The Book Search

So you might not be able to tell from the blog, I'm not a big fan of scary stories.  I like suspense but a lot of the scary things are, well, just too scary for me.  I had nightmares after Doll Bones and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  So I have NO IDEA why I chose "Scary Stories for Young Foxes" by Christian McKay Heidicker.  It WAS scary but it was SO well written and I think it's going to be perfect as a mentor text for my students. It's told in two different voices-Mia and Uly.  Both are fox kits that are living really different lives.  Mia comes from a family with a loving mom and brothers and sisters that are kind and supportive of one another.  Uly, not so much.  Uly has a deformed front paw and his sisters seem bent on getting rid of him.  Each one tells a tale of how they end up separated from their moms and their litter mates (terrifying), how they survive,  and then how they come together to help each other.  E...

One of the trends in libraries and the literary world over the past few years, is to offer readers different view points.  Traditionally, literature has been full of white people.  People of color or other religions or sexual orientations were relegated to best friend roles or were minor characters.   So to have a number of stories, where the main character is a person of color and isn't a stereotype (like  African Americans only portrayed as slaves or in stories about the Civil Rights movement, or Hispanic characters only portrayed as migrants), is to offer a wider variety of people the opportunity to see their own stories in print.  It also offers an opportunity to people like me (a middle aged white lady) to see stories that are different from my own.  Here are two brand new stories that offer voices that are fresh, charismatic, AND happen to be told by and are about people of color. The first one is by author Renee Watson.  I read her book "Pieci...

Summer vacation is so awesome.   House projects.  Lunches with friends.  No alarm clock.   AND uninterrupted time to read!  I'm finally dusting off the TBR pile and wow, are there some great ones in here. I love historical fiction and this new one is terrific.  It's called The Taste of Rain by Monique Polak.  It's about a group of girls who are Girl Guides (like American Girl Scouts).  The story starts and you might start thinking this is just an ordinary group of girls in a boarding school somewhere with their relentlessly cheerful teacher.  Except they aren't just anywhere, they are in Weishen which was a prison camp in Japan during World War 2.  The kids are being held there because their boarding school was taken over by the Japanese as headquarters.  The kids' parents were missionaries or had other jobs and after 2 1/2 years, they don't know where their parents are or whether they'll ever see them again.  Their teacher, ...

We’ve been on summer vacation and I had time to do some great reading, but due to lamentable internet access during our travels, I’m just now uploading them!   The first one is called “For Black Girls Like Me” by Mariama Lockington.  It’s about Makeda, who at the start of the book, is crossing the country, from Baltimore to Albuquerque in a car with her mom and her big sister.  Makeda’s dad has taken a new job as a cellist that required the move and the move also required that Makeda’s mom has to give up her job as a violinist.  Makeda was adopted by her parents when they found they couldn’t have a second child and Makeda is African American and her parents and sister are white.  Makeda is worried about the move-particularly moving away from her best friend, Lena, who is also African American and was adopted by a white family.  What’s great about this one is learning about what it’s like to navigate a world where most of the people you know (and even ...