Best of 2011 blog hop

Inspired Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not a Writer is hosting this blog hop.

My Best of 2011 giveaway is an ARC of the recently released Legend by Marie Lu

Published: November 29, 2011 by Putnam
Pages: 305
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: Young Adult

Goodreads summary:

What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic's wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic's highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.

From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths - until the day June's brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family's survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias's death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.

All you have to do is complete one or more of the following tasks on Rafflecopter and you're entered to win.

US entries only please!
You must be at least 13 to enter.

Attention: For those of you who don't know, Rafflecopter has recently changed its entering procedure. You're required to sign in via Facebook, or your name and email BEFORE you start adding entries. I will not add entries for you via comments if you do not follow the Rafflecopter instructions.

Don't forget to check out all the other blogs in the hop here 
And also check out my other two giveaways going on right now:
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution by Michelle Moran

In My Mailbox (56)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren. The books you share do not have to be ones you actually received in the mail. They can be ones you bought at the book store, checked out at the library, or downloaded to your e-reader. The idea is just to share what's on your TBR pile for the upcoming week.

I guess there's no better day to do your very first IMM vlog than on Christmas day, right? I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year!

 
Books mentioned:

Gift:
Letters to a Young Pug by Wilson the Pug and Nancy Levine

For Review:
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Bought with Scholastic bonus points:
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney
The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army/Navy Game by John Feinstein
Restoring Harmony by Joelle Anthony
Phantoms in the Snow by Kathleen Benner Duble

From the library:
A Bad Kitty Christmas by Nick Bruel
Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes
All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon and Marla Frazee
Wag! and Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell
Yes Day! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Litchtenheld
Along a Long Road by Frank Viva
How to Talk to an Autistic Kid by Daniel Stefanski
The Cat's Pajamas by Wallace Edwards
A Pet for Petunia and Hugs from Pearl by Paul Schmid
World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky, illustrated by Frank Stockton

Did you get any good books under your tree or in your mailbox?

Glühwein: Bringing a little bit of Germany to my Christmas Eve

When my husband and I were living in Germany, one of the things we loved to do around the holidays was visit all of the different Christmas markets and soak in the ambiance of Christmastime in Europe.

My favorite part of the Christmas markets was the vendors selling Glühwein, or what we know as mulled wine. As much as I hate the cold, sipping warm Glühwein as you hold the warm, steaming mug to your cold hands is enough to turn the heart of any Scrooge.

When we returned home to the U.S. back in 2005, one of the traditions I wish we could have continued was visiting Christmas markets. Since we don't have any authentic German Christmas markets nearby (there's one in Chicago that we're definitely going to have to visit one of these days), I'll just have to settle for making my own Glühwein, which I do every Christmas Eve when our family comes over for dinner.

Everyone who comes over loves this warm, comforting liquid, but no one loves it more than me, as it is steeped in warm memories and nostalgic longing.

As I write this post, I have my crock pot, all of my souvenir mugs from Germany, and all the ingredients standing by for me to make later. I can taste its sweet warmth even now.

I can look at each mug and be transported back to that particular Christmas market. I remember each and every one: Rothenburg, Munich, Nuremberg, and Schweinfurt. All of them were similar, and yet they each had something special about them because each town square provides a unique backdrop to give them their own individual ambiance.

Looking at these mugs automatically brings me back to all of these different Christmas markets

My favorite souvenir mug: a boot from the 2004 Nuremberg Christmas market

Glühwein

1 bottle red wine (whatever you like)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
10 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
juice of 1 orange
rind of 1 orange

Bring water, sugar, and cinnamon stick to boil until sugar is dissolved. Reduce heat to a simmer and add in OJ. Poke cloves through orange rind and add along with wine. Keep warm in a crockpot on low. Keep it going all day and it will make your house smell wonderful, or in my case, bring you right back to Germany.

2004 Nuremberg Christmas market

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday that includes something warm and comforting to drink! :)

Audiobook Review: Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

High school senior and science geek Kate Malone dreams of attending MIT. In fact, she is so confident that she'll be accepted that she didn't bother to apply to any other colleges. While her friends and even her boyfriend are getting accepted to Ivy-League colleges, Kate waits with bated breath for her own acceptance letter.

As the straight-laced daughter of a minister, Kate frequently finds herself grappling with two different sides to her personality. There's in-control Kate: the girl who is always taking care of others  (namely her little brother who has severe asthma) and keeping her family together, then there's the Kate that is one more crisis away from a breakdown.

