The Q Formula

I have just come up with a new formula, titled the Q Formula: Beach + Book + ADD = not much being read. I have recently spent 9 days on the beach and only completed one book...Maximum Ride. I seem to look up every time there is a person, bird, wave, or whatever moving past me. Recently, I decided to not even take a book down to the beach...I guess we must all find ways to cope with our problems.

By the way, if you have seen Pixar's newest movie...UP, and you remember the part where Dug the talking dog loses focus during a conversation: "My master made me this collar. He is good and smart, and he made me this collar so that I may talk...squirrel." Then you have seen me on the beach. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxoWHeoYU3g, a media to self connection!

I guess I will just have to wait until I get back home and can read on my hammock.

Keep Reading (this goes for me as well),

Dr. Quinn

Dominican Republic

Tomorrow I will be leaving for an eight day mission trip to the Dominican Republic. I will be accompanied by 18 Taylor students, 2 teenage girls (one is my daughter) , and my co-leader. During our trip we hope to serve and help out any way we can. All of us will stay at Students International's base in Jarabacoa. Each day we will separate to various sites (education, sports, medical, social works, special education, art, dental, & social work). I will be housed at the sport's site where I will play baseball, lead a running clinic, and share my faith to 110 8-20 year olds. The last day I will put on a 2k race and distribute shirts the 110 Dominican boys. As a team we will also do two evenings of outreach (singing, drama, & testimony) in local villages.

One day I hope to take 10 of our elementary education majors to two of the Christian schools in Jarabacoa. We will take tours and see two recent TU grads (Natalie & Brooke). I am hoping for an opportunity to read out loud to both of their classes. TU also has two recent grads teaching in Santiago (Christie & Dave). Sorry you two, we will not have time to tour your school, but feel free to see us at the base.

When I return I hope to get to work on the NBLA list, and keep my blog updated better.

Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn

Stargirl & Love, Stargirl

I finally finished Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. It took me almost six months because I kept putting it down and picking other books up. For those of you that have read previous posts, you know that I set a goal to finish it before reading anything else. So I spent part of a beach day completing the book. By the way, I promise not to post anymore pictures of me reading at the beach. The picture posted here is at East Beach in Santa Barbara, CA. FYI, Santa Barbara is fantastic...great weather, great food, very clean, and more. I would give it a 5-star rating!

Back to the books. I am not going to review the two Spinelli books, but I'll make a few comments and rate them both.

Stargirl
I loved it. I loved the writing style, the message, the characters, the storyline, and the potential for for classroom discussion. I am a huge fan. One of my all-time favorite books

Rating:

Love, Stargirl
I enjoyed this book, but I was not nearly as engaged in this sequel as I was the first book...maybe that is why it took me six months to complete it. I know that many of my students like this book just as much as Stargirl, but I just struggled with it a bit. Although I struggled, it was still creative. In the first book, the text is written from Leo's point of view (Leo is Stargirl's boyfriend). In Love, Stargirl, the book is one long letter written to Leo from Stargirl. I'll leave it at that so I don't spoil too much.

Rating:


Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn

Rules

I just returned from Santa Barbara, CA, where my wife and I spent our 20th anniversary. While on the trip I read two books: Love, Stargirl and Rules. I was planning to do two posts this afternoon (Saturday), however, my body seems to still be on Pacific time so I thought I would go ahead and post Rules tonight or this morning or whatever you want to call it (1:30 AM). BTW, the time stamp seems to be off by three hours.

First off let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed Rules by Cynthia Lord. I loved the honesty of the protagonist, Catherine. Catherine is a twelve year old girl with an eight year old brother, David, who is autistic. Although she loves her brother he often embarrasses her by doing things such as: pulling down his pants, dropping toys in the fish tank, opening cupboard doors at other people’s homes, etc.

Each chapter is titled with some sort of rule. Usually these rules are meant for David, but they often mean just as much to Catherine as they do for David. Sometimes to smooth out awkward situations or just their way of showing their love for each other, Catherine and David will recite lines from Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Together. These little snippets along with the ongoing list of rules that Catherine creates throughout the book are a favorite of mine.

Another storyline is the relationship that Catherine generates with a Jason, a boy in a wheelchair. Jason has difficulty communicating verbally so he uses a book full of words and words with pictures to communicate. As the story develops Catherine adds words for David’s communication book. Words such as: awesome!, whatever!, That stinks the big one!!!, and more.

Sorry if this review is a little random, just too much travel today.

Rating:

Happy Reading, Dr. Quinn

Ratings, Readings, & Travels

Ratings:

After getting all excited about rating the books posted, I have mellowed a bit. Originally I had hoped to come up with a system that considered items such as level of engagement, level of recommendation and other areas; however, I think I simply want to use a one-to-five star rating system. As an educator I know the importance of descriptors, but right now my descriptors are kind of simplistic and probably even cheesy.

Loved it / Highly recommend

Liked it a lot / Strongly recommend

Enjoyed it / Recommend

Did not like it / Do not recommend

I can't believe I wasted my time / Stay away from this one

I will go back and add my personal rating to books from previous posts. Who knows if this system will stay or if I will change it in the future. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if I make some changes in the future.

Readings:

I have already made some reading changes. I am embarrassed to say that I started Love Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli in January and then I put it down for no real reason. While picking up a pile of books near my bed, I saw Spinelli's novel. Now, I am the type of person that loves a sense of accomplishment and does not like to leave things hanging. With this in mind, I decided that I need to complete this book before going to something else. So Love Stargirl will be my next read, and I think a will write it up with Stargirl as well. From there I have a few options (actually I have about six books in the same pile as Love Stargirl that I would like to get too). Remember, I am a slow reader so I truly don't expect to get all of these completed before next semester starts.

Travels:

Within the past three weeks I have been to a remote island in Canada (to work...not for pleasure), Seaside, FL (one of my favorite vacation places), and in a few days I leave for Santa Barbara, CA (20 year anniversary trip). Now many people might consider these great opportunities to read, but I like to mix reading with other ways to spend my time. For example, while on the beach, one day I read Twisted, by Anderson. The next two days on the beach, I listened to the radio and talked with family. Of course the plane ride to California would be conducive to some quality reading, but I'll probably opt for the in-flight movie even if I have already seen it. Sometimes my ADD keeps me from relaxing and focusing on a book. Sorry if that disappoints you, but that's just the way I roll.

Happy Reading,

Dr. Quinn