Perhaps not the best time...

To go back and relisten to Life as We Knew It, the first in the Last Survivors series by the incredible Susan Beth Pfeffer.  I loved this series...and I still do...but it was more "real" listening to it now and I don't think it was good for my psyche-- except it WAS!  I mean, there is hope in this book, there is hope in the whole series. It is just so well done.   I wonder if SBP has had anything to say regarding parallels.  I know she retired in 2014, maybe?  Oh she has been active on Twitter!  I will have to follow her! 
In 2013 I had the total honor of meeting her at PLA...she was so so so so so cool and nice!!

Just finished rereading The Dead and the Gone.  Love this one, too.  But still...hard to read right now...

This is a book

that makes me want to jump and shout!  Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World was just awesome.  Just awesome.
Ivy is a fantastic character, and so is June.  Although I did keep thinking of Faith, Hope and Ivy June every time I heard their names! 
Just so good.  So good.  I loved Ivy's best friend, too.  This book is one of the best books I have ever read about LBGTQ issues, but it is WAY more than that because it is just one of the best books I have ever read for middle grades on any topic, with any kind of characters.  Ashley Herring Blake has that way of just getting into the young mind/character, etc. like Andrew Clements, she just puts you THERE.  So good highly recommended and so NOT predictable and more of the same old same old. 

It's Been Awhile

since I have read something like Dry.  The whole dystopian, natural disaster book.  Wait!  That makes it seem like I am putting this book down, just saying it is "one of THOSE books." But it really isn't.  It is quite good.  And realistic.  And it really could happen.  Maybe this whole country is dystopian.  Since we don't have a president anymore.  This is very much worth the read.  Good, good stuff.  Scary. 

Are You Going

Are You Going to San Francisco has to be one of the best songs ever recorded.  I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906 was not one of the best I Survived books ever written, though.  But that's okay.  You can't hit a home run or even a double or a single every time up at bat, right?
Whoa!  Do you know what just happened that is interesting!
I googled  "Are You Going to San Francisco" to put in the link above and the add that played before the song was for gun vote. com, which I won't link to, or even put in link form because I am not a big gun fan!  So weird!  I wonder why that particular add is tied to that song?
This is the fifth book in the series.  The backstory just didn't do it for me, I guess I just wanted a little more.  I will keep reading them, though!

Katrina

There have been a couple really, really incredible books about Hurricane Katrina.  Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere and Zane and the Hurricane are two of the best books that I have ever read.  I Survived Hurricane Katrina is the third in the I Survived series and it is a good one, but it isn't like those two.  Of course, it is written for a younger audience.

Still, I would recommend this for anyone who likes the series and/or wants to know more about this terrible disaster that was both natural and man-made.  

What if...

you had one day left to live?  What would you do?  What regrets would you have?  That is a question that we probably all have thought about, more than once.  In All We Have is Now, two teens know that they are most likely going to die in 24 hours.  An asteroid is set to wipe out North America and Emerson and Vince are two late-teen street kids who are trying to figure out how to make the most of their last hours.
Really, really good, even though it is set in Portland, OR!

Don't Know Much about History

I really don't know anything about Ancient Roman history, with the exception of its art and so reading the latest I Survived...The Destruction of Pompeii, 79 A.D. taught me about this ancient city's demise.  Sure I knew that Mt. Vesuvius erupted and destroyed the town, but I didn't know much else.  This is the second I Survived book I've read, the tenth in the series and I enjoyed this one so much more than I Survived the Attacks of September 11, 2001.  I speculate that reason I didn't like that book was because I remember 9/11 so well.  Here with Pompeii, it is, literally and figuratively "ancient history."  Enjoying this book so much makes me want to go back and read the others in the series, that I haven't been around for, so not Hurricane Katrina or the Japanese Tsunami.  If this book is indicative of the others, I can definitely see why it appeals to kids.  They haven't lived thorough any of these disasters, at least probably not that they recall.  This title is action-packed and the main character, Marcus is so life-like.  Of course this will be a big hit and it should be!