I Really Loved Lucy. Really!

I Love Lucy:  a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom is written and read by Gregg Oppenheimer, the son of Jess Oppenheimer, the head writer and producer of I Love Lucy.  This is an LATW production, which I love and the only complaint I have is that I wish it would have been longer and had more detail!

God Does Not Care Whom We Love, Only That We Love

Loving vs. Virginia:  a Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case is the story of a case that I embarrassing admit, I was unaware until the movie Loving came out last year.  Loving v. Virginia (1967) is a case that should never have had to come to trial, like Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka (1954).
The movie was good.  This book is excellent.  It is especially important for anyone and everyone to read.  It is so very, very well done in poetry and incredible illustrations.  This is a must-read.
It's a novel, so I guess it is technically historical fiction?

Lost and Found

The Search for Belle Prater is the sequel to Belle Prater's Boy.  I was so glad to see this available for download.  In it, Woodrow and Gypsy make some new friends who help them in their search for Woodrow's mother.  I liked also, being that the book is set in 1954 that the issue of prejudice and discrimination is addressed when the kids meet Joseph Lincoln, an African American boy who is looking for his father, like Woodrow is looking for his mom.

Thoughtful and Thought-Provoking

are two words to describe Chris Crutcher, I think, after reading King of the Mild Frontier:  an Ill-Advised Autobiography.
Crutcher's website describes him as an author and a loud-mouth.  After reading some of Crutcher's experiences and his reflections upon his time as a therapist and child advocate, Crutcher can't help but be a loud mouth and it benefits the world when he is.  He is man of incredible wisdom and compassion, two things that we need more of in this life.
He grew up in the small town of Cascade, Idaho, in a family where kids called their parents by their first names (something to which Crutcher calls attention and, this is neither here nor there, drives me crazy) and he often had to fight against his own terrible temper.
I loved Crutcher's honesty.  I was disappointed that he is not a Christian, just because I know the love and peace that comes from being a Christian.  And I want everyone to experience that.  And I also worry about people who were Christians and aren't now have given up on Christianity because of the way in which it is defined in some (most) circles.  But again, that is neither here nor there.
I have read books by Crutcher in the past and now want to read more.  This is a very entertaining and insightful biography.  It didn't just provide insight into Crutcher the author and the man, but into human nature itself.  I especially appreciated his opinion on the word "perfect."  Good stuff.

Belle of the Ball

Belle Ball is a pretty bad name.  I mean, I thought my name was bad.  But Belle Prater had Belle Ball as her name until she married her husband.  Yeah. Belle Ball.
That is neither here nor there!
I have often seen and heard tell of Belle Prater's Boy.
But I had not read it until now.
This is just SUCH a great book.
And it won a Newbery Honor!
This is the story of Gypsy and Woodrow, cousins.  Woodrow is Belle Prater's boy, Belle went missing, just up and left.  And Gypsy's dad died and I won't give away any more about that.  And they are both dealing with the loss of a parent.  And life and rumors in a small town.  And family secrets and just being middle school aged.  They live in the fictional town of Coal Station, VA and White's writing just brings the place to life.  There is also a sequel, The Search for Belle Prater, which I hope to read as well.

Better Dead than Red

Remember that phrase?  It was popular during the McCarthy Era, during which The Paper Cowboy takes place.  I didn't know what TPC was about when I bought the audiobook, I only knew that Kristin Levine who wrote the incredible and the 1954'd Lions of Little Rock had written it and so I was anxious to read it.  I was not disappointed.
There is a lot going on here.  This is an incredible piece of period fiction.  Or was McCarthyism an event, making it historical fiction?  I don't know!  But it was an incredible piece of fiction!  Levine writes that
TPC made Anderson's Mock 2015 Newbery List and it sure is worthy.  It just seems that there are so many fantastic books out this year!  I loved this 5-stars worth, for sure.  But I did love LOLR a wee bit more just because Tommy is so unlikable. But that was Levine's intent, so I really can't fault the book for that!   I really did like that the book is from the POV of a kid who bullies though, because as Levine said in her interview at the end of the audio, so much of the focus on bullying is on the victim, as it should be, but we need to pay attention to the kids who are doing the bullying, too.
My buddy Karen and I do this anti-bullying puppet show.  We focus on the characters who are engaging in bully behavior and we talk to the kids about that saying, "This is why you need to tell someone when there is bullying going on, because when you ask for help you are helping not only the person being picked on, but yourself and your whole community and you are also helping the one who is doing the bullying because often times they have a hurt in their heart that is so big, they don't know how to feel better and that is why they are being mean to others, just like Simone and Dwayne."
There are also some very beautiful words and scenes about sibling relationships in here.  I loved, loved the relationship between Mary Lou and Tommy and then the kind of brother that Tommy became to his younger sister.
Tommy has a lot of hurts in his heart, his mom is having some major mental health problems and his home life is a wreck because of it.
This book is just exceptional, truly.

Sylvia

Not this Sylvia.  But this one.  I was never interested in learning much about Sylvia Plath.  I think that I grouped her into this terrible category with Lisa, Bright and Dark, which I read at way too young of an age to understand, I think.  I was eight and the book just terrified me.  The girl who lived across the street from me had an older sister and she and her friends were all reading it, so I wanted to read it to.  After they read LBAD they were reading The Bell Jar and after my nightmare experience with LBAD, I was determined to stay away from Sylvia Plath!  This was a pretty amazing book, though.  Stephanie Hemphill has written this novel is verse and she is very clear that it is a work of fiction, but there is a lot of biographical information in here and wow, I can see why this won the Printz.  I am going to buy her Hideous Love:  The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein on audio on payday!  I wish Wicked Girls was available on audio, too.  There is just something that I love about listening to novels in verse.  I enjoy the experience so much more than when I read them.
One of things that made this book so good was that Hemphill says from the start that she loves Sylvia Plath, that Plath's writing has always meant a lot to her.  This reads like a love story, you can really tell that Hemphill was hoping to create a work dedicated to an author she admires so very much.  I don't think I will ever read Plath, but I am going to read everything from Hemphill that I can find!

