A BOOK REVIEW AND AN AWARD

My good friend and fellow blogger Lynne at Lynne's Little Corner Of The World has given me this very nice award. Thank you, Lynne!! (I really wish people who create these awards at least do a grammar or spell check - "For the coolest blog I ever know"?????) I now pass it on to the following fellow bloggers:

1. Barbara at The Clark Homestead

2. Willow at Willow's Cottage

3. Tristi at Tristi Pinkston, LDS Author

4. Diane at Diane's Place

5. Jess at Jessica's World

The guidelines are that you post the award graphic on your blog and link your post to the person who gave you the award and the people you are passing the award on to.

Congratulations - you are all SO COOL!

Thanks to Lynne again for reviewing this wonderful book - "Hannah's Dream" - which I have just finished and have been left wishing there were more. As you will notice on some of my previous posts, I have read several books about elephants - some fiction, some true. I have developed a keen interest in these complicated and wonderful creatures and have joined the supporters of The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwalt, Tennessee. Please check out their website here - they even have an elephant-cam.

Hannah's Dream by Diane Hammond is fiction, but could very well be true because the author has done such excellent research into the life of the captured elephant and the problems and mistakes made by zoos and elephant keepers. Hannah was fortunate enough to have the same keeper for forty-one years and this keeper and his wife loved Hannah as if she were their own child. The time was drawing close to when the keeper would have to retire which coincided with the ambitions of the new zoo director and her plans for Hannah and the zoo. This is a book with a happy ending - I only wish there would be a sequel or that there would have been an "Afterword" at the end of the book. I wanted to know what happened to the characters after I read the last sentence. I strongly recommend this book.

BOOKS, BOOKS AND MORE BOOKS and elephants, too

I am surrounded by books to read. I recently finished the BEST book I have read in a long time. It is "Water For Elephants" by Sara Gruen. It is fiction, but laced with some true events and facts. This book is SO good. It is definitely a "must read."

I was so fascinated by the behaviour of the elephant, that I checked out two more elephant related books from the library. I am now reading "Jumbo - The Greatest Elephant In The World" by Paul Chambers. I am almost finished it. It is full of interesting facts, figures, stories and photos and illustrations of this famous elephant who was with the Barnum and Bailey Circus. The word "jumbo" meaning large was derived from this elephant's name.

I also have waiting for me:

1. "The Circus At The Edge Of The Earth (Travels With The Great Wallenda Circus)" by Charles Wilkins.

2. "Modoc - The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived" by Ralph Helfer. (I don't know who was the greater - Jumbo or Modoc).

3. "D" Is For Deadbeat" by Sue Grafton. (I am working my way through the alphabet with this author.)

4. "The Diary of a Nobody" by George and Weedon Grossmith. (This was first published in 1892 and is about a timeless comic character in English fiction.)

5. "My Best Friend's Girl" by Dorothy Koomson (This was loaned to me by a friend who loved it.)

6. "Riding Lessons" by Sara Gruen.

I have finished reading "Slow Waltz In Cedar Bend" which was on my Spring Reading 2008 Challenge list. This was a good book, even though I did not really like the two main characters. The author, Robert James Waller, also wrote "The Bridges of Madison County" which I did not read, but saw the movie. Slow Waltz is similar in that it tells an interesting love story. It is worth reading.

I am also reading "Ida Mae Tutweiler's Traveling Tea Party", but I think I have read it before.

It is a beautiful day here in coastal Delaware. Two days ago we were besieged by very high winds and rain. Tree limbs and leaves are everywhere. You should have seen the ocean yesterday -- the roughest and highest waves I have seen for a long time.