Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World

by Vicki Myron

(Synopsis from bn.com) "Dewey's story starts in the worst possible way. Only a few weeks old, on the coldest night of the year, he was stuffed into the returned book slot at the Spencer Public Library. He was found the next morning by library director, Vicki Myron, a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. Dewey won her heart, and the hearts of the staff, by pulling himself up and hobbling on frostbitten feet to nudge each of them in a gesture of thanks and love. For the next nineteen years, he never stopped charming the people of Spencer with his enthusiasm, warmth, humility, (for a cat) and, above all, his sixth sense about who needed him most."

I really enjoyed this book, but some major flaws jumped out at me. Don't get me wrong, I love kitties. I have one myself who I think is even greater than Dewey, even though he bites you when he's hyper. Dewey was a special cat, but he's treated higher than he should be. The cat didn't exactly touch the world. His story spread throughout the globe, but I can hardly say Dewey has touched my life.

This story is cute. What is not to love about a cute little kitten who grows up and still does adorable things? The book is filled with Dewey's antics, from his picky eating to his love of sleeping in boxes.

What even more of the story focuses around than is necessary is Myron's own life. It is necessary to have a small amount of her own life to fully understand how mch Dewey affected her. She also includes some town history which is also necessary to understand how much Dewey was apprciated in the town of Spencer. But, after a while, it just sounded like a "woe is me" fest. Myron's mother had breas cancer five times, her brother committed suicide. Her other brother died at a young age. Myron herself had many medical complications arising from her pregnancy. Her husband was an alchoholic. That's not even all of the stories covered. There is more about Myron than Dewey.

If Vicki Myron wanted to write her own autobiography, she could have, but she shouldn't have used her beloved Dewey to get to that point. The book isn't about Dewey, it is about Vicki Myron's sturggles and the struggles of he hometown and how Dewey was able to make them somewhat happy through difficult times.

Grade: B-

2008

This is my first year keping track of what I read and actually reading seriously. This is my best year because I don't have anything to compare it to! August-the present I really stepped things up. I am thinking it is because of this blog!

Because of the flash drive crisis, I do not know what books I read what months unless I recorded it in a blog post, but here are my reading stats for this year!

Total: 63

Non-Fiction: 15

Novels: 39

Poetry: 1

Children's: 6

Classics: 15

Least favorite books: Bridget Jones's Diary, The Nany Diaries, Crime and Punishment, The Old Man and the Sea, Of Mice and Men, Digital Fortress

Favorite Books: East of Eden, A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Kite Runner, The Poisonwood Bible, Hamlet, Angels and Demons

For next year, I hope to match thenumber of books I read or be over it. My motto for this year is I AM NOT GOING TO STRESS MYSELF OUT OVER BOOKS.

Month of December

Total books read this year: 63
Books Read in: 10
Blog posts: 19
Total Blog Posts: 88
Books acquired: 8
Favorite Book(s) read: Twilight, As I Have Loved You
Titles of Books Read: Dewey, Twilight, Bridget Jones's Diary, As I Have Loved You, The Father Christmas Letters, The Last lecture, The Book That Changed My Life, Pomegranat Soup, A Christmas Carol, Dating DaVinci

Challenges!

This is my first year participating in challenges. I was careful not to join any huge challenges because I want to be able to have a lot of time just to read books I randomly found and want to read. I am also going to treat the coming year as the last year I will be able to read a lot (but hope it is untrue) so I plan to read a ton!

I am challenging myself to read one classic a month. This started last month when I read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This month I am reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

My Year of Reading Dangerously (http://dangerouslychallenge.blogspot.com/):

Requires you to read 12 books you consider "dangerous." I could complete this just with reading classics, but I am not going to do that. Any book that I consider dangerous other than books I have to read for school (if I choose to read it for school and it fits in the category, that is fine) will fit into one of these categories.

-Poetry

-Fantasy
-Sci Fi

-Graphic Novels

-Classic

-Shakespeare

-Play

-Over 500 pages

-Written by Jane Austen

-Written by Charles Dickens

-Written by a Russian author

-Caused a lot of controversy (ex: The Satanic Verses, A Million Little Pieces)

-Written by one of the Bronte sisters

-Was a selected book in Oprah's book club (I know this sounds bad, but her books have a reputation of being kind of horrible)

-Written by Toni Morrisson

-Nonfiction, but not a memoir or biography

-Written in the stream of consciousness

-A Book I have attempted to read more than twice but never succeeded (ex: Black Beauty, Little Women)

-Been sitting on my shelf for over 2 years

Dewey's Books (http://deweysbooks.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/introducing-deweys-books-reading-challenge/):

I chose to read any 5 books Dewey has read. I made a list of possible books. I got many from a meme she filled out of what books she has read.

