Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead

Here is a new idea for me I am going to talk about this book in a series of posts. (See below for a link to the full set).  Each time I have something to say I am going to post it here.  This will be a dialogue as I read this book.  Right now I am up to page ten and in reading heaven!  I love this writing.  Here is an example :

"In the morning the cafeteria smells fried and sweet, like fish sticks and cookie.  But after lunch, it's different. There's more sweat and garbage mixed in, I guess. Or maybe, it's just that, after lunch, the cafeteria doesn't have the smell of things to come.  It's the smell of what has been."

Perhaps I am drawn to books like this because I am a teacher and when you combine my own school life and my time as a teacher more than forty years of my life is accounted for.  Oddly though I am often drawn to books about boys and especially boys in American schools and with facilities like cafeterias which we don't have in Australia.  This setting is so far removed from my actual life.

So far, in just ten pages, I have met some kids in the class like Bob English Who Draws and Dallas Llewellyn the class bully along with the narrator Georges.  I have also met two teachers Mr Landau and the PE teacher Ms Warner.  I think I like Ms Warner even though, like George, PE would be my worst subject. Along with this I know Georges is moving house on the weekend and he is not happy and this but his mum, who is an intensive care nurse, is working hard to make him happy.  "Mom's always telling me to smile and hoping I'll turn into a smiley person."  His mum has a theory that if you smile for no reason you will actually start to feel happy. People used to tell me this when I was a child.

That's all for now I will get back to my reading.

It is now a few years since I posted this entry on my blog.
I have linked all my posts about Liar and Spy on the final post.