Books I read in 2017

Happy New Year!!!!
I read so many books in 2017, so I want to share them with you all! They will be listed in the order I read them. If it has an asterisk (*) it means I read it for a challenge. I do not like all of these books, or recommend them. If you are interested, here is my list from 2016. One day, I hope to review all of them!

New to me reads:

A Study in Scarlet - by Arthur Conan Doyle
Story's End - by Marrisa Burt
Inside Out and Back Again - by Thannha Lai
The Q - by Beth Brower
Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children - by Ransom Riggs (shudder)
Pride & Prejudice - by Jane Austen (Parts One, Two, Three, and Four)
Travels with Gannon and Wyatt: Botswana - by Patti Wheeler and Keith Hemsteer
Faithful - by Janet Fox
Real Food/Fake Food - by Larry Olmsted
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - by J.R.R.Tolkien
Walk Two Moons - by Sharon Creech
Finding Love in Sun Valley, Idaho - by Angela Ruth Strong
Liffey Rivers and the Mystery of the Sparkling Solo Dress Crown - by Brenna Briggs
Sage Paints the Sky - by Jessie Haas
Meet Josefina: An American Girl - by Valerie Tripp
The Georges and the Jewels - by Jane Smiley
Naya Nuki: Shoshoni Girl Who Ran - by Kenneth Thomasma
Framed - by Frank Cottrell Boyce
The Tail of Emily Windsnap - by Liz Kessler
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - by J.K. Rowling
Five Little Peppers And How They Grew - by Margaret Sidney
The Sign of the Four - by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - by J.R.R.Tolkien
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - by Howard Pyle
Dave at Night - by Gail Carson Levine *
The Teen's Guide to World Domination - by Josh Shipp
An Autobiography - by Agatha Christie
Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy - by Tui T. Sutherland
Liesl & Po - by Lauren Oliver *
The Journal of Jesse Smoke, A Cherokee Boy - by Joseph Bruchac
Five Glass Slippers - by Elisabeth Brown, Emma Clifton, Rachel Heffington, Stephanie Ricker, and Clara Diane Thompson.
The Land of Stories: Worlds Collide - by Chris Colfer
The Jungle Book - by Rudyard Kipling
Just Ella - Margaret Peterson Haddix
Esperanza Rising - by Pam Muñoz Ryan *
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - by J.R.R.Tolkien
Balto of the Blue Dawn - by Mary Pope Osborne
Saturdays at Sea - by Jessica Day George
Silent to the Bone - by E.L.Konigsburg (My least favorite book)
Snow in Summer - by Jane Yolen
National Velvet - by Enid Bagnold
Peter Pan - by J.M.Barrie
2010: Odyssey Two - by Arthur C. Clarke
Cloaked - by Rachel Kovaciny
The Princess Bride - by S. Morgenstern (aka William Goldman)
Summer of the Monkeys - by Wilson Rawls *
The Tiger Rising - by Kate DiCamillo
Pegasus - by Robin McKinley *
Five Enchanted Roses - by Kaycee Browning, Savannah Jezowski, Jenelle Schmidt, Dorian Tsukioka, and Hayden Wand.
Twelfth Night - by William Shakespeare
The Hound of the Baskervilles - by Arthur Conan Doyle
Swordbird - by Nancy Yi Fan
Wonderland Creek - by Lynn Austen *
Five Magic Spindles - by Rachel Kovaciny, Kat Medill, Grace Mullins, Michelle Pennington, and Ashley Stangl.
January Joker - by Ron Roy
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (mini review)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes - by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Headless Cupid - by Zilpha Keatley Snider
Throne of Grace - by Cecily Wolfe
Crown of Beauty - by Cecily Wolfe
The Valley of Fear - by Arthur Conan Doyle
His Last Bow - by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes - by Arthur Conan Doyle

Total: 65

Rereads:

Howl's Moving Castle - by Diana Wynne Jones

The Pink Motel - by Carol Ryrie Brink
Pride & Prejudice - by Jane Austen. (I reread this for Amber's Pride & Prejudice read-along!)

