foxy and badger.

Gerald Seymour’s A Deniable Death is a must-read for lovers of thrillers. In this novel, British intelligence is trying to take out an Iranian genius in developing IEDs (a.k.a. improvised explosive devices) whose efforts have resulted in hundreds of casualties. A two-man team, Foxy and Badger, travel from the marshes of southern Iraq across the border into Iran to discover when the target will travel overseas with his wife so she can have surgery for a brain tumor. The team plants listening devices that they monitor while hidden in Ghillie suits in the swamp around his home. Our protagonists, Foxy and Badger are highly professional and experienced covert observation specialists, but when the information turns out to be elusive and the tension between the two watchers grows as each day in the marshes becomes longer, hotter, and more dangerous.

Seymour has created a truly excellent plot here, with an attention to detail that must have taken a huge amount of research. You just have to respect that.

english teaching lovers only.

I have been a huge fan of Cris Tovani since I decided I wanted to become a teacher. I’ve read her numerous books on engaging students in reading and helping them respond to literature more effectively. Many of her strategies have been used during my first year of teaching. So you can imagine how ecstatic I was to receive her latest DVD Talk to Me which comes with a very helpful viewing guide on CD-ROM.

Tovani’s main focus in this DVD is to show how she uses conferring (or conferencing) mostly one-on-one with students, and monitors their progress while they read books of their choice. Tovani plans her lessons so that after her classes read a required text they spend three weeks working on “free choice” readings. She brings up the idea that these required novels teachers must get through every year typically focus around literary elements rather than the other important aspects of reading like fluency, stamina, comprehension and vocabulary. She made an interesting point. I focus primarily on literary elements in my 9th grade class because they will need to be able to remember them for the Regents exam in 11th grade. I don’t have much time to sit down with each student and track data like comprehension, fluency and stamina while reading.

When Tovani confers with students throughout a reading workshop she is able to track their progress by asking them questions, but mostly letting her students do the talking and telling her what they need. She takes the time to help students find choice texts that fit their needs, especially for lower level and higher level readers. Tovani also includes a letter writing workshop she completed with her 11th graders where they worked on figuring out how to write for their specific audience. She gave students models of letters to look deeper into what writers do and how they grab the reader’s attention.

Tovani’s goal is to ensure that her students are getting smarter every day. She is looking for students to construct personal meaning for themselves while they read. Look deeper into a text more naturally, relate to themselves to the characters, etc. She wants them to learn to write for themselves and read for themselves, not for her. Tovani makes her students more responsible for their learning, which is what we need to do at the secondary level. There is so much more that this DVD has to offer that I haven’t even touched on in this review. I highly recommend it for the English teacher looking to engage every student in reading and writing.

more like an encyclopedia.

Make room in your shelves for this next title people, because it's magnitude of information and size reaches Encyclopedia heights. A Light In The Darkness Vol. 1: Seven Messages to the Church by Rick Renner is a volume that speaks volumes (just being funny, don't mind me).

Light includes wonderful photography that helps make Biblical places come to life during your study. There is a focus on the opening chapters of the Book of Revelation, offering fascinating insights into the apostle John's vision on the island of Patmos. Renner also explores the people and cultures of the First Century Church, with an emphasis on the cities of Ephesus and Smyrna.

Remember, this is a Bible study book, so only those who are interested in a truly historical based study of the Bible will benefit from Renner's 552 pages of hard work. If this applies to you then you will be anxiously waiting for Renner's next volumes as the first only goes through Smyrna. There has yet to be a book in the Christian community that compares to the study and presentation of this matter.

***For a chance to win a FREE copy, follow this blog then email your name, address, and this book title to: jenileerose@yahoo.com!

another old school jodi picoult.

While on my vacation to Myrtle Beach last week (I returned Tuesday night to a snowy Western New York and I have to say, I am not pleased) I read Jodi Picoult's The Pact. I chose it because it was the only Jodi Picoult book that I hadn't read in a mass paperback because I am super cheap. I desperately needed a book to take me away while I laid in the sun for an ungodly amount of hours, and Picoult always has my back on that.

(when it got a little too cold, but I still couldn't pull myself away from the sun)

The Pact revolved around the Harte and the Gold families, who have been pretty much inseparable since Augusta (Gus) Harte barged into Melanie Gold's house the day she and her husband, Michael moved in next door. The two young women were pregnant at the very same time. Gus was as big as a house while Melanie had just started to show. And they just connected. Gus gave birth to Christopher, and Melanie gave birth to Emily a few months later which led to the children becoming inseparable as well. A kind of relationship that twins have, although Em and Chris were not actually blood related, which was good because they fell in love as teenagers. Something their parents had always wished for.

Everything was going according to plan, and it was a lovely plan until it completely unravelled with two late night phone calls. Seventeen-year old's Em and Chris had been injured, and as it turned out, they had a plan of their own. To commit suicide together. A suicide pact that turned every one's worlds upside down when Em completed her end of the deal and Chris was unable to make it that far. So here we are with one teenager dead and the other alive talking about a suicide pact that went amiss. The idea of two extremely intelligent and gifted seniors about to begin applying to colleges being involved in a suicide pact was unfathomable to everyone. This was when the idea that a Romeo and Juliet double suicide made a very convincing cover up, for murder.

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love this message.

Cake by Joyce Magnin is a delicious little novel about a twelve-year-old foster kid named Wilma Sue who seems destined to spend her life hopping from foster home to foster home. It is not as depressing as it sounds, really. Some have called Cake a touch of Mary Poppins with a dash of Anne of Green Gables, and I have to say, I agree.

When Wilma Sue moves in with sisters Ruth and Naomi, she tries desperately to fit in and make this her permanent home. Everyone knows that when you try too hard to perfect, you usually make a mess, and our Wilma Sue did just that. When she discovers that the cakes Ruth and Naomi bake for the needy are filled with more than just frosting, she attempts to make her own for a new friend, with disastrous results. Magnin shares very thoughtful messages on love, compassion and forgiveness, that every middle school kid should see.


***For a chance to win a FREE copy, follow this blog then email your name, address, and this book title to: jenileerose@yahoo.com!

a different type of memoir.

The only appropriate way to begin a book titled, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, is with a cocktail. I had just emptied my dresser drawer stash of Christmas booze so I had to pick up a brand new bottle of Three Olives Cherry vodka for the occasion. Darn.

Alexandra Fuller's latest memoir, which acts as a bit of an extension of her Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, retells the the story of her childhood in Africa. Cocktail doesn't focus as much on Fuller as it does her high-spirited mother, which was a nice twist from her first book. It is an educational and insightful documentation of her parents living and struggling in Kenya and Rhodesia during modern times. I enjoyed Fuller's lack of bias the most. She balanced affection for her parents while also showing the implications of their choices. There was no romanticizing the era of British control in Africa. Fuller describes the violence of late 20th-century Kenya and Zimbabwe in a way that felt fair and accurate.