Girl Books and Boy Books

   A while back, Amazon sent a range of suggestions for books by types of readers. Under "books for girls" was The Hunger Games

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   Under normal circumstances, I would expect "books for girls" to be books no one expects boys to be interested in. I really don't think that's the case with The Hunger Games. I can't see how it could have sold as many copies as it has if guys weren't interested in the book too. Especially since the plot descriptions sound like something many guys I knew back in school would have loved. {Smile}

   I suspect I know what the problem is. Publishers, librarians, teachers, and apparently booksellers who study what children read have been telling each other "boys will only read books about boys, but girls will read books about girls or boys" long enough they believe that's the deciding factor when kids pick books.

   That may sound good, but the kids I know, and knew, and the girl I remember being myself didn't care as much about gender as about what the characters did. If they liked mysteries, boys would check out Nancy Drew and the Dana Girls as well as the Hardy Boys. If they liked fantasy, they wouldn't skip the middle book of the Earthsea Trilogy. And so on.

   Then I wonder if I'm wrong. I'm up against a pretty large and well-educated group, and my personal opinion fights some of my own education on the subject. So I'd really like to know what you think about this, too. {Hopeful Smile}


Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Happy New Year!

I know I'm a little late, but I do hope your new year has started well, and continues to do so. {Smile}

So yes: Happy New Year! {BIG SMILE, REALLY BIG GRIN}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! {WARM SMILE}

I do hope you have a good one, for a nice, full twelve days, however much of that you may or may not actually celebrate. I'm sure you can use twelve good days in any case. {BIG SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Happy Thanksgiving! (etc.)

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it today. {Smile}

If you celebrated it a month and a half ago because Canada does, I hope you had a good one then. {Smile}

If you skip it entirely because your country doesn't go in for it or something, I hope you've had a nice day. {SMILE, wink}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

November

First, Happy Halloween, since it is Halloween for a few more hours. {Smile}

Second, November is coming up. A few of my friends are doing NaNo (which is short for NaNoWriMo, itself short for National Novel Writers’ Month).  That’s when a surprising number of folks in many countries try to write a novel or at least 50,000 words of one in a month. (It went international very quickly, despite the name.)

If you’re one, I salute and encourage you. I watch somewhat wistfully. It does look like fun. Unfortunately, cramming 50,000 words of writing with no editing into a single month doesn’t go well with way I’ve been learning how write for slightly over three decades now. {Smile}

It does look like fun, but you want me to change how I approach this NOW?!? {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Quick check-in

Popped over to check on friends due to the possible tsunami prompted by a Canadian earthquake. Fortunately, we live at 800 feet, so we're just postponing laundry and watching the news until the tsunami is clearly over. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Valentine’s Bad Day

Sorry I’ve been quiet recently. Nothing much has been happening. I’ve done chores, read and answered letters and posts, and played games, but nothing happened that seemed worth sharing. {Smile}

Friday, something finally happened. Valentine, my cat, wishes it hadn’t, but it did. {spread hands, smile}

After Dad and I ran an errand, I left a small paper bag on the counter, meaning to check with my parents before I threw it away.

A short while later, while I was Dad heard banging in the kitchen. He wondered what was wrong, but he was busy reading on the bed. Next thing he knew, Valentine wandered in from the kitchen with this small paper bag stuck over his head. He was walking around, banging into the bed and other things because he couldn’t see thru the bag. Dad got up to help when he realized the problem, and started to follow Valentine. Dad caught up with Valentine in the dining room. He quickly snatched the bag off Valentine’s head. Valentine promptly yowled loudly several times. We aren’t sure whether he was protesting the bag, or the speed with which Dad took it off, but he made it very clear he wasn’t happy with the situation!

I came to check on the yowling as soon as I could. By then, Dad had crumpled up the bag and tossed it so this couldn’t happen again; it was too small for most uses anyway. Dad was worried Valentine had hurt himself banging into things, but once he stopped yowling, he acted pretty normal. So I guess this had a happy ending. I do plan to be more careful with bags in the future. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Computers

Well, my computer finally came home yesterday with a new motherboard. It seems to be working so far. I certainly hope that continues, but it's hard to quite trust it after all the trouble I've had. {lop-sided Smile}

Now the loaner is in the shop, getting any viruses I picked up removed, virus protection installed, and hopefully the sound repaired. My parents want for a third/game/back-up computer. {Smile}

I just hope things return to normal soon here. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

{peek in}

Hello. Sorry I've been quiet. I did try to keep up during the Olympics. Honest. At first it was mostly working, but some time in the second week, keeping up on TV and online simultaneously got to be too much. So now I'm trying to catch up again. {Smile}

I did like the Olympics, except for the closing ceremonies. I'm really not fond of rock concerts, and that's really what the closing ceremonies were. But I enjoyed the pageantry of the opening ceremonies, and the diving, artistic gymnastics, synchronized swimming, and rhythmic gymnastics I caught. I'm debating trying to watch some of the last two online. I think I missed most of their semifinals, and I do love the artistry of those two sports. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Loaner Computer

Well, we picked up a loaner computer from The Computer Store late Monday afternoon. It's old, and it doesn't have my files on it; I decided not to ask for that after all. However, I can surf the net and play games without worrying that Dad will want or need it. That is such a huge relief. Borrowing his computer for a week isn't too bad, but it should be more like a month this time. That's too long for two heavy computer users to share one machine. {Smile}
Anne Elizabeth Baldwin