Summer's Back - Maybe

We have been having the oddest weather here in Ashland Oregon. For a week or so we had such hot days that some people decided that bathing suits were the only attire they could stand wearing. Winter clothes were put away and summer clothes were brought out of storage. Then winter came back with a vengeance and we froze for a week or so. After days of rain and low grey skies it feels as if summer may be back again.

It has been a very busy month because both my husband and my daughter celebrate their birthdays in May. There were special dinners to arrange, a party to plan, and gifts to wrap and hide. Like so many children all over the world my daughter is Webkins mad and she was given several to add to her growing collection. I am rapidly running out of names for the additions to her furry menagerie.

Work has been very interesting this month because I was putting together a feature of book reviews about World War II titles. I had to read as fast as I could because I had so many lengthy titles to get through in just one month, but I managed it. Several of the books were about the war from the perspective of German citizens.

In "The Boy Who Dared" the author tells the story of a young man who did not believe the Nazi propoganda he was being fed. He found other sources of information and decided that it was up to him to share what he learned with his fellow Germans. What makes this book particularly powerful is that the story is based on the true story of a young man who dared to fight back against the Nazis.

"Traitor" is a work of fiction about a young girl who has the courage to hide a Russian prisoner of war. If she gets caught the girl, Anna, and her family will be severly punished. Another book which quite frankly blew me away was "The Dead and the Gone" by Susan Beth Pfeffer. This is the companion book to her first title "Life as We knew it" which also impressed me, and many other people, enormously. In both books the moon, after an asteroid collides with it, is brought into closer proximity to the Earth than before. As a result there are floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions all around the world and life on Earth changes drastically. In the first book a young girl describes what happens after this catastrophic event. In the second book a young man living in New York tries to hold onto his family when chaos threatens to take over his life. I highly recommend these two books for any reader who is over the age of twelve.