The Little Prince

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

The Graveyard Book

Pride and Prejudice

Gone with the Wind
The Lovely Bones

Wuthering Heights

The Red Tent

The Grapes of Wrath

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Brave New World

Emma

The Secret Life of Bees

Support Your Local Library Callenge:

I am reading 25 books from the library this year. I will probably do more than that, but 50 sounded like too many. A Majority of the books I read come from the library.

Chick Lit Challenge 2 (http://bookaddict4life.blogspot.com/2008/12/2009-chick-lit-challenge.html):

Read 10 Chick lit books. I like to read chick lit every once in a while, but hopefully with this challenge I will be able to read something light like this without feeling guilty!

National Just read More Novels Month (http://livebythefoma.blogspot.com/2009/01/fourth-annual-najuremonomo.html): Only for the month of January. There are four different levels and I'm trying for silver, which is 10 novels.

Chunkster Challenge 2009 (http://feelinchunky.blogspot.com/2009/01/chunkster-challenge-2009.html): I'm going with the last option. I am going to read two chunksters this year, The Grapes of Wrath and Gone With the Wind.

100 Shots of Short: Read 100 short stories in any amount of time. (see bottom of blog for the most current list of stories read)

1% Well-Read Challenge (http://1morechapter.com/1percent/?p=9): I'm going to go with reading 10 books from the new list.

This post is subject to change at any time. I can add challenges or edit the booklists as I see necessary, but within the challenge guidelines.

If something is small it means that it is completed!

January Reading List

January's reading will mostly be focused around my senior project. I am taking a different route than I had initially intended but I still will get some interesting reading in next month! As always, this list is tentative!

Books marked with a * are pleasure reading.

The Journals of Sylvia Plath
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Off the Record by Jennifer O'Connell
The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen
I Don't Know How She Does it by Allison Pearson
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith*
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

If I have Enough Time: Friendship Bread and the Lovely Bones

January brings only one weekend away from home, midterms (no worries about those), one college visit, and hoping Breaking Dawn will come into the library before February. This month's classic is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, although I am readin several other classics for school.

As for the last week of this year, I hope to finish Bridget Jones's Diary, Dewey, and get a good start on Sylvia Plath.

Blog network

I have set myself up on facebook's blog network. If you have a facebook, add yourself as a fan!

http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/behold_the_thing_that_reads_a_lot/

Christmas Eve Traditions

I've been enjoying the Blog Advent Tour, reading about what everyone will be doing in the next two days. I'm not on the tour, but I still would like to share what my Christmas will be like. We have so many traditions in my family, many of them are new, some are not. Sometimes, if we throw something new into our Christmas and Christmas Eve events, my mom has to tell us, "NO, this is NOT a new tradition." We have too many traditionas already.

I think I enjoy Christmas Eve better than Christmas! For the most part, we have the Christmas stuff done, so it's a pretty laid back day. If we have stuff to do, it's not stressful or anything.

In the afternoon, my dad and brother will set up the luminaria. When I was little, the whole neighborhood used to do them in paper bags. Now we are one of the few families that still does it, and we have electric luminaria.

We will eat dinner early, but not anything huge. Then, we go to our church's earlier Christmas Eve candelight service. My church is very contemporary, but on Christmas Eve, the only instrument on stage is the piano. There are no guitars, base buitars, or drums whatsoever.

Then we will drive around town with Christmas music on looking at all the houses all decorated. There are several neighborhoods that we visit every year because they have so many lights! We have a large holiday display about an hour away that we usually visit early in the Christmas season as well.

Christmas Eve used to end there, but in recent years, the festivities have been extended. Now we go to my dad's parents' house for their Christmas party. Grammy has a lot of food set out. My favorite is grampy's wassail. It's like hot apple cider, but much better. I'm excited for tomorrow just because of the wassail. I only get it once a year.

We don't stay long. We go home and open up two presents. They are always the same presents. My mom has given us one ornament each year so when we live on our own, we will have ornaments for our own trees. My mom does themed trees most years (red and white, purple, snowmen, 12 days of Christmas are a few themes), so the ornaments sometimes go along with the themes. We hang the ornaments on the tree.

Our second present is a pair or pajamas. My brother and sister get homeade ones, but mine are usually store bought. This year I am getting homeade ones. Most of the winter pajamas I have were Christmas pajamas at one point!

Then we will go to bed. Its usually around 10 pm at this point and we are tired. My parents don't worry about us waking up early Christmas morning.

