What book am I reading after A Long Way Gone, you ask?

Why, The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot - I managed to get volumes 2 through 8 from the library, and I have number one (Goodwill) already.

What?

They're damn good books. The only other book of hers I've read is All-American Girl which is okay, I guess, but not one I'll buy, unless it's 99 cents at goodwill or somewhere similar. Same with Teen Idol. Her books are easy and fun to read, at least the ones I've read. I also read and liked How to be Popular.


As for the movie, well, what book did they read? Just like they did with Ella Enchanted, they twisted it all around to make it Disney - I think that's actually mentioned in one of the books, that a movie about her came out and it was nothing like her. And before that, she mentions how she read the true story about Snow White and it was much gorier than the Disney movie.

Don't get me wrong, I like Anne Hathaway, but if I never see the movie again, I'll be fine. For one thing, my sister and her friends love both, and love to quote it at me.

I liked the first one, they didn't completely butcher the source, but they changed her Grandmother completely. And her father's living status. And the city!

The second one, though, had nothing to do with the second book, or any of the following ones!

Naturally, my sister loved it.

Neither is as bad as Ella Enchanted, of course, but still. They could have stayed a little truer to the source - her Grandmother has Glenn Close as Cruella DeVille rather than Mary Poppins feel. Trust me. The books are short, sweet, and funny.

I don't know why, but it is much easier to find funny books for teenagers and kids than it is for adults. And the best ones still rock, even when you're legally an adult. Think Roald Dahl. Matilda - still adore. I even bought a French version. And Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its sequel. I never saw the first movie, it was on in the library once in elementary school, but I was busy reading. So I love the second one - Johnny Depp is awesome.

I can't forget the Secret Garden! I have it, but it's not my favorite one of hers. That would be A Little Princess.

So it's safe to say a good portion of the books cluttering up my room are meant for children and teenagers.

And I don't give a damn.

Right now, I still love them.

Someone brought in a lot of Babysitter Club books to the crisis center the last time I was there, and since the computer was broken, and I can't do physical work and I'd finished putting them away, I decided to read the first one. Oh man, I had to stop before I got sucked in again.

I'm not a good literary snob. I didn't start venturing into the adult fiction section until I was 14.

But I love to read, and I love to read books from almost every genre. Except westerns, I think I'd dislike westerns, unless it was a book version of Blazing Saddles.

So I pass no judgement on what my sister reads - I'm glad she reads at all. I've tried one of her Gossip Girl books, bleh, but I did read Prep and I liked it. Haven't read it again, but anything's possible.


So yeah, this fall, when I get my Memphis library card, I will use it to check out books for kids and 'young adults' and I will read them boldly. I used to be ashamed of reading what 'kid's books' and would have the kid book of the day at home and bring in a Stephen King to the doctor's office or something. No more!

I will read without shame.

Hell, people should be happy I'm reading at all, even if it is far below my reading level. Or a comic. (Love Archie! And Futurama, the Simpsons, and the X-files all have comics.)

Here are some that I just don't have the patience to look up on Amazon. I just looked through my bookshelves, and here are some of my favorite books that I am too old for.

• The Help! I'm Trapped in... series by Todd Strasser
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Flight #116 Is Down, Wanted!, and Driver's Ed by Caroline Cooney.
• The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
• Blubber, Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and even more by Judy Blume.
• The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, The Man Who Was Poe, and Nothing But the Truth by Avi.
• Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Wayside School is Falling Down, Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, Holes, Dogs Don't Tell Jokes, and There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom by Louis Sachar.
• The Cay and Timothy of the Cay by Theodore Taylor
• Flush and Hoot by Carl Hiaasen.
• The Indian in the Cupboard, The Return of the Indian, The Secret of the Indian, The Mystery of the Cupboard, and The Key to the Indian by Lynne Reid Banks.
• The Westing Game, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), and The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues by Ellen Raskin
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
• Freaky Friday, Summer Switch, and A Billion for Boris by Mary Rodgers
• The Ramona books and others by Beverly Cleary.
• The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
• My Teacher is an Alien, My Teacher Fried My Brains, My Teacher Glows in the Dark, and My Teacher Flunked the Planet by Bruce Coville
• The Dear America and Royal Diaries series
• The Goosebumps and Fear Street series by R. L. Stine
• The Sabrina the Teenage Witch series
  
• The Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Well, I shall never run out of things to read. I have a notebook with 57 pages filled of book names - adult fiction, nonfiction, author's names, what have you - and room for more. Suggest a book on almost any subject or some author's name, I'll scribble it in there, and look it up next time I'm at the library.