I dare you NOT to read this

Hopefully you'll get the irony in Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading by Tommy Greenwald. What lengths would you go to NOT to read all the way through middle school? (I guess that's a trick question, since you're reading this, right?) Charlie Joe thought he had it figured out: he could pay one of his buddies with ice cream sandwiches to read Charlie Joe's assignments and then give him a quickie summary. And it worked!...for a while, and then he got caught. But now the big "Position Paper" is coming up, so Charlie Joe has to come up with a new plan. He'll let you in on his ideas, the school cliques and crushes, and typical middle school thinking; sprinkled throughout the book are Charlie Joe's Tips, such as "It's easy to convince others that you do in fact read, even if do in fact don't. (Use the word therefore a lot.)" I dare you NOT to read this, and I double dare you NOT to laugh. :)

A book for book lovers

Since school is out, I thought I'd tackle a longer book, and this one was definitely worth the effort. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke is a wonderful story, but it's especially enjoyable if the reader loves not just books, but the whole reading experience. The main character is Meggie; she loves to read, and her father Mo is a book-binder. A mysterious stranger named Dustfinger appears; first, he gives Mo a warning, but then he betrays Mo and takes him to the village of the incredibly evil Capricorn. Meggie learns that nine years ago, while Mo was reading out loud to Meggie's mother, he read some characters out of a book and brought them to life, while sending Meggie's mother into the same book. Capricorn, one of these characters, now wants Mo to read someone (or is it something?) else out of the book...the terrifying "Shadow." Each chapter begins with a quote from another book that gives an idea of what to expect. These were great, but my favorite quote was from Inkheart itself. Meggie learns that she may have the same gift as her father, and she was getting ready to read aloud something of great importance: "Every letter, she thought, every single letter matters! Let the words echo, ring out, whisper and rustle and roll like thunder."