Total: 3

My 10 Favorite New to Me (No specific order):

1. Pride & Prejudice - by Jane Austen

2. Peter Pan - by J.M.Barrie

3. The Sherlock Holmes Canon - by Arthur Conan Doyle

4. The Lord of the Rings - by J.R.R.Tolkien

5. Summer of the Monkeys - by Wilson Rawls

6. The Q - by Beth Brower
7. Rooglewood Press's contest books:
Five Glass Slippers,

Five Enchanted Roses,

and Five Magic Spindles.

8. Five Little Peppers and How They Grew - by Margaret Sidney

9. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - by Howard Pyle

10. Cloaked - by Rachel Kovaciny

I just realized that five was my lucky number this year.

Thank you so much to Heidi for hosting the Adventure of Reading Challenge this year!!

This year I am going to join the Mount TBR Challenge 2018 hosted by My Reader's Block!
I am going for: Pike's Peak: Read 12 books from your TBR pile/s.

Thank you for reading about my book craziness!

MovieCritic

A Memorial for Actors and Authors~2017

Hello.
2017 was a great year in some ways, but a lot of great people died. This post is as memorial for some of my favorite actors and authors that are close to my heart.

Mary Tyler Moore: Actress
December 29th, 1936 - January 25th, 2017

Though she is most famous for her television show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the only movie I have seen her in is Thoroughly Modern Millie. She plays the sweet, gullible Miss Dorothy. She had me laughing. She really was a great actress, I look forward to watching more of her movies.

Robert Osborne: TCM Television Host
May 3rd, 1932 - March 6th, 2017

I know that all the others on here are actors and authors, but I do want to write a word or two about Robert Osborne. For as long as I can remember I have been watching Turner Classic Movies. And for as long as I can remember, Robert Osborne's voice has introduced each movie. I will miss hearing his voice, and hearing his thoughts.

Peter Sallis: Voice Actor
February 1st, 1921 - June 2nd, 2017

We all have cartoons that we love. Ones that we have watched since we were tiny and still enjoy watching today. Mine are the Wallace and Gromet cartoons. The amazing claymation tells the story of Wallace, and his dog Gromet. Peter Sallis played the unmistakable voice of the cheese loving Wallace.

Michael Bond: Author
January 23rd, 1926 - June 27th, 2017

Michael Bond is the creator of one of the most lovable bears: Paddington. Though I have never read the books, I love the character, and I cannot wait to read the books. The movie is excellent, and there is a number two coming out in 2018. Thank you, Michael Bond.

June Foray: Voice Actress
September 18th, 1917 - July 26th, 2017. (She was almost 100!)

Talk about a voice! The movies I heard her in are: Cinderella as Lucifer the Cat, Peter Pan as Squaw, The Snow Queen as Court Raven/Old robber/Old Fairy, Thumbelina as Queen Tabitha, Mulan as Grandmother Fa, and Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas as Cindy Lou Who. She was also the known voices of: Witch Hazel, Granny in Tweety Bird Cartoons, and Rocky J. Squirrel. We will miss her.

Glen Campbell: Actor and Singer
April 22nd, 1936 - August 8th, 2017

I know your thinking, "Wait, he was a singer. Why is he on a movie blog?" Well, to tell the truth, I don't know his songs, but I do know that he played Le Boeuf in the 1969 version of True Grit. I really do like that character and I think he did an excellent job.

Jerry Lewis: Actor and Comedian
March 16th, 1926 - August 20th, 2017

I have actually only seen him in one movie: 3 Ring Circus. Everyone always loves Dean Martin, which is good, but Jerry Lewis deserves some love too. It's hard always playing the one who gets laughed at, but he was marvelous at it. I cannot wait to see more of his movies.

There you have it. Do you miss these actors as much as I do?

I hope you all had a fabulous 2017, and are ready for an even greater 2018!!!!

