The joys of rereading…just because you want to

I love to reread, and I reread favorite books all the time:

• When I’m feeling down.
• When I want an audiobook to listen to but don’t want to have to pay attention.
• When I’m in between books and just want to read something I know I’ll like.
• When I’m reading the newest book in a series and want to go back and see what happened before.
• Just because I miss an old favorite and want to read it again.

But it’s been awhile since I reread a book that I’d just read for the first time, simply because it was so good I wanted to go through and experience it again.

Novik, Naomi. A Deadly Education. Del Ray, 2020.

My mom gave me Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education for Christmas, and while I expected to enjoy it (I’ve enjoyed both of the other Novik books I read, Uprooted and Spinning Silver, and I hope to go back and reread each at some point), I did not expect to be drawn into it as thoroughly as I was. [P.S. For any of my students reading–this book is reviewed for grades 10 and up, so check in with your parents before seeking out this story. Sorry!] I’m not a super fast reader, and as a school librarian, I feel the need to keep reading new (at least, new to to me) books so that I have more books to recommend to my students, so I put it aside and tried to pick up the next book on my pile.

But I just couldn’t stop thinking about El (short for Galadriel) and A Deadly Education, so I finally gave in and sat down to reread it.

In brief, this story is about a school of magic (the Scholomance), but unlike at Hogwarts, the students spend most of their time trying not to get eaten by all the monsters (“maleficaria” or “mals”) that spend their lives working their way into the school via drains, vents, stairwells, any passage they can find, to get to the tasty young wizards. The only reason wizards send their kids here is the students are ever so slightly less likely to get eaten in the Scholomance than out in the regular world. But, as in every society, there are haves and have nots in wizard society, and the haves (kids whose families belong to “enclaves” outside of school) come in with more resources and a much greater likelihood of surviving.

El is a have not. She grew up with just her mom in a commune in Wales (a regular-human commune, not a wizard enclave), and it’s always been just the two of them. El is an enormously powerful wizard, but in this world, no matter powerful you are, you have to have some kind of magical fuel (“mana”) to work with. There are ways to build up mana (El does a lot of push-ups and crochet), there are ways to store mana, and there are ways to take mana from other living things. Except, in the last case, you are taking “malia,” and it starts to turn you evil and eventually that takes its toll on your own body.

El’s big problem is that her talent (her “affinity”) is geared toward death and destruction (and somehow everyone can sense this, so nobody likes her), but she was raised better than that, so she spends a lot of extra energy making sure she doesn’t do anything that’s not “strict mana” in her methods of getting the power she needs.

And it takes so much energy to just keep going.

Aside from the fascinating world-building (which became much easier to understand on a reread), El as a character is sympathetic (at least from the reader’s vantage point), and some of the challenges she faces are heart-breaking. While the book isn’t perfect (see more on the public controversy below), I don’t think Novik is given quite enough credit for highlighting how systemic inequalities play out in individual lives.

In one instance, El is raging in her room about how some kids from the powerful New York enclave just tried to kill her:

Why did I deserve to live more than them?

But I had an answer now: I hadn’t pulled malia even with a knife in my gut, and I’d gone after a maw-mouth to save half the freshmen instead of running away, and meanwhile Magnus had tried to murder me because Orion liked me, and Todd had destroyed Mika because he was scared, and because I had that answer, I couldn’t help thinking actually I did deserve to live more than them. And I know nobody gets to live or not live because they deserve it, deserving doesn’t count for a thing, but the point was, I now felt deep in my heart that I was in fact a better human being than Magnus or Todd, and hooray, all the prizes for me, but that wasn’t helpful when what I actually needed was reasons why I shouldn’t just wipe them out of existence.

And she keeps not using her ability to hurt others, even though it’s making it harder to survive herself–how many of us make that choice in our daily lives? I may not be able to wipe out a room of people with a flick of my wrist, but how often do I go out of my way to make sure of someone else’s survival at my expense?

And I find this next passage to be an especially poignant criticism of our systemic inequalities (in El’s world, it’s the enclaves; in ours, it usually manifests itself as systemic racism or systemic ways of keeping wealth with the wealthy):

I still want to live. I want Mum to live. And I’m not going to live if I try to go it alone. So I should show off and make clear to all the enclavers that I’m available to be won: a grand prize up for grabs to the highest bidder, a nuclear weapon any enclave could use to take out mals–to take out another enclave–to make themselves more powerful. To make themselves safe.

