What a book...

What a beautiful meditation.  What a gift Jesmyn Ward is to the world.  Navigate Your Stars is a must-read for any graduate or soon to be graduate or someone who is breathing.  This book is inspirational for everyone.  EVERYONE.
I felt especially blessed to have listened to it because she reads it.  Just read or listen to this book right now.  It is the commencement speech that Ward gave to the students at Tulane and I bet they never will forget it.  I know I won't. 

Different and Good!

Archer's Quest by Linda Sue Park was a very good read and one that I will recommend for sure.  I like magical realism and it works really well here.  I liked learning about Korean mythology for the first time ever.  The story is about a normal kid from Upstate NY who happens to meet Chumong, a dude from Korean Mythology. 

Sports

Chris Crutcher has that gift of making books about sports into books not really about sports, but for those who love sports, it has that way of making them insta-likeable.  That is probably the case for Loser's Bracket.  I just didn't like Annie enough to LOVE the book.  But I still gave it 5 stars, I actually changed it from 4 to 5 because I realized that Annie is such a real and well-written character, you know? I will recommend it to guys and gals and lovers of basketball and lovers of just really good, coming of age, self-discovery realistic fiction.  What makes a family?  What does forgiveness look like?  What does acceptance look like?  What does love look like?  Love comes in so many forms.  We have love people as individuals, you know?  People require different kinds of love.  This book would be a great book discussion book, I think. 

What Can You Say?

Jackie Torrence?
Stories from her childhood? 
She narrated the book?
Made me laugh.
Made me cry.
Made me think.
All you can say is:
My Grandmother's Treasure = Perfection. 

Worth the Wait

Calypso is the first new book from David Sedaris is what seems like FOREVER!  It might not be FOREVER, but with Sedaris, I could greedily ask for a book a month!  I love that Mr. Sedaris reads his own audiobooks.  And I loved the mix of hilarity and thoughtfulness.  I simply love this man.   

REALLY good

I was so glad that my turn for Where the Line Bleeds finally came up from the library.  Man.  This book was just excellent.  Jesmyn Ward is just such an incredible writer.  This story unfolds so so so well and just sucked me in and really speaks volumes about the "land of opportunity" that is our country.  And man, it is even worse now than when this was written!   What a book. 

David Levithan would HATE Edie!

Dear Edie Middlestein,

I hope you never meet David Levithan in heaven.  If you do, run the other way!  He hates fat people!  

Love,

Ing

I don't even think Levithan would be able to get through The Middlesteins.

This book is another BOB for Bethel Park and I did like it a lot more than The Vacationers because it did have more action, was more complex, maybe.  Plus, I do have a soft spot for people of size.  I mean, I am a person of size.  I was a person of a bigger size before, but today was weigh-in day and while I was not at goal of 128, I was only 129, so I guess I am doing okay.  But if ONLY David Levithan would let me know for sure!

Ahem.

Sorry.

Anyway...this is another book that is so not my kind of book.  And yet I did find myself caring about the characters, very much so.  The only reason I gave it three stars (and really it is 3 1/2) is because it was not my usual book and because I found Edie's children to be super-unlikable, though I did like her grandchildren!

Was this a dysfunctional family?  I am still not ready to tag it as such.  Again, it seemed like more of a "normal" family to me, with faults and flaws and problems.  Is that dysfunctional?  Not sure...

The G Word

Gentrification is an ugly word.  The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora had my heart right away because of that.  Plus it is just a really good book!

Good Title

Gary Dell'Abate talks about all of the possible titles for his book They Call me Baba Booey and they were funny, but I do think they got it right!  Especially after hearing how Dell'Abate wound up with the nickname, just such a simple thing turned into a catch phrase.  I like Dell'Abate, as much as one can come to like someone from hearing him read a very open and honest audiobook.  I like the extra parts to the audiobook and I like the Dell'Abate is a supporter of them!  And I completely agree with his "screw you" to people who say if you have only listened to a book, you really haven't read it!  Good stuff!

See You...

In September of 2005 my best friend went home to be with the Lord after a long battle with cancer.  She was diagnosed with it fifteen years prior and given four months to live.
When my dear friend Nancy was transitioning from labor to Reward, I drove to Dallas to say goodbye for now.  It was hard, oh so hard, but Nancy had lived a long life and worked hard and played hard and was ready to meet her God.
Today I attended the funeral of a young girl who met her God much too soon.
Last year I wept and still weep for the loss of a girl who went from her mother's womb to Christ's arms and spread more joy in the nine months prior to her birth than I will if I live to be 100.  This was the hardest loss of all.
When I left Nancy in Dallas I said to her, "See you soon.," and she said, "Yes, I will see you." and we knew we wouldn't see each other in this life, but we knew we will see each other again.
See You at Harry's is about a tragic loss of life, told from the POV of a Fern, a middle school girl whose brother dies in an accident.  He is also the face and voice of his family's little local restaurant, Harry's and his tagline/catch phrase is "See you at Harry's."  Fern points out that now that he is gone, this is a lie.
A very, very, very well done book.  My dear friend Rebekah said that she felt that the author, Jo Knowles just BOOM, LANDED the girl's voice, the and she really, really did.

Blurry....

