the view from saturday

I think I am going to start trusting the gold and silver seals stamped on juvenile fiction books which indicate it is a Newberry or ALA Award Winner.

After two weeks of being harassed by thoughts of two papers, I took a break yesterday and today from school work and grabbed another reading material from my pile of National Bookstore purchases (the stock here in Davao is horrendous! None of what I’m gunning for are available and somebody beat me to the only copy of M is for Magic by Neil Gaiman).

I decided on “The View from Saturday” by E.L. Konigsburg (who has two other Newberry Award books, which I am planning to get after this particular read) which was recommended years and years ago by a friend.

Just looking at the book had that nice feel to it. Just that positive vibe I get when I know I’m going to have a thrill of a ride. And once my eyes set on the words on the first paragraph of the first chapter, I was hooked. My eyes absorbed every page, enjoying the different stories of four children, Noah, Nadia, Ethan and Julian, connected by fate, by circumstance and by an invitation to a tea party and eventually chosen by their paraplegic sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Olinski, to be the class representatives to the school Olympiad. In the end, the make it and win the Nationals. And everybody asks Mrs. Olinski why did she choose these children? Even she does not know.

Honestly, I am not good with doing reviews of anything. So all I can say is, I closed the book with a smile on my face thinking, “I am going to get my oldest niece this book for Christmas.”