That’s all Todd wanted. That’s all Magnus wanted. They wanted to be safe. It’s not that much to ask, it feels like. But we don’t have it to begin with, and to get it and keep it, they’d push another kid into the dark. One enclave would push another into the dark for that, too. And they didn’t stop at safety, either. They wanted comfort, and then they wanted luxury, and then they wanted excess, and every step of the way they still wanted to be safe…

So many of us just want to live our lives and be safe. But who am I pushing into the dark (whether I acknowledge it or not) for that safety? No wonder I couldn’t stop thinking about the book!

In addition to the serious philosophical pondering that comes up, this is also simply a great adventure fantasy, a good friendship story, and a story with a nice romantic subplot…and it’s got more coming (but due to this ends on a big of a cliff-hanger, I hope you are writing fast, Ms. Novik!).

As I mentioned above, there was controversy about, in particular, Novik’s reference to locs in a way that perpetuates stereotypes of traditionally Black hairstyles (for which she apologized and made arrangements to change in future editions), and in general about her description of people of different ethnic and language groups.

I think these two articles do a good job of explaining the criticism and giving their view on why A Deadly Education is still worth reading:

A Response to Claims of Racism in Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education by Namera Tanjeem

The Intersectionality of Magical Academia: A Review of Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education from A Naga of the Nusantara, also posted on Reddit

However, my point in writing about A Deadly Education is to share how much I enjoyed the book, how much it kept me thinking, and how it reminded me that it’s a perfectly worthwhile use of reading time to reread a good book.

I know that, as parents, teachers, and librarians, we often encourage kids to try new books (which I also do, especially when they only like to read the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and they’ve all been checked out!). But I appreciated the reminder to the adult me of how much joy there is in rereading a book just because of how thoroughly I enjoyed the experience, and how deeply I was drawn into another world.

May we all be so lucky in our reading.

Favorite Reads of 2020, Reading Plans for 2021

I haven’t written a blog post in forever (a year and a half, to be exact), and I don’t expect to suddenly take up blogging again. But I wanted to look at my favorite books from this year and think about my reading plans for 2021, and this seems like the best format in which to do it (I can only take so much thumb typing on Instagram).

So without further adieu, in no particular order:

My Favorite Reads of 2020

Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery

I actually read this twice, first for an online book club during the quarantine craziness of the spring, and then, after this one prompted me to finally complete all of the Anne of Green Gables series, at its proper place at the end of the series. This book follows a teenaged Rilla, Anne and Gilbert’s youngest daughter, through the years and trials of WWI, and I found the themes of self-sacrifice and working for the common good very timely this year.

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

I thought this was one of the last books I read “before” the world seemed to change, but it was actually one of my first quarantine reads. This is a beautiful coming of age story told in verse, about a girl named Jude and her mom who travel to stay with relatives in the US to escape violence in Syria. I felt that Jude’s story was told without either minimizing the reality of her family’s struggles or overly dramatizing them. This also explained to me in a beautiful way how those who choose to wear a hijab view its symbolism.

Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey

A heartbreakingly sad memoir, but because I love Trethewey’s poems, I was fascinated to learn more about her story and her mother’s. I haven’t done it yet, but after reading this, I wanted to break out my volumes of poetry and read certain of her poems alongside related parts of the story.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

This is really a 2019 AND 2020 accomplishment, but I couldn’t leave it off my 2020 favorites just because I need to celebrate that I read the whole, long thing! I have now read 2 of Tolstoy’s most famous works (this and Anna Karenina), both as my own choice reading as an adult. I enjoy Tolstoy because of the beautiful writing that keeps coming up and because, amidst all the sweeping sagas of his storytelling, there are so many little details about everyday life that ring just as true in the 21st century as they were in the 19th.

