Books – Page 4 – Kristian Beverly

Owlcrate

November 23, 2015December 28, 2024Kristian BeverlyLeave a comment

I’m pretty sure I heard about Owlcrate through Facebook. Or Instagram. One of those two. The last time I did a book subscription was when I was still a part of PONY. So it’s been a while.
Per the website, Owlcrate is “a subscription service that sends you magical monthly boxes tailored to a chosen theme. Each OwlCrate will contain one new Young Adult novel, as well as 3-5 other bookish treats to help you get your nerd on.”
Before deciding to try it, I wanted to see what exactly was considered ‘Young Adult’ since that could range from books similar to The Hunger Games or The Scorpio Races to things like Diary Of A Wimpy Kid or Captain Underpants. Not that there’s anything bad about the last two, but those are much too young for me, But teen? Something I can totally get into. From scanning the past boxes, their young adult seemed more upper teen minded. So I decided to give it a shot.
My November package came today! I loved the box. Not that I would have been upset about a plain box, but I like the owl on the top. It’s cute.

Everything was wrapped nicely.

Each month, the featured book is one that has been published within the past 40 days. The chances that I have already bought it is low. Every month has a theme and November’s theme was Myths and Legends. It came with a little card to explain.

This month’s book was Soundless by Richelle Mead. I wasn’t all that into Vampire Academy; I read the first one and finished it but just felt ehh about it and didn’t read any more of the books. I was in the minority among my friends though. The others enjoyed them. So I’m hoping I like Soundless more!

There were other bookish themed items that came with the book. Owlcrate uses independant artists’ items to include in each box. There was tea, which will be great to drink tomorrow after my wisdom teeth surgery. Maybe. Hopefully. There was a castle necklace, a Percy Jackson bracelet, and a mirror. For $29.99 plus shipping I don’t think it was a bad deal.

I did like this, and hope to do this again in the future. I plan on trying out some other book subscription boxes too and seeing which one I liked the most.

If you’re interested in trying this, December box’s theme is Get Inspired. And if you want to say I referred you to it, here’s the special link for me! ( I can get a free box if enough people say I referred them!). There’s also a coupon for first time users on Owlcrate’s website.

Has anyone tried any other book subscription boxes? Any you’d recommend?

Banned Books Week

October 5, 2015December 28, 2024Kristian Beverly4 Comments

From Epic Reads

The last week of September is devoted to Banned Books week.
I was going to try to do all horse books, but horse books aren’t on many banned book lists (Yay!). Animal Farm has some horse characters and Sodapop from The Outsiders does mention rodeos, but I felt like that was too much of a stretch.
There are many reasons behind books being challenged. Do I think books should be banned? Nope. Now, there is a huge difference between book levels and challenging. There are certain types of content within some books that I feel should be read by more mature people or else the meaning is lost. The themes of the book would go completely over his or her head. Challenging a book, even though the person is the appropriate maturity/reading level is completely different. Especially trying get books taken out of libraries instead of passing by them. Eck.
While I could just make a list of my favorite books that have been challenged/banned, I decided to list this year’s banned books. This year’s theme was Young Adult/Teen books. I was pretty happy that I’ve read five of the top ten books on the list.

The compete list of banned/challenged YA/Teen books of 2014-2015, per Banned Books Week, are:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Drama, by Raina Telgemeier
Chinese Handcuffs, by Chris Crutcher
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
Looking for Alaska, by John Green

Epic Reads has an interesting distinction between challenged and banned books. Something I never thought of. I often thought the terms to be interchangeable.

BANNED VS. CHALLENGED
Challenged Books: Books that people are trying to remove or restrict from schools, libraries, etc.
Banned Books: If a group of people challenge a book and they win, then the book is banned and removed from public spaces like schools, libraries, etc.

I was shocked that The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is number one. It is a coming of age story that is a mix of text and illustrations. It’s told from a 1st person narration and is a fast read. I liked it and learned some about reservations. It was on the list of potential books for the local libraries to focus on for the year. It didn’t win, but I’m glad I read it.

(Also, look at my chalkie variation!)

Persepolis is a graphic novel. I read it in college for the graphic novel class I took. It surrounds the author from childhood to early adult years in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution. I learned a bunch about an event in history that I wasn’t familiar with. The movie that was made from it is beautifully animated and is a great adaption of the book.

Do you think books should be banned? Have you read any of the books from this year’s list?

Portals, Reflections, and Mirrors

June 28, 2015December 28, 2024Kristian Beverly4 Comments

I made some miniature books today. I was trying to finish a tack project, but it wasn’t working. So miniature books happened instead.

Carl the Zombie made a cameo (I thought I’d lost Carl, but he was found).

A zombie reading a zombie book.

A friend gave me her view of book categories that I thought was interesting. I can’t remember it word for word, but the gist was that books are portals, reflections, or mirrors. Now, when I read a book I really don’t think about categories. If it sounds good, I pick it up.
She said portals take you to other ‘worlds’. They’re an escape.

Left to Right: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Clockwork Princess, City of Bones, Girl Of Nightmares

Reflections make you sit back after you’re done reading and think. They’re gateways into lifestyles/classes you don’t live in.

Left To Right: The Fault In Our Stars, The Outsiders, To Kill A Mockingbird

Mirrors are close to portals. You can escape into them, but there’s something more to just escaping. There’s a message inside. They reflect life, but not in an exact image.

Left to Right: Hunger Games, Catching Fire ,Mockingjay, Lord Of The Flies, Fahrenheit 451

Have you read any of these actual books? What did you think of them?

I made a specific board on Pinterest for miniature books, so if you like them, here’s a board with covers so you can make your own! Link

Mini Books

June 18, 2015December 28, 2024Kristian Beverly6 Comments

Last night I started making miniature books. These are the ones I made.

From left to right: The Fault In Our Stars, Paper Towns, Black Beauty, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,
, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and ,Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

After finishing the saddle I wanted to do something fast. So miniature books happened.

Over the past couple of months I’ve pinned various book jackets to my pinterest board called Miniature Projects. Some books I found with a google image search. Here’s the links to the ones on pinterest.

Black Beauty

The one that got me really excited I found the other day. I decided to give it a try.

Harry Potter Covers

I scaled the covers down to be 1:9 scale. Because the Harry Potter book covers were the hardback dust jackets instead of paperback, I decided to make them into miniature hardbacks. I used thin cardboard.

After I cut the covers out, I glued small packets of white paper inside and modge podged the cover to seal it. Once set, I could open them up like real books, but the pages are blank.

I really do like how they came out. The Harry Potter book covers were a little blurry, so I only made 3 of the 7 books. I have all of the *real sized* ones and have most in hardback, so I think I’ll try scanning my copies and making new miniature ones.

Size comparison.