The Unstoppable Sharon G. Flake

I could not wait until I got my hands on an ARC of The Unstoppable Octobia May.  I heard about this book when I met Ms. Flake on February 27.  This was an incredible moment for me, as I have long loved Ms. Flake's work.  From Money Hungry to Pinned, and everything in between.
I looked everywhere for an eARC, I checked netgalley and edelweiss literally every day.
Then it came.
Ms. Flake sent it to me, a real, live ARC-ARC!
The bummer was I was heading right in to a preaching stint up at Bradford Wood Community Church, so I couldn't start a book, especially one that I was so looking forward to, until that was completed.  Preaching God's Holy Word is a daunting task.  I love it, but it is frightening.  I give all of my all to it.
Before I began Octobia, I must admit that I was concerned about how much I was looking forward to this book, because, as a pessimist, I was worried that I wouldn't LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  I thought, on no.  what if it doesn't blow me away?  What if it just doesn't pull at me, the way that Ms. Flake's other works have?  What would I say to Ms. Flake herself?  What would I write here?
Well.
There was no need for any of that worry.
And I should have realized that.  Just like Madeleine L'Engle, Robert B. Parker, Christopher Paul Curtis, Jacqueline Woodson, and Grace Lin, Sharon G. Flake can do no wrong.  Well, L'Engle and Parker are gone from us, but you know what I mean!
What a character this Octobia May is.  My friend, Emily is on the Amelia Bloomer Project Committee for ALA this year and I really believe that Octobia would be a perfect addition to this list.
What a wonderful, wonderful book.  It is deep where it needs to be, truly entertaining and moving.  There are many quotable lines here, so many passages that will stick with me.
good and bad live side by side on the piano or organ keyboard - Octobia wonders if this is true.  I think that it is.  This is a smart, smart girl.  All of the characters are incredibly well-drawn.
And well, unstoppable.  Just like Ms. Flake.

Paperboy

Are there still paperboys anymore?  Around my town papers are delivered by folks in cars.  I don't know if it is like that everywhere!  I accidentally listed to The Paperboy thinking it was Paperboy and I wondered why this was so short!  I was worried that I had listened to another one of those graphic novels!  But then I kept asking people who read Paperboy, "Is it a graphic novel?  Are there a lot of pictures?"  and the answer was always, "Um...no."   So then I figured out that I had a completely different book! 
Paperboy was really, really good.  It was a slice-of-life kinda book.  A look at life in a neighborhood in Memphis in 1959 from the POV of a young teen boy who has a stutter.  I loved, loved this kid's family and the kid himself.  Vince Vawter has an author's note at the end.  What a wonderful, wonderful book.  I also learned what a U.S. Merchant Marine is! 

The Class of '57

One of my most favorite songs is this one.   If you have graduated from high school more than fifteen years ago, just put your own year in there for '57 and you will love it, too, for the line, "Things get complicated when you get past eighteen." is one that we all know is true.
Nora, the main character in Mister Death's Blue-eyed Girls, is from the class of '57 and most of the book is told from her perspective, regarding the events that took place the summer before her senior year.  On the last day of school in June, Nora's two friends, one a senior and the other a few years younger, are shot to death in the woods while walking to school.  The story is based on similar events in Mary Downing Hahn's own life.
I couldn't put this book down.  I loved every page.  I was horrified by the way in which the priest in this book acts, but I know that some priests do believe as this priest did, both back then, and today.   This is a great book for a discussion on theodicy.  I wish I could have been the pastor that Nora went to back then in the summer of '56.  I don't know if I would have helped, but I would have given her a very different take on the events of that summer, as I have a very different understanding of the cause of earthly suffering, given by the grace of God and the study of the Scriptures.
This book really takes you back in time.  I've yet to find a book by Hahn that I didn't love, even though this is quite different from her others.

Hooray for Hollywood

Since I'm going to California in a few days and hope to spend a bit of time in Hollywood, at least stop at Grauman's Chinese Theater I was searching for books set in California and came across The Loud Silence of Francine Green on cd.  
A truly serendipitous find!
TLSFG takes place just outside of Hollywood from 1949-1950.  This was a time of great change in the US, well and in the world.  WW2 was over and Soviet Russia and the US were no longer friends, infact, they were rivals.  Both countries had the bomb and the Second Red Scare was starting in the United States. 
Francine Green is an eighth grader at All Saints School where Sister Basil the Great rules as the mighty tough principal.  Francine is a regular kinda girl, "going along to get along", not questioning much, just living her life.  She's a very likable character.  Along comes Sophie Bowman who was kicked out of public school for promoting free speech by painting words on the gym floor.  Sophie's dad is a writer for the movies and encourages Sophie to be the opposite of a "go along to get along" girl.  She is outspoken and, as a result, frequently getting into trouble.  I think that Cushman does an excellent job showing the importance of balance.  This was an excellent look into the time period and a great coming of age story as well.  Different and interesting and very good!