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

I know this one was a controversial title this year, because many people saw Robert Galbraith, aka J.K. Rowling’s portrayal of a male villain (note, not the villain) who frequently dressed like a woman to trick his victims as an attack on transgendered people (taken with other comments by Rowling). In all the reading I have done of Rowling’s related comments, I don’t see Rowling opposing trans people but voicing specific concerns about issues that affect biological women differently from trans women, and I can see these issues being raised in this story. Aside from that assessment, the reason I love this series is to follow the character development of and relationship between Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, and this book richly delivered on that count (and yet, Rowling keeps us hanging…). I checked out the e-book version from the library, so in order to finish it before it was automatically returned, I stayed up until about midnight one Saturday night reading, and I hadn’t had that particular reading pleasure for a VERY long time.

Blended by Sharon M. Draper

One I’d been meaning to read for a long time, this shows a realistic and yet mostly positive picture of a girl balancing her lives with each of her (very non-amicably) divorced parents, as well as her identity as a biracial girl. I just loved how Draper makes Isabella, the main character, come to life, along with all the ups and downs of middle school, shuttling between houses, her passion for the piano, the many people who she loves, and life.

The Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

I’ve been WAITING for this one. I think it was initially supposed to be published in fall 2019, but it got delayed until this past fall, and I received it as a Christmas present! It’s the book I read completely during Winter Break and I LOVED it. I have enjoyed this entire series (starting with The Thief, which I read back in 2007), and intricate plotting and character development that have made the whole series fun were both in this installment. Additionally, Turner ties up a bunch of threads to make it a very satisfying series conclusion.

And, because I have trouble choosing…

Runners Up

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia

Part of the Rick Riordan Presents imprint, a fantasy story with characters and themes from African American legends, and Gum Baby is the best! (Rereading now via audio with my son.)

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

I didn’t expect to like this Hunger Game prequel, because who likes President Snow? But Collins pulled me right in, and I was thinking about it for a long time.

Blood, Water, Paint by Joy McCullough

Gripping historical fiction based on the life, career, and rape trial (she was the victim, but was also the one who got tortured for the trial!) of real Italian Renaissance painter Artemesia Gentileschi that made me want to learn more about the real person. The book is also a fast read, because it’s told in verse.

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart

This was recommended by a friend a good year ago, and I finally got around to reading it this fall…it was just as heart-warming (and, occasionally, heart-breaking) as promised.

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

I’m not usually a scary book person, but I love an interesting fairy tale retelling, and this version of the Dancing Princesses tale was terrifying, atmospheric, and completely gripping.

Reading Plans for 2021

Unlike in some years past, I don’t have a specific list of books I want to try to read this year. I know I have some books that I started this year or last and want to go back and finish, but no particular “to be reads” this year. However, I still have some plans for how I want to focus my reading in 2021.

I consider it part of my job to read widely among books for middle schoolers, and to try to read widely in the adult books I pick, but I definitely veer toward fiction, especially science fiction, fantasy, and some historical fiction. I’m fine with rereading favorites and returning to favorite genres and authors, but I also want to try to keep pushing my reading boundaries.

One way I feel it’s my duty to read widely is to read authors whose life experiences differ from my own, specifically authors of color. While I can see, looking over the books I read this year, that I do read authors of color, I can dive into this more deeply. Of the 90 books I completed this year, only 24 were by authors of color (so about a quarter), and about a third of my favorites were by authors of color. Since I’m someone who rereads favorites so much, I want to develop some new favorite authors (in addition to my current favorite authors…like elementary schoolers with best friends, I think there’s always room for another favorite author).

To that end, I want to read more deeply the work of some authors of color, especially Black authors, that I’ve either enjoyed in the past or meant to read. For most of these authors, I’d like to try to read several of their books, because I find that reading the breadth of an author’s work is the best way for me to grow to love them. Here’s who I’m looking forward to reading more of this year:

• Jason Reynolds: I’ve read many of his, but I especially want to finish reading the Track series, read his Miles Morales novel, and read his young people’s version of Stamped.
• Angie Thomas: I LOVED The Hate U Give, but I still haven’t read On the Come Up. Plus, her Concrete Rose is coming out this month.
• Sharon Draper: She’s a prolific author, and kids at my school still enjoy when they are assigned either Tears of a Tiger or Out of My Mind. I’ve read Tears, but need to finish that trilogy, and I haven’t yet read Out of My Mind. I also want to read her Stella by Starlight.
• Jasmine Warga: Since I so enjoyed Other Words for Home, I want to try her My Heart and Other Black Holes, plus she has a new book coming out in May.
• Elizabeth Acevedo: I’ve been meaning to read all 3 of her books: The Poet X, With the Fire on High, and Clap When You Land.
• Mitali Perkins: Secret Keeper stood on my shelf for years before I finally read it in fall 2019, and then I loved it. I don’t have any specific books of hers to find, but I’d like to try to read a couple.
• Ibi Zoboi: Pride (a Pride and Prejudice retelling, always a good pick for me) was a Christmas gift I’m looking forward to, and I want to try to read at least one other of hers.
• Octavia E. Butler: This is the one primarily adult author on my list, and also the one for whom I’m primarily looking at one book. I’ve been wanting to read Kindred, and then I’ll see if I’m led to keep going on this classic SF author’s work.

I’m excited about the fun reading ahead for 2021. What reading plans do you have for this year?

Snow Day or Makerspace Craft

Hello, world.

It’s another sometimes-snowy, sometimes-icy, always-primed-for-a-snow-day winter here in Maryland, and last week, my daughters and I made a craft that I hope I can use for our Makerspace at work.

I remember spending an art class in middle school using paper quilling to make snowflakes. I remembered it being relatively easy and fun, so I decided to try it again. It was mostly easy, and everyone seemed to have fun. One thing I had forgotten was how long it can take to make one snowflake (it took us the better part of the day, off and on), but the upside of that is it becomes a project that multiple people can contribute to.

What I learned about quilling in middle school involved making two basic kinds of shapes: circles and ovals/leaves (really just squashed circles). It can get a lot more complicated, but since that is what I remembered making, that’s what we went with.

The main process involves wrapping a strip of paper (I just used computer paper, cut into half-inch wide strips with a paper cutter) around a pencil to create a circle, then securing the end with glue (Elmer’s seems to work well for this). Once the strip is mostly wrapped, you can let it loosen up some to make a larger circle, or pull it tight to make a smaller one. After the glue dries, you can squash some of the circles to make ovals/leaves. Then it’s a matter of putting your shapes together to make the snowflake.

Strips of paper and some quilled shapes.

I found it easier to pour some glue on a paper plate and apply with toothpicks.

Shapes laid out on a paper plate to glue together–again with a toothpick.

Finished snowflake–just needs a string!

I’m hoping to do this at school with recycled paper, especially since we have an upcoming recycling fair this week to make a “winter wonderland” with recycled materials. We’ll see if the weather cooperates to get it up and running in time!

 

At least have some books…

I have a list of blog post topics on a Post-It note on my to-do list. Here are some things I have recently wanted to blog about:

• Being called to the laity (instead of ordained ministry, like certain other members of the family…)
• Ideas, or lack thereof, for Sunday school
• Working on the YALSA Hub reading challenge
• Life 9 months post-move
• Thoughts about Lent this year
• Guns and why I don’t like them

Obviously, I haven’t sat down to write any of these, and while I hope to get to at least some of them, it doesn’t seem likely in the next week, either. So here are some recent library books instead…

The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

We grabbed this from the library’s new award winner display, and I can see why it won. The pictures have a lovely bright and dark contrast, but the story is also fun and it just feels like a kid-friendly book all around. I hadn’t heard of it before it won this year’s Caldecott Medal (not surprisingly, for me), but my kids and I have all enjoyed it thoroughly, and I’ve had several reread requests.

The story follows an unnamed imaginary friend who, when he doesn’t get called up by a kid to be their friend, decides to go out into the real world and find his own friend. Sure enough, he finds both his friend and his name, and all live happily ever after.

Little Oink by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

From the creators of Little Pea and Little Hoot comes a story about a pig who wants to be clean. This is a cute addition to the Rosenthal and Corace’s brand of creatures wanting to doing the opposite of what they are known for, and it’s again fun as a parent to read how Little Oink disagrees with his parents.

Fox’s Garden by Princesse Camcam

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a gorgeous, wordless story about a fox finding shelter in the winter and a boy who helps her out. I can’t rave enough about the pictures–I could sit and look at them for a long, long time, except that my kids technically have dibs on the book.

Mr. Putter & Tabby Turn the Page by Cynthia Rylant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This installment of the Mr. Putter and Tabby series takes the pair to the library to read for story time. They don’t know quite what to do when Mrs. Teaberry and Zeke decide to come, too, but the visit goes well for everyone except perhaps a couple of librarians who lost their food to Zeke. A sweet, fun (and librarian-pleasing) entry for the series.