Oh, Santa...

Dear Santa,

As a favor to you, my first letter will be short. What? You don't recognize my name? Of course I am not on your list. I was never allowed to leave milk and cookies for you. Sorry, but to make it up to you, I'm writing a list now and am going to leave out cookies if I ever have kids. So, without further ado, here's what I want for Christmas...bookwise at least.

How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster: I've read most of this book, but this is not the type of book you can read once and be done with it. Not only will this book offer me more suggestions of what to put on my TBR list, which is much longer than my wish list, but it will help me get better grades in English and wow other students with my newfound knowledge on books that they didn't bother to read. I did of course, but I can also analyze them!

The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson: This is another one I treid to read, but didn't get all the way through. there are so many poems in here that it would take longer than my limit of renewing it at the library!

Best Short Stories / Les Meilleurs Contes: A Dual-Language Book by Guy de Maupassant: I like Guy de Maupassant, but only when I can understand him. I need to work on being able to read in French...

Anything Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (other than the first movie): I'd really like a boxed set...but anything will do! I think I can put some easy reading on my shelf since I only have 5 chick-lit type books!

Revolutions by Justin Calderone: The author is a teacher at my school and a friend of my uncle's. I don't usually like poetry but this book sounds interesting.

These are the books on the top of my wishlist. There are 14 other titles that I really want, but I know you have limited time!

News in Bookland

Let's do this in list form!

1. I will have more book related news, considering it is Christmas and over half of the items on my wish list were books...I expect my collection to grow some within the next few days.

2. It's not even Christmas yet and I have gotten four books in the past few weeks. (this is pretty significant) I won my first giveaway. I won Atonement and Love in the Time of Cholera. I got As I Have Loved You as a gift from a friend, and my mom bought me Twilight!

3. I am in the middle of three books now. I am scared to go past the first chapter of Twilight. I'm scared that after all the great things I have heard about the series that I will be disappointed. I'm scared that I won't be able to fit it into my senior project (seriously, who came up with the concept of senior projects any way? Let's give all these kids who really want to get out of school and don't want any more schoolwork for the rest of their lives the biggest project they've ever had!)

4. I posted a review of a book I really enjoyed and I was surprised to get a comment from the author! This is the first time something like that has happened. I also learned that the book was based on a true story, which makes the story even more incredible!

5. I've been reading Bridget Jones's Diary for a long time now and am only half way through! I want to be done with it!

As I Have Loved You by Nikki Arana

(Summary from amazon.com) "Leigh Scott is a single mom who just wants the best for her only son, Jeff: a college degree and a good job. But when he starts seeing Jessica, a young woman with a troubled past and a questionable future, Leigh envisions all her best-laid plans going up in smoke. As Jeff spends more and more time with Jessica, Leigh sees her fears realized in Jeff's dropping grades and bad choices. To top it off, Leigh finds her relationships with her parents, her brother, and a long-lost old flame getting more complicated. Will Leigh get through to her son in time? Or is there more to Jessica than meets the eye? This many-layered, emotional family saga will captivate readers as it shows them the peril of judgment, the need for forgiveness, and the gift of love. "

As I have Loved You is definitely multilayers, but not complicated. each layer or this story has something to do with the other. Everything connects during the story and just doesn't fall into place at the end. It teaches many lessons throughout so that every reader will be able to take something away from reading the book.

As I Have Loved You came to me by surprise. A friend gave it to me for a Christmas present. I was expecting lotion or a candle or something! What makes the book so special to me is what my friend wrote in the cover for me. I started reading with high expectations and was not disappointed.

Grade: A

Flash Drive, part deux, the final chapter

Remember how everything got deleted off of my flash drive? Well, after that I got a password protected flash drive. It worked fine.

Until it decided that the password that I have typed in a hundred times before is wrong.
I didn't lose much, but my second generation book list is out of my reach.

I've kind of lost the will to read. After I finish the stack of books I have right now, what else will I read? I don't want to redo my whole list for the third time!

I've decided to stop using these stupid things altogether. If I decide to have a book list again, I'll keep a hard copy of it. It will never be electronically saved.

Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran

Pomegranate Soup is about three sisters from Iran who now live in Ireland. they escaped just as Iran was entering political turmoil. They settled in a small town in Ireland and opened up the Babylon Cafe in an ond Italian pastry shop.

The book is full of quirky characters, good food, past hurts, jealousy, and teenage romance. Pomegranate Soup mostly focuses on the everyday trials of the three sisters rather than focusing on one major event like many books do.

Each chapter is named after a food that is served in the restaurant. The food is incorporated into the chapter, the most important food being the novel's namesake, pomegranate soup.

