Censorship is still more of a problem than many people realize. In order to do my part in helping bring attention to this problem, and to catch up on some of books I need to review, I have decided to do a bunch of posts this week — all on books that are likely to be challenged/banned. For more information about Banned Books Week, check out the official BBW website @ http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/ … Or for more information about what Capital Region libraries are doing for BBW, check out the articles @ http://www.examiner.com/young-adult-fiction-in-albany/jennifer-mcintosh
Happy Reading!
The moment I saw the cover of this book, I knew two things:
People often wonder if their lives would have been different if they had changed some tiny, seemingly insignificant, part of their daily routine somewhere along the line. Most people are left to wonder, but Samantha Kingston gets to find out for herself!
For those of you who didn’t get enough haiku writing time during our 2010 contest in April (National Poetry Month), there is an awesome contest on Eric Luper’s blog! Yeah, I wrote one… And you should too! You can win some really cool prizes, including a new iPod Shuffle, an iTunes gift card, and your choice of a signed copy of the hardcover, paperback, or Playaway version of 
I often wonder, as I listen to an audiobook, whether the author ever finds anything “wrong” or “missing” when they listen to spoken interpretation of their text. I guess Mitch Albom didn’t have to worry about that, though, since he WAS the narrator of his book! (I didn’t even realize this until I got to the end of the book and there was an author interview… So much for paying attention to details when I pick up an audiobook!) Anyhow. I think Mitch’s reading was very well done. The pacing was great and the voices were always distinct. Sometimes, I have a hard time understanding a narrator when they add an extra gruffness or accent, but this audiobook was nothing but smooth sailing. Enough about the narration, though. I should say a little about the story.
Simone is 16-years-old, and she is not exactly your typical teenager. She wakes up early to volunteer for the ACLU on Saturday mornings, gets along really well with her younger brother, and has an incredibly good/open relationship with her parents. As a result of this open relationship, Simone has always known that she was adopted. She has never been curious to know anything about her birth mother, Rivka, although her adoptive parents have made it perfectly clear that Rivkah has stayed in touch with them throughout the years. To put it plainly, Simone is content with the family she knows and loves. When her parents start to pressure her about making contact with Rivkah, though, she realizes that it may be easier to just get it over with. Needless to say, Simone’s pre-conceived notions are completely torn apart, and Rivkah ends up becoming an important part in her life. That short summary doesn’t seem to be nearly enough to warrant an entire book, but that’s only because there is so much more that I can’t tell you about without spoiling the whole plot… Trust me when I say that this book is awesome! It’s not just a story for kids who have been adopted; it’s a great story about one teenager’s struggle to define family, friendship, love and faith…
I have been meaning to read the book or watch the movie for quite some time now, so I finally took out the audiobook. I have been a “tree hugger” for quite some time now, so it didn’t exactly have to convince me of the need to “go green” or the fact that humans contribute a lot to global warming. Still, some of the facts and statistics were rather staggering. If you get nothing else from this book, at least you can come away with some tips to cut down on your own energy use in order to save money.