MovieCritic

Movie Review: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Hello!
I am here to participate in Hamlette and Quiggy's Inspirational Heroes Blogathon!!

This picture is another of my favorite Christmas movies

When deciding what to do, I picked Miracle on 34th Street, because we are in the 12 days of Christmas! Please enjoy reading about one of my favorite Christmas movies!

My Guarantee: On ALL of my reviews there are NO spoilers unless it says so.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947):

"That's what I've been fighting against for years, the way they commercialize Christmas!"
Macy's Annual Thanksgiving Day Parade is about to start, but the man who is playing the part of Santa is, well, not in a condition to do so. Doris Walker, the manager of the parade, asks a passing man to play Santa. In fact, it is the actual Kris Krinkle. Doris doesn't believe in Santa, and neither does her daughter, Susan. Mr. Krinkle decides to use Doris and Susan as a test, if they will believe in him maybe there is hope that the world will get back into the spirit of Christmas.
"Oh, Christmas isn't just a day, it's a frame of mind, and that's what's changing."

Genre: Christmas, Comedy.
"'It's a fairytale.'
'Oh, one of those. I don't know any.'"

                    

Length: approx. 96 min.
Costumes: 8, nothing bad, but nothing great. I did like Susan's outfits.

Script: 10! No bad words.
"'Why do you believe there is a Santa Claus?'
''Cause my daddy told me.'"
Crew:
Directed by: George Seaton
Produced by: William Perlberg
Screenplay by: George Seaton
Based on the book by: Valentine Davies
Starring:
Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle,
"'Do you have any experience?'
'A little.'"

Natalie Wood as Susan.

This is seriously my favorite scene!

Maureen O'Hara as Doris Walker, "Susan, I speak French, but that doesn't make me Joan of Arc."

John Payne as Fred Gailey

Alvin Greenman as Alfred (Ugh, I couldn't get any pictures of him!)
Porter Hall as Granville Sawyer, "If that's 'normal', I don't want it."

Jerome Cowan as District Attorney Thomas Mara
Philip Tonge as Julian Shellhammer, "Maybe he's only a little crazy, like painters, composers, or some of those men in Washington."
Music: 9.
Music by: Cyril J. Mockridge
Quotes: 10! Here is where it is very inspirational!
"You've heard of the British nation, and the French nation, this is the imagine nation."

Storyline: 7, there is smoking, drinking, and it is dealing the after effects of divorce.
"Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to."

Good For: EVERYONE!!!
Overall Score: 9!!
"I believe...I believe...It's silly but I believe."

Thanks so much for reading! Check out the other entries HERE.

I stole this from Notes of a Hartfield Girl.

Merry Christmas!!

MovieCritic

Adventure of Reading Challenge ~ Update 4

Hello!
I am here for my fourth and last update for Heidi's 2017 Adventure of Reading Challenge! Here are update one, update two, and update three.

Thank you so much for hosting this challenge, Heidi! I probably wouldn't have read them otherwise!

Wonderland Creek - by Lynn Austen:

"It's the little things that make all the difference in the world. The kind words we speak and the simple things we do for people."
Alice Grace Ripley loves to read. After getting a lot of books to donate to a library in Acorn, she decides to bring them down there herself! Alice finds several things she wasn't expecting, one of them being the fact that the librarian gets severally hurt and she has to take over. Most people don't even read, but they love the books.There is a big secret, but no one will tell her! What with gardening, cooking, and doing the librarian's will, she learns that maybe the world is better than a book, and she should get into her own story.
'It was just a pile of old wood and scraps of metal, but in their imagination it was a schooner that could sail all over the world searching for buried treasure.'
Genre: Historical Fiction, Period Drama.
"...Will it take her very long to get here?' 'Well, it depends on which horse she's riding--"
Characters: 10, there are so many and they are all so different!
'It seemed that I had baked myself into a jam tart, as Mother would say.'
My favorite:
Alice, she and I are very alike, and this is so true: 'Sometimes I hated being a fair-skinned blond. People could read my distress like a thermometer as the color filled or drained from my cheeks.'
Miss Lillie, she is amazing.
Words: 9, there are a few bad words.
'She may as well have been speaking another language. I was so frightened that her words of advice fell all around me without sinking in, as forgotten as raindrops in the creek.'
Quotes: 10, seriously, this is my favorite! It describes me sssoooo well!
"'...I didn't cause a scene. I don't know why the usher asked us to leave.'
'Gordon said it was because you started talking very loudly in the middle of the movie, saying it wasn't at all like the originally book...Gordon is still mad because he didn't get to see how the film ended.'
'He didn't need to see the end. I told him how the book ended and it was so much better than the movie. They even changed the hero's motivation. Can you imagine? That movie was such a travesty that I couldn't help getting upset.'"
Storyline: 6, there is death, blood, kissing, suggestive, smoking, drinking.
'Fighting injustice seemed to carry a very high price tag.'
It has references to these books, which I thought was pretty cool:
Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland, Macbeth.
Good For: Anyone who likes to read.
"Weeds are just like hatred and greed, you know. If you ain't careful, they'll choke all the love and compassion out of a person."
Overall Score: 8.
"That's absurd,' I said with a little laugh. 'Nobody can read too much. That's like saying someone can breathe too much."

(Well, that was definitely a mini review ;) )

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows:

(This will actually just be a mini review, because I want to do a longer post on it in the future. In other words I forgot where I put my notes, and as there is maybe a movie of it coming out, I want to compare it to that.)
It's post World War II, and Juliet gets a letter from a Dawsy Adams, a man on the island Guernsey who happens to own one of Juliet's old books. A correspondence ensures, and Juliet gets to know the people of Guernsey and their literary society.
Genre: Historical Fiction,
Characters: 7, two of the characters are mentioned as being homosexual, so that kind of put me a little bit against the book, because I don't support that.
My favorite:
Isola & Kit.
(They are the best!!)
Words: 6, there are a few bad words, and swearing.
Storyline: 7, suggestive stuff happened, smoking, discussion unpleasing, name calling, bathroom, and mention of drinking.
Good For: History fans.
Overall Score: 7!


The Headless Cupid - by Zilpha Keatley Snider:

(Also know as, A Witch in the Family.)
'Walking through the door was like walking out of a bright morning into midnight.'
The Stanley kids can't wait to meet Molly's daughter, Amanda, who will become their new sister! But when she comes, they find she studies witchcraft. Because they don't have anything else to do, David, Blair, Janie, and Tesser want to do it too! Strange things start happening and they wonder if it really is, or is Amanda some how making it all up?
'He was remembering that she believed in good omens, like rainbows and church bells.'
Genre: Middle Grade Fiction.
Characters: 8,
My favorite:
Janie & Tesser.
'Janie always asked questions faster than anybody could possibly answer them.'
Words: 9, only one bad word.
'The sun was warm on the steps, but the air still had the night-freshened cool of summer mornings.'
Quotes: 9, '...he started having that good, slightly excited feeling that a library always gave him.'

(SPOILERS from now on.)

NOTE: I definitely don't believe in witchcraft or do I support it but it is all fake in this book. Amanda was making it up to get attention and to make her mom mad. There are some scenes where they are doing "ceremonies" that I don't approve of, but it was a made up.

'David had never heard of anybody taking up stocking robbery as a career.'

Storyline: 7, Stealing, divorce, and witchcraft though it is just to get attention.
Good For: Those who are going through a hard time, those who have experienced change.
Overall Score: 8.
'He kept it closed because he had a feeling that if he started talking he'd say a lot.'


So, I read 9 1/2 out of 11! I really was going to read Orange & Green, but I read all these other ones first, so when I went to get it out from the library they said I could get it on the first of the year! Oh well. And, I admit I was a little scared of reading Frankenstein, but I did read most of it, and I will finish it in 2018!

Thank you so much for hosting this, Heidi! It was very fun!!

MovieCritic