Okay - so it has been a bit over a year since I have done anything with this Blog. So sorry! I still talk about books all the time, but just haven't kept this up. I have begun my New Year's Resolution on my birthday instead. I will post to this Blog daily and be the Mad Chatter that I promised y'all I would be. Chatting about books will be my gift to myself daily.

How many of you have seen The Kranks? The critics hate it (which means I will probably love it), but you can't help but love the book it is based on - John Grisham's Skipping Christmas. I picked it up last night and didn't put it down until I finished it, after a few snort laughs that I am surprised did not wake my snoring husband. This Holiday-aholic could not imagine ever trying to skip Christmas, but Luther and Nora sure tried. Well, at least Luther was into it. Only Luther Krank would ask his neighbor if he could "borrow" his Christmas tree for two days! The description of the tree's journey, via wagon (little red one) no less, across the street is a hoot. And to think I had this book sitting on my shelf since last year and shipped it across the ocean to be picked up here in the Islands for bedtime reading. It almost, get that almost, made me miss snow! :-)

Okay, the focus of this Blog is YA Literature since that's what I live, eat, breathe, and teach, so I gotta talk about a YA book! I just finished the ARC (advanced reading copy) for Alex Flinn's new one called Fade to Black. Oh my - she has hit the nail on the head again. Granted, I did not love it as much as Breathing Underwater, but there are few books I can say I like as well as, let alone better than, this almost too close look into an abusive teen's personality. But Flinn hasn't let her readership down with Fade to Black. I was hooked from the moment I opened it.

Imagine it is 6 a.m. and you are driving to the donut shop for your favorite (chocolate for me, please) morning rush of sugar and caffeine when someone steps out of the bushes and starts to bash in your windshielf with a baseball bat. Glass is flying everywhere, slicing into your skin, as you try to try to hide near the floor boards. You step on the gas and hope like heck no one is on the road as you floor it. Well, that's what happens to Alex Crusan in Flinn's newest look into the teenage male psyche. Then image you are the hospital candy stipper who thinks Alex is cute (she saw him at school prior to the bandages that cover his face), but can't stop thinking about all that blood everywhere from his glass cuts. Not a pleasant thought about anyone, but especially about Alex since he is HIV positive. Put this incident in a small redneck Florida town and you got trouble and then some.

Okay all, that's it for today. Need to think of some mischief to get into on my birthday. :-)

Please excuse typos and misspellings this time. Mozilla won't let me open the spellchecker. :-(