And suddenly, crises abound for Kate. When a fire at her neighbors' house leaves them with nowhere to go, her do-gooder father offers to let them stay at the Malones' house - in Kate's bedroom. This wouldn't be a problem for her if it weren't for the fact that her neighbor Teri Litch is her arch-nemesis. With her future looming in the balance, will Kate be able to hold it together long enough to make it to graduation and then MIT in the fall?

I adore Laurie Halse Anderson. She is one of my favorite authors of all time. She is a rock star. When I met her at NCTE and got my picture taken with her, I was starstruck.

Catalyst was a solid, quiet novel, that delivered Anderson's consistent, to-the-point writing style. But it didn't knock my socks off the way books like Speak and Wintergirls did. Did I still like it? Most definitely. It's just not a book that will linger in my mind long after I finish reading the way her other books did.

The audiobook was narrated by Samantha Mathis and her performance was convincing as the voice of Kate. Her clean style of narrating worked quite well in concert with Anderson's no-nonsense style of writing.

Final thoughts: While not my favorite book of hers, Anderson writes a solid, consistent narrative that I highly recommend as an audio listen.

Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson
Audiobook Narrator: Samantha Mathis
Published: September 2001 
Publisher: Speak and Listening Library
Pages: 232
Audiobook Length: 6 hours, 1 minute
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
 

In My Mailbox (55)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren. The books you share do not have to be ones you actually received in the mail. They can be ones you bought at the book store, checked out at the library, or downloaded to your e-reader. The idea is just to share what's on your TBR pile for the upcoming week.

Won:
 
The Book of Holiday Awesome by Neil Pasricha
Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen by Donia Bijan

 
Steve Jobs: A Biography by Walter Isaacson (audiobook)

Purchased:
 
Water Balloon by Audrey Vernick
She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story by Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Don Tate
Audrey is going to be Skyping with my class in January so I wanted to make sure I have all her books so they can fully appreciate the body of her work.

The LOUD Book! by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Renata Liwska
Some of my students created a Loud Book after I read them The Quiet Book. They had no idea that Deborah had already made a Loud Book herself (which was immediately my idea after I read The Quiet Book  and before I even knew that there would be a Loud Book. Glad to know I share the same brilliant ideas as picture book authors :p) So I figured I'd read them her Loud Book so they could compare theirs to hers.

Library Loot:
 
Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku by Lee Wardlaw, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin
Eli, No! by Katie Kirk

Cupcake by Charise Mericle Harper
The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes by Mark Pett, illustrated by Gary Rubinstein

 
Bone Dog by Eric Rohmann
M is for Mitten: A Michigan Alphabet written by Annie Appleford, poems by Kethy-jo Wargin, illustrated by Michael G. Monroe

 
I Broke My Trunk! by Mo Willems
The Incredible Life of Balto by Meghan McCarthy

The Secret Life of a Snowflake by Kenneth Libbrecht
World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky, illustrated by Frank Stockton

My first classroom Skype visit

Over the summer, my husband and I took a trip to Europe and on my last night there (my husband stayed behind for work) we stayed with Lenore Appelhans and her husband Daniel Jennewein. If you don't follow Lenore's awesome blog, you might not already know that Daniel is a very talented children's book illustrator having illustrated a pair of books written by Audrey Vernick:

A few weeks ago I asked Daniel if he'd be willing to Skype with my 6th graders because, well, even though they're in 6th grade, they love picture books too.

So today was our Skype visit, and other than the first few moments of frustration where my Smartboard speakers wouldn't work, the rest of our visit went swimmingly. Thank you so much Daniel! The kids and I had an awesome time!

 

 

The pictures Daniel drew for my students - taken from their suggestions:

Elephant on a unicycle

A toucan skiing

A frog in a straw hat and Hawaiian shirt eating bacon

If you're a teacher and you've never done a Skype visit before, I highly recommend it. Not only was it educational, but it was a blast for the kids too.  I will definitely be doing more in the future!

ARC giveaway: Fever by Lauren DeStefano

How many of you are dying to read the second installment of Lauren DeStefano's Chemical Garden trilogy? I just finished this book yesterday and I thought it only fair that I share the wealth by letting one lucky winner receive my copy of Fever. Check out my review here.

I have to warn you, if you like pristine copies, this one is a bit more than gently used. The front cover is a bit beat up, but if all you care about is reading the book, then enter to your heart's content.

Fever by Lauren DeStefano
Expected Publication: February 21, 2012
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: Dystopia
Audience: Young Adult
Format: ARC (albeit, a bit beat up)


Goodreads summary:
 Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but danger is never far behind.

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary. 

To enter, do the Rafflecopter thing: