Armchair Travel

A Travel Challenge - I blame Constance. I just went to her blog to take a look at pictures of Spectacle Island and I found a link to this reading challenge.

I always enjoy a challenge and if I commit myself I am much more likely to finish a pile of books that might be lurking around rather than just looking at them wanly and hoping that the stories they contain will just jump right into my head.

I took a close look at the rules and determined that if I could find 6 books that qualified in THE PILE then I could take part. (I am afraid that THE PILE is now of such epic proportion that it must be typed in all caps. Did I mention that I went to NMRLS and got a stack of freebies to review? Just throw another 10 titles on THE PILE Fecteau. You'll get to them.)

So here is the bit of rules that allow me to take part: Fiction or non-fiction works are fine, and do not need to be specifically travel related, as long as the location is integral to the book - I’ll leave that to your discretion.

And so - the list (all of which are possibilities for Summer Reading 2008):

INTO THE WILD by Jon Krakauer - The story of a young man who shucks off every bit of his identity to travel from Georgia, through Canada and into the wilds of Alaska.

COME BACK TO AFGHANISTAN by Said Hyder Akbar - An Afghan-American youth spends his summers with his father trying to help rebuild post-Taliban Afghanistan.

LOST AND FOUND by Carolyn Parkhurst - A mother and daughter try to connect while taking part in a round-the-world reality show.

DOES MY HEAD LOOK BIG IN THIS? by Randa Abdel-Fattah - An Australian-Palestinian girl decides to put on the hajib - traditional head-wear - at her snobby Australian prep school. (This one is kind of a stretch, but if she were in Palestine, it wouldn't be a problem. It is the whole story since she is in Melbourne!)

SUMMER AT TIFFANY by Marjorie Hart - Two young girls spend the summer in New York City in 1945.

BREAKOUT by Paul Fleischman - An all day traffic jam in Los Angeles is about as hellish as travel can get!

So there you have it. Wish me luck!