Book 28 of 2015- "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by J.K. Rowling

This is my favorite book of the series. It is a pivotal moment in the series, where Voldemort ceases to be a frightening thing of the past and is now a frightening thing of the future. This is also the first book where a person actively is killed in the plot, which happens with increasing frequency through the next 3 books.

I am so mad about all the things that the movie left out. For example, the whole character of Ludo Bagman. He is one of the 100 most mentioned characters in Harry Potter (trust me, I took a quiz on it), and he isn't mentioned once. In addition, Dobby the house elf makes an appearance, and Hermione starts a coalition to get better wages for house elves, and there's another one named Winky, and they find out where the kitchen is... all gone. I would have loved to have seen that. There are also plenty of one-liners that the characters have that would have been pretty funny in the movie.
But anyway, the action in the book is enough to keep me interested through 700+ pages. It is the first time I really started to dislike Ron because he was jealous of Harry being selected as a Triwizard Tournament champion (like Harry wanted to be in it). He is such a baby about these things sometimes.

Book 27 of 2015- "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain

I read this book for our Relief Society book club (It meets when Cub Scouts meets, so I will go every time to Cub Scouts and see if anyone is there. If not, then yay book club!). It is a good motivator to read more substantial books, for the most part. I also read it now because I'm waiting for the 4th Harry Potter to come in from the library.

I have to admit, I almost gave up after the first 5 chapters or so. It was SO horrifically boring. Lots of talk without much meaning. But I wanted to keep going, to add this to my list of books. And I'm glad I did, because it got better.

The premise is a man finds himself suddenly in Camelot in the 500's AD, and not Hartford Connecticut in the 1800's like he had been living. He has no idea how he ended up there, but he is taken prisoner by a knight and told he will be put to death. Just his luck, he ended up there 2 days before he knows a total solar eclipse is about to happen. He predicts it, and says he will cause it if they don't release him. The eclipse happens, they free him, and he begins reforming King Arthur's country.

He builds factories and helps promote hygiene. He works on abolishing a lot of the social structure that takes place in Britain at this time. He is sent on a quest with a woman to rescue some princesses, who turn out to be pigs in a pigsty. He and King Arthur dress themselves down and wander through the country to find out more about the people there. They find a family with smallpox, which demonstrates Arthur's human side once and for all. They get in a fight and are sold as slaves. The Yankee breaks out and the rest of the slaves kill the slave master, and are condemned (as well as the King) to be hung. They escape, and he participates in the duel he had been challenged to years earlier. He won using his modern inventions, and completes his reformation of England. Three years pass as he gets married, has a baby, and they take off for a different place to help the baby's health. He returns to find out that the king is dead, the queen is a nun, and all the work he has made has been reversed. He has one last great battle to bring back his way of life, and is sabotaged by Merlin. Merlin curses him to sleep for 13 centuries, and a final postscript by Mark Twain describes this as a hallucination from a dying man.

I have a hard time reading any stories that have to do with moms of babies right now. There is a woman who is sentenced to death for stealing cloth to sell so she can eat and nurse her baby, and she gets caught. As they described her going to the gallows, I almost had to stop reading it. Luckily I didn't, because the priest took the baby and promised to raise it. There's still a lump in my throat as I write this though.
I've never actually read Mark Twain's books, so this was an experience. I think he could have written a book in about a quarter of the time. There was SO much talk that had nothing to do with the plot. Speaking of which, there wasn't much of a plot there. They just had different adventures and it went on and on. But it was interesting. I don't know how many more times I will read it, but it was good while it lasted.

Book 26 of 2015- "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling

This (or the 4th book) has to be my favorite of the series. It is still entertaining and keeps you reading, but Voldemort doesn't make an appearance in this book. Plus, *SPOILER ALERT* it's the last book before main characters start dying off.

Although Sirius is only in a few of the books, he is probably my favorite character of the series. There is just something so likable about him, when it comes out that he isn't a mass murderer and still cares for Harry a great deal. As he is Harry's godfather, he becomes like the parent that Harry always wanted.

As a side note: We just watched this a few weeks ago. The new director of the movies (who changed between the second and third books) really left out a lot. The books are good enough without changing. And why is there such a lack of emphasis on Quidditch? That was one of my favorite parts of the books!

