uniquelyyourscraftjournal

Reading Prompts

20 Jan 2016 Comments Off on Reading Prompts

by uniquelyyourscraftjournal in Prompts Tags: Journal prompts

Dear Fellow Journalers,

The following are some prompts that you can use in your Reading Journal to make the entries more informative:

What is your favorite (or a few of your favorite) books and why? How many times have you read it and how does it make you feel when you flip through the pages? What would you tell someone when you’re recommending this book to them?
What is your least favorite book? Why are you so turned off by it? Now imagine that you are forced to watch a movie version of the book. Describe your experience.
A friend has recommended that you read a book that he says is “completely amazing!” The book is anything but. What do you tell your friend and does this experience change your opinion about his tastes?
You have been transported into one of your favorite books as a character of your choosing. Who are you and what happens to you during your adventures? Describe in extreme detail.
What is your favorite place to read? Why is it the perfect spot?
You are walking down the road and you come across a group of kids that are burning books. What do you do next?

‘Til next time,

~Sallie

Quotes for book lovers

15 Jan 2016 Comments Off on Quotes for book lovers

by uniquelyyourscraftjournal in Seeds of thought Tags: books, change, Library, magic

Dear Fellow Journalers,

The following quotes are for YOU!

Enjoy.

~Sallie

“You never have to change anything. You get up in the middle of the night to write.” Saul Bellow

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”

E.E. Cummings

“Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” Plato

“A little library, growing larger every year, is an honorable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.” Henry Ward Beecher

“I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.”

J.K. Rowling

“We read five words on the first page of a really good book and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.” John Gardner

Books remain the same

13 Jan 2016 Comments Off on Books remain the same

by uniquelyyourscraftjournal in Reading Journals Tags: 40 page rule, life-experiences

Dear Fellow Journalers,

love-book

Reading a book – in any way that thrills you – is an experience. There are books from my childhood “Anne of Green Gables” and “Little House on the Prairie” for instance, that I have saved and yes, I admit have re-read many times. On the other hand, there have been books that I had to force myself to finish – “War and Peace” in high school and a few years ago “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and that was before I was introduced to the “40 page rule.”

There are books in practically every room in our home. There are craft books in my craft room (did you even doubt that fact?) and history books in our den. Our bedroom has book shelves of books we can’t bear to part with.

Lately, it seems that I have been re-reading books I loved and hated years ago. Books I thought were complex or very philosophical, suddenly seemed less so. Books I though had no meaning for me, turned out to be treasures.

The reality of this phenomena is that the books haven’t changed. The words are still the same. What changed was me, the reader. My life experiences changed and so did my enjoyment of the books. I’m glad I started a Reading Journal because now I can finally figure out why I kept a dog-eared, cover almost destroyed copy of “Gone with the Wind.”

‘Til next time,

~Sallie

Random Thoughts about books

08 Jan 2016 Comments Off on Random Thoughts about books

by uniquelyyourscraftjournal in Paper Daydreams Tags: Benjamin Franklin, Library

Dear Fellow Journalers,

Today’s Random Thoughts are about books. Enjoy!

Sallie

“It doesn’t matter. I have books, new books and I can bear anything as long as there are books.”

Jo Walton

(Welsh-Canadian author who penned a Hugo award-winning book “Among others” in 2011)

“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, and absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.”

Jeanette Winterson

(English writer who started writing at age 6. She is famous for her work “Oranges are not the only fruit.”)

“The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night.”

Isabel Allende

(Chilean-American author who has been called “the world’s most widely read Spanish author.”)

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

Benjamin Franklin

Why I joined a book club

06 Jan 2016 Comments Off on Why I joined a book club

by uniquelyyourscraftjournal in Reading Journals Tags: Book Chat, Reading journal, The Bridge

Dear Fellow Journalers,

I fell in love with books at an early age. I liked the feel of them in my hands and the words I heard when my Mother read to me. For all of my life until my late twenties, my Grandmother gave me books for my birthday and Christmas. I have told you in the past of my favorite reading places when I was young. In my Grandmother’s memory, I am carrying on the tradition of gifting a book to our Granddaughter.

I started a reading/quote journal when I was in high school. At the time, I copied phrases that inspired, instructed and stimulated me. Thank goodness I also referenced the title of the book and its author. I found the journal not long ago in a dusty box and decided to re-read some of those books. I reasoned that they would be good for our Book Chat.

My sophomore English teacher, an older nun (yes, I survived Catholic Grammar, High School and College!) formed a book club as one of our after-school programs. We all had to read the same book and report on it. I remember thinking at the time, that we all seemed to take away the same feelings about the characters and the themes. I found myself wanting to read more genres. Strangely, I did not join another book club until this year.

Our Book Chat club is sponsored by our library. We meet once a week and refreshments are served. Unlike the traditional book club, we read by theme. Each January we pick the themes we want to explore and then read a book in our genre of choice that reflects that theme. So far the themes have been: mental health, travel, cooking, banned books, motivation, black authors, women authors and historical fiction. We discuss our books (either hard-cover, e-reader, or audio) and then are free to recommend any that we have read. I started just jotting the theme in a pocket-sized calendar and using scrap paper but soon found this method unacceptable. So I started a Reading Journal based in part on the journal of a fellow member of the club. I bought a small journal at Barnes and Noble and intend to create a cover this year. Here is a sample of one of my pages:

The Bridge

The Bridge by Karen Kingsbury

Rating: XXXXXXXXXX+++++ (obviously I liked it!)

A book about books and the effect they have on those who love them.

Emotions: varied from chapter to chapter. I was sad, over-joyed, anxious, happy, sometimes all at the same time!

Favorite lines: page 34: ” People sometimes need a place like this to bridge yesterday and tomorrow.” and from Molly’s narrative: page 53:

“The Bridge connected the past and the present, the present and the future. Books brought people together and gave them a path to worlds they wouldn’t otherwise experience…”

Favorite character: Molly. She was a strong young woman who knew what she wanted. Very believable.

Recommend?? OH YES!

If you get a chance, join a book club and keep a Reading Journal. You will thank yourself later.

‘Til next time,

~Sallie