Marker Remarks http://homepage.mac.com/klinkwink/blog/MarkerRemarksBlog.html What's a remarkable reading Marker to try next? Thoughts about reading, memorable characters, and our favorite books from the Nerinx Hall Librarian and her reading friends in the Nerinx Community. Please use the link below to add your comments and to suggest more books for us to read. Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:12:23 -0600 60 After Twilight? http://homepage.mac.com/klinkwink/blog/liv247498136.html What next after reading the Twilight books?






A group of school librarians from across the country listed books that they suggest to their students.
Ones at the top are titles you can borrow from the Nerinx Library.

Please add your recommendations to this list!!!

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
On the Head of a Pin by Mary Beth Miller
Singer of Souls by Adam Stemple
Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
Masquerade by Melissa de la Cruz
Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause
Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause
Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber
The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray (others in the same series)
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
A certain slant of light by Laura Whitcomb
Blue is for nightmares by Laaurie Faria Stolarz
Tantalize by Cyntia Leitech Smith
the Betrayed series by P. C. Cast
Bloodline by Kate Cary
Several titles by Amelia Atwater Rhodes
The Society of S by Susan Hubbard
Sunshine by Robin Mckinley
Thirsty by M. T. Anderson
Golden by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Sweetblood by Pete Hautman
Look for me by moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
Poison by Chris Wooding
Valiant by Holly Black
Jinx by Meg Cabot
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Beastly by Alex Flinn
Owl in Love by Patrice Kindl
Companions of the night by Vivian Vande Velde
]]> Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:28:56 -0600 A Fellow Just Like Him http://homepage.mac.com/klinkwink/blog/trb232302334.html
But they are no less real. They are with me all the time. As I go through my day I can imagine what they'd say about something, how they'd react to a situation, the real people I know whom they would like too.
I visit them whenever I need laughter of their presence or guidance from their approach to life. But the only way I can get back with them is to pick up the book that houses them and reread the story again. These friends are old and young, male and female, human and......not. Today's focus is the young men among them.

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Prove Yourself a Hero by K. M. Peyton
The world of steeplechase horse racing is where Peter's and Jonathan's lives intersect, but otherwise their stations in life are wide apart. Peter lives a hardscrapple life whereas Jonathan is the child of great wealth, a student at a posh private school.
So that day Peter thought it was luck when a plumbers' van pulled up alongside them and asked directions to the Meredith mansion. Jonathan climbed in to show them the way and Peter cycled on alone. Then that night the police came to interrogate Peter.
He felt appalled, trying to think what must have happened when Jonathan realized that he wasn't going home. Serious kidnappers, as he understood it, were pretty ruthless. Jonathan could hardly be enjoying himself at this moment. He pointed this out, coldly, to his father, and his father said, 'If the boy's worth his salt, he'll give them the slip.'
Peter thought this a stupid thing to say. 'If the kidnappers are worth their salt, they won't let him, surely?'
'Well, he's bold enough on a horse. He's not one of your ninny boys. I reckon he'll keep them on their toes.'
Peter decided, not for the first time, that he wasn't on the same wave-length as his father. What being bold on a horse had to do with evading kidnappers he did not follow. Jonathan might be bold on a horse because he knew horses backwards and didn't have anything to fear; but, horses apart, he was quite a sensitive lad and not much given to violence. Quite clever enough to appreciate the danger he was in. And imaginative enough not to enjoy it at all.

Peter McNair and Jonathan Meredith inhabit several of K.M. Peyton's books: The Team, Prove Yourself a Hero, A Midsummer's Night Death, and Free Rein. As memorable likable as they are, I esteem the author for even more than creating their characters. When it comes to describing willful horses and the challenges inherent in riding them, Peyton is an incomparable describer of the British horse racing scene.


Tex by S. E. Hinton
S.E. Hinton has a knack for creating memorable characters, particularly guys. There's Ponyboy, and Dallas, and Johnny, but the one I wish was real is Tex. Not only does he have a habit of talking to animals, he understands their replies. He is so happy-go-lucky, so trusting that everything will turn out OK that he is a natural daredevil. His mother is long dead, his father is gone for months at a time, but why should Tex worry when his big brother does all the worrying for him? But a parent would have told Tex that he would be judged alongside the people whose company he kept, that not every person who wanted his company was worthy of trust, and then maybe Tex would not have been looking down the barrel of a gun pointed straight at him.

The Kid from Tomkinsville by John R. Tunis
Before there was Rick Ankiel, before there was Tommy John's surgery, before there was Roy Hobbs of The Natural, there was a brilliant young pitcher who was the focus of three magnificent novels about baseball in the 1930s. Roy Tucker was a naive country boy whose talent threw him in among the tobacco-chewing, grizzled, worldly men of the Gashouse era of major league baseball. Roy had courage that kept him contending even when his pitching career was ended by a victory celebration gone too rowdy. Roy's creator, John R. Tunis, had a way with words that made it easy for a reader to lace on imaginary spikes and ride the bench alongside Roy's Brooklyn teammates as they battled the Giants and the Cardinals for the top spot in the National League.
These books are so well regarded that they remain in print decades later, but if you find that you like to reread these books seek a hardbound copies in a used bookstore.


]]> Mon, 12 May 2008 11:25:34 -0500 Great and Terrible Need to Read http://homepage.mac.com/klinkwink/blog/euy232056149.html I already knew what it meant to enjoy reading.

What she really taught me is that it is OK to not like a book that someone else thinks is great. Life's short so move on and find something else that is great.


192.jpg But finding the next really really great book is not easy.
Some people find it helpful to go straight to a best seller list or to look at a list of award-winning books.
Another way is to figure out exactly what was so appealing about that last great book you read and then try to find a book that has the same feature. So I propose to do that with a book many Nerinx people are currently reading.

A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY

by Libba Bray
This is the first book of a fascinating series that combines so many elements. Any one of those elements could lead you to another really good read. If one element was particularly intriguing for you, you might take a look at some of these books in the Nerinx Library:

Victorian / Edwardian ladies sow the seeds of change for women

The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Other Powers: the Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull by Barbara Goldsmith


It is set in a Girls' Boarding School
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Her life is threatened
Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams
Hard Truth by Nevada Barr

Danger follows her between the real world and a fantastic world
Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

She is destined to be a savior, but must discover the way herself.
Beauty by Robin McKinley
The Tower at Stony Wood by Patricia McKillip
Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt

Clever girls try to decipher the clues to a dangerous mystery
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The handsome one who disappears is aloof and she is uncertain of his motives.
An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

A secret society is behind many of the events
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Secret Society Girl by Diana Peterfruend

Have you read any other books to suggest for someone who really liked A Great and Terrible Beauty? Please use the comments button below! ]]> Fri, 09 May 2008 15:02:29 -0500