The Second Time

This is the second time I've read a non-picture book by Kevin Henkes, but The Year of Billy Miller was a totally different experience for me and I loved, loved, loved it.  Billy is just a typical second grade boy and his family is just lovely and this is just a pleasant, lovely story.  Great, great, great!  Possible Newbery?

Wow. Boring.

I have to say that I do love Kevin Henkes' picture books.  I love all of them.  They are great books.  This Olive's Ocean though, it really was not for me.  I am sure it is a wonderful book.  But man, it was just way too slow and dull for me.  I didn't like Martha at all and I just didn't like the story.  It starts with Martha being visited by the mother of Olive, a classmate Martha didn't know very well, but who died in an accident.  Olive's mother gives Martha pieces from Olive's journal that say Olive had hoped she could be friends with Martha.  Martha wasn't mean to Olive, like the other kids were, but she didn't reach out to her either.  The book is a self-discovery kind of book about love and belonging and families and all of that, but man.  It just didn't do it for me.