One thing I did not like about Pomegranate Soup is how the plot developed. Mehran waited until far into the book to thicken the plot. As a result, I was not satisfied with the ending. It seemed rushed.

Rating: B

A Christmas Carol

Book one of my personal classic reading challenge completed!

This one was easy, but still not very exciting. I already knew the story but never read it. I liked learning more about the characters in the story aside from what I have seen on versions of this book on TV.

I just hate the rambling Dickens does. That's why I never got through A Tale of Two Cities. He comes up with brilliant story ideas, but kills them with his rambling.

This Sunday, my pastor used the book as an example of some of the points he wanted to make. It was nice knowing everything he was talking about!

Rating: C

Thanks for the meme Eva!

The bold things are the ones I have done.

1. Started my own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris (only in my dreams...)
13. Watched lightening at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train (almost, it got in at midnight, so I did sleep a little)
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort (I've tried. It's really hard)
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language (taught by teachers)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing (on a rock climbing wall...)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had my portrait painted (well, drawn)
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House (we stood outside the gates and saw a teeny part of it)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous (well, Bill Gaither)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Rode an elephant

Say Thanks!

Even if you don't support the war in Iraq, there are Americans sacrificing so much to help over there, especially during the Christmas season. With this website, you can send a card to a soldier overseas, and in time for Christmas! It's free of charge and you pick a card design then chose one of the preset messages or write your own.

We all appreciate mail, so spread the love.

http://letssaythanks.com/Home1024.html

Booking Through Thursday

1. Do you get to read as much as you WANT to read?
(I’m guessing #1 is an easy question for everyone?)
2. If you had (magically) more time to read–what would you read? Something educational? Classic? Comfort Reading? Escapism? Magazines?

I'm going to be different here.

Yes, I do get as much time as I want to. I go to school for 4ish hours every day now until Jan. 26, and after that I go to school 4 hours 3 days a week and 6 two days a week, so I get enough time to read. Sometimes I get too much time to read. I get tired of reading. Sometimes I can't force myself to pick up another book because I have read so much already.

If my endurance for reading books were better, I would read all of the huge classics and books I can't seem to get through. I'd read Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, David Copperfield, The Scarlet Letter, A Tale of Two Cities, Anna Karenina, Macbeth, Moby Dick, Walden, War and Peace...maybe give Crime and Punishment another chance...

Funny book moment concerning the authors people tend to be afraid of. For the classic I am reading this month, I am reading A Christmas Carol. On the way to visit a college, I was (attempting) to read it. When talking with the department head of Communications at the college about things I like, books certainly came up. My dad mentioned that I was reading Dickens on the way there. I didn't correct him of course, that I was struggling to keep myself from throwing it out the window. : ) Im going to keep at it. I'm about half done.)

Guess who needs bookish advice again?

I got my senior project assignment today. I knew it was coming. I really did. I just was in denial.

I found a way this year to make this ordeal somewhat enjoyable. This is my last "you won't graduate if you don't do this" project of high school, so I'm going to take it easy.

The only thing I am revealing to you is that my paper is going to be on the sexism of chick lit. (I am not a feminist, but I can pretend to be for a 12 page paper.) My only problem is that I have 3 chick lit books in mind to use in the paper. I need your help. Since this paper is generalizing the entire genre, I need a better sampling.

What are some of the best chick lits of all time? I don't necessarily want it to obviously demonstrate sexism, so don't think about that. I just need some chick lit books that have been wildely read.

Of course, I am doing some of my own research! Don't worry. I just need some good information from people who are qualified...bookish people!

On my list so far are Twilight, Bridget Jones' Diary, and possibly Dating daVinci. I'm reading it now and I'm already seeing some potential.

Bookish Resolutions 2009

1. I'm going along with my one classic per month goal. I have a list of classics I plan to read, but I will read them as I find out what one fits my schedule that month.
2. Sept-Dec I will read at least 2 books per month, one classic, and one fun one. Adjusting to the college life will take a lot of my time, but if I plan my books well, I should be able to read 2 books a month to start out with.
3. I will take advantage of the summer months. This year I hardly read at all in the summer. I want any time that is not out of town to be one book every other day or so (unless it is really long).
4. Jan-May I won't pressure myself into reading as much as possible. Even though these 9ish months are my last few months of life how I know it now, I'm not going to get freaked out over it. This goes for non-bookish things too!

Hope in Bookland

I'm nearing the end of my college search. Two things that were keeping me from going ahead with a certain college were 1. There isn't any obvious religious activities at the tiny school and 2. The library is tiny, and there is no town library. What am I going to do for books?