So Boys of Blur is a Newbery Buzz Book.  My dear friend, Rebekah, tried to read it and didn't like it at all.   She even broke up with it. Although, she is more comfortable with breaking up than I am anyway. I am really trying to read some of the "good" books this year.  I don't know, honestly, if I will do this next year, obsessively try to read all of the books with the award buzz, but we'll see.  But I wanted to read this.  Plus, it was short!
While Rebekah didn't like it at all, I have to say that I did like.  I liked the atmosphere of this tiny town right near the Florida Everglades, on the banks of  Lake Okeechobee.  I liked learning about the sugar cane fields but I DIDN'T like reading about the poor rabbits.  I just can't imagine how scared those little rabbits must be.  Ugh.  It just makes me so sad.  A lot of  football players learned their speed from "running rabbits" in the sugarcane fields.
I like the main character, Charlie, a lot.  He is a good dude.  And I liked the whole family, really.  Cotton, especially.
Turns out that the book is inspired by Beowulf.  I had to read Beowulf in eleventh grade, but I didn't remember much about it so I found these little videos!  They are fabulous!  And then I got into the book even more.  I loved the book trailer, too!  But overall, it just didn't hold my interest as much as I wanted it to.  I am not sure why...maybe I wanted to know more about Charlie?  More about Mack?  About Bobby Reynolds?  I guess I just wanted more.  I still can highly recommend this book. Especially for fans of high school football and creepy stuff.  The battle between good and evil was well done!

Ahhhh...with a big, big smile

Brown Girl Dreaming is a lovely, beautiful, eloquent, eye-opening, heart-opening memoir.  I hope that Jacqueline Woodson will do as Roald Dahl and Gary Paulsen have done and continue on with autobiographical works.  There are many, many reasons why I hope that she does this.  In no particular order:  anything and everything she writes is beautiful.  She has an unique story to tell.  Woodson is one of the most important writers of our time.  We can all learn about history through her rich experiences.  BGD is Woodson's story of growing up in Columbus, where she was born, Greenville, South Carolina and Bushwick.  It is written beautifully in a free verse that is like music.  Her words make her feelings come alive in a way that a very, very few writers can do.  With every book Woodson proves that she is one of the greats.

Self-harm

How wide-spread is self-harm?   Kiss of Broken Glass is a heart-breaking, but hopeful, but realistic, story of a girl who cuts.  We meet fifteen-year-old Kenna when she is being admitted to a hospital psych ward under Florida's Baker Act.  The Act means that she must stay for seventy-two hours under watch.  So the book takes place in seventy-two hours.  And what a seventy-two hours it is.  This is the first book I have ever read by Madeleine Kuderick.  And I can't wait to read another.  I see from her webpage that this is her first book, but it can't be her last.  The voice of Kenna is one that will stay with me for a long, long time.  I loved that there were no easy answers.  I loved the form in which it was written and then I loved, at the end, how Kuderick shared that writing this book was a personal journey, because of her daughter, who experienced an addiction to cutting.  How painful it must have been to write this book, but I hope at the same time it was helpful.  I am sure this book will be helpful to many, many others.  You know...I started this post with a question...but I think I know the answer.  Self-harm is pretty darn wide spread.  It just happens in so many different ways.  Drinking, drugs, sex, eating, cutting, smoking, bullying, gosh...anything and everything we do to demean ourselves.  To deny that we are children of God.  It is wide-spread.  It is everywhere.  That's why we need to be kinder to ourselves and to others. 

Cricket Fans!

If you love the game of cricket, then you will love Jasper Jones.  I don't know many books that detail the game play as much as this book.  I have no clue how cricket is played but a lot of it is played in Australia, I guess, where Jasper lives and Charles, the main character, lives as well.
Jasper is the bad news dude in town.  He is always blamed for everything.  He is an outcast of mixed race and his dad is a drunk and well, EVERYONE knows that Jasper Jones is bad bad bad.
So when he knocks on Chuck's window in the middle of the night and begs him for help, Chuck is a little hesitant.  But Chuck's a good guy and Jasper seems nicer than all the rumors make him out to be and nothing has ever been PROVEN to make Jasper officially bad and Chuck doesn't believe all of the rumors and so he goes to help Jasper in the middle of the night.  Jasper leads him to his special hide out in the woods and there is the body of a classmate, the sister of Jasper's crush and the daughter of a prominent man.
Jasper swears he hasn't done it and begs Chuck to help him find out who did, because both he and Chuck know that EVERYONE will think that Jasper did it, without even asking questions.
And so begins a journey into small town evil secrets and rumors and young love and self-discovery.  And it is all really well done.  And it takes place during the Vietnam War.  And Chuck's best friend Jeffery is Vietnamese and he and his family face a great deal of prejudice from the jerk-offs in town.  Jeffery was my favorite character by the way and I love the dialog between him and Chuck.  Jeffery has a brave and bold wonderful spirit.
I liked JJ, and for it being NOTHING like books I enjoy and the first book I have read in ages, I have to say I enjoyed it.  Its a smart, smart book, very different and original.

She Took the Moon Over Georgia

The Moon Over High Street's story is a lot like this song.  Great song, I haven't thought about it for years, not until reading the latest by the incredible Natalie Babbitt.  In this story though, it is twelve-year-old Joe who has to choose between money and the moon.  This is wonderful little story.  Man.  I wish I could write like this.