Incredible

The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction was not INCREDIBLE as in 5 Star, but it was good.  I enjoyed it because I really resonated with Laura's worry about the nuclear war.  I was 13 in 1984 and she is 16 (although she does seem a lot younger than 16 in some ways, but it might just the narrator).  I remember the fear!  I remember talking to my dad about it all.  I remember War Games and I remember learning about MAD and I remember the Doomsday Clock but most of all, I Remember...Mama.  I AM SO POP CULTURE HIP! 

Ahem.

Anyway...I liked this.  It was weird and a little hard to follow on audio and I would like to see the book to see how it is laid out, but it was enjoyable.  I just don't know how enjoyable it would be for someone who did not live through the 40s, wait, I mean the 80s! 

Discovering Poetry

When a character in a book discovers the beauty of poetry, it is a really, for lack of a better word, beautiful thing.  When a person in real life discovers the beauty of poetry, it is also a really beautiful thing.  I wonder if I am projecting, but I think that people who don't like poetry maybe are afraid of it?  Or had to read poetry at the wrong time in school?  I mean, I know this was my situation.  Or maybe they just have found the right poet for them.  Langston finds his poet, who happens to be the poet after whom he was named.  Langston Hughes.  Who was an amazing poet.  Loved this book.  Not just about poetry.  Finding Langston is not just about Langston finding Hughes by Langston finding himself, too. 

How Long, O Lord, How Long?

until all are liberated?

It used to be that I would read historical or period fiction or history and think, "We have made improvements, we still have a long way to go, but we are moving in the right direction.  We must keep going."  But these days...sadly, sadly...we are not just pulling over to the side, we are regressing.  And it is frightening.  And while I always have been a Heaven person, not so much a Kingdom on earth person, though I try to be, now it is much harder.  I don't know...will liberation come on earth as it is in Heaven?  Will equality come on earth as it is in Heaven.  Yes, I must, we all must, keep trying.  But things do not look good at all.

The Liberation of Gabriel King takes place in the summer of 1976.  I was four years old that summer and didn't know much, of course and this is the first period or historical fiction I have read that focuses on racial inequality and prejudice.  It is very, very well done.

My Only Regret

is that I wish I would have read If I Ever Get Out of Here BEFORE I read Give Me Some Truth.  I NEED to read everything by this man.  Shoe's poverty helped me to understand the way in which my mother grew up.  She was much luckier though, as there was no racial prejudice that she had to face.  But the description of the house and the lack of so much was right on target otherwise.  Again, so celebrating of Thanksgiving for me.  Incredible story.  Much to cry over and celebrate and inspire here. 

How Appropriate

to be reading Give Me Some Truth on the Fourth of July.   As you know, I do spend most of my life under a rock and so Eric Gansworth is a new author for me.  After having read this, I immediately purchased If I Ever Get Out of Here and that will be my next book after the one I am listening to currently.  GMST was excellent.   Ganswoth is a man of many talents and he has written a must-read.  He is a citizen of the Onondaga Nation and grew up in the Turscarora Nation, as he is the descendant of two Onondaga woman who were there when the Onondaga Nation was founded. 
This book is an eye-opener for people who don't understand what the colonists did to the Native Peoples.  And what they continue to do.  For me, it wasn't as powerful as The Absolutely True Diary, because that was the first book to really open my eyes.  I suggest reading them both.  For sure.  Required reading for everyone. 

Folding

Folded Notes from High School is a book of letters and I love reading books like this!  I would have really liked it more if we would have found out some reason why Tara is SUCH a jerk!  She is like Margaret! 

Death

Death's Betrayal:  Transgressions:  5 and 9 is another couple of short stories from the book edited by Ed McBrain which is incredible!  These two stores were quite good.  Some day I do need to explore the books of Jeffery Deaver because I have enjoyed the short stories that I have read. 

Generations

You Bring the Distant Near was a "fall into this book" kind of book.  Mitali Perkins just writes so well and it just sucked me in and brought me into a world very different from my own.  Not just because my family isn't from India but also because our family tradition is one:  We have no traditions.  So I have no sense of family in that way.  Beautiful and engrossing. 