My dad pointed out with a journalism major and a french minor, I wouldn't have time to read. I hope to read even a little bit, and I'm sure the campus library won't suffice. I've seen it twice and I hate it. I did some research on the internet of libraries nearby and nothing came up that was close.

We had a formal visit today and my belief that the college is perfect was confirmed again, except for the aforementioned areas, but one was fixed today!

There are two libraries within a 15 minute drive from school (freshman can have cars). They are both part of a larger system, so I can order books like I do now from my great big library. The best part is that the closer library is part of a bigger system than the other.

This school is situated in the panhandle of West Virginia, so I have access to libraries from three states if I chose, but it isn't exactly a short trip.

Now that the book thing is sorted out, the only problem with the college is its religious activities. I'm still trying to work on that!

Hamlet

This is one of the hard ones to write about, just like How east of Eden was for me. I enjoyed Hamlet, but it has so many layers to it that I can't possibly write about all of them.

Hamlet was the first Shakespeare play I have read that I was truly sad to see the characters die. (This isn't a spoiler. Everyone knows Shakespeare likes to kill off all of his characters in the last few scenes.). Hamlet' character was ver fascinating to me. He's a really deep thinker. Many people would think his thoughts are really morbid but it's deeper than that. Hamlet's thoughts focus on consqeuences, devotion to religion, nobility, anger, and much more.

For those that don't know (I certainly didn't know anything about Hamlet when I started it!), Hamlet is a play about a young man's anger towards his uncle Claudius. Hamlet is angry because he found out that Claudius killed his father to get the throne. Then, Claudius married Hamlet's mother.

I had to read this play for school, otherwise I wouldn't have read it. This is my fourth Shakespeare (I've also read Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Othello.). I've mastered how to handle Shakespeare so I get the most out of it. I read through the originial language first, usually just a scene at a time. This can be with audio or along with a movie, or on my own. Then, I read the No Fear Shakespeare version of the play. All of Shakepeare's plays are on the internet with the original language and modern langauage side by side. Then, if needed, I will read summaries on the internet. Through reading the play in two formats and class discussions, I have a pretty good understanding of it, so I don't need to read summaries any more.

I'm not sure if I liked Hamlet better than Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet definitely had more depth to it and more intriguing characters and some great philisophical debate, but who doesn't like a good story.

Good thing my goal is to just give it a rating. I'll figure out which one I like better later.

Hamlet gets a B+ in my gradebook.

Booking Through Thursday: Favorites

1. Do you have a favorite author?
2. Have you read everything he or she has written?
3. Did you LIKE everything?
4. How about a least favorite author?
5. An author you wanted to like, but didn’t?

1. I really like John Steinbeck and Khaled Hosseini. I'm not sure if I have one favorite, but these are my top two.
2. I've read Khaled Hossein's two books, but only three of Steinbeck's.
3. I loved both of Hosseini's books. I loved two out of three of the Steinbeck ones.
4. I can't really have a least favorite author because if I don't like a book, I stop reading it. The first ones that come to mind are Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I haven't exactly given them a fair chance though.
5. I want to like Jane Austen. Everybody raves about her books!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

There are two main things about this book that stuck out.
Yeah, this is not exactly a review, but I think it's more important just to give your impression of the book than to "review" it.





1. It takes place in Pittsburgh! That's where I live. If Charlie were a real person, he'd live about 25 minutes away from me if the traffic is not too bad. He mentiond the Fort Pitt Tunnel several times in his letters. When you come into Pittsburgh from the west, you come through that tunnel and BOOM. You are in the city. You see this when you come out of the tunnel:

The picture doesn't do it justice, but when I'm away from home for a while, seeing that is so cool! Not many movies and books take place in Pittsburgh. Most authors want either a big city or a small town, not something in between. I can drive 20 minutes in one direction and be in a really neat city, but drive 20 minutes in another direction and see cows roaming around! If I ever write novels, all of them will take place in my city because nobody gives it the credit it deserves!

2. Wallflower is so honest. It doesn't really have much of a "plot" since it is a coming of age story. It's real. Real life doesn't focus around one main event like books do. Even though we know Charlie is special, he's normal because nothing crazy happens to him. He is shaped by his everyday experiences.

Bookish people should read this because Charlie's English teacher is important to Charlie's development. Bill gives Charlie books like The Catcher in the Rye and The Fountainhead to read. I always think books about books are a cool concept!

I didn't like how sexual the book was though. The story would have been fine without most of it. Some aspects like that gave me a love-hate relationship with The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I'm not sure if I'd give it a B or a C rating.