Book Fair Fun

      How can you not find great books when you spend 4 days walking around your own book fair.  I stand and read even as I talk to parents and students and I stack more books on my desk to buy; some for school and some for home.  Luckily, most will stay at school because my daughter's book case is literally cracking.   My son has a huge pile of books in the middle of his room to get rid of because he encountered a mouse family living in his room (oh, this story should really be saved for another post but..) well, the mouse peeked out from his bookshelf two books over from The Tale of Desperaux!  So you see why the smallest pile is the one for home. 

     Back to my book fair finds.  First I picked up from the summer reading table, Mick Harte was here (1995) by Barbara Park.  A parent reminisced about reading this one in school and how it affected him, so I had to check it out.  My favorite lines came just three paragraphs in: 

So this isn't the kind of book where you meet the main character and you get to like him real well and then he dies at the end. I hate those kind of books.  And besides I can't think of anything worse than using my brother's accident as the tear-jerking climax to some tragic story. I don't want to make you cry. I just want to tell you about Mick.

  What a great opening! Such honesty from a main character I can respect! 

For a little while I allowed my inner seven-year-old to roam through The Hidden World of Fairies (Wendy's Journal) with its maps of Pixie Hollow and glittery stardust wings. So many delicate flaps to peek into as Wendy writes about her discoveries in the land of the fairies. 

Next I picked up Confetti Girl (2009)by Diana Lopez-I thought this was going to be all great fun cover with no substance inside but it with a title heading like this:  Los amigos mejores son libros-Books are your best friends, I decided to give it a try.  I'm on the third chapter already!!  Lina Flores' dad is a bibliophile/English teacher so lots of references to books but he's hiding behind his books as Lina's mom died last year.  Her best friend, Vanessa, lives right next door and they both seem  like very likable characters so I expect to keep reading this through the afternoon as the book fair winds down.

I also read a few chapters of The Princess Plot (2005)by Kirsten Boie and The Girl Who Could Fly(2010) by Victoria Forester.  Both of these are more middle school reads so not for my students-how am I going to finish them before I pack up the book fair Monday morning??  What a problem!