Cuba and China and Pittsburgh

It seems to me that I have been reading a lot about Cuba this year.  But I probably haven't.  But when I saw that My Brigadista Year was set in Cuba, I was excited.  I knew I was going to read it, because for one, it was Katherine Paterson!  And I was SO excited about the skype visit at our middle school when she was in Pittsburgh last week so I wanted to read it and Stories of My Life before that day.  Well, it turns out I got SO SICK on Friday and was sick until Wednesday morning.  I was heartbroken to have missed the visit.  I talked to the middle school librarian and she got to ask TWO questions of Ms. Paterson.  One was what one year in her life would she live over again if she could.  And Paterson was like, "Ohh!  That is a good question!," and she went on to eliminate years that she wouldn't want to live over again, but she didn't really have one year that she would want to for sure.  What a great, great question.  And listening to Stories of My Life (for two days I have been trying to link this and it keeps crashing!  I have NO idea why!) I can see why that would be hard for Paterson!  The other question was is her new book available in Cuba? (It isn't yet but they are working on it.)  That surprised me because I think it is a really balanced view.  But I am not sure how balanced Cuba is these days.  But there was a lot in this book that I didn't know about before I read it.  One thing that surprised me is that Castro wanted to eliminate illiteracy in Cuba and by his organizing of Cubans, he did!  It seems to me that in a true dictatorship, a dictator wouldn't want people to have that kind of power.  I find it sadder to think that in our country we still have so many roadblocks to literacy for so many.  And also in our country, reading was not allowed to be learned by those who were enslaved.  Just very telling, indeed.
Anyway, I am so thankful that at least I got to read these great book and I hope that some day I will get to see Ms. Paterson again!  But if I don't see her here, before one of us crosses the Jordan, I will surely see her there.  What a great place Heaven will be!

This one wasn't all I wanted it to be

I really want to love a book.  I mean, I think authors are incredibly talented and disciplined.  I can't even imagine being about to write a book, I have a hard enough time with writing a blog post that makes sense.  So every book I read, I want to give it 5 stars and mean it!  But for me, Lemons was one of the few books that I took a star from after a few days, instead of adding one.  That's not to say that was terrible.  It probably is a 3.5 star.  But it just didn't seem Newbery to me.  Maybe if I weren't reading it for the Newbery group, I would have rated it higher, not holding it to an "is this Newbery-worthy" standard.  But then again, I don't think I would have finished it if not for the group.  Again, not that it's a bad book.  It's a decent book.  A good book.  I am sure people love this book!  It just didn't hold my attention really, sadly. 

The Thing is...

I really did like Lucky Broken Girl.  It just didn't scream NEWBERY to me in a good way or a bad way -- bad way meaning the way that a book about a white girl in a sod house will get the Newbery even though it is terribly boring and good way meaning that it reminds me of the amazing year that The Crossover won.  This book was too diverse and interesting to be a typical Moon Over Manifest bad-win and not quite good enough to be a Crossover or The Hate U Give kinda book.  THUG is still my favorite this year, I think. 

The 70s

After reading Be True to Me, I ended up reading another book set in the 70s, but in a very different community.  Another Brooklyn was less about the 70s, maybe than BTTM, or maybe it was just the community that appealed to me much more.  In any case, I didn't find myself put off by the time period setting in AB like I did in BTTM.  Jacqueline Woodson works her magic with words for adults this time and she does it equally well.  So much in such a slim book. Stephen King, are the listening?  Fantastic.

Crows

Crows.  as I have mentioned before, some people have a thing about crows.  One for Sorrow has this poem, called Counting Crows. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret, never to be told, eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a time of joyous bliss.  
Is it weird that a really creepy ghost story from Mary Downing Hahn is a joyous blissful thing for me?  I don't know, but it is!  MDH is one of the most talented, creep-tastic, excellent writers ever.  And this new one is no exception.  Not for someone looking for a joke ending or assurances that creepiness is not real.  Great, great, great.

A Disco Inferno

Once I saw the Burn Baby Burn was written by Meg Medina who wrote Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass.  I bought it.  And I am so glad that I did.  I didn't know anything, really about 1977 in New York, and that is to my embarrassment.  There was the black out, and Son of Sam.
I knew about Son of Sam, but not that much.
Burn Baby Burn isn't about the Son of Sam or about the Black Out, per say, it is the story of a young girl, Nora, and her senior year in high school, her father who has a new family and seems to have forgotten is first family, except that he is sometimes on time with the rent check, even though he is very financially well off, her brother Hector who has serious anger issues and violent tendencies and now a drug dealing and drug using problem, and her first experience with love.
The ERA movement is also a back ground to Burn Baby Burn and while the 70s usually leave me a little cold, not sure why, this book was one I couldn't put down.  Medina is just such a great storyteller and Nora is so real.  Excellent.

