Tag: books

A story about friendship and love and what to do when you find magical creatures in this YouTube/24-hour news cycle time.

There was a little bit of nearly everything this month, including poetry!  I love months with poetry books.  Perhaps I should make them more of a priority.

(This was not the book cover picture I thought I was getting.  But it does give you a chance to compare and contrast the British/US covers.  I prefer the US cover, on the left.  But the British one is nice too.)

Picture books: A tie between Tell Me About Sex, Grandma, and Yours Sincerely, Giraffe, neither of which really fit the picture book label, but I can’t be having 15 different labels each month.
Middle grade: A Crack in the Sea
Young adult: The Pearl Thief
Young nonfiction: One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance
Grownup nonfiction: You and a Bike and a Road
Adult fiction: Attachment

Tell me about sex, grandma
A. Higgenbothem
Read for Librarian Book Group
Aside from having a great title that practically begs everyone to pick up this book, it’s also a wonderful conversation between grandmother/grandchild about that thing that all children are curious about.  The art is delightful, and I particularly appreciate grandma’s cool pants.

Blue Sky, White Stars
Baberhous, Nelson
Read for Librarian Book Group
Great illustrations of the United States we love.  Some of the text didn’t flow for me.

Yours Sincerely, Giraffe
Iwasa Takabatako
Read for Librarian Book Group
I’m a great fan of epistolary stories, so of course I would be delighted by this story of Giraffe, who writes a letter and sends it off.  Penguin writes back and so their delightful correspondence begins.  This early chapter book is funny.

Town is the Sea
Sydney Smith
Read for Librarian Book Group
Beautiful picture book which takes place in a Cape Breton mining town.  I suspect this will win many awards, due to the librarians going ga-ga over it at book group.

Clayton Byrd Goes Underground
Rita Williams Garcia
Read for Librarian Book Group
There was so much to love about this story:  the frustrating and unfair way his mother dealt with Clayton’s grandfather’s death; how a child grieves; love of jazz music; the grandfather/grandson relationship; the mother/son relationship; the father/daughter relationship.

And then it seemed like Garcia had filled her allotted amount of pages and things wrapped up much too quickly.  It was as if a living, breathing story was hurried to its ending before it could come to its natural conclusion.  This was disappointing.

A Crack in the Sea
H.M. Bouwman
Read for Librarian Book Group
Combining the middle passage experience of slaves brought to the US, with the post-Vietnam War boat people experience? No problem.  It totally works in this tale that mostly takes place in the Second World, a place that can only be accessed once in a great while.

This is not only a story full of tales, it’s also a brother/sister tale of adventure and exploration.  I loved this book.

The Pearl Thief
Elizabeth Wein
Read for Librarian Book Group
A prequel to the stellar Code Name Verity, this takes place several years prior and features Julia Beaufort-Stuart’s summer adventures.

I have a friend who loves to read British mysteries set at boarding schools between the wars.  This nearly hit all of those preferences, just missing out on the boarding school aspect. Although the miss was a close one.  Julia is home for the summer from boarding school.  Also, her home is being turned into a boys boarding school, as her grandfather has died and his estate is being liquidated.

This book begins with a wallop to the back of the head (Julia’s) and a summer of trying to unravel who hit her, and why.  As with all of Elizabeth Wein books, there are a treasure trove of details packet into a tightly woven narrative including freshwater pearls, the history of the Travelers/Tinkers, and general class injustice.

Now that this exists, I’m not entirely sure which book should be read first. If one begins with Code Name Verity, this book will have an emotional resonance it wouldn’t have had.  But maybe it’s best to start here, and tread slowly into the Verity waters?

 

The Lines We Cross
Randa Abdel-Fattah
Read for Librarian Book Group
I’m not familiar with Australia’s anti-immigrant movement, but the sentiments are not very different than what is expressed in the USA anti-immigrant movement.  In this book, the son of a prominent “anti” becomes friends with a girl who is a Muslim refugee from Afghanistan.

I found the prose to be clunky at times, but this is worth the read, both for the aspect of a teenager’s awakening (my parents believe X, do I also believe X to be true?) but also for the refugee perspective and the many hard places refugees find themselves in.

The Whole Thing Together
Anne Brashares
A brilliant and engaging premise.  Sasha and Ray share half sisters, but have never met, due to the terrible divorce between Sasha’s father and Ray’s mother.  They also share a bedroom at the beach house the divorced couple continues to occupy.

There are a lot of mid-chapter point of view shifts in this book that I found distracting.  And I wasn’t fond of how Brashares chose to wrap up the story.  It seemed too convenient, as in: “I’m tired of writing this story and need to be done.”  Still, the idea of two kids more or less the same age occupying the same space year after year, and yet never meeting was a winner.

One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance
Nikki Grimes
Read for Librarian Book Group
Grimes pairs poems written by Harlem Renaissance authors with new poems written using the Golden Shovel method.  In this method, the author takes a line (or lines, or sometimes an entire poem) and writes a new poem using each word from that line as the end word of the line.

My brain boggled that such beautiful poetry could come from this method.

Fred Korematsu Speaks Up
Atkins, Yogi
Read for Librarian Book Group
Graphic novel true story of one man who refused to go to the “relocation” camps during World War II.  Great for people who might need to be reminded about the United State’s shady history with justice.

You and a bike and a road
Eleanor Davis
Davis chronicles her bike ride from her parents house in Tuscon, Arizona to her home in Athens, Georgia.  Quick drawings and spare text are employed for maximum benefit.  There’s a bit in Texas that deals with border crossing that was done remarkably well.

Attachment
Rainbow Rowell
Read aloud with Matt
I enjoyed this re-read. This makes our second Rainbow Rowell read aloud.

Jem is the eleven-year-old protagonist of  this 1980s vignette that packed a lot of story into its brief pages.

Lotta young nonfiction read this month.  I usually top out at one or two nonfiction books.

Picture Books: Over and Under the Pond
Middle Grade: Real Friends
Young Adult: Gem & Dixie
Young Nonfiction: Eyes of the World

Over & Under the Pond
Messner Neal
Read for Librarian Book Group
Lovely illustrations and great text.

The Book of Mistakes
Luyken
Read for Librarian Book Group
What happens when the art doesn’t go just right? You roll with it.  I enjoyed tracking the mistakes as they changed and morphed into something fun.

Real Friends
Hale/Pham
Read for Librarian Book Group
I had some friendship troubles in late elementary school, and this nicely captures the feelings I experienced. It’s also got some great time-specific clothing on display.

Hello Universe
Erin Entrada Kelly
Read for Librarian Book Group
This book pulls off the ultimate middle-grade feat:  it manages to tell a story about children who work through their problems without adult assistance.  It does this without having to resort to such non-parent tropes as: orphan, foster children, boarding school, camp.

Each character was deftly drawn and the story kept turning in directions I wasn’t anticipating.  This is also a book populated with diverse characters who feel authentic, and not as though they are filling a specific diverse slot.

A Wrinkle in Time
Madeline L’Engle
This was a re-read in anticipation of the movie’s release.  Two things surprised me.  One was how much god was in this book.  There was much more god than I find in the children’s books I regularly read.  The second thing was that at some point, the characters meet a character named IT.  The character’s name is presented in that fashion with a capital “i” and “t.” Unfortunately, in the many years since I first read this book (1985?) the use of the capital “i” and “t” put together are regularly seen, but in a way they were not in the 1960s when L’Engle wrote the book.

So it was that I read every single occurrence of IT as Eye-Tee, a.k.a. Information Technology, a.k.a not what Madeline L’Engle was going for, tone-wise.

Other than that, it was an interesting exploration of kid-lit of yore.  If I find myself unemployed, it would be interesting to dive into the whole series.

Gem & Dixie
Sara Zarr
Sisters! But not the kind that sing a musical number a la White Christmas.  This is the story of Gem, who isn’t really that thrilled with her home situation, and her sister Dixie, who doesn’t mind so much. When their dad appears back in town something happens that has the girls exploring different options.  I liked that it spent some time wondering how not-optimal your living situation should be before you should find something else.

Anne & Henry
Dawn Ius
An updated version of the story of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII.  I felt that this particular retelling didn’t translate very well to the modern era.  Also the cover wigged me out, as the “Anne” model actually has a chunk of “Henry’s” flesh in her mouth.

We Will Not Be Silent
Russell Freedman
Read for Family Book Group
This worked well for a re-read, and it got overall high rankings, despite most people expressing that they don’t like nonfiction much.

Eyes of the World
Aronson/Budhos
Read for Librarian Book Group
The story of Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, this is a fine example of an exploration of how artists influence each other.  It was a little slow, but ultimately rewarding.   The photos, fonts and layouts are quite nice.

Balderdash!: John Newbery and the Boisterous Birth of Children’s Books
Markel/Carpenter
Read for Librarian Book Group
There was a time when there was no children’s literature.  (Gasp!) Meet the man who who started the trend.

The Quest for Z
Gregg Pizzoli
Read for Librarian Book Group
An age-appropriate exploration of that Amazon guy who has a grownup nonfiction book, a movie, and now a picture book.  I loved the illustrations in this, and it has a very good front cover hidden under the jacket. In book group discussion, someone made an observation that it was a little “old-fashioned” a la from the explorer’s point of view and not so much any insight into the Amazon Indians who were being explored.

I had great amounts of fun in my first year leading the Family Book Group for sixth and seventh graders. And I also had fun making a handy color-coded sheet of our highs and lows.

Overall, our highest rated book was I Am Princess X.  Our lowest was the Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle.

Based on these results, I’m on the hunt for YA that isn’t too old for next year’s group.

I also received a very nice card from one of the participants.

A short story about Syrian refugees making a run for safety.  It has nine different points of view and timestamps.  It made me cry.  If you do not have a subscription to One Story, I recommend that you buy this.  It’s $2.50. You won’t regret your purchase.

I enjoy a good historical fiction story and this nicely delivered, encompassing the experience of many residents of a small town.

