Books read in April 2019

The thing about getting behind on your blog posts? It sometimes feels like it’s been a lifetime since you’ve read this book. If you had asked me today (June 28) when I read To Night Owl, From Dogfish, I would have said, “last year sometime, maybe?”

But apparently, I read it in April. It was great! So was Serious Moonlight, Love to Everyone, Kiss Number 8, and Let ‘er Buck!

Middle Grade

To Night Owl, From Dogfish
Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer
Read for Librarian Book Group

Being a fan of epistolary fiction, I was all over these two girls’ back and forth emails as they first plotted against their fathers’ plan to send them to camp together so they could get to know each other.

Aside from Avery and Bett, who shine through their correspondence, we meet and get to know a lot of other people in their orbits. This book includes the fun of correspondence and the fun of summer camp. It may be my favorite book so far in 2019.

The Backstagers
James Tynion & Rian Sygh
Read for Family Book Group

The final selection of the Family Book Group year (and my tenure as the person leading the group) was this little graphic novel comic book about the people who work backstage during plays.

As established in previous reviews, graphic novels aren’t my medium and this very comic-book style of graphic novel is especially not my medium, so there was that barrier. Despite the barrier, I really enjoyed the characters and the magical backstage. In doing preparatory work for our Family Book Group meeting, I read interviews with the creators that had me liking the book even more. While I won’t be reading volumes 2 and 3, I’m really glad this series exists.

It was well received by both the kids and the adults in the Family Book Group.

Young Adult

Bloom
Kevin Panetta, Savanna Ganucheau
Read for Librarian Book Group

A graphic novel with good illustrations and a color scheme that screams pleasant beach environment. I also enjoyed seeing the variety of delicious baked goods that were featured as a part of the story.

What I didn’t love was the main character Ari, who was kind of a jerk, although appropriate enough for his age and stage in life.

Serious Moonlight
Jenn Bennett

What is it about Jenn Bennett that makes me want to start reading her books from the beginning right after I finish the last page? She’s got great characters, for one. And her conundrums are spot on, and never manufactured drama.

In this book, Birdie is an overly sheltered (home schooled by her religious grandmother from the age of 10 when her mother abruptly died) girl from Bainbridge Island who is starting her first job as a night clerk at at Seattle hotel. She’s a mystery enthusiast, hoping her new job will bring some sort of a case her way.

There is a mystery for her to solve, but there’s also Daniel, the guy she met at the Moonlight Diner.

Bennett excels at the tentativeness of first love, and also witty repartee and amusing situations. There was even a gasp or two by me as the story unfolded.

Slight quibbles: I found it hard to believe that someone who grew up for 18 years in Seattle and the Seattle metro area would not have been well-acquainted with sushi, especially with that freewheeling Aunt Mona in her life. And even if she wasn’t familiar with sushi, the fact that Birdie didn’t know that Japanese culture is a shoes-off culture struck me as very weird. Plus, with all that June Gloom, would those apricots would have ripened as early as they did?

We Set the Dark on Fire
Tehlor Kay Mejia
Read for Librarian Book Group

When I set down a book mid-read for a different book, it’s not a great sign. When I read that new book twice in a row, it’s a very bad sign.

Nothing really worked for me with this book. The pacing was off. It took until mid-book for things to really get going and I was 10 pages out from the ending wondering how in the heck things were going to wrap up.

I never really believed the world. You can put a rambling myth at the beginning of a story, but that doesn’t mean I will believe it.

Things developed in ways that were not at all surprising and I could tell the parts in the book where I was supposed to feel tense, but my feelings never moved past boredom.

Love to Everyone
Hilary McKay
Read for Librarian Book Group

This book has the best first page I’ve read in a very long time. It’s the kind of first page so good at drawing me in that I was moved to post it on Instagram. It’s the kind of dreamy writing that immediately reminded me of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess, a favorite book from my childhood.

From that first page, it’s a book chock full of details of the pre-World War I time period and characters so vivid I wouldn’t be surprised if they stopped by for tea.

It does not have the standard sort of plot that I’ve grown used to, rather it follows Clarry from her early childhood to her early adulthood. That left me feeling the book dragged through the middle. However, the other very good things propped me up and the book overall left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

P.S. I have just discovered that the British title of this book is The Skylarks’ War. Man, those Brits get all the good stuff. That’s a much better title!

Kiss Number 8
Coleen A.F. Venable & Ellen T. Crenshaw
Read for Librarian Book Group

This book does a great job capturing the adolescent rage I think we all felt during our adolescence. And I felt the frustration right along with Amanda because the lack of clarity provided by her parents was maddening.

That lack of clarity adds a nice layer of mystery. There are also friendship expectations and identity stuff. Also, it’s set in 2004, so there might be some nostalgia details baked in for readers of a certain age.

In short, great story, great drawings, really great book.

Young nonfition

Titanosaur
Jose Luis Carballido
Read for Librarian Book Group

I was unclear about a few details (What year was this? Was the gaucho on the first page also the landowner?) and that was distracting. However, it’s a pretty cool dinosaur book. I liked the combination of illustrations and photos from the dig.

Let ‘er Buck
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson & Gordon C. James
Read for Librarian Book Group

I loved this picture book of history of George Fletcher who did not win the 1911 Pendelton Roundup even though he probably would have, had he not been a black man.

This book not only has an excellent voice for its subject matter, but also has incredible illustrations, all of which I would be glad to have on the walls of my imaginary high desert cabin.

There’s also great back matter that is frank about how hard it was to verify information, plus a selected bibliography.

Borrowing Bunnies: A Surprising True Tale of Fostering Rabbits
Cynthia Lord, John Bald and Hazel Mitchell
Read for Librarian Book Group

I’m not a person who is interested in rabbits as pets, but boy did I like this book, which combines photographs and illustrations to teach us both about the specific bunnies that Cynthia Lord was fostering and also about pet rabbit information in general.

There’s a good afterward discussing things to think about before you adopt a bunny.