Forgot!

And it is probably not necessary now, but I have no idea how I missed Dream On, the fourth book in the Whatever After series. Obviously this series is one that I love and recommend often.  It is based on the story of Sleeping Beauty and this time Abby and Jonah take a friend with them into the tale, but no worries, she sleeps through the whole thing!  

misleading title, but full of information!

Flesh and Blood So Cheap:  the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and Its Legacy was a really good book for me to read because I don't remember as much as I wish I remembered about the second wave immigration and the history of labor relations in the US.  This book contained a really great recap and gave me a lot of information that I didn't have before, including some personal stories about big names in the history of it.  If you want a good book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, even though it is historical fiction, I would recommend Uprising.
The end of the book talks about modern day sweatshops, especially in Bangladesh.  It sites a 2009 fire.  But sadly, in 2013 there was another fire that killed more than 1,000.  I found it here on this page first.  Another super-sad thing about reading books that talk about immigration to the US is that today there are so many who want to put up walls, when on our Statue of Liberty it still says, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless tost to me, I lift my lamp, beside the golden door."- Emma Lazarus.  If we don't feel that way anymore, then we need to take that statue down, scribble off the words, at least or change them, as some have jokingly suggested.  Because what a joke that is now, to have those words there, when we really don't seem to mean them anymore.

too literary for me, but don't count it out!

Vengeance is the sequel to Fracture, which I really enjoyed, even though I didn't like the characters.  But this one was just a too deep or well written or literary for me.  I think that folks who read Fracture and enjoyed it will want to read Vengeance, I certainly did, but this addition dealt mostly with the relationship between Delaney and Decker.  That was probably what brought me the most trouble with the book, since I am not really a big relationship kind of reader.  I will still buy the book for the library, though. 

Another one of those I should have read...

a long time ago.  Number the Stars is everything that people have said it is.  I grew up at Elfinwild Presbyterian Church and a million years ago, our pastor, The Rev. Dr.  Robert F. Tuttle preached a beautiful sermon that included a story about King Christian X of Denmark.  I need to think a little about the details.  But I remember he ended the illustration with, "and the lives of the people were saved because they had a king who was willing to die in their place."  But he was a wonderful, eloquent preacher and he said it much better.  So much that it stayed with me, more than twenty-five years later. 

Brendan Buckley!

 

Happily, Brendan Buckley's Sixth Grade Experiment was another great book about this very cool dude.  I am pretty embarassed that I hadn't previously heard of him and his talented creator, Sundee T. Frazier.    Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything In It was wonderful and so was this one.  I emailed Ms. Frazier and asked if there will be any more BB books, and she wrote back right away!  So that was super nice.  Super sad, though, because it doesn't look like there will be anymore books about Brendan.  She does have a new book in the works though, and I will be reading that for sure.  Brendan and his dad are the main focus of this book.  Great, great book!  You can learn about biomass and anolis lizards, but not in a preachy or weird-through-in-there-as-education way.

Didn't HAVE to Read It, But....

Last year I read Found and really, really enjoyed it.  I had tried to read Sent a few times and just couldn't get into it at all.  I was so determined to get through it, though, I finally bought the audio.  It was just super confusing for me.  Way too much sci-fi and life in the 1400s in England really isn't my cup of tea, so I wasn't much interested in the story, either.  Turns out that this is the story of the Princes in the Tower, which I didn't know anything about until I read this book, so I guess I learned something after all.  Will I continue the series.  Not sure.  I won't pay for it though.

Jack Gantos...

Jack Gantos is one of my most favorite writers.  In 2003 he came to Sewickley and I was able to hear him speak.  This was such a memorable, memorable evening.  I fell in love with the man and with his works, gobbling them up after his visit.  Joey Pigza stole my heart completely.  And then Jack Henry books were wonderful.  I think I even loved them more!  Listening to this story, read by Gantos himself was moving and memorable.  I loved this man.

He is what he is....

Some of the negative reviews for The Psychopath Inside:  a neuroscientist's journey into the dark side of the brain confused me.  Folks were very critical of the author, saying that he was full of himself or a jerk and the like, and I thought, "um...didn't they read the title?"  

The guy is a psychopath.  The title says so and the author continues to say so in the book, so it shouldn't come as a surprise!  

