My New Website!

I will be merging this blog with my NEW WEBSITE! Please continue to visit me and recommend books to me and others at: www.kharristhacker.com. This website is devoted to writing, writers, reading, and readers, so stop by!

FYI #1: Guernseys are a breed of cow...

FYI #2: Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows' THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY has nothing to do with Guernsey cows, but it takes place on the island of Guernsey (where the breed takes its name from), and is a phenomenal book. I loved it! It's adult fiction, which I don't generally read, but my mother-in-law recommended it, and I adored it. The book is written in letters, so you get a real taste for who the characters are, sort of as if a book were written completely in dialogue (hmmm...not a bad idea). Please read this great book!

What's Your Savvy?

If you could choose a magical power, what would it be? Would you control the weather? How does controlling electricity sound? Now what if you couldn't control the weather or electricity? What if they controlled you? That's what Ingrid Law's book, SAVVY, is about.

The Beaumont children all get their "savvy" (their magical ability) when they turn thirteen. They don't have a choice what they get--it just comes to them. Then they spend the next few years learning to control their savvy (or "scumble" it) so that it won't control them. Twelve-year-old Mibs Beaumont has watched her older brothers struggle to scumble their super-cool savvies and hopes that when her thirteenth birthday arrives, she'll have an equally cool savvy come her way. What she gets is...well, you'll just have to read the book. But if I could choose a savvy, I might choose the ability to fly.

I also recently enjoyed the first of Brandon Mull's Fablehaven books, entitled FABLEHAVEN. It's a little bit scary for young readers, but I think kids over ten would be okay with it. It's fun, and it has a very inventive plot: A brother and sister go stay with their grandfather at his home deep in the hills and discover that he is the caretaker of a wonderful place where fabled creatures can live--kind of a preserve. Both good and evil creatures live in Fablehaven, though, and the brother and sister become part of a great adventure.


I'm currently reading Deborah Wiles' EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS. It's really charming and full of flavorful characters. I hope to finish it tonight, while I'm nursing my three-week-old daughter. Happy reading, ya'll!