Do you have any objection to naming a child Vladimir? Even a girl?

Sunny is the third in the Track series from Jason Reynolds and oh man it was awesome! I loved listening to it.  It was read by one of Reynolds friends, Guy Lockard and he also read the other books in the series for the audio.  It was neat to hear about this at the end.
If you aren't sure about the title of this post it has to do with the name Sunny and the fantastic movie, Arthur (1981).

SPOILERS THE DOG DOES DIE - but still good!

I make no apologies for spoiling dead dog stories, however, The Beginning of Everything wasn't ruined for me.  Unlike My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece this death of a pet didn't seem cheap and sensational and over the top.  Even though it happens in a very violent way here.  This was a good book.  It took me a little while to get into it and the ending was not the way I wanted it to be, yet probably has it needed to be.

2.5 SPOILERS, kinda.

I really always feel bad when I give a book less than 3 stars.  I mean, I know that is ridiculous.  But I just feel like I could never write a book that could be published and so who am I to give someone a less than 3, you know?  And sometimes books just aren't my cup of tea and that doesn't make them less-than-4 worthy.  But Baseball Genius was a 3 until the end.  It just ended way too fast for me, you know?  It was chopped off.
I saw Tim Green and Derek Jeter on the CBS Mornings News promoting the book and so that is why I bought it.  Tim Green has a whole bunch of books and I really enjoyed Football Genius.  Derek Jeter has written some kids books, too.  But I have not read those.  I will have to see what they are like!

Ghosted

Does your neighborhood have that tradition of "ghosting" people?  Putting a ghost on someone's front door with treats?  I have a friend whose neighborhood did that.  I think it is cool!  Probably because I do love fall and Halloween!  We moved to an apartment and so I think I am going to do that this year!

That has nothing to do with Ghost.

Ghost was an incredible book!  If I didn't want Towers Falling to with the Newbery so badly, this would be my choice.  This most certainly has to be an Honor Book.  And if Towers Falling isn't going to win, which will go down as a 1954 moment if there ever was one, by the way...especially if one of those Fox Books wins, then I would hope that Ghost would take the big prize.

Once again, just because you HAVE to read something, doesn't mean it is going to be terrible

Also just because someone famous wrote a book, that doesn't mean it is going to be terrible either.  Football Genius, the first in the Football Genius series is by Tim Green played for the Atlanta Falcons and did all kinds of other sports-stuff before writing books.

I figured that I had to read this book because I had never read any of them and they are super popular and if they were any good, I thought maybe I could recommend them to folks looking for sports books, of which I have read very, very little.  

This is one I can recommend for sure.  Good story.  I really liked the main character, Troy.

I didn't like the LOVE part, but it was so small that I was able to deal and I think that people who don't like love parts will be able to deal as well.  Maybe I was just listening to it on a day when I was down with love.  

I probably will read the next one, but I have so many others to read right now!