Book 25 of 2015- "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling

I got the first book from the library finally, hopefully I can read them in order from now on.

I remember reading this book in 3rd grade, and I can't remember how many times I've read it since. It has been a long time though.

I remember how scary the scene in the Forbidden Forest was, and how scary it is when they are trying to get to the Sorcerer's Stone. But something about that- how hard could the enchantments have been, if 3 first year students could beat them?? And how DOES Harry get away with breaking the rules all the time? I mean, really. He is doing the most ridiculous things and they keep saying, "Well, since you had good reasons and something good came out of it, you won't get in trouble."

But the thing that I do like about this book is that he seems like a normal boy for part of the story, at least. Through the seven books he goes through a lot in the quest to beat Voldemort, so it's nice to see him acting like a normal 11 year old for once.

And I'm halfway through my reading goal for the year! I only read 2 books in 2 months back in April/May, so I have a lot of work to catch up.

Book 24 of 2015- "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" by J.K. Rowling

I've been on a serious HP kick lately. We've watched 5 of the movies over the last few weeks, and I haven't read the books in years so I'm going to read all 7. They're coming to me from the library out of order, so I read the second book first. The books came out at the rate where the characters were about my age, so I felt like I had a special connection to them.

It sure brought back a lot of memories! Chris Columbus directed the first 2 movies, and he followed the book very closely. (One of the movies we have watched is this one, so I had a reference point of how the movie went when I read the book.) It just amazes me how creative J.K. Rowling is, creating this world for not 1, but 7 books. That equals thousands of pages. I don't know if I could have created something like that, and made it coherent and not like you are losing brain cells. (I mean you, E.L. James.)
I remember how scary this book was when it came out. The basilisk is a terrifying creature, especially for one who can be hatched so easily (chicken egg under a toad). And the fact that it was Ginny the whole time... that was such a plot twist. It made me anxious reading that she had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets again.
I just love these! I'm reading the first one next, since I just picked it up today.

Book 23 of 2015- "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth, M.D.

This was a very interesting book, albeit somewhat dry and academic to read. The things that I learned from it that I can apply to Cora right now include the reason why some kids get so wound up at night (it's a natural body reaction to becoming fatigued, and the stress you feel is supposed to be a natural body evolutionary reaction from when hunters were on the run), that earlier is usually better for night time sleeping (sometimes as early as 5:30 in extreme cases!), follow the baby's natural "sleep rhythms", and no bottles of anything other than water at night if they must have something. I want to buy the book to re-read when Cora hits another stage, because I kind of skimmed over the toddler section since I didn't need to apply it to her for now.

The one thing I can't get on board with is crying it out. I know that is a controversial method for sleep training, but for me I can't stomach the idea. We are in a tiny apartment and to think of sitting there while Cora screams for 45 minutes makes me teary eyed. But luckily it probably won't have to come to that with her, because she is such a good sleeper right now. We will see what happens when future children are bad sleepers and I'm that much more tired. But for now, I will use his method of "gradual extinction", and just keep working on our nighttime routine. And hopefully will get her starting to go to bed earlier, since right now it is about 10-10:30 that she will finally fall asleep.

Book 22 of 2015- "Go Set a Watchman" by Harper Lee

Since this book came out less than a month ago, DON'T KEEP READING if you want to read the book and don't want it totally ruined for you.

Last warning. Don't ruin the book for yourself!

I didn't like this book. The thing that I liked most about Atticus, the idealistic man in "To Kill a Mockingbird" who was a champion for equality no matter what, turned out to be a farce. He is actually just as racist as the other Southern men in the 1950's. He explains to Jean Louise (who no longer goes by "Scout") that that's how it always was, she just hadn't noticed it. In addition, the racial tensions in Maycomb seem to be getting worse. Even her old housekeeper, Calpurnia, seems to be indifferent towards her. To make matters worse, Jem is dead. Just dead.

Sooooo, basically Jean Louise comes back from New York to find out that the world as she knew it had been turned upside down and she was the only one stuck in the past. I think it was well written as a book, I just hated that the society I loved reading about in the last book turned out to be untrue.