Shhh! by Valeri Gorbachev

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A sweet story about how an older brother quiets his toys down for his baby brother’s naptime–and revs them back up when the baby is awake! All three kids liked this, and it was simple but fun.

Five, Six, Seven, Nate! by Tim Federle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my first audio book for the YALSA Hub challenge this year, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a continuation, and I haven’t read the first book (Better Nate Than Ever), but Five, Six, Seven, Nate definitely stands on its own. In it, eighth grader Nate Foster heads from a Pittsburgh suburb to Broadway as an ensemble member of “ET: The Musical” and experiences all the ups and downs of being a member of a real Broadway cast. The reader gets a real sense of the theater world and can easily sympathize with Nate’s difficulties. Although he spends a lot of time getting cut from numbers due to poor dance skills, Nate’s flair for learning lines, ability to make (and keep) friends, and passion for the theater carry him through. There’s even some romance.

Author Tim Federle also narrates, and he does a great job–I read on the back blurb that these books are based on his own experiences on Broadway, and you feel like he really identifies with Nate when he reads. He doesn’t quite do Jim Dale-style voices, but he does vary his voice enough (including some very well-done accents) that you can easily tell which character is talking. I thoroughly enjoyed both the story and the audio production of it.

The last is one of the ones I’m reading for the YALSA challenge, but the two I’m reading now (one in print, one on audio) are taking me longer to get through. In audio format, I just got extra time to listen on Five, Six, Seven, Nate because I took a solo trip down to NC. In print, I can tell that bad things are coming for the characters, and that always slows down my reading.

I did finish one of the books I’ve been wanting to read this year, and I can strongly recommend it as very funny and enjoyable (and not even geared just to knitters, like most of her other books):
The Amazing Thing About the Way It Goes: Stories of Tidiness, Self-Esteem and Other Things I Gave Up On by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book took me a little while to get into. My first problem was that I bought it in Kindle format, and when the first chapter came up with the title “Thirteen,” I thought the Kindle had simply dropped me in at the wrong spot. Once I figured out that it was just the title of the first chapter, and finished it, I was hooked. While there isn’t as much knitting as in Pearl-McPhee’s other books, the humor is just as great. My personal favorite was the skunk chapter, which had me laughing so hard that I had to retell a modified version to my kids so they’d know what was so funny.

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Library Books Enjoyed, 1/19/15

Still catching up from the end of 2014, this one includes some Christmas stories we enjoyed this year:

Awesome Dawson by Chris Gall

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think Chris Gall has pretty well sewn up being our six-year-old’s current “favorite author.” He specifically requested I get this from the library, because he’d seen it on the book jackets of other Chris Gall books, then spent most of the time we had it poring over it, and basically memorized it. His two younger sisters also thought it was great and deserved multiple rereads. I can’t say it’s my favorite, but I do think Mr. Gall knows his audience!

Dawson is an inventor, but he has to learn to harness his inventing powers for good…Dawson’s best friend, Mooey (a talking cow toy), was especially popular around here.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? by Jon Agee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This one is awesome. It’s similar to another book we’ve loved, where different illustrators offer knock-knock jokes (and I need to check whether the two are from the same publisher), but in this one, each illustrator offers his or her own take on the age-old question, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Because it relies so heavily on the illustrations, all three of my kids could soon read it to themselves, and they did–over and over.

I thought it was a cute book, but my favorite part was my six year old identifying all the illustrators and reciting the different books he knew them from–it warmed this librarian-mom’s heart!

I definitely recommend this to anyone with kids who are into jokes, and also anyone who is a fan of children’s book illustrations.

Captain Sky Blue by Richard Egielski

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This unexpected Christmas adventure follows a favorite toy, Captain Sky Blue, when his plane suffers a weather run-in. It’s a little hard to describe, but it has lots of pilot talk (with a glossary at the front, thankfully!), lots of adventure, and a chance to save Christmas. We’ve enjoyed it a lot.

When Christmas Came by Eileen Spinelli

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cute book about who shows up for a Christmas Eve service during a snowstorm. We especially liked the prominent place that the organist was given, although I wish there had been a choir rather than a “soloist.” Will be most enjoyed by other church-goers.

