Teaser Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by “The Purple Booker.” Here are the rules if you want to play along:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The words used to describe it – despair, fear, anxiety, obsession – do so little to communicate it. Maybe we invented metaphor as a response to pain. Maybe we needed to give shape to the opaque, deep-down pain that evades both sense and senses.

~ Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

It has taken me a while to get into this book, not because it isn’t good, but because of the reading slump I’ve been in for the past several months. Getting over that now, because this book is pretty remarkable.

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by “The Broke and the Bookish,” which still remains one of my favorite blog titles. Each week, a new topic is introduced and bloggers add their top ten lists accordingly. This week’s topic:

 Top Ten Books I Want My Future Children to Read

Well, I already have children, so this will be both hypothetical and true to life. And if my kids have already outgrown these books, which they probably already have in some cases, then I will foist them on my grandkids, if I ever have any. Most of these books are special to me because they helped shape my own childhood. The rest are just awesome.

1. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling – I mean, come on. Every human should read those books, even if just to be aware of their cultural impact. Both of my kids have read these, so I feel like I’m doing good parenting-wise, at least in that respect.

2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle – This was one of my favorite books as a kid, and was probably part of what made me such a big fantasy/sci-if fan as an adult. It’s a perfect blend of the two and draws you in. The whole series is great, but there’s something about that first one that is special.

3. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White -When I was a kid, this book was my jam! I think it was one of the first books I owned that I needed multiple copies because they kept falling apart because I read it so much.

4. The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White – Giving E.B. White all the love on this post. I can’t help it – he was a big part of my childhood. While most people have at least heard of Charlotte’s Web, I don’t know if this one gets as much attention. it should. It’s a beautiful book.

5. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell – The first book that made me cry. This is another beautiful story, full of discoveries, bravery and the resilience of the human spirit. So good!

6. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis – I know that I should have all of the Narnia books on this list, but I have special feelings for this one. My 3rd grade teacher read it out loud to our class, a chapter a day, and we were completely enthralled. Best part of our day. And if it leads kids to read the other books, that’s just icing on the cake.

7. The Fear Street series by R.L. Stein – I loved these books as a kid. Definitely for an older audience than the Goosebumps books are (and I never got into those), Fear Street was my introduction to spooky, scary stories that loved to play with your mind. So much fun!

8. The Whitney Cousins series by Jean Thesman – This series is about three cousins and how their lives intersect. The characters are fun, but they also deal with some heavy issues, which I think I important for kids to read.

9.  Any book by John Green – Moving on to the teenage years. I absolutely adore John Green and feel like his books would have really impacted me if I had read them as a teen instead of as an adult. His characters are engaging and complex and he doesn’t shy away from difficult topics.

10. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell – Another book for a teen audience, this book is amazing. It both inspired me and completely destroyed me. In a good way, of course.

There is my Top Ten list for this week! Please share your list in comments so I can check it out!

Categories: Teaser Tuesday, Top Ten Tuesdays

Tags: books, teaser tuesday, top ten tuesday