The Classics Club.

I'm excited to announce my participation in The Classics Club.

You might think I'm crazy-that this is another challenge. And while I might be crazy, and yes, this is another challenge of sorts, it fits in perfectly with my current and long-term goals.

The basic premise of the club is to bring together Classics Bloggers-as well as inspiring others to add a few classics to their book diet.

Each blogger can create their own goal for reading, as well as a timeline for accomplishing the goal.

Since switching over to reading primarily classics in September 2009, I have come to love this new focus in reading. I am always inspired by what I am reading, and I am curious to see what else is out there I haven't read yet. Because of that, I will always be reading the classics. While I do think I will allow myself to read more things outside of my classics focus once I finish my 250 list, I always want to be pursuing literature.

With that in mind, I created a Classics Club Page for my blog to explain my goal and list the books I want to get to. I am not setting a timeline for myself because that's just too much pressure. Rather, I am seeing my involvement in this project as a lifetime desire and commitment. So, on the page, you'll see a very, very long list of books. 450 of them to be exact. They include the 114 titles I have yet to finish from my own 250 project, as well as many new titles and rereads. And before anyone asks, I will be working on those 114 before I tackle the rest.

Anyway, I hope you'll visit the new page and see what books I'm going to be reading in my future. I also hope you'll consider signing up. You can decide to read 10 classics in 5 years! You can do it! :)

Let me know if you're participating!

Thoughts on The Girl Who Was on Fire edited by Leah Wilson.

*If you haven't read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, please don't read this post, as there will be spoilers*

I feel a lot of pressure to make my unit on The Hunger Games the best unit ever. There is so much that I can discuss with this book that I feel like I have to do it all! Last week, I asked you for some suggestions for the unit, and your comments were amazing. I am definitely mulling them all over as I plan out my unit. A couple of you suggested I read The Girl Who Was On Fire as a place to gather some ideas about the novel. I actually bought a copy at a Border's sale over the summer, so my copy was already on my nightstand as a resource.

I wasn't sure what to think going into this book. Basically, the book is a collection of essays by various authors on different aspects of the series. I was hoping to walk away with one or two essays to share with my class, but I ended up with a LOT of information about the series in general!

The essays were diverse enough to keep my attention the whole way through the collection. I thought I would be bored of reading about the series by the third essay, but I was surprised to find myself interested in each one. In particular, I thought I would hate the essays on the reality and fashion aspects of the series, since I started to dislike those sections so much in Mockingjay, but I was surprised that I really loved those two essays! Considering the fact that I am teaching The Hunger Games to high school juniors and seniors, I think those aspects of the book will really appeal to them. I already have a discussion planned around the ideas of reality, reality TV, and false appearances. I hope we can have great discussions about how Katniss and Peeta chose to act while "live" on camera. The essay "Smoke and Mirrors" really focused on those ideas, and since the first chunk of the essay stays true to just the first book, I am going to use that section in class.

One of my other favorite essays in the collection was the third, titled "Your Heart is a Weapon the Size of your Fist" by Mary Borsellino. This essay focused on the weapons in the series-those of the Capitol and District 13. But I also liked the idea that Katniss and a few others fight with emotion-with love. It reminded me a bit of Harry Potter in that love can conquer evil, you know? The author brings up what happens with Rue in The Hunger Games as a prime example:

"The effect of this tiny, humanizing act-singing to a dying child-has immediate and far reaching consequences," (34).

When I read that statement, I had to stop for a moment and think about that word choice-"child." While I obviously know that all of the tributes in the Games are children, there was something different about Rue, right? And the fact that Katniss holds on to her humanity and honors her death as a child, well, that IS powerful. Her choice to share her love has a profound impact on what happens afterward in the novel-Rue's district sending her bread, gaining other supplies from other districts and sponsors, and the choice she makes at the end of the novel with Peeta. Because rather than always resorting to violence, Katniss chooses another route. And it works. Because without that symbol of love towards Rue, would the districts have banded together to fight back? Who knows.

The one essay I wish I could share with my class but can't is "Bent, Shattered, and Mended" by Blythe Woolston. The essay focuses on the mental side effects of what happened to Katniss, Peeta, and others throughout the three books (since I don't want to spoil the second and third books, I can't use this one in class, but I will talk about the mental effects of the Games in general terms). I know that there are some who weren't happy with the ending in Mockingjay-that Katniss seemed to have lost her mind and that the ending was unsatisfying. As I said in my review,

"There is no way a young girl of 17 can handle the amount of death and destruction she sees..."

Woolston expands on this a great deal in her own essay, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. The fact is, Katniss is a battered and bruised war veteran by the time Mockingjay comes to an end. And she is younger than those we allow to enlist in the U.S. Military! That should say something about her psyche! Because as tough and as strong as you think you are, I don't think anyone is prepared to kill another human being-especially in the circumstances Katniss was subjected to.