A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I can never resist Grandma Dowdel. I’ve been meaning to read this one for a couple years now, but I didn’t want to read it except near Christmas, and it always seemed to be checked out. Finally got a copy of the audio book this year, and at a nice, short 3 CD length, finished it quickly. As in A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder, Grandma Dowdel (who’s getting quite old–it’s now 1958) continues to live her life without regard for what anyone else thinks, and usually so that everything is arranged to her satisfaction (whether strictly legal or not).

In this installment, though, it’s not one of her grandkids that she’s surprising and leaving speechless, but a neighbor kid, Bob Barnhart and his family. Bob’s dad is the new Methodist minister in town (another reason that I especially enjoyed the book), and the family has not exactly been warmly welcomed. But with some help from Mrs. Dowdel, they are able to settle in and deal with bullies, low church attendance, and a teenage older sister. Bob’s younger sister Ruth Ann’s attachment to Mrs. Dowdel is especially fun to watch.

An excellent quick read (or fun read-aloud) for Christmastime.

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Library Books Enjoyed, 1/5/15

It’s been a good two and half months since I posted some library books, so the next few book posts will be catching up with favorites from that time period…

Goatilocks and the Three Bears by Erica S. Perl

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was awesome!! As expected, it’s a retelling of Goldilocks, but I wouldn’t have thought how brilliant a retelling with a goat could be.

What does Goatilocks do with the porridge that’s just right? She eats it! Of course, that’s how the story goes. But what does Goatilocks do with the chair that’s just right? She eats it! Because she’s a goat!

The story goes on, and it’s just as fun throughout…and we had repeated rereadings in our house.

Secret Pizza Party by Adam Rubin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dragons Love Tacos still remains my favorite book from this author and illustrator duo, but I liked Secret Pizza Party a lot, too, and so did my kids. They especially like the part where you first whisper, and then yell “Secret Pizza Party!!” Anyone who feels affection toward raccoons should also read this (those with personal vendettas against the critters may want to skip it).

Little Owl Lost by Chris Haughton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

We LOVED this one. I had to read it over and over, and I didn’t even mind too much–and eventually the kids memorized it and read it over and over themselves.

Little Owl falls out of his nest, and a squirrel enthusiastically tries to help Little Owl find his mother, based on the owlet’s descriptions of his mother. Squirrel’s enthusiasm outweighs his competence, and he finds several other animals, but no Mother Owl. Luckily, the Frog that Squirrel finds when Little Owl mentions that his mother has big eyes has a bit more sense, and the family is reunited.

The pictures remind me a little of prints or wood cuts, and the colors are darker, but beautiful.

My kids especially liked telling me what animal Squirrel had found on each attempt.

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I didn’t think I liked steampunk, and then I read Leviathan. I liked Leviathan, but thought I probably didn’t need to finish the trilogy, and then I picked up Behemoth. And Goliath has been just as fun and satisfying a read. I loved the continued adventures of the Leviathan’s crew, and particularly the intertwined stories of Deryn and Alek, but my favorite part in this case may be the dedication: “To everyone who loves a long-secret romance, revealed at last.”

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Library Books Enjoyed, 10/20/14

Gabby and Gator by James Burks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My kids LOVE this one. Gator is an alligator who was flushed down the toilet as a youngster, lives in the sewers, and guiltily eats dogs to survive. Gabby is a smart, vegetarian, earth-friendly girl who knows what she wants, but doesn’t have any friends who understand her. They become friends pretty instantly, but both Gator’s appetite and the local animal control officer are difficulties that have to be overcome.

Some of the kids’ favorite parts: Gabby’s tuba-playing, Gator’s first dog-eating incident, and scaring off the local bully.

Annie and Snowball and the Dress-up Birthday by Cynthia Rylant

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

We like Annie and Snowball almost as much as Henry and Mudge around our house, but this one has been a particular hit. Annie plans a “dress-up” birthday with her family, but her idea of dress-up and Henry’s don’t quite match up. The results are both fancy and crazy, and my kids laugh every time.

