August fifty.fiftyme Challenge

Working on the fifty.fifty me blog challenge. This was not a super productive month. Reviews for this post forthcoming!

Majoring in: Japanese Fairy and Folktales

Minoring in: Steinbeck

August Books Read:

• Twisted Fairy Tales: 20 Classic Stories with a Dark & Dangerous Heart by Maura McHugh, Illus. by Jane Laurie.
• One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia This is lively historical fiction set during my lifetime. It's 1968 and eleven year old Delphine and her two younger sisters Vonetta and Fern are leaving New York and headed to Oakland, CA to meet the mother who abandoned them after Fern was born. Although they have a frosty reception from Cecile, a poet and friend of  Black Panther activists who has no desire to raise children, they soon find themselves at home in the neighborhood. The girls learn about revolution at a Black Panther run day camp, and are soon saying "Right on!"  and "Power to the People!" as they go about their daily business. Delphine leads her sisters, cautiously gets to know her mother better and finds a sort of boyfriend in Hirohito, a mixed race boy with a Flying T go cart and a complicated home life. Vonetta gets to shine in performance and Fern finds her own poetic voice. This book was showered with awards, including the Coretta Scott King author award and a Newbery Honor recognition, and it's easy to see why. I will be checking out the sequel, P.S. Be Eleven!
• Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg
• Same Sun Here by Silas House & Neela Vaswani, 2012. (Please see blog post)
• Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage, 2012. (Please see blog post)

August Films watched:

• 50 First Dates (2004) This was cute. I like Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler together and really enjoy The Wedding Singer. As per my prissy usual, I could have done without the more crass moments, but the romantic relationship was sweet.
• Valentine's Day (2010) Also pleasant, but fairly unmemorable. Many characters, not much character development. I did laught pretty hard at a scene where Jennifer Garner showed up at a restaurant to serve dinner to her lying boyfriend and his (newly-discovered by Jennifer) wife.

Books total: 84
Minus folktales: 49
Movies 25
Major 37-7
Minor 2/3