Quirky and Lovely

Raymie Nightingale was fabulous.  One of those books that bring to mind sappy words like, "heart-felt" and "endearing" and "touching" and all of the rest.  But it is not sappy!  And is REAL.  And funny and I just really loved this funny/sad/touching book.  I do think this could be a Newbery winner, for sure.

The Third Secret

I read was A Big Dose of Lucky.  I am not sure why it is called this. Regardless, I liked it a lot and don't feel burned out on the series.  This is such a good idea, a series, written by different authors, each the story of a girl who lived in a orphanage since birth.  When the orphanage burns down, each is given what little information there is about their birth family and set off to find their way in the world.  The girls are all 16 and 17 years old.  There are seven of them.
Each book is set in 1964 in Canada, so far.  That is where the orphanage was. I can't remember what part of Canada.  But in ABDOL, Maulou's clue takes her to Parry Sound, Ontario.  She is the only dark-skinned girl of the seven and the racism that she encounters is horrifying.  I am a total fool, I guess.  I never knew that racism was as blatant in Canada as it was/is in the United States.

The Boring Room

So I have known about this book for a long time.  My first boss told me that The Borning Room was one of her most favorite books.  But I was sure, because of the cover (and admittedly, back then I wasn't open to any kind of book that didn't seem super interesting or exactly what I knew I already liked) I just thought The Boring Room would be a better title.  Shockingly, I was wrong!  This book, written by Paul Fleischman (the son!  I remembered!) was quite good.  The story of a family, told from an old woman's POV, beginning when she was a young girl.  The borning room was the room in which she was born.  Most of the book takes place in the borning room, life and death.
This is a beautiful story and I would have given it 5 of 5 stars but I think I was comparing it to the Alida trilogy from Gary Paulsen, which really isn't fair.
I had never heard of borning rooms before, I am embarrassed to say.  But here is some info!  The book takes place in Ohio, and part of it is set during the American Civil War.  

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.

Newbery Buzz

There's Newbery Buzz around What the Moon Said.   I just don't know. Granted, I am biased.  This has been an incredible year for books!  Man, I wouldn't want to be on the Newbery committee this year.
Oh who am I kidding, OF COURSE I would want to be on the Newbery committee- any year!
And honestly, the clear standout for me is The Madman of Piney Woods. Brown Girl Dreaming is a close, close, close second.  But the thing with Brown Girl Dreaming, is that it is INCREDIBLE, but not as INCREDIBLE as After Tupac and D Foster, the neo1954 situation.
There's also The Nightingale's Nest, Bird and Where I Belong, OH!  And West of the Moon.
But What the Moon Said?  I am not sure that this one should even get an honor.  Man, I just didn't see Newbery in it at all.  It was fine.  I mean, it was very American Girlish and I see that the author, Gayle Rosengren,  was a copy editor of AG, so maybe that is why. This is not a bad book.  It's just a fine book.  Maybe if it wasn't played up to Newbery material, I would be easier on it.  It certainly didn't put me to sleep, like Moon Over Manifest did in book form and in audio.   I am going to give Moon Over Manifest another try someday, I really am.  Everyone seems to have loved it but me and so that tells me something.
Anyway...What the Moon Said just didn't do it for me as far as Newbery goes, but it was a decent book.

Very Creepy...I only wish I had waited until October!

The Night Gardener took me a while to read because I really loved reading it.
First of all, what a great cover!
Second, what an original story!
Third, what a wonderful way with words Jonathan Auxier has!
I read this book while I was reading The Madman of Piney Woods and it was kinda cool that both have ties to the Irish Potato Famine.  Again, I am ashamed of my lack of historical knowledge.  I knew about the Potato Famine but I didn't realize how much the British contributed to the horrors that the Irish faced.
This book is GREAT scary story and Molly and Kip are really, really cool characters.  There is a lot of good vs. evil here and a lot to think about regarding greed.  Good. Good. Good!  I hope there will be an audio, because this would be cool to listen to with the right narrator.  Awesome!