Dear Fish by Chris Gall

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My six-year-old now has a favorite author, and it’s Chris Gall. This isn’t one of my favorite installments, but my kids have enjoyed the story of fish coming to visit the local town after Peter Alan sends them an invitation in a bottle. Grown-ups and older kids can amuse themselves trying to find the “fish puns” that make up part of the drawings–I haven’t found all 10 yet!

WordGirl: Word Up: Word Up by Anita Serwacki

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Oh, Word Girl. If I did not have such affection for all things PBS, I might be tempted to banish you from my house. But you have entered, and you have conquered my children, especially my superhero-loving-six-year-old boy, and now I am doomed to read you aloud for all eternity. At least each book comes with two separate stories, which can each be read alone.

P.S. For a superhero whose power is vocabulary, you think you’d need more than 2 words per episode to defeat the bad guys!

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Library Books Enjoyed: 10/6/14

Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these.

Buy My Hats! by Dave Horowitz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a cute story about two aspiring businessmen (well, a business bear and a business fish) who can’t quite figure out the secret of success. In the end, a rainstorm comes to their aid.

We reread this one several times, and I think the kids liked the ads for the protagonists’ competitors and all the conversations taking place on the pictures as much as anything.

Dog vs. Cat by Chris Gall

My kids LOVED this one. I only thought it was ok at first, but it is one that seems to improve upon multiple (multiple!!) rereads. A classic dog versus cat tale that has forces the two adversaries to join forces against a common enemy. The pictures are really funny, and Mr. Gall completely knows his audience because, a week since returning this to the library, my kids are still calling “I have outdoor privileges!” and cracking up every time. This is also one of the first books to bring home the idea of liking different books by the same author, because my son has retrieved his Dinotrux book and also found another book by Mr. Gall at the library.

A Kiss for Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first book I had my six-year-old read to me without him having already had it read to him. He did a great job, and it was a fun story to discover together (if I’ve read this one before, it’s been a LONG time). Little Bear sends a picture to his Grandmother via Hen, and Grandmother sends a kiss back the same way. But Hen gets busy and enlists other animals to help send the kiss along. N.’s favorite part was when Frog was getting Cat’s attention to give him the kiss, and mine was when the kiss got stuck with 2 little skunks.

This last one is not a grown-up book, but it’s just one I read for my own interest, not with the kids.

I Kill the Mockingbird by Paul Acampora

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don’t remember where I read a review of this one, but when I came across it at the library, the cover grabbed me. I was not disappointed. The premise (three friends decide to increase interest in the summer reading assignment To Kill a Mockingbird by hiding the book all over their state) is interesting, but it’s really the characterization and the real-life feel/details that make this book.

Some points I especially like:
-The amusing but fond descriptions of the Lucy, Elena, and MIchael’s Catholic school.
-The poignant parts about Lucy’s mom recovering from cancer are good, but not (I think) overdone, and they don’t take over the book.
-The smart, nerdy kids who know they are smart but can laugh at themselves, too.
-The little bit of romance.
-Several of the lines, but in particular, after the three use bus passes to hit bookstores all around Connecticut, “We’d never be able to pull this off in Texas.”

It was both a fun read and a thoughtful read. It’s short, and I don’t think very hard, so I think some older elementary students would enjoy it, but the protagonists are all about to start high school, and the focal point is To Kill a Mockingbird, so it’s best target may be younger middle schoolers. I think it would go over especially well with fans of E.L. Konigsburg.

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Library Books Enjoyed, 8/18/14: First Maryland edition

Our new library is the Harford County Library, and here are some recent picks that we’ve enjoyed from there:

Princesses Are Not Just Pretty by Kate Lum

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A cute story about three princesses who each WANT to be the prettiest, but eventually remember that they have more important things to do. My kids LOVED this one (and I have to say, I liked that one of the princesses was named Princess Libby), and now we need to seek out Lum’s other princess books.

My New Friend Is So Fun! by Mo Willems

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A new Gerald and Piggie!! Hooray! Gerald and Snake find out that Piggie and Brian Bat are hitting it off–and then they start to worry that their best friends won’t need them anymore. Another great installment by Willems.

