Summer Reading Spectacular #19

Well, I thought that, with Labour Day coming up, I should quickly summarize the remaining books which I've finished since returning from my holiday. I'll be upfront about the fact that it's not much, having found myself largely occupied with other pursuits.

On the way back from Lake Huron, I finished listening to Room One by Andrew Clements. This was the first time I listened to a book rather than reading it, and the experience was interesting. Being very visual, I'm not sure that I really should listen to books for long periods while driving, as I find myself picturing the scenes with quite a bit of detail, making me wonder how much of my ocular input is making it to my brain. Obviously a fair amount must be getting there as I did not careen off the road and into a ditch, nor did I rear-end anyone at any point. Still... I also missed the interaction that one has with the printed word, being able to pace, loop and reread, or savour the text at will. The guy reading on the CDs was good at what he did, but I found his "character voices", particularly that of a teenaged Texan girl, a bit grating at first.

But about the book itself, it was alright. I quite like Andrew Clements on the whole, though I feel that he's started grinding out books a bit quickly following the deserved success of Frindle. One of my biggest beefs with Room One was the tendency to overdo the "thinking processes" of its protagonist. Readers, even young readers, are more sophisticated than authors sometimes give them credit for being, and having a writer give a step-by-step, blow-by-blow rundown of every moment in a character's realization of soemething can just be irritating. After all, we often make those realizations in a whirling rush of understanding, not as discreet steps laid out like a mathematical formula. The book's prosocial content was appreciated, though a bit rosey, at times, for me.

I've also read Bone: Volume 4 - The Dragonslayer and Bone: Volume 5 - Rock Jaw: Master of the Eastern Border and will comment after reading all that I've got (now up to Volume 8).

I finished reading the Kidnapped trilogy and enjoyed it well enough for the light adventure for kids that it is. There are, as is to be expected, some rather far-fetched moments and certainly a twist seen a mile off (though I suspect that, were I reading it aloud to a group of kids, at least a few would gasp at the revelation, so the target audience excuses the seeming transparency). As a rule, Gordon Korman knows who his audience is and gives them what they'll enjoy.

Finally, as of this moment, I read another book for kids, Dear Dumb Diary, Let's Pretend This Never Happened (the first in the Dear Dumb Diary series. I read it because I know of some kids who have enjoyed it. Let's be honest; it's nothing special. More middle-school shenanigans written quickly and predictably, overall. Slightly more mean-spirited, perhaps, than Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but I suppose that's to be expected from Jim Benton, creator of that stupid Happy Bunny nonsense.

I sort of have an inkling that I'm missing something that I've read in there, but until I stumble upon a book in my house and think, "Oh yeah! I'd forgotten about that!" I guess I'll have to leave it be.

I'm in the midst of several other reading projects (A Crime in the Neighbourhood, Through Painted Deserts, Watchmen, Interworld, the next Bone book... And will have to decide whether: (a) summer ends with Labour Day, meaning the end of Summer Reading Spectaculars as well; (b) summer ends with the advent of Autumn around September 21; or (c) whether I should just drive Sonya nuts by continuing to log my reading regardless of season. Hmmmmm. Decisions, decisions...