Mr. Schaefer has created a fictional event (a boxing match between a woman and a man) and then created fictional interviews that are then woven into a short story that masquerades as an article about the fictional event.

Nicely done!

It was a stellar month for YA. 

Picture Book: None this month
Middle Grade: The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle
Young Adult: Piecing Me Together; The Hate U Give
Young Nonfiction: Grand Canyon
Adult Fiction: The Underground Railroad

The Secret Project
Jonah & Janette Winter
Read for Librarian Book Group

The development of the atomic bomb!  In picture book format!

I think this story needs a lot of scaffolding.

Tony
Ed Galig/Erin E. Stead
Read for Librarian Book Group

It wasn’t apparent to me I was reading a poem, and I found myself puzzled by the writing throughout and also by the ending.  It took reading the book flap to clarify things.  Even with clarity, I found that there wasn’t much there for me.

The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle
Janet Fox
Read for Family Book Group

The second reading was nearly as fun as the first for me.  The family book group was all over the place in their reviews.  I had the highest rating of the adults, with an 8.  The kid average rating was 7.0046, the adults’ was 6.575 for an overall rating of 6.770

On Edge
Gin Price
Five stars for a star-crossed story of a runner (parkour enthusiast) and a writer (graffiti artist).  I also really appreciated the urban Detroit setting.  Unfortunately, the stars start to drop as the story progresses.  The romance, while convincingly written, had a love-at-first-sight origin that was not really believable.  This was advertised as a mystery, but the mystery didn’t get going until halfway through the book.  My largest criticism has to do with the actions of the person who did the deed.  That person is the epitome of a 1950’s cliche and was not well received by me.  We’ve moved beyond that particular stereotype.

Nora & Kettle
Lauren Nicole Taylor
1950s historical fiction about a Japanese American orphan trying to make his way in Brooklyn after being released from the “relocation” camps.  He crosses paths with the daughter of a civil rights lawyer who is  abusive toward his family.

The writing is crisp and vivid, and the characters complicated and sympathetic.  There is a well-placed warning at the beginning. The scenes of domestic violence are brutal to read, and some of the experiences Kettle has are difficult.

This is a good addition to the post-war historical fiction cannon.

The Lonely Hearts Club
Elizabeth Eulberg

A girl, terribly hurt (emotionally) by her boyfriend, decides to give up boys for the rest of high school.  Her friends join her, and the club grows.  Overall a good quick read, though I there were a few detractions.

My high school had the exact same law-and-order/sports-oriented principal depicted in this book, yet I found it incredibly hard to believe he would even take notice of a band of girls forming their own club, much less be so vindictive.  There was also a scene of assault that was swept under the rug in a way that I did not feel fit at all with the sentiments of the club.

Piecing Me Together
Renee Watson
Read for Librarian Book Group

I’m interested in why Renee Watson sets her books so firmly in Portland and changes some, but not all, of the names.  As a Portland reader, it’s maddening.

Other than that, this book was exactly the kind of book I love. It gave me the opportunity to live in Jade’s life, which is a good life, and hard life.  Watson is a master at depicting the good/hard blend.  I particularly appreciated parsing the complicated feelings that come with being picked for the organization that will give you exposure to things you don’t get to experience, due to your reduced circumstances.

Aside from that, I loved the complexity of Jade’s friendships.  I’m a huge sucker for a romance, but those stories are plentiful.  Because of that, I really love coming across a coming-of-age book with a character I adore whose growth and change has nothing to do with finding romantic love.

Allegedly
Tiffany D. Jackson
Read for Librarian Book Group

One of those gobble-down books.  What would the life of a nine-year-old alleged murderer be like?  The details were fierce and disturbing.  I was all in, until the author pulled the rug out from under me with the ending.

The Hate U Give
Angie Thomas
Read for Librarian Book Group

I loved this book unconditionally. I love:

**Starr Carter, one of my favorite characters this year
**How the book shows the terror of being the bystander in a police shooting.
**How complicated the details of the shooting are.
**How complicated and nuanced Starr’s life is–kind of like how real life works.
**Starr’s family, especially the relationship between her parents.
**How this book was sad and weighty and difficult, but also delightfully funny.
**How Starr experiences sorrow and joy, and maybe even in the same day.
**That this book was in a 13-way bidding war

I don’t love that while I was reading this book, a young man of color in my hometown was shot and killed by the police.

If you are looking for a zeitgeist book for 2017, this is your book.

City of Saints & Thieves
Natalie C. Anderson
Read for Librarian Book Group

It took me a while to put my finger on what was off about this book.  I found the story and characters engaging, and the pacing was quite good.  But I never really felt like I was in Kenya.  I think more smells and descriptive sights would have grounded me more in a sense of place.

Other than that, it was a good book.

Grand Canyon
Jason Chin
Read for Librarian Book Group

Jason Chin brings a sense of wonder to this books.  I loved the tour through the geologic ages of the Grand Canyon.  And that’s saying something, as Geology is one of those Zzzzzzzzz topics for me.

The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead

The realistic depictions of slavery combined with the alternate-reality version of pre-Civil War US made this book a big win.