I am sure that this will be something we'll talk about in class-how Katniss must feel. There is that section in The Hunger Games where she talks about her first human kill, and I am sure that my class will have questions about it. I'm also hoping we'll talk a bit about Haymitch, since he is another example of the PTSD that all Hunger Games Champions seem to suffer from.

In all, I would say that this is a great collection of essays on the series. I was interested in all of them in some way, and I found a lot of interesting tidbits to use as discussion starters in my class. I am also looking forward to my own reading of the book with these ideas in mind. My only wish is that there was one essay without spoilers for the last two books, since I would love to expose these kids to a bit of criticism on a modern book. I will certainly let you all know how they feel about it!

A List of Great American Authors: I Need your Help Again!

The sophomore English class I am teaching focuses on American literature. The ending project for the course is a mini-research presentation. Last year, we had the kids research current event topics, which jarred the focus away from the rest of the course. This year, another teacher wanted to try focusing the research on American writers we don't cover in the course. I thought it was a great idea, so we're going to be planning the new unit together.

One of the things we are trying to do is develop a BIG list of American authors for the students to choose from. Ideally, we'd like to have 100 writers for the students to choose from (I have 93 sophomores, and I don't want any doubles between classes). For each author, we'd like to have a number of shorter pieces for the students to choose from. This could be a short novella, a play, a couple of short stories, or a whole slew of poems. The main goal is to get the kids to explore a new author and become relatively knowledgeable about that author's life and works.

Here is where I am hoping you can help me. Below is my starting list (she is creating one as well and we are going to compare when we start planning). We decided to go through the textbook to pull those authors we don't get to during our planned units as viable options for students (you'll see those titles listed sometimes as excerpts). After plowing through the textbook, we are now trying to branch out into other authors so the kids will have a broad range of ethnicities, time periods, etc.

I have already started to list authors off the top of my head, as well as other stories/pieces I think might work for this age group. If there is an author I forgot, or a story I should add to an author, please let me know! Any help you can give me will be MUCH appreciated!

• Henry W. Longfellow: "Cross of Snow," "Ropewalk"
• Ralph W. Emerson: "Nature and Self Reliancy"
• Henry D. Thoreau: Excerpt from "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience"
• Herman Melville: Excerpt from "Moby Dick" and Piazza Tales?
• Walt Whitman: "Song of Myself," "Sight at Camp," and "O Captain, My Captain"
• Emily Dickinson: poems
• Kate Chopin: "Pair of Silk Stockings" and The Awakening (maybe too difficult?)
• Mark Twain: "Life on the Mississippi"
• Lorraine Hansberry: A Raisin in the Sun
• Jack London: "To Build a Fire"
• Robert Frost: poetry...
• Edgar Lee Masters: "Spoon River" Anthology
• William Faulkner: "A Rose for Emily"
• Allen Ginsberg: "Homework"
• John Updike:
• Alice Walker: "Everyday Use"
• Amy Tan: Except from Joy Luck Club
• Sylvia Plath: Poems...maybe The Bell Jar
• Sandra Cisneros: House on Mango Street
• Ray Bradbury: short stories (not "Sound of Thunder" since I teach that one)
• Truman Capote:
• Kurt Vonnegut: short stories (not "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" since I teach that one too!)
• Jack Kerouac:
• Stephen King: short stories
• Maya Angelou: poetry?
• Edith Wharton: "Roman Fever," other stories
• Henry James: "Turn of the Screw"
• Stephen Crane:
• Benjamin Franklin: excerpts from autobiography
• Thomas Paine: Common Sense
• Edgar Allen Poe: short stories and poetry (have to make sure they don't double up)
• Frederick Douglass: Narrative of a Slave
• Harriet Tubman: speeches-"Ain't I a Woman?"
• Nathaniel Hawthorne:
• T.S. Eliot: "The Waste Land"
• Langston Hughes:
• Ezra Pound:
• e e cummings:
• Ernest Hemingway:
• Tennessee Williams: (not allowed to do Streetcar)
• J.D. Salinger: short stories (No "Catcher in the Rye")
• Flannery O'Connor: short stories (might be a more difficult choice)
• Jhumpa Lahari: stories?
• Martin Luther King Jr: speeches (not "I have a Dream"), maybe Letter from a Birmingham Jail?

What/Who else do I need to add?

Book 139: A Clockwork Orange and Book Stats.

Title: A Clockwork Orange
Author: Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)

First Published: 1962

My Edition: Norton Paperback (seen at left)

Pages: 212

Other Works Include: Time for a Tiger (1956), The Enemy in the Blanket (1958), Beds in the East (1959), The Worm and the Ring (1960), Honey for the Bears (1963), A Vision of Battlements (1965), Abba Abba (1977), Earthly Powers (1980)

I decided that while I am chugging slowly along in Nicholas Nickleby I should start something a little smaller for Adam's Magical March Event. After looking at the titles I had on my list, this one seemed to jump out at me as being one that would suck me in.

