The Book Search

I love summer vacation.  I get a chance to read all the stuff that's been piling up around me AND I get recommendations from my niece and nephew about things they've been reading.  They have excellent taste in books and go to an American school in another country (last year it was Vienna, next year it will be Dubai) so they get all sorts of books I never heard of. So my niece started by recommending "The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had" by Kristin Levine.  I loved Kristin Levine's other book, "The Lions of Little Rock" so it didn't take a lot of prodding to read "The Best Bad Luck".  It did not disappoint.  "The Best Bad Luck" is set in Alabama in 1918.  The main character is Dit, who is the 8th of 10 kids and is worried that no one knows who he is.  He is hoping that the new postmaster will have a son his age to play with.  The new postmaster has a DAUGHTER and is African American.  Emma wears beautiful clothes and reads beautiful boo...

After reading so much fiction, I thought I ought to have a look at the non fiction side of things.  I tend to gravitate toward fiction, particularly historical and fantasy fiction so it's good for me to dig around in the non fiction.  Sort of like eating broccoli.  I like broccoli but it isn't always the FIRST thing I reach for. The first non fiction one I read (from Netgalley) is called Samurai Rising by Pamela Turner and Gareth Hinds.  It's about the life of a famous Samurai named Minamoto Yoshitsune.  It has a funny disclaimer at the beginning - "Warning: Very few people in this story die of natural causes."  Since it's a book about samurais, I guess that should be a given.  The book tells the story of this samurai and how he came to be so famous and powerful.  The story is written with a very easy to read to style and there are lots of pieces of art to help break up the text.  The art work is a brushy Asian style that matches well with ...

Oh boy, did I ever love this book.  It's been hitting some of the lists of new great books that I look at and I had a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble that was burning a hole in my pocket so I picked it up.  We've been traveling and pretty busy, but we took a little car trip this week to Provence, which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from my sister's house, where we are vacationing.  The drive is not particularly interesting so I opened the book when we hit the highway and didn't really put it down until I was finished.  I laughed, I cried, and then I put the book in my mom's hands and she finished today with the same kind of reviews. The book has a great beginning "Four small words.  That was all it took to set things into motion."  Isn't that awesome?  How could you not keep reading?  The writing in this book is terrific.  Such evocative language!  The characters are super interesting.  The main character is a boy named Micah w...

I've been reading an eclectic mix this week of new things from Netgalley.  I must be craving a bit of variety or was really open minded when I was browsing the list of new books!  Anyway, here's some books to look for. The first one is a picture book by Susan Eaddy called "Poppy's Best Paper".  Poppy is a little bunny who wants to be a famous writer (or maybe a brain surgeon).  When her teacher gives her a writing assignment, she finds many things to do while she's writing her story.  Her friend Lavender gets her paper read out loud and Poppy is very unhappy.  It's a great story to show how hard work and perseverance pay off.  The pictures are adorable and lots of kids are going to identify with Poppy's initial strategies for writing.  It reminded me a lot of "Lily's Purple Plastic Purse" by Kevin Henkes. Here's a book trailer for it. I also read one called "After Dark" by James Leck and this one is completely diff...

Here are some more of the books that have been nominated for the Sunshine State Young Reader award. "Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen" by Donna Gephart is about 12 year old Olivia who lives with her brother, Charlie, her mom and her mom's new boyfriend.  Olivia loves trivia and her little brother and her mom, but not so much on the boyfriend.  Her dad left them (and the whole story comes out about halfway into the book) and Olivia misses him a lot.  Olivia is also a big trivia buff and really wants to be on Jepoardy!  I found this book difficult to get into.  I came to like the characters more as I read and I'm glad I finished it but it didn't grab me immediately.  Here's a book trailer about it. Another one that is nominated for the Sunshine State Young Readers is Blast Off by Nate Ball.  It's part of a series of books called "An Alien in my Pocket".  It's an easy chapter book about a boy named Zack who wakes up and finds that a space ship...

Today was our students last day of school, YAY!!  So NOW we can start thinking about our summer reading challenge because I can't wait to have time to read more! Here are some totally awesome book recommendations from Kate DiCamillo, in case you need some! http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/summer-kid-book-suggestions-from-an-author-librarian-and-book-buyer/2015/06/02/18165d16-086f-11e5-9e39-0db921c47b93_story.html Here's the first one I finished.  I hope you don't think it's cheating that I started it yesterday.  It's a pretty long one.  It's called "Mechanica" by Betsy Cornwell.  It's a Cinderella story, but the Cinderella in this one is a spunky girl named Nicolette.  Nicolette's mom died several years ago and her dad remarried a woman with two daughters (sound familiar?).  They are as mean to her as Cinderella's stepmom and stepsisters, but on Nicolette's 16th birthday, she finds her way into her mother's...

I just read the most amazing book.  It's called Child Soldiers by Michel  Chikwanine and Jessica Dee Humphries.  It's a memoir or an autobiography about Michel and his experiences growing up the Congo in the early 1990s.  Michel lived a life of relative  privilege-his dad was a respected lawyer and his mom sold fish and fabric in the market.  They always had food and he was able to go school (an hour's walk from home).  One day, he ignored his dad's rule about being home on time and was kidnapped by rebel soldiers.  Many terrible things happened but Michel was able to escape and find his way back home.  It wasn't especially easy back at home either.  There are gorgeous pictures to help to conceptualize the horrible things that are happening in the story but the message is so important, I think his one should find it's way into our library.  Here's a video with Michel speaking.  Here was another really good one. ...