{"id":5745,"date":"2012-04-25T22:03:07","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T02:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=5745"},"modified":"2012-04-25T22:03:07","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T02:03:07","slug":"two-quick-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/?p=5745","title":{"rendered":"Two Quick Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because of Winn-Dixie <\/em>by Kate DiCamillo<\/strong>
\nGrade: B+<\/strong><\/p>\n

You don’t have to look hard to find a person who ever had a beloved pet dog. You don’t even have to wander great distances to find a person whose life was saved by a dog. So it is no great stretch of the imagination that a stray dog could come into a lonely girl’s life and make things better for her.<\/p>\n

In Because of Winn-Dixie<\/em>, that girl was India Opal and the dog was Winn-Dixie. India Opal had just moved to a new town in Florida. She lived in a trailer park with her dad, a preacher. She was lonely. Then she found a stray dog at the grocery store. Taking care of the dog led her to meet other sad, lonely people who were also desperately in need of some friends.<\/p>\n

You’d expect such a story to be sweet, perhaps even like spooning sugar right out of the sugar bowl. That’s OK, because sometimes you’re craving exactly that kind of story. I was, and that’s why I picked up Because of Winn-Dixie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I was enjoying my sugar, too, until the author started serving it up with hard candy on top. That is, the main character was introduced to a hard candy that tasted like root beer and strawberry and sadness. Next thing you know, she was offering the candy to all of her new friends, and everyone who ate a piece told her exactly why they were sad. The story is itself like the candy—a whole lot of sweet with a strong dose of sadness—and in another book (one not about a stray dog), I might have found that idea interesting. Here, it just seemed like a lame and unnecessary way to get the characters to own up to their sadness.<\/p>\n

While the strange candy took the grade down a notch, I liked the book overall. It had a comfy Southern feel to it.<\/p>\n

Frindle<\/em> by Andrew Clements<\/strong>
\nGrade: A+<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an effort to create a new word (and annoy the heck out of his strict teacher), schoolboy Nick Allen decides to call a pen a “frindle,” and he gets all of his school friends to do the same. Soon everyone is using the word.<\/p>\n

I see a lot of my younger self in Nick Allen.<\/em> He is the kid I would have been if I had had any idea how to channel my rebellious energy. I suspect a lot of adults will feel the same way, so I recommend this book for both kids and adults.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo Grade: B+ You don’t have to look hard to find a person who ever had a beloved pet dog. You don’t even have to wander great distances to find a person whose life was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5745"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5745"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5968,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5745\/revisions\/5968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bluefootedmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}