As a girl, I wore out the binding and covers to many books on my childhood bookshelves by frequently re-reading my favorite books. There are members of my family who read Lord of the Rings annually. The exhausted, almost non-existant binding of
entling no. 3's copy of
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1)
is the stuff of family legend and lore.
As what passes for a grown up now though, I rarely revisit a book. Too many books so little time, as the saying goes.
To my surprise, I have spent my summer listening to Jim Dale's readings of the Harry Potter books. It began early in the summer with an inability to settle on a book to read. I started many, only finished and enjoyed a few. I have a summer book club assignment to read George Eliot's
Middlemarch
, which I am over a third of the way through and enjoying but...
I felt an overwhelming desire to visit with Harry, Hermione and Ron again. I have joined
Pottermore but have not invested much time there to understand it. I re-read the books in a sporadic fashion over the years, usually prompted by the pending release of a new volume in the series or in preparation for a movie's premier. I have never worked all the way through from book one to book seven before.
That is what I did this summer. The experience rewarded me with new insight into the story arc overall, renewed feelings of love and kinship for the characters and awareness of details and events that I overlooked or forgot from my previous readings.
As I read
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4)
I chuckled over the Ministry of Magic's preparations for the Quidditch World Cup while I was also hearing about the difficulties of running the Olympic Games in London. The lighting of the Olympic flame happened as the Goblet of Fire kicked off the Tri-Wizard Tournament. I found new thought provoking links to my faith in the stories that did not have the same meaning to me in my previous reads.
As I listened I found myself marveling at how timely and timeless Rowling's themes are. I was struck anew at how much I enjoyed the movies but how some of the movie's shortcuts and images had overwritten the books in my imagination.
Even though I was only
listening to the books I found Mary GrandPré's iconic illustrations coming to mind at different points.
As I finished the epilogue of
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)
I found myself quite content with its place in the narrative. It had seemed oddly tacked on the first time I read the book but today I was perfectly happy with every aspect of it. As I listened to the last sentences about Severus Snape and Harry's scar I enjoyed that happy experience of a book making me cry.
Even though I continue to circulate the books to students at the different school libraries where I work, I have wondered if Harry's story will continue to call to readers without the media buzz, the midnight bookstore events and movie celebrations that were such a part of my family's life over the years.,
My experience this summer has assured me that Rowling created something classic and timeless and fine with these books. Like Tolkien, the stories hold up to re-reading and bless the reader with new insights and experiences along the way.
A grown-up book
Falcon
I love Locker's books. For years I've marked his books at "required" for library start-up collections and added his titles to acquisitions lists for established libraries. I realize now that I own very few in my personal library. 
For science connections his Cloud Dance is an exquisite rendering of the hydrological cycle (water cycle) as is Mountain Dance which depicts the rock cycle.
taking the reader on a climb up the Hudson River Valley's Kaaterskill Falls.
I Like Old Clothes
. 
The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen. Scholastic, 2012
Robot Zombie Frankenstein! by Annette Simon. Candlewick Press, 2012
It appears William Joyce's The Leaf Men
Well, I managed to finish The Likeness by Tana French for my last 4 hours of reading. I've read all three of French's Dublin mysteries now and I understand a fourth is due this year. These are not YA books. Her writing is very compelling.
I confess that ordinarily, I do not read animal stories. I avoid horse stories due to my fourth grade reading of Black Beauty
and the image of the expired Ginger being carted away that is seared into my imagination. No Marguerite Henry
for me, thank you very much. To this day, I am ignorant of Misty of Chincoteague
and King of the Wind: The Story of the Godolphin Arabian
despite having happily handed them over to many passionate horse story loving girls over the years. Even entling no.1's enthusiasm for the entire Black Stallion
series complete with matching Breyer horses did not move me unil I saw the beautiful Black Stallion
movie. I did get through Smoky the Cowhorse
by Will James one summer because it was on my grandparent's bookshelf and I was out of reading material.
and IT had a horse on the cover. I did not read the jacket blurbs but dove right in. It was not until I was well in to the story, told by the horse James (Jimmy) Pigg himself, that I realized the pony was in the hands of the doomed Robert Falcon Scott and would be part of the race to the South Pole. 
was going to be the last Enola Holmes book, I purposely delayed reading it because I did not want the series to end. Springer's new book is a tightly written thriller.
Lunch lady and the Mutant Mathletes by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. Random House, 2012.
.) The team must compete in the Math Match Competition against the never defeated private school Willowby Academy kids who sneer at the public school teams. There is something strange about the kids on the Willowby Academy team. Lunch Lady and her trusty assistant Betty investigate and ride to the rescue wielding their high tech lunch room gadgets