I wasn't put off by the author, but rather the scientific stuff was way beyond me, so I didn't rate it very high.  If you know more about the brain itself, you might enjoy it more.  It is a quick read.  Yes, the guy isn't a nice guy.  As the title says, he's a psychopath!  

Read! Now!

The Golden Day is a very odd book.  I saw it on a couple Mock Printz sites and then saw it was pretty short and a mystery and historical fiction set during the time of the Vietnam War and I thought, why not?  So I bought the audio download and what a journey it was.  After I bought it, I discovered that it is set in Australia.  I am glad that I found this out AFTER I bought it, because of my own goofballishness, I don't think I would have read it, had I known and then I would have been the loser.
The story takes place in an all girls school, in a class of tweens, on the day that Ronald Ryan, that last man to be executed in Australia, was hung.  This event has really troubled the girls' teacher, and so she says to them, "Let us go out into the garden and contemplate death."
The young teacher wants to go into the garden to see one of the gardeners, a poet named Morgan.  She has a thing for him.  He's a poet and hippie and she is in love.  She also believes that the class can learn from him.
Well they do learn.  Something.
What a book.  What a wild, weird, floaty, psychological mind-trip book.  Very, very different.  A Printz winner?  Maybe.  Maybe.

First Off...

I want to just say outright, that I feel guilty in saying that I enjoyed Sharon Flake's  You Don't Know Me, more than Every Man for Himself: ten short stories about being a guy.   I mean, Sharon Flake ISN'T a guy and the guys who wrote the stories in Every Man, well, they ARE guys!  And the guys of Every Man are seriously wonderful writers.  Mo Willems, Walter Dean Meyers, I Don't Like Fat People David Levithan, Ron Koertge, I mean these are some of my favorite writers!  Some of these stories were super great.  Walter Dean Meyers' story, for example.  No surprise there!   What I realized now is that I listened to the audiobook and therefore, didn't get to read the whole book!  Some of the content is in graphic novel form.  My local library doesn't own it, so I asked my brother, who is a librarian at a library that does own it so that he can bring it to me!  Then I will finish this review!

A Great Discovery!

I had to read the book My Friend the Monster by Clyde Robert Bulla for a book group.  The deal was, it never came through library delivery.  There is only one copy in our county and so I was very sad.  Then I did a little search and found it on openlibrary.org!  It was super-fast to sign up, totally free and easy to read on my phone!  And I loved this book!  The drawings were so good and scary!  The book was just a great little read.  The King and Queen are pretty shallow parents and don't think that their son is anything special.  They don't pay much attention to him at all.  The Prince ends up befriending a "common" girl who tells him about the monsters that live under the earth.  He is determined to see if this whole monster deal is real.  Great little story!

Sharon Creech!

Another great book from Sharon Creech.  I am not sure why it took me so long to get around to Ruby Holler.  There were more than a few goofy comments about the book on goodreads that weren't flattering.  Like "just another runaway book."  Which is totally weird because Florida and Dallas, the twins who have been bounced around from one retched foster home to another never really run away.  So I just don't get that one at all.  Another reader who gave the book only 3 stars says, "at first the girls..."  Well, the deal is...Dallas is a boy and Florida is a girl.  Other people complained that the ending didn't wrap up nicely, all the while saying lacked depth and subtlety.  Um.  Okay.  Another person who ripped on the book said the he has been reading the Newbery winners and Honor Books lately and well, that's nice, thanks for sharing, but um.  Ruby Holler was neither.
This book is magical.  A fair and honest portrayal of the foster care system, too.

Wonderful Book

The Other Half of My Heart is one of the best books that I read so far in 2013.   Every character is rich and interesting.  I just wish that there was another book.  This is one of those deals where you wish it was a series!  Mini and Keira are twins, Mini is more light-skinned and resembles her Caucasian father, whereas Keira looks like her African American mother.  The book is told from Mini's perspective, and from her POV, the issue of their physical differences has never been an issue at all.  This summer, however, Their maternal grandma wants them to come for two weeks in one of the Carolinas (I can't remember which one) to compete in the Miss Black Pearl Pre Teen Program.  Sundee Frazier is a sensitive and amazing writer who addresses this very sensitive and important issue in a way that everyone can understand.  It is a wonderful portrayal of race, family, sisters, growing up, everything.  Loved, loved, loved this book.