I don't know too much about this one, beyond that fact that it is a dystopian and that it is on the weird side. I remember a friend in high school reading this for AP English, and he said it was crazy! I think I've also heard that there is some crazy slang and such. That's about it. But since I like dystopia and weird, I'm sure I'll find something to like in this one. :)

Anyone read this one before? Any advice for me as I tackle it?

Weekend Cooking-March 4, 2012: My Recipe Binder.

I'm really excited to be participating in Weekend Cooking this week. :) It is a weekly event held at Beth Fish Reads that focuses on food-related posts. I've been eying the event with a bit of apprehension for the last year, and I finally decided to join in on the fun.

As many of you know, one of my goals this year is to work on my cooking skills. Matt and me were in a bit of a rut when it came to meals, so I have been working hard to find new recipes to work into our meal rotation. The last couple of months have been a blast!

One of the things that I wanted to do was organize the binder Matt's mom gave me for Christmas this past year. Since there are 4 of us girls on that side (Matt's two sisters, our sister-in-law, and myself), she bought us all a binder and wrote out family recipes for us each to have. I was really excited about it-since some of the recipes are family secrets-and I've slowly been trying them out. I also had a big recipe card box filled with recipes from my wedding shower. I wasn't sure how I was going to combine the two until Matt knocked the box off the counter and it broke. With recipe cards flying everywhere, and the cats batting them around on the floor and under the fridge, I decided to reorganize the binder and add in everything. After purchasing page protectors and going crazy from categorizing, I finally got it all set.

Since the binder was a set and meant for recipes only, I followed the categories that it came with on the dividers. The dividers included:

• Appetizers
• Soups/Salads
• Breads
• Main Dishes
• Seafood
• Pastas
• Side Dishes
• Desserts
• Beverages

I think putting all the recipes in categories was the hardest part. Some of you on twitter were a huge help! I mean really, where does pasta salad go? :)

But now that the binder is all organized, I like flipping through it to decide if a recipe is going to be our next dinner. I also love that the cards come from multiple people. There is something about seeing old recipes written in others' handwriting that makes me smile. There are old family favorites, new recipes I've discovered on my own, and some clipped from magazines. Let me show you bits and pieces from the binder.

One of the best parts of putting this together was looking at recipes I got from my wedding shower. A blank card was included in with the invitations. This was a great way to get a lot of recipes for my newly wed self, and get a lot of variety! The one at right comes from my friend Kyla. I've made this one a couple of times and it is uber-delicious.

There are also a lot of recipes and things I've pulled from other places. While I'm not a huge magazine reader, I do flip through on occasion and pull out things I think might be useful in the future.

I'm starting to look for things to challenge myself with when I'm cooking. Little ideas like the marinades and toppings on this page are helpful. The casserole clipping is actually from Matt's mom. :)

Another thing I really loved about the binder from Matt's mom were the family recipes she included. I've been with Matt for almost ten years, so I've come to love quite a few of these as well!

This corn casserole dish comes from one of Matt's mom's relatives, and I've had it every holiday with them. :) It is definitely a good comfort food recipe!

 She also included the names of family members who loved some of the recipes. It was kind of neat to flip through to see everyone's favorites. I haven't made the Confetti Meatloaf yet, but knowing it is Sarah's favorite (Matt's younger sister), makes me anxious to give it a try.

One of the last things she included in the binder were recipes from her time as a profession pastry chef. She met Matt's step-dad while working at a restaurant (he was the head chef), so some of the recipes they created while working there have become some other family favorites.

In addition to some crazy dessert recipes I have to master some day, she also included some basics. I've never made bread from scratch, but it sounds like a fun experiment. :) This one, from her days of working at the restaurant, doesn't seem so bad for a rookie.

I also spent a day at my mom's plowing through her recipe cards so I could steal some family recipes from our side. My mom makes a bazillion kinds of Christmas cookies around the holidays, so I definitely needed to copy those down.

I was excited that she had some doubles in her recipe cards, so I just took the extra of a few. :) Seeing her handwriting will make the actual cookies even better. These, the Apricot Brandy Cookies, are hands down my favorite cookie. Ugh, SO GOOD. Believe me, these are addicting.


 The other cookie recipe I was happy to snatch are another favorite from my family: Belgian Waffle Cookies. These are wafer thin cookies you cook in a press over a stove. They have lots of fatty goodness in them, but egads, these are AMAZING. I can't wait to try them on my own.

There is something really comforting about having all of these family recipes together in one place. I'm one of those people who likes to hold on to memories. And knowing that I have all these in one place means that I can build on them and pass them down to my own kids. Cheesy? Heck yes! :)

I also love that I can continue to add to my binder as I learn new recipes. Already, Matt and I have tried new things found online and recommended by others. I'm sure those items will also become family favorites.

How do you organize your recipes?