Review: Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age

Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age by Suzie Boss; Jane Krauss

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


You think you know project-based learning until you read this book. This book was a great review of what you already knew and really made you think about the details of a great project. A lot of planning goes into a fantastic project and it pays off with the quality of the kids work. Reinventing Project-Based Learning will get you started if you are new to project-based learning, brush you up if you are rusty, or help you fine-tune your projects. You really can't go wrong no matter what stage you are at with project-based learning. I heartily recommend it!



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Review: White Apples

White Apples by Jonathan Carroll

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book! Vincent is a character that I didn't really like at the beginning of the story. He is a smooth operator with the women - but he really seems to love them all in the moment. Vincent is divorced with two children. He left his wife for his great love Isabelle. Isabelle disappears soon after Vincent leaves his wife and he is bewildered. The story is woven around Vincent losing his life and coming back. Then he is reunited with Isabelle and things just get more and more surreal.

This author is compared with Phillip K. Dick and Neil Gaiman. If you like science fiction on the very edge of believability, you will enjoy Carroll. I will definitely be looking up more of Jonathan Carroll's work.

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Review: Somebody Else's Daughter

Somebody Else's Daughter by Elizabeth Brundage

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


First, I would like to say that I think Elizabeth Brundage is an excellent writer. The story was riveting and I was thoroughly engrossed. I could hardly put it down.

Now my complaint - I had a problem with the beginning and ending of the story. At the beginning, I was very confused about which child was the adopted girl. I think so many characters were introduced so quickly that it took me a bit of time to figure them all out. Also, the story ended very quickly. I didn't think that Willa would have gone with Heath after what he had done to her. I also didn't think that Jack and Nate would have found her so quickly. After such a riveting tale, the ending seemed implausible. When a story ends so quickly, I tend to think the editor said, "shorten the book by fifteen pages".

All in all, Brundage's excellent writing overcomes the small shortfalls of the storyline. I definitely recommend this book.



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Review: Mid-century Modern Dinnerware: A Pictorial Guide, Redwing to Winfield

Mid-century Modern Dinnerware: A Pictorial Guide, Redwing to Winfield by Michael E. Pratt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Excellent reference for Mid-Century Dinnerware. Read and re-read many times.



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Review: Mid-Century Modern Dinnerware

Mid-Century Modern Dinnerware by Michael Pratt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Excellent resource for Mid-Century Dinnerware.



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The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

The Story Sisters: A Novel by Alice Hoffman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Story Sisters was so dark that I considered putting it down. Alice Hoffman is such an excellent writer that I was transfixed as much as I was repulsed.

The three Story sisters are so close that they invent their own world as youngsters. They have their own language and their mother feels quite left out. After a tragic event effects Elv and Claire as young girls, they grow inseparable and the third sister, Meg, feels more and more left out. Elv and Claire tell no one what happened and Elv's sense of reality blurs. Claire feels responsible but keeps Elv's secret. Elv looks for relief from her pain in sex and drugs and spirals out of control.

As you read the story, you realize that things are often not what they seem. The kid you see on the street corner, the kid that alienates himself from his family, the anti-social kid on the playground may have a reason for having changed so drastically from the kid he was a few years before. This is a difficult story to read but worth sticking with it until the end.

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Reader's Digest's Quotable Quotes

Quotable Quotes by Reader's Digest Association

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Need a quote for card? An inspiration for a bulletin board? Something to spice up your blog? Quoteable Quotes is a great little reference book. And, as the editors note - they beg to be repeated. Read, enjoy...and repeat!



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