Shadows in the Moonlight

Do you remember this song?  Great song.  My favorite Canadian.  A Cool Moonlight is by one of my most favorite authors, Angela Johnson.   Sadly, I just didn't "get" this book.  Here's what I put on goodreads.com:  I love Angela Johnson so much that I feel that I need to explain such a low rating. I just didn't understand this book! I know that it had much deeper meaning than I could find. My meh feeling about it is solely "operator error" because I know that when Johnson puts pen to paper, she is magic.
Lila was born with xeroderma pigmentosum, which I really didn't know about until I read What We See at Night.  
I love Lila's family.  Her sister is wonderful and so are her parents.  And so is her best friend.  I just didn't get the friends who visited Lila at night.  I thought maybe they were angels of death or something, but they weren't.  Maybe I will read this again someday and figure it out.  I'd love for someone to read it and explain it to me, because I know that it is meaningful, I am just to dull to understand it!  

Christmas in Wales

I gave this book a 3 of 5, but I would say 3.5 because A Child's Christmas in Wales was wonderful.   And hearing Thomas read it (I had the audiobook) was incredible.  But the rest?  Honestly I didn't understand it a all.  Not bright enough, I guess!  I understood Do Not Go Gently but I disagree with it whole-heartedly!  Though it is great poetry.  Just not what I would advise!

Al Had a Book Club

Maybe he still does, but I can't find anything after 2011.  But for more than a few years, NBC's Al Roker had a book club for kids.  One of the books that he chose was Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It.  If the other books that he chose for his club are as good as this one, I am going to read anything Al Roker ever tells me someone to read.  Brendan Buckley was available on audio download from my local library and I needed something.  When I saw that Sundee T. Frazier had won the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe Award for New Talent in 2008, I knew I had to download and have a listen.
Man, man, man!  This book was awesome!  I loved Brendan, his mom, his dad, his grandma.  Man, man, man.  This book is so funny and so real and so amazing.  The main story itself is incredible.  But as a bonus, the stuff you learn along the way about rocks and minerals and Tae Kwon Do, is so totally interesting and made me want to learn even more about rocks and TKD.
I am now reading Frazier's The Other Half of My Heart and loving it.   There is also a sequel to Brendan Buckley's Universe, but after that, nothing.  I hope that Frazier is still writing.  She is incredible!

Loved it as a kid, loved it as an adult!

I remember loving Half Magic when I read it, I think, in fourth grade.  I absolutely loved rereading it!  The whole thing is very funny and irreverent in places.  So great!  A family of three girls and one boy find a magic coin that will grant them what they want, but only half of it.  Before they figure that half-part out, some seriously bizarre things happen.  Bizarre things happen even AFTER they figure it out.  I didn't know that this was a series, but I will be reading the next!

Not the End

I had thought that Starters and Enders would be a two book deal. After reading Enders, though, I think that Lissa Price has more to come.  I loved Starters so much that I thought when I saw it on iBooks a few months ago, I bought it right away!  Only to discover that it was in Spanish.  That was kinda depressing.  I also loved the emini books, Portrait of a Marshall and Portrait of a Starter.  But Enders disappointed me a little.  First of all, the cover is really bad.  But more than that, for me anyway, the book had a little too much science in it.  I know that the book is science fiction!  But I just don't remember Starters having as much science as Enders did.  I couldn't get back into the story, even though I do think Price did a nice job catching the reader up, I just couldn't start to care about Callie as much as I did before.  Still, I certainly will buy this for the library and I do recommend it to folks who need to know what happens after Prime Destinations is no more.  Will I read the next one?  I am just not sure.

Character-driven Dystopian

I saw someone on goodreads describe The Age of Miracles in this way.  That's why I don't really call this blog a book review site.  It isn't.  I can't review books well at all.  The reader who posted that was right on...this book is about the slowing of the earth's rotation and the way that life changes and all of that, but it is even more so about Julia, a wonderful, wonderful, real character.  Even though the world is changing drastically around her, she must suffer through all of that, PLUS the normal misery of being twelve and thirteen.  I thought at first this was kind of a Last Survivors deal but no, it is a totally different type of book.  Loved the ending.  Loved the writing.  Loved it.  Thanks, Char, for the recommendation.

Horror Story

Yeah, Because I am Furniture is a horror story, for real.  It is realistic horror.  And horror like this happens every day and that makes it even more horrific.  Anke's father is super abusive.  A true monster.  But there is more Anke.  I just love her.  She is fighter and real and just a true hero.  Powerful book.  Very.