"Running Record" Thursday

Book #14: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

What can I say? Awesome! I am obviously not the first person in the world to have read this book and I am not the first person to declare it a hit so I will not go on about it very much. I would like to say, though, that I loved how the whole tale came together in the end & I also know that it would probably be very worthwhile to go back & read it all again now knowing what happens to see if I could pick up more of the "clues" along the way.
I think I'll wait awhile before I attempt that feat again though! :)

Book #15: Rules by Cynthia Lord

My final 4th grade book club book of the school year! It was a quick read & I thought it was okay. Most of the kids thought that it was really, really good though & I would highly recommend it to anyone who is wanting to experience more of a first-hand experience of dealing with autism & people with special needs. Overall, I felt that I learned a great deal from this book as well as the students who read it!
The fictional story was about Catherine, a girl whose younger brother has autism. She has always taken it upon herself to try to teach him the "rules" that everyone else just seems to know that he doesn't quite get, such as "Keep your pants on in public." As she is learning to accept her brother for who he is, she also meets & becomes friends with a paraplegic boy named, Jason, who is unable to speak & must use speech cards to "speak". Catherine learns a lot about what people are capable of, even those who society may deem as having nothing to offer.

Book #16: The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

All I have to say about this book is very quick read & very moving story! This was a story about the love between a man & a woman & how that love helps them to be able connect once again with each other every once in awhile after the wife is in the full grip of Alzheimer's. The husband has written down their "story" in a notebook & he faithfully reads it to her every single day at the nursing home where they both live. He does it knowing that it could be pointless, but every once in awhile she miraculousy "comes back" to him for sometimes minutes & sometimes a day.
Scott & I both have a history of Alzheimer's in our families. It is scary to think that one day it could affect someone whom we are very close too, but I thought that this book did a great job of portraying what it could be like to "connect" once again with that loved one who has been "lost" even if it was only for a few moments.

If you need a good book to read this summer, I think any one of these would fit the bill! :)