what 'cha reading?

One of the people I carpooled with while working in Rock Rapids would ask me, "What 'cha reading?" every time I cracked open a book that I had not previously been reading. Sometimes was annoying, sometimes it was kind of fun to talk about the other world that I was living in. I've been doing that more lately--keeping another world alive aside from my own. That is, I've been reading more. Which is a good thing. This summer I've been trying to read a number of the books that have come out recently for young adults. I do this for both professional and personal reasons. As much as I know that as an adult I should read adult books, YA books are just so much fun, and being a middle school teacher is a great excuse. Anyway, I thought that I would write a little bit about what I've been reading this summer.

First of all, I've been following this ning: http://englishcompanion.ning.com/. It's a pretty sweet place to get inspired about teaching. And from the ning I gathered a list of books that I want to read.

So far this summer I have read:

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling: I was pretty happy with this last novel. It was dark, but it also tied things together very well. And yes, an important character dies.
• Feed by M.T. Anderson: one of the stranger YA novels I've read this summer. It's about a world in the future where all the people are hooked into the Internet by a chip in their brains (their "feed".) It asks some interesting questions about how much control a form of media should have over people.
• Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd: a novel about a boy who finds a mummified girl in a bog in Ireland. The novel skips around in time as we discover the stories of both the girl in the ancient past, and the boy in the present. 
• Fever, 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson: set in Philadelphia in 1793 (obviously) during the yellow fever epidemic. This was a very fast, but enjoyable read. This novel could be used along side a social studies unit.
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: I think this was one of the best novels that I read this summer, although I would be very careful about who I recommended it to. It's a dystopian novel about a world in which there has been some sort of natural disaster. The United States is divided into twelve districts, and each districts produces a different resource. At one point, the districts rebelled against the capitol, and as punishment each district must send one boy and one girl every year to the Hunger Games. In the Hunger Games, the contestants are thrown into an arena where they must hunt and kill each other. The last contestant alive wins. The whole thing is broadcast on TV and becomes very much like one of our reality shows. Really, really good, and there's a sequel coming out in September.
• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer: I hadn't read any books in this series yet because I tend to avoid faddish books. However, this nobel deserves the acclaim that it's been getting. Artemis Fowl is about a 12 year old boy who is trying to blackmail the fairy world into making him rich. Good stuff, and I think there's about six more books to read in this series, so I'm happy.

Right now I'm reading Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. It's also very good, but adult fiction so it's taking me a bit longer.

Anyway, that's my list for now. I'll try to write more about what I'm reading in the future. What are you reading?