Welcome to Day 5 of Armchair BEA 2014 ! Today's topic that I'm participating in is: MIDDLE GRADE/YOUNG ADULT I could seriously camp out in the Young Adult part of this topic because that is primarily what I read, with a heavy dose of New Adult mixed in. There is something uniquely special about Young Adult books that covers a wide range of ages. People from ages 13 to those in their 50's that I've personally talked with read Young Adult books. I'm sure there are those even older than that. The point is that it's the one genre of books that spans many age groups, bringing us all closer together to bond over. How many other genres of books can have the same thing said about it?  I wanted to chime in about Middle Grade books for the rest of my post. My children are ages 12 (entering 7th grade) and 10 (entering 5th grade) and they are both big readers - like their Mama! Granted - I had to push my older child (a boy) to read more but within the last 2 ...

Day 5: Children's Literature "From picture books to middle grade to young adult novels this is a category that encompasses books that young and old alike flock to on a daily basis." Since I have featured a lot of young adult books already during my posts on ArmchairBEA, since that is primarily what I read, for today's topic I'm going to feature some books my kids really love.  A great many of these I have read with them and to them at one time or another. Daughters Favorite Picture Books: Where the Wild Things Are You're All My Favorites Russell the Sheep Daughters Elementary School Favorites: American Girls series Junie B. Jones series Sons Middle Grade Favorites: The 39 Clues series Percy Jackson series Heroes of Olympus series The Kane Chronicles series All Around Family Children's Literature Favorite: Chronicles of Narnia series

Day 4: Ethics in Blogging "Disclosure.  Copyright and credit.  Plagiarism.  Succeeding without selling out.  What guidelines must we follow as bloggers--attribution, disclosure, honesty?" I am a HUGE proponent of integrity and honesty in ALL aspects of life and of course this includes my blog.  When we lose the trust of others it is incredibly hard to rebuild.  For my own well being and conscience I don't think I could ever use someone else's material knowingly without giving them credit in some way on my blog.  It's in part to this that I don't read others reviews prior to reading a book myself.  I will scan down to find the final rating someone gave but I won't read the whole review.  When I do it inevitably cripples my own thoughts when I try to write my own review and I never want to come across as just spewing out what someone else said regarding their thoughts on a book.  NOT COOL!   However, where the line is g...

Day 2, Part 2: Genre Fiction "Sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, and more -- is genre fiction your thing?" At first glance of this subject topic for today I immediately thought "well that's everything I read!".  I'll admit I'm pretty much a genre virgin.  I'm usually not so sure where books fall into what genre and sometimes it seems they can fall into multiple genres or genres will be combined like "post apocalyptic dystopian".  What I might list as horror, you might view as post-apocalyptic with zombie tendencies.  Or what I might list as a genre someone else might argue that it's a sub-genre, such as dystopian being a sub-genre of Sci-fi.  Sure, some genres are more obvious than others, but overall this whole subject just straight up confuses me.  Google is always my friend... Are you thoroughly confused?   Let me try (and I do stress try) to list a few books I like in some of these genres.  I have a very b...

Day 2, Part 1: Paths to Becoming a Better Blogger "What have you done to expand your blogging horizons, to get better as a blogger?" I'm excited to read what you guys have to say on this subject.  Being 7 months in my own blog I STILL consider myself a "newbie" and I still know very little when it comes to blogging.  Many others have said, and I completely agree, that one of the things we all seem to love specifically about book blogging is the community and the eagerness of all to help one another and support one another.  It's not "every man for him/herself".  There are a number of blogs that post regular tips and tricks and it is to those blogs that I flock to when I am not sure how to do something.  If their posts are confusing to me I send them a message and time and time again they have been super friendly and helpful.  Book blogging isn't just about reviewing books, but it's about the connections you make with other like m...

Day 1, Part 2: Classic Literature (Classics) "Why, reader, do you love classics?" "Tell us all the reasons you love classic literature.  What are your favorite classics?  If you could give a list of classics to someone who claims to hate them to make them change their mind, what would be on it?  How would you convince them to give classics a try?  And why do you keep coming back to those old favorites?" Okay, get ready to let the criticism fly....but I'm not really a fan of classic literature, not to READ at least.  I've tried reading Pride and Prejudice and not only was it word for word (nearly) verbatim of the Colin Firth version of the movie, but the language was so hard for me to get past and because of that I never finished it.  However, I am a fan of classic literature turned into movies....does that count?  No?  Well...can we still be friends?  haha I will say that I do love how most authors gain inspiration ...

Welcome to Day 1 of Armchair BEA.  Today's activity post is Introductions.   Each blog participating will be introducing themselves and their blog to everyone. Today's challenge is to introduce myself and my blog by answering 5 questions of my choice from a list of 11. 1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you?  How long have you been blogging?  Why did you get into blogging? My name is Holly and I've been blogging since October of 2012.  I have been a big reader for most of my life but got back heavily involved in reading during the excitement over the Twilight books.  About a year prior to starting my blog my sister-n-law ( Somewhere Only We Know ) had started a blog and she had so much fun with it I decided I had to have my own too.  That was 7 months ago! Aside from being a reader turned book blogger, I'm also a wife (celebrating my 15th anniversary later this summer) and I'm a Mom to a now 6th grader and 4th ...