Airports

I'm sitting in the Vienna airport, watching as dozens of snowplows busily clear paths for planes. In just over an hour, I will hopefully be boarding a flight back to England, my eighth in just fifteen days. I'm so thankful for air travel and the opportunities it presents.

I have also enjoyed my air travel recently as it has been a time when nothing but staring out the window could distract me from reading. I have been busy with teaching, keeping in touch, and traveling this year and have not had as much time to read as I typically do. This week, I finished a book and read two more! They were all young adult fiction which I read in part because they are books I can recommend to my students and in part because I truly love reading them! Leslie, when in the US, is a middle school librarian. We enjoyed sharing book recommendations this week and discussing our love for reading books in the young adult category.

I finished Wonderstruck, which much like Hugo Cabret was a fabulous adventure and quite the page turner. I read Kensuke's Kingdom, a sweet story about a boy lost at sea who lands on an island and is cared for by an old man who has made his life on the island. I'll be reading this story with my year 5s in the coming weeks and I decided to prepare myself!

The story I finished on the plane ride here was Princess Academy: A Palace of Stone. Princess Academy, I know, sounds about as corny as possible based on the title but it is a beautifully told story of hope, courage, friendship and the power to make changes in the world that resides in each of us. The characters Shannon Hale created in this Newbery Honor are ones you can't help but fall in love with. I read the book for several years as a read aloud to my fourth graders. Without fail, the boys would moan after hearing the title, but it wasn't long before they were sitting on the edge of their seats, begging for me to keep reading. So when I heard that Shannon Hale was writing a sequel, I was ecstatic! It was wonderful! She told a beautiful continuation of the characters without changing them or disillusioning the original story. When i finished it, i read every little extra at the end of the book, wanting to hold on to that wonderful feeling I had reading the final chapter. If you enjoy reading for happy endings, and love seeing the damsel in the story be the rescuer rather than the one sitting in distress, I highly recommend you check out Shannon Hale. I've enjoyed all her books that I've read especially Goose Girl and Book of a Thousand Days.

And now, thanks to a Kindle and wireless Internet at the Vienna airport, I'm about to start a new book, recommended by Leslie!

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