Hilary McKay Casson series -

Indigo's Star
This is one of those books that could easily be tagged as "family", but it 's really so much more. The Casson family, in between their messiness and their obvious love for each other, have to deal with a lot of stuff. It's unusual in a a book geared for this age to find characters and situations that treat the audience as full participants in the story, but this one really does. I've read 3 of the 4 books in the series, and while I'm eager to read the last installment, I'm going to wait for a bit. It's not just that I don't want it to end . . . it's more that I want to savor this series. I really like living in their world, and I just want it to last a bit longer.

Summer Reading . . .

Well, I've had a very full summer . . . a bit of sailing . . . cooking/shopping at Farmer's Markets . . . watching far too much reality TV (especially ABDC & Project Runway),and in between all these distractions, I've been reading a bunch of books!

One of my top summer reads is

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart.

It was one of those books that got great reviews that I never read, until Sophie, my 7th grade daughter said that I should. I wasn't quite convinced, yet. Then at some point, I picked it up and just couldn't stop! What did I like about it? Certainly the plot is entertaining - a girl in a private school discovers a secret male society that she is determined to infiltrate, but it's more than that. I appreciated her cunning, certainly, but I also loved not only her voice, but the interplay between the various charecters. It also made me think about political protest in a ways that were playful, dramatic, thoughtful and just plain fun! A good read on many different levels