Naughty Kitty. Adam Stower by Adam Stower

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I do have ONE gripe about this book, which is that the tiger who appears and gets Lily’s kitty in trouble shouldn’t be quite such a surprise to Lily, since she adopted him at the end of Silly Doggy. Still, Lily’s animal raising skills amused us just as much, if not more, in this new story as in the first, and this is one that I not only reread several times, but that my 6 and 4 year old quickly learned enough to reread by themselves. Cute, funny, and right on target to audience (they especially loved the line, “As for Mom’s carpet, I can’t even talk about that. It was revolting!”

And one adult book (and I was very impressed by how quickly I got this from the holds list):

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this second installment of the Cormoran Strike detective series (yes, I probably wouldn’t have read it if it weren’t written by J.K. Rowling; I have no shame about this). I think I like that it follows the basic hard-boiled detective and green partner pattern, and I love the character development between Strike and Robin, and I LOVE that (at least so far) it has not become a romance. I did tell a friend who is hoping they will get together that there’s still room for it to develop (not least because Robin’s fiancé Matthew seems even less likable in this novel), but I’m still holding out hope that it will just stay a detective-partner relationship.

I thought the murder mystery part was also well done (and that the whodunit was less of a cheat than the first book), but be aware that the murder in this volume is extremely gory and disturbing.

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Books I’ve Enjoyed, 4/3/14

Hey, hey, it’s one year since I started this blog. Not yet to 100 posts, but we’ll celebrate anyway.

I’ve been rotten about keeping up with the books I’m reading with my kids over the last month or two, but I’ve had my own little reading boom, so I’m going to share some of the books I’ve enjoyed recently.

Only one of those came from the library (probably part of my problem with our book collection size…), but I enjoyed each of them nonetheless:

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have had this on my nightstand for years now, and I finally decided that it was getting read…and I’m so glad I did. This book has restored my faith in literary fiction. I think the plotting and writing were beautifully done, but the story was enjoyable and gripping, too, and I did not feel like the whole human race was going to hell in a handbasket when I’d finished. Also, librarians are some of the heroes of the book, so you know it has to be pretty good.

The overarching story follows book conservator Hanna Heath as she is given the once-and-a-lifetime of studying and conserving the famous Sarajevo Haggadah in the 1990s, but then each section follows a different character who was part of the book’s previous history. Although Brooks is very upfront that the story and all the characters are fictional, it is based on some of the history of the real Sarajevo Haggadah, which Brooks learned about in her previous work as a journalist.

The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was quite a book, and having seen the entire first season and part of the second season of the TV show, I enjoyed seeing where the stories matched and where they differed. I enjoyed Worth’s narration of both stories about her patients and life at Nonnatus House, and I didn’t find her occasional judgements about the people she encountered as bothersome as other readers did, because she was honest about her feelings and about her naiveté at the time, and also fairly self-critical about them. It’s still hard to believe that people were having babies my parents’ age in a fashion that seems like it should be older than my great-grandparents, but it certainly was fascinating.

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s been awhile since I read the first book in the series, but I enjoyed this installment very much. It was nice that I was already interested in both Deryn and Alek (it took me awhile to get into the alternating points of view with Leviathan), and the story certainly kept up the action. Some of the dilemmas that arise from Deryn pretending to be a boy are pretty funny…especially as the reader realizes (likely more than Deryn herself) just how many people are starting to guess that she’s a girl.

 

The Storyteller’s Daughter by Cameron Dokey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book in spite of myself. I bought it because it looked interesting (and because I like fairy tale retellings, and didn’t know a whole lot about the Arabian Nights), but when I started it, I felt like the narration was a little too self-conscious, trying a little too hard to create a mystical story aura. Still, the story itself was good enough, and the characters were likable enough, that I was eventually able to forget about the narration and just get lost in the story.

 

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me awhile to pick this one up because I knew it took place in a concentration camp. My mom and I have discussed how it was easier to read books about the Holocaust before and, in her case (and hopefully mine, once I get there!), after our kids were young–but I’m still right in the young-kid stage. What strikes me reading this book now was how Rose was not yet okay at the end of the book, even though you know pretty early on that she survives and you get the sense that she will eventually be okay. Also, the fact that her mother doesn’t get to see her afterwards, and may not even know what she’s gone through…as bad as it is, I think I’d want to know what my daughter’s been through.

But all that aside, it’s an excellent book, you can tell Wein has thoroughly done her research, and Rosie and her friends are heroines worth rooting for.

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