratulations Girls!

Talk about girl power! :-)

Three former students from our school have been elected to the student council of MD.

Dinnah, Syafiqah, and Sakina have a lot in common. All three of them attended the BGIC last year. All of them were involved in public speaking (Dinnah even competed in the National Speech Competition) while Syafiqah and Sakina were both on the debate team.

And, of course, all three girls LOVE reading.

Congratulations girls! This is only the beginning...

Eclipse opens July 1st

Eclipse will open on June 30th in many theaters around the world and on July 1st it will open in Singapore. Let's hope that theaters here will start showing the movie around the same time.

I have a confession to make. I haven't seen New Moon yet. It was released at a busy time for me and, actually, I figured New Moon would be the most difficult to put on the big screen because the plot was fairly weak. I'll be sure to pick up a copy of New Moon shortly before Eclipse arrives.

However, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn will both be well worth watching.

Now would be a good time to re-read the saga, don't you think? You've got two months to read the first three books and be prepared for the movie release.

Let's see how things go, but wouldn't it be fun to plan a trip to see the movie?

Chocolate Heaven

What a great day! Thanks so much to everyone for making my birthday so special.

9A really surprised me. As I walked into the classroom they had Happy Birthday written on the board and they sang the birthday song. Then, on my desk, I found this cute hand-made tie with all the signatures of the girls on it as well as the cool caricature pictured here - isn't it great that he/I am carrying a big box of books! What a truly unique gift! You girls are so thoughtful. Thanks so much!

I was hit with the birthday song again in Lit class which was fun (and they finished class with it too). I always feel a bit uncomfortable getting that sort of attention, but it was nice. Thanks girls. BTW, wasn't that a great poem by Byron? Funny that it talks about getting old on a day like today. BTW, don't forget to read your poems again tonight!

Then, 9F continued the celebrations with another rendition of the birthday song and then I got buried in an avalanche of chocolate. Thank you so much girls for your generosity. I love chocolate! Did I mention that? ;-) Also, thanks for the sweet card you gave me. It was very heart-warming of you.

As well, the teachers in the English Department had a buffet lunch to celebrate. That was great too! I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm the luckiest teacher on earth! I work at the best school in the country and I have the most wonderful students ever. I really do feel so fortunate to be your teacher. I couldn't ask for a nicer group of students to work with!

I'd like to say a special thanks to Amal from Lit class who dropped off a delicious chocolate dessert from Le Apple (Yummy!) and to Aqilah for the chocolate cakes from Lof. I'm saving those for after I have my supper. Also, thanks to Hamidah in 9F for the incredible assortment of chocolate bars and to all the girls of 9F for the big bag of chocolates and candies.

I'm in CHOCOLATE HEAVEN!

If I Stay

This one is a hidden gem in the SRR. It has been there for quite a while now, but I'm not sure if anybody noticed it. This is another book on the Amazon Top Books of 2009 and another book that Steph Su loved and you can read her review HERE. Steph says, "I was in tears for the last third of this book."

Amazon Description:
'Just listen,' Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel. I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen. 'Stay,' he says.

For seventeen-year old Mia, surrounded by a wonderful family, friends and a gorgeous boyfriend, decisions seem tough, even whey they're all about a future full of music and love, a future that's brimming with hope. But life can change in an instant.

A cold February morning...a snowy road....and suddenly all of Mia's choices are gone. Except one. As alone as she''ll ever be, Mia must make the most difficult choice of all.

Haunting, heart-rending and ultmately life-affirming, If I Stay will make you appreciate all that you have, all that you've lost - and all that might be.

When you visit the SRR, you just don't know what you might find! This book sounds great.

Beautiful Creatures

One of the most popular books to hit the SRR this month is a book called Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. This is another amazing donation by our book angel Peta from the UK. Thanks Peta!

I've been wanting to get this book ever since I read the review by Steph Su which you can read HERE. Steph is one of the best book reviewers on the web and she loved Hunger Games and the Poison Study Series so if you enjoyed those books you'll probably enjoy Beautiful Creatures. Steph loved it and noted that it was one of the top books of 2009 in her November 3rd post.


Amazon Description:
In Ethan Wate’s hometown there lies the darkest of secrets . . . There is a girl. Slowly, she pulled the hood from her head. Green eyes, black hair. Lena Duchannes. There is a curse. On the Sixteenth Moon, the Sixteenth Year, the Book will take what it’s been promised. And no one can stop it. In the end, there is a grave. Lena and Ethan become bound together by a deep, powerful love. But Lena is cursed and on her sixteenth birthday, her fate will be decided. Ethan never even saw it coming.

Actually, this book doesn't have a blurb on the back. That makes me a bit crazy. I rely on blurbs to give me an idea of whether or not I will like a book. However, I think the fact the book has been so well received (and highly rated by Steph) means this is likely a good book.

Keep an eye out for it (or beg the girls in 5C/D classes to put you on their internal waitlist as the girls seem to be passing it around right now). I'll post a review once I get a chance to read it. :-)