Udline's Virtual Bookshelf

My Virtual Bookshelf

The Magic Tree House Series by Mary Pope Osborne

• The Magic Tree House series were the first books that made me actually enjoy reading. At the age of eight, I absolutely despised reading. It got to the point where my teachers and my parents thought I would have to take intensive reading classes, and tutoring because I struggled so badly at it. My third grade teacher noticed that most kids who did not enjoy reading, seemed to like the Magic Tree House series. So she handed me the first book of the series, Dinosaurs Before the Dark, and that is when I began to see that reading wasn't so bad. Mary Pope Osborne does a wonderful job of transporting her readers into alternate universes and expanding their imaginations. At the end of each chapter, Osborne left me on a mini cliffhanger which enticed me to continue to read to see what would happen next. Originally, Osborne only intended to write four books, but after teachers and fans wrote letters explaining how immersed  and entertained they were with the books, she was inspired to continue the series. The passion and joy that authors sees inside of others, is one of the reasons that pushes them to write, which we often discussed in class. I can say today, that I still read the Magic Tree House books as a guilty pleasure, and it has paved the path for me to enjoy other books.

The Dork Diaries Series by Rachel Renée Russell

• The Dork Diaries series guided me through my tween years. As a preteen I was a super dorky and nerdy kid. I really didn't have too much confidence and I like many other preteens, was going through that awkward puberty stage, filled with weird, hormonal moments. The Dork  Diaries Series was basically an over-exaggeration of my life in comic form. I really enjoyed reading about the humorous ways the main character, Nikki Maxwell, went about overcoming these moments in her life. To top it all off, the Dork Diaries series is a nontraditional comic book. Rachel Renee Russell writes the story in a diary format, similar to how the Diary of a Wimpy Kid is written, but it is written in a female perspective. Russell also tends to have a lot of her major scenes take place in the gutter, causing readers to really see some of the main emotions she wants the readers to focus on. The Dork Diaries series ended open up the gates for me to enjoy other graphic novels such as The Black Butler and Food Wars, which I still read today.

The Agency by Y.S. Lee

• I read The Agency series as a junior in high school. I would often come home wishing that I lived another life or just simply tired of the life I was currently living. My parents had hit a really rough path in their marriage, and there was often lots of screaming matches, and hostility in the air. Since I was the oldest of three, I ended up feeling responsible for my siblings and often shielded them from the situation that was happening inside our house. On top of that, I was a first generation student preparing for my path to college on my own. I had this unreasonable amount of stress on my shoulders, so I would turn to books, as my escape route from the things happening in my life. The Agency takes place in the Victorian Era, following a detective agency run by women. I became fascinated with the way the author changed the way the characters spoke to fit the era that they were in, and I fell in love with just the overall setting of the series. This was the first book where I really payed attention to the themes, symbols, and literary devices I saw, outside of my language arts class. Ever since then, I started to taking my time reading, and analyzing the books that I read.

The Season by Sarah MacLean

• The Season is by far my favorite book that I have ever read. Not to long after reading The Agency series, one of my friends recommended that I read The Season. Since they saw how much I enjoyed books that took place in the Victorian era they thought I would like one that took place in the Regency era. The way Sarah MacLean describes the social standards of the time, but shows the reader the scandalous tales behind the propriety completely fascinated me. I began to see how the two eras were completely different and could see how the people of those times interacted with each other. The Regency era has the perfect back drop for romance and defying the etiquette set in place while the society watched with hawk-eyes. In The Season you see the quips and witty banter between each character, complemented with the solving of a murder, along with how the characters fall in love. In class we often asked why we write literature and in The Season it's to enlighten others about the historical contexts despite its fictitious characters.

I, Too by Langston Hughes

• I, Too was the first real poem I felt connected to and interested in reading. For me, whenever I read poetry I always found them to be boring and I struggled to understand the point behind them. While reading I, Too, I understood the struggle the narrator is describing and his belief of how he too one day, will have the right to stand equally with white counterparts and feel patriotic towards the United States. I also now understand things in poetry such as the rhyme scheme and syntax that help in establishing the tone due to this poem.