Friday Fill-Ins ~ Giveaways, Gardening and Gorgeous Brothers :-)

 

And…here we go!

1. Apples are to oranges as a $1000 gift card to Amazon.com is to a $10 gift certificate to the bait and tackle shop.

2. Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) is the hot brother,  and that’s all I have to say about that.

3. I think I hear that train a ‘comin’, it’s comin’ round that bend…  should I get off this track or lay down and just give in?

4. Grab the checkered flag. (It’s Indy 500 season!  Yay!!!) 

5. Do what you want to do, but make sure you want to do what I say.

6. The hair-cutting demon was chasing me with ginormous scissors, and behind him was a Radio Flyer wagon; in the wagon was a bucket filled with ooey-gooey ABC chewing gum… then I woke up… and found gum in my hair?  AHHHHH!!!! 

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing up Hauntedby Chuck Palahniuk, tomorrow my plans include visiting the Presbyterian Church’s annual perennial plant sale, maybe do some garage-saling, grab some breakfast with Mags at the White House, go through all of everyone’s clothes and pack up stuff for Goodwill, and sometime, in all that, finish up Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and Sunday, I want to go to church in the morning, enjoy a nice, as yet unplanned, Mother’s Day dinner, call my momma to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day, and write the review for Hotel!

Don’t forget!  I’m giving away my copy of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford!  Click here for all the details and make sure to check out my review of Hotel, it’ll be posted on May 11th.

BTT ~ Do You Hafta Be So Graphic?!

Suggested by Vega:

Last Saturday (May 2nd) is Free Comic Book Day!

In celebration of comics and graphic novels, some suggestions:

– Do you read graphic novels/comics? Why do/don’t you enjoy them?
– How would you describe the difference between “graphic novel” and “comic”? Is there a difference at all?
– Say you have a friend who’s never encountered graphic novels. Recommend some titles you consider landmark/”canonical”.

For the longest time, I never gave graphic novels a serious consideration. To me, they were just kids’ books, just a glorified comic book. Not only did I refuse to read them on the grounds they were “books for dummies,” (after all, wasn’t it the mark of growing up? Graduating out of picture books and into chapter books?) but I avoided their whole section like it had a highly-contagious, IQ-lowering virus emanating from it.

However, a few months ago I started getting curious about them. It was about the same time I gave anime an open-minded look. I started walking by their area in the bookstore, then started looking at their spines, and even cracked a couple open before passing them up. Then, when Gwen’s school had a book fair, I came across Vampire Kisses: Blood Relatives by Ellen Schreiber and finally bought my first graphic novel.

I had always found the few graphic novels I’d read a little confusing.  Who said what first is sometimes hard to tell, as the bubbles aren’t numbered, and often bump together.  So I sat down with Maggie (it was for her I bought the book) and began to read VK, determined to get through it.   And, after a few pages of working it all out, I started enjoying it.  They’re not the awful stupid-fying, “Dick and Jane grows up” kind of book I’d always accused them of being.

Still, I haven’t read many.  I’ve only read one other graphic novel, Robot Dreams by Sara Varnon.  Part of that, though, is there are just so many to choose from.  I do have one, a manga, coming from PaperBackSwap called Psychic Academy.  Also, since I like Neil Gaiman, I’ve put his Sandmanbooks on my wishlists.  I’ve also got the first Fruit Baskets on my wishlist.

As to which book I’d recommend, well… I’m kind of in that same boat with the hypothetical friend.  Maggie doesn’t like the traditional manga books because they open backwards… lol… it seems I’ve passed my book-prejudice on.  And besides, she says, they’re not worth anything in the Accelerated Reader world, which is her yardstick of book-value.  “Why read it if I’m not getting points for it?”  *sigh*

If you’d like to participate in Booking Through Thursday, click the button above 🙂

Edited to add:  I forgot about the Far Side book I recently read and reviewed, Night of the Crash-Test Dummies by Gary Larson.