December Accomplishments

These are a few of my favorite 'first' lines read in December of 2009:

When I was five years old, I walked down the aisle with the man of my dreams. Okay, make that boy. He was five, too.

It was all my idea. The stupid ones usually are. Once in a while the genius ideas are mine, too. Not on purpose, though.

There were Martians in the backyard.

By 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat.

Most people like to talk in their own language.

December's Top Five:

Anything But Typical. Nora Raleigh Baskin.
The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis. Barbara O'Connor.
The Lonely Hearts Club. Elizabeth Eulberg.
The Unwritten Rule. Elizabeth Scott.
Antsy Does Time. Neal Shusterman.

Number of Picture Books: 2

God Gave Us Love. Lisa Tawn Bergren. 2009. Waterbrook Press.
God Gave Us Christmas. Lisa Tawn Bergren. 2006. Waterbrook Press.

Number of Board Books: 1

Merry Christmas. Susan Leigh. Concordia Press. 2006.

Number of Children's Books: 14

The Year of the Bomb by Ronald Kidd. 2009. Simon & Schuster. 202 pages.
Captain Nobody by Dean Pitchford. 2009. Penguin. 196 pages.
Walking Backward. Catherine Austen. 2009. Orca. 167 pages.
The Kind of Friends We Used To Be. Frances O'Roark Dowell. 2009. Simon & Schuster. 234 pages.
Highway Cats. Janet Taylor Lisle. 2008. Penguin. 128 pages.
Horrid Henry's Christmas. Francesca Simon. 2006/2009. Sourcebooks. 112 pages.
Anything But Typical. Nora Raleigh Baskin. 2009. Simon & Schuster. 195 pages.
The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis. Barbara O'Connor. 2009. FSG. 150 pages.
The Last Invisible Boy. Evan Kuhlman. 2008. Simon & Schuster. 235 pages.
Peace, Locomotion. Jacqueline Woodson. 2009. Penguin. 136 pages.
Faith, Hope, and Ivy June. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. 2009. Random House. 280 pages.
Lucky Breaks. Susan Patron. 2009. Simon & Schuster. 180 pages.
Gone From These Woods. Donny Bailey Seagraves. Random House. 178 pages.
William S. and the Great Escape. Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Simon & Schuster. 214 pages.

Number of YA Books: 16

The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Prisoner's Dilemma. Trenton Lee Stewart. 2009. Little, Brown Young Readers. 391 pages.
Dear Pen Pal by Heather Vogel Frederick. 2009. Simon & Schuster. 412 pages.
Guardian. Julius Lester. 2008. HarperCollins. 136 pages.
The Unwritten Rule. Elizabeth Scott. 2010. Simon & Schuster. 210 pages.
This World We Live In. Susan Beth Pfeffer. 2010. Harcourt. 256 pages.
Counterfeit Son. Elaine Marie Alphin. 2000. Houghton Mifflin. 180 pages.
Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle. 2008. Penguin. 352 pages.
Dani Noir. Nova Ren Suma. 2009. Simon & Schuster. 266 pages.
Antsy Does Time. Neal Shusterman. 2008. Penguin. 247 pages.
Palace of Mirrors. Margaret Peterson Haddix. 2008. Simon & Schuster 304 pages.
Operation Yes by Sara Lewis Holmes. 2009. Scholastic. 238 pages.
The Lonely Hearts Club. Elizabeth Eulberg. 2010. Scholastic. 304 pages.
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly. 2009. Henry Holt. 352 pages.
Leaving the Bellweathers. Kristin Clark Venuti. 2009. Egmont USA. 244 pages.
The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg. Rodman Philbrick. 2009. Scholastic. 224 pages.
The Fiddler's Gun. A.S. Peterson. 2009. Rabbit Room Press. 293 pages.


Number of Adult Books: 8

Man and Wife. Wilkie Collins. 1870. 688 pages.
The Way We Live Now. Anthony Trollope. 1875. 776 pages.
Genesis. Bernard Beckett. 2006/2009. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 150 pages.
These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer. 1926/2009. Sourcebooks. 378 pages.
The Gift. Cecelia Ahern. 2009. HarperCollins. 304 pages.
The Gift. Richard Paul Evans. 2007. Simon & Schuster. 335 pages
The Christmas List. Richard Paul Evans. 2009. Simon & Schuster. 368 pages.
Devil's Cub. Georgette Heyer. 1932/2009. Sourcebooks. 310 pages.

Number of Christian Books: 1

Treasured: Knowing God by the Things He Keeps. Leigh McLeroy. 2009. Waterbrook Press. 208 pages.

Number of Nonfiction:

Number of Verse Novels:

Number of Graphic Novels:

Number of Short Story Collections, Anthologies, Poetry Books: 1

How Beautiful The Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity. Edited by Michael Cart. HarperCollins. 357 pages.

Movies Watched/Reviewed:

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews