adult fiction – Peaceful Reader

The lazy days of summer

I like to do yoga in my pajamas. I do. Before the pandemic I went somewhat faithfully to a yoga studio with other like-minded folks and I enjoyed the camaraderie. I did. But when the pandemic hit I discovered the joy of doing yoga right upstairs in what used to be my child’s room. That child now owns a home of his own and only sleeps over on Christmas Eve so I turned it into a yoga/meditation home studio and reading corner. I love to wind my way from my bed to bathroom and then take a sharp right over to my studio all while still happily sporting bed head and soft pink pajamas. It’s a beautiful thing. I bring up Adriene’s monthly calendar and pick that day if I seem drawn to it or any of the other amazing videos she has on her YouTube channel and I just get down to it. After heart surgery it took me awhile to make it back to that room to specifically do yoga but I’m back there and I appreciate it all the more for the break.

I like to read in my pajamas. I do. Even on my patio which is in the back of my house and no one can see me except for the chickens and the dogs. They don’t judge. My reading time right now is on elementary-middle grade fiction for the state award books. I have to mix it up with a few adult books over the summer as well. On my Kindle app I’m reading Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid and I just finished That Month in Tuscany by Inglath Coooper. A friend lent me her copy of The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill and another friend highly recommended The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick. And on a recent lunch date my husband and I wandered into our local Barnes and Noble. We found quite a few books I’d like to read in my pajamas but we “only” walked out with three; All the Broken People by Leah Konen, The Promise by Damon Galgut, and The Pallbearer’s Club by Paul Tremblay. Also on my list to read are Lucy Foley’s The Paris Apartment, Justin Baldoni’s Man Enough, and Rebecca Serle’s One Italian Summer.

What else am I doing this summer while I am healing and on break before school begins again in August? Walking the dogs, cooking, and thinking…just processing all that is around me. I’m doing a lot of that in my pink pajamas.

2019 books in review

I’ve read an amazing amount of great literature this year. It was a treat to look back and reminisce about each book on my GoodReads account and it is my hope that I can inspire one reader to pick up at least one of these fabulous books. I prefer fiction over nonfiction so I surprised myself with three fantastic memoirs this year. Leonard Pitts has an excellent article “This is the Year of Reading Women” in order to push himself to read more works by women. I am glad to say looking through my lists women authors continue to take a lead for me.

Nonfiction:

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Becoming by Michelle Obama

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Shortest Way Home by Pete Buttigieg

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Educated by Tara Westover

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The gifts of imperfection by Brene Brown

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Better than carrots or sticks; restorative practices for positive classroom management by Dominique Smith

Fiction:

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Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Where the crawdads sing by Delia Owens

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Salvage the bones by Jesmyn Ward

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Heads of the colored people by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

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The Bar Harbor retirement home for Famous Writers (and their muses) by Terri-Lynne DeFino

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The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

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Helen Hoang’s book’s The Kiss Quotient and The Bride Test

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Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Conversations with friends

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Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Young Adult/Children’s Fiction:

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Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky

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Front Desk by Kelly Yang

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Scar Island by Dan Gemeinhart

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Louisiana’s Way home by Kate DiCamillo

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Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds

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Summoner Series by Taran Matharu

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Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

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Here Lies the librarian by Richard Peck

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Walking with Miss Millie by Tamara Bundt

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Aru Shah and the end of time by Roshani Chokshi

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Amina’s voice by Hena Khan

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Merci Suarez changes gears by Meg Medina

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Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed

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Ban this book by Alan Gratz

I’m so gratefully to work in a field where I enjoy the homework very much. There are so many fantastic diverse authors out there now and I loved what I read in Amal Unbound, Are Shah, and Merci Suarez, Amina’s Voice, Ami Polonsky for Grayson, and Kelly Yang! I hope 2020 brings as much joy reading.

Summer Reading List 2018

I managed to do quite a bit of reading this summer and as we just turned the calendar page from August to September I’d love to share what I read.

June:

1. A spool of blue thread by Anne Tyler – okay
2. Tangerine by Christine Mangan -interesting locale, predictable story
3. Real Friends by Shannon Hale – beautiful and brilliant graphic novel
4. The self-driven child: the science and sense of giving your kids more control by William Stixrud – excellent advice, easy to read
5. Secrets of Bearhaven by K.E. Rocha – odd, kids may like it
6. Heart Talk by Cleo Wade – loved it and I’m going to her workshop
7. The adventures of a girl called Bicycle by Christina Uss – cool adventure
8. Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova – loved it!

July:

9. The honest truth by Dan Gemeinhart – loved it as much as I loved Some kind of courage by Gemeinhart
10. The tea girl of hummingbird lane by Lisa See – really interesting story
11. The Formative Five by Thomas Hoerr -school work yet interesting
12. The mysterious moonstone by Eric Luper -surprisingly good for a beginning chapter book, plus a shout out to libraries!
13. Everything, everything by Nicola Yoon – Interesting story, a major surprise, and a strong female character
14. Creative Schools by Ken Robinson -school work and I learned a lot
15. Sunny Side Up by Jennifer L. Holm – great, emotional story

August:

16. All Rise for the honorable Perry T. Cook by Leslie Conner -loved it
17. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – excellent story
18. Escape from Aleppo by N.H. Senzai – wonderful story to help anyone understand the conflict in Syria
19. The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson – quirky mystery with a look at the past
20. Horizon by Scott Westerfield – twisted sci-fi and I’m now reading it to 6th-grade students

20 books in one summer is great even with all the homework I did. Hopefully, you might find something here that will appeal to your own reading tastes.

Summer Reading Recap

{image: the Red Fairy Project}

I am filled with gratitude that I have summers to catch up on some extra reading. As a librarian I spend my school day surrounded by books, ordering books, previewing, books, talking about books and yet I don’t always have a lot of spare time to read.

This summer’s reading log has far more adult choices thanks to the new app Litsy on my phone. Do you Litsy? Mostly adult books are discussed and shared and many sound unbelievable good. Thankful I’ve learned to cross check with my public library to request and check out. So now I’m addicted to Litsy and love getting recommendations for more reading. Find me @Peaceful_Reader.

I do still love Goodreads because it’s a great place to keep track of all my reading + my reading journal (I must have a paper copy in case the Internet goes down).

Here are stats so far for this summer and for the year to date.

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Number
of books: summer = 22 / y-t-d = 41

Pages read: summer =
8,000 (nice round number) / y-t-d = 12,850

I read 8 adult
fiction titles, 4 YA books, and 9 elementary
fiction books + 1 graphic novel

All of the elementary
books I read including the graphic novel were for our Iowa Children’s Choice Awards. I have about 7 more books to read this
week/weekend before I score them all and send in my ratings.

My absolute favorite book this summer is A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I’m happy that I read it and I share the love for it with every adult reader that I know. If you haven’t please do. It is pain + joy wrapped together which is just what life is. Jude will forever stay with you.

Other favorites were: Mac Barnett’s The Terrible Two (funny), Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk (great storytelling), Ruta Septys’ Salt to the Sea (amazing historical fiction), The Guest Room by Bohjalian (fiction yet brings the horrible truth of modern day slavery to us), Speed of Light by J.M. Kelly (unique twists) and always Alice Hoffman-her books are magical.

In order I read:

The Doctor’s Wife by Elizabeth Brundage
H2O by Virginia Bergin
Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
Speed of Light by J.M. Kelly
The Marvels by Brian Selznick
Capture the Flag by Kate Messner
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancy
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein
Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics by Chris G.
The Terrible Two by Mac Barnett
One Second After by William R. Forstchen
A little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Stella by Starlight by Sharon Draper
New Kid by Tim Green
Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk
Audacity Jones by Kirby Larson
The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian
Jungle of Bones by Ben Mikaelsen
Roller Girl by Victoria Jamiesen

I have two more books I am set to finish this week; Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam and Odd, Weird and Little by Patrick Jennings. What did you read this summer?

Belong to me by Marisa de los Santos; read it and rejoice

{cute cover}

This book was a huge hit at home. Both my husband and daughter loved the cover. ” It’s the bright rain boots” Groovy Girl commented as she ran her finger up and down the different sizes of boots, thinking about the children in the story who would be slipping them on. My husband also made comments regarding the cover and the title. Usually they don’t pay this much attention. We do love rain boots at our house but maybe it was because my nose was often stuck down into the book at different times of the day trying to read one more chapter, paragraph, or sentence. Maybe it’s because de los Santos is a poet as well that her words make such wonderful sentences.

I finished it and had that same old bluesy feeling that I didn’t want it to end. The characters became a part of me. Even the woman that I thought I wouldn’t ever like turned out to be pretty darn likable. Cornelia, Piper, and Dev all share their stories with us in alternating chapters and in very distinctively different voices. Surrounding those three characters are a crew of others that we also grow to love and even weep about it. I know…don’t you just want to know more…

Okay I’ll tell you a little more. But just a little. You should really read it for yourself.

Cornelia and her husband, the handsome Teo, have moved to the suburbs leaving NYC after 9-11 made them feel a little less safe in the city. Cornelia’s not excited about the suburbs and her fears all come true when she meets Piper, her wound-too-tight neighbor. Piper is snobby, complex, and unhappy; she likes to be the queen until one thing in her life falls apart and she sees how much it doesn’t matter. Cornelia doesn’t like snobby and writes Piper off as a neighborhood quack. But then Cornelia meets Lake in the grocery store and they hit it off right away yet there is a story behind Lake and her super intelligent son Deveroux that Lake isn’t willing to share. Family secrets and good friendships wind their way through this well-written plot.

Random quote:

He and Clare started walking toward the bus stop, their shadows stretching out ahead of them. Dev watched the girl shadow take the boy shadow’s hand, and he realized that the homesick feeling had disappeared. In its place was a new feeling, too new to have a name.

“How cool would that have been, though?” He shot Clare a sidelong, happy grin. “A dad with a bike shop?”

Clare laughed her jingle-bell laugh, and Dev realized that what he felt was young. He’d been young all his life, of course he had. But now he was aware of it. Every cell, every electron of his body felt young: unencumbered, uncluttered, as clean as the clear blue sky. (153)

The interesting part is that Clare is a repeat character from de los Santos’ first book, Love Walked in, and she makes me want to go back and reread that first book again even though I have many other books laying about my house to read. Clare’s and Cornelia’s story is intriguing and makes an interesting twist to bring them together again and share this young love story with us.

Marisa de los Santos website

A Literary Mama interview with de los Santos about all three of her books.

Book Reviews for You!

I’ve been reading steadily between book club choices and friends’ recommendations. I love having extra days off from work just to read.

M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans: Read this for book club. Loved it. Set in western Australia Isabel and Tom find each other after the war making the lighthouse at Janus Rock their home. It’s not an easy life but one that Tom, in particular, takes to quite easily. You just know when the bad thing happens that things are not going to end well for anyone so while it is a well-written story be prepared for frustration. Learning more about lighthouses was a bonus. Did you know that each light has its own light code that it blinks to? Yes! If you haven’t picked this one up yet put it on your Christmas list.

A sample: “Isabel had managed to sit up a little against the wall, and she sobbed at the sight of the diminutive form, which she had dared to imagine as bigger, as stronger-a child of this world. ‘My baby, my baby my baby my baby,’ she whispered like a magic incantation that might resuscitate him. The face of the creature was solemn, a monk in deep prayer, eyes closed, mouth sealed shut; already back in that world from which he had apparently been reluctant to stray.” {90}

Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train: My friend Teri lent this to me and I thought it was very interesting. I liked the two stories merged together and the information relayed about the children forced to travel and auctioned off across the Midwest.

A sample: “I try to forget the horror of what happened. Or-perhaps forget is the wrong word. how can I forget? And yet how can I move forward even a step without tamping down the despair I feel? When I close my eyes, I hear Maisie’s cries and Mam’s screams, smell the acrid smoke, feel the heat of the fire on my skin, and heave upright on my pallet in the Schatzmans’ parlor soaked in a cold sweat.” {74}

Kline did an incredible amount of research to make this a rich reading experience. Reading this made me want to go back and investigate the Orphan Train kid’s series. Maybe this is a series I need to recommend more to my students.

My Vacation Reads

We just spent 15 days traveling and I can chart our journey by the books that I read. First up Strange but true by John Searles. I sat in the back of our Vue and loved the heck out of this thrilling book while I mentally thanked my husband and son for doing such a fine job of driving. Before leaving on our road trip I’d finished Boy still missing (his first book) which made me steal Strange but true right off my husband’s to-read book pile. I’m impressed with Searles’ creativity. His stories lean toward the bizarre and twisted yet are believable and oh, so crafty. If you have not picked up any of his books yet please do-you won’t be disappointed. He has a new book coming out in September, Help for the Haunted. I want an ARC of this book so much I would jump up and down to get one as I would be the perfect person to read and review it. Who do I have to beg…?

Next I read the historical fiction story The Sandcastle Girls so I could participate in my mother-in-law’s book club which gave me a reason to see Donna’s beautiful house. My review of Sandcastle Girls.

On the trip from DC to NYC I listened to my Audible downloaded copy of Tina Fey’s BossyPants. The last weeks of school I listened to this in my car and then summer hit and I let it slide. I’ve got to get used to working around my house holding on to my phone as I listen but as I’ve yet it’s more of a car activity for me. My son looked at me with his pitiful teenage eyes, shaking his head at me because I laughed out loud on the bus, subway, and street corner as we waited, rode, and walked. Laughed Out Loud. Now I want to go back and watch more 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live segments that feature her and Amy Poehler. I learned a great deal and found Fey’s life stories energizing and of course hysterical. Also she narrates which makes all the difference! I successfully clicked the finish button as we drove through Ohio on Monday.

College Boy read Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan while we lounged in Silver Spring. He read it quickly because he was engaged (a challenge…) and turned it over to me. This amazing tale combines the love of books with 21st Century technology and stirs them together with a great story. Clay Jannon, main character extraordinaire, finds a job at Mr. Penumbra’s book store where things are a bit weird and not many books are sold. Clay takes a closer look at the books in the back of the shop to discover why and with his quirky cast of friends ends up shaking up poor Mr. Penumbra and his bookstore! Excellent story!

Random Quote:

“To run Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore around the clock, one owner and two clerks divide the circle of the sun into thirds, and I get the darkest slice. Penumbra himself takes the mornings-I guess you’d call it prime time, except that this store doesn’t really have one of those. I mean, a single customer is a major event and a single customer is as likely to show up at midnight as at half-past noon.” (21)

I finished Sloan’s book and moved quickly into Sara Gran’s film noir mystery Dope. We swap books in this house like others share toothpaste. My husband read it on the way out to DC while College Boy drove, College Boy read it from DC to Penn Station and I read it on the car trip home. It’s only 243 pages long but packed with a slew of interesting characters and a gritty, intense story that takes place in 1950 NYC.

It begins like this:

“Josephine,”
Maude said my name flatly, like I was dead or she wanted me to be. I sat across from her at a booth in the back of the bar, where the daylight never reached and the smell of stale beer and cigarettes never cleared. Maude had been the mistress of a gangster back in the thirties and he’d bought her this bar to set her up with something after he was gone. It was on the corner of Broadway and West Fourth, and if you’d never been there before it would take a minute to notice that there wasn’t a girl in the place, other than Maude. {1}

And that’s it! This is why it is important to have good, long, wonderful vacations-to READ lots of great books (and to see a few amazing sights).

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

I brought three books with me on vacation and I finished one quickly (Strange but True by J. Searles), I started another that didn’t grab me right off but when I arrived at my in-laws amidst one of our many early book discussions they highly recommended Chris Bohjalian’s book. It also happened to be the book my mother-in-law’s book club would be discussing and also “Would I like to come to book club with her?” Yes! Yes, of course I would.

Always ready for book discussion and the challenge of reading a 293 page book in just a few days I was thrilled to be asked. I was easily pulled into this engaging and informative book about the Armenian genocide. What Armenian genocide you ask? Just what I said and every book club member we gathered with on Tuesday night! What? Parts of world history we know nothing about…not that hard to believe, sadly even though we were a learned community of women. Thankfully Chris Bohjalian chose to write his 15th novel about his Armenian roots so that we could learn more and carry that forth into the world.

It begins:

“The young woman, twenty-one, walks gingerly down the dusty street between her father and the American consul here in Aleppo, an energetic fellow almost her father’s age named Ryan Donald Martin, and draws the scarf over her hair and her cheeks. The men are detouring around the square near the base of the citadel because they don’t yet want her to see the deportees who arrived here last night-there will be time for that soon enough-but she fears she is going to be sick anyway. The smell of rotting flesh, excrement, and the July heat are conspiring to churn her stomach far worse than eve the trip across the Atlantic had weeks earlier. She feels clammy and weak-kneed and reaches out for her father’s elbow to steady herself. Her father, in turn, gently taps her fingers with his hand, his vague and abstracted attempt at a comforting gesture.” (1)

Written in 2012 Bohjalian writes this historical fiction from a female perspective in both 1915, Syria, and present day, Bronxville, NY Elizabeth Endicott, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, arrives with her father to bring aid to the displaced Armenian population and Laura Petrosian, a writer who tells the story backwards as she remembers her childhood from her grandparents “Ottoman Annex” home. Laura discovers mysteries about her own family history as she searches for answers about her grandparents.

I loved how these two stories intersected and became one. I loved how slowly many secrets were revealed. At first it was jarring to get yanked to the present, to the beginning of Laura’s story, as I was so fully engaged in Elizabeth’s daily struggles adjusting to her surroundings. I got used to Laura’s interjections as the story continues. The book does share many repulsive stories of what women suffered at the hands of the Turkish soldiers. It’s gruesome and sadly still commonplace that women bear ungodly amounts of horror at the hands of men in power, or men hoping for power, or men lacking in power. Highly recommended. Find Chris Bohjalian on twitter @ChrisBohjalian.

After this tale it’s hard to pick my next read. College Boy just finished and recommended Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan and I have Forever by Pete Hamill still to finish.

Attending my mother-in-law’s book group was inspiring as they’ve been together for 20 years and share a common love of children and teaching. The appetizers were delicious and the company was excellent. I’m so glad I was here and had read enough of the story to participate in the lively discussion.

First two books of summer…

I’ve been on summer break for four days so far and I’ve finished two fantastic books. I’ve also deep cleaned parts of my house that are regularly forgotten. I made a few delicious meals while my stepdaughter was here. I’m also packing for our upcoming trip to the East Coast. In between all that I managed to finish these two:

Defending Jacob (2012) by William Landay is our book club choice for June. I won’t be here for the gathering but the book was so highly recommended by my friend Sue that I had to read it anyway. One morning I was reading it at the breakfast table and after checking out the cover she said “That does not look like your kind of book Mama.” She’s right…The cover looks adult and mysterious; not fun but read it I did and loved it. Perfect reason to be in a book club as I’m pushed to read outside my normal reading zone.

The story, narrated by Andy Barber, assistant DA, revolves around the murder of a young man, a classmate of Barber’s son, Jacob. Andy is a loving father and a great lawyer and eventually both those attributes are called into question as his son is arrested for the boy’s murder. This is a precise look at what can happen to a family when they are pushed to the brink of despair. Defending Jacob is filled with plot twists and interesting character portrayals. Landay is a former District Attorney himself so the courtroom drama and lawyer speak is accurate and intense.

Sample:

“Worse, the eighth graders at the McCormick were not especially competent liars. Some of them, the more shameless ones, seemed to believe that the way to pass off a lie convincingly was to oversell it. So, when they got ready to tell a particularly tall one, they would stop all the foot-shuffling and y’knows, and deliver the lie with maximum conviction. It was as if they had read a manual on behaviors associated with honestly-eye contact! firm voice!-and were determined to display them all at once, like peacocks fanning their tail feathers.” (48-49)

If you are looking for a great crime story Landay’s book is definitely worth reading. It would make a great Father’s Day gift for a mystery buff.

Same is true of Boy Still Missing (2001) by John Searles. My husband read this and couldn’t stop chatting with me about it. At my last book club meeting he even mentioned it to them with a slight tone that eventually I would get to it on my PILE. So after I finished Defending Jacob I shocked him by picking Boy Still Missing next off the large stack. I read it in under a week and will add John Searles to my growing list of favorite authors. He told a most interesting story without bogging it down with too much detail and he seamlessly snuck in some important feminist rhetoric weaving it right into the story.

Dominick helps his mother track down his wayward father whether the father is out drinking or sleeping it off with a trail of women. Dominick gets caught up with one of his father’s cast-off girlfriends, Edie, and his life is forever changed as he turns his back on the mother that needs him. His chance encounter with Jeanny, a young protestor for change, pulls him back to earth as he struggles with the direction his life has taken. Sexual explicit details make it not for everyone but fit with Dominick’s experiences.

Sample:

“I peeled back the rug where I had been skimming money for the last two months. Ever since the radiator broke, most of the usual smells of our apartment-canned food, cooked beef, furniture polish-had been muted. But beneath the rug the musty earth scent was as strong as ever. I grabbed three stiff hundred-dollar bills and shoved them into the pocket of my sweatshirt. ‘Just a few Bennies,’ I said under my breath, thinking it sounded cool.” (51)

Both stories feature young men as they struggle through rough times. Boy Still Missing is told from Dominick’s point-of-view and Defending Jacob is shared from his father’s narration. Both have unexpected surprises in store for the reader.

Last week I took both College Boy and Groovy Girl to our local library to check out books for summer and our approaching vacation. I found The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan which I started late last night and continued reading early this morning before I hoisted myself out of bed for some yoga and breakfast. Ahh, summer sleep-ins are treasures.

January Recap {I know it's February already}

Okay I know it is February 7th-my how time flies, right? I read several good books during January and wanted to give them each a quick little shout-out.

I am J by Cris Beam: A truly amazing book that chronicles the life of a young boy trapped in a girl’s body. The struggled portrayed is heart-wrenching as Jeni tries desperately to shed any part of her person to be just “J”. He hates his thin frame and anything to do with becoming more female. His best friend writes him off as gay and his parents are confused and angry. Spending a few days on the streets, escaping from his parents, he discovers that there are others who feel like him and they are able to take testosterone to persuade the body to become more manly. All J wants is for his body to match what is going on in his head. This was so well-written by Bean that I can’t imagine anyone reading it and not understanding the complexity of how a trans-gender child feels as they struggle against family and friends in order to feel right and happy. (ARC-Little, Brown) Highly recommend.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card: Can’t believe I’d never read this through all my library classes, etc. I did recommend it to my son a few years back and he read it, loved it and tossed it back to me with this to say “best book I ever read, to date, mom. Thanks.” Well, okay then. I promised myself I wouldn’t go another year without reading it as next year he’ll be off doing his own thing. It read pretty quickly as it is a riveting tale of a future world. Ender is ostracized, bullied, and confused at school and at home and then the government chooses him to be part of a special group of space warriors. It reminded me a little of I am the cheese by Robert Cormier in that both have characters that are mentally messed with by the government. I was excited to see a movie is being made of this book, which will be fantastic if it is done well. Highly recommend.

The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamont: One of the first adult books I read after finishing my master’s program in L.S. was The Red Tent, which my mother-in-law gave me. I still own the book and plan to go back and read it one of these days. I picked up this title at a used book sale precisely because her name was on it. This one was good and had a very interesting cast of characters, and it did keep me reading but it was not as amazing as The Red Tent. Many of the Dogtown characters have stayed with me though and their resilience in the face of such odd diversity was wonderfully hopeful. Recommend.

Runaway Twin by Peg Kehret: Groovy Girl came home from school one day extremely excited about this book she was reading and when she finished it she said “I really loved this book and I think you will too. Will you read it, Mom?” How can one possibly say no to that? I could not. I read it in a day. It was not literary genius but on the other hand it didn’t suck. Now that I’ve read it I can recommend it to students here as well. Groovy Girl is taking her own sweet path to reading and I’m always delighted when she reads a chapter book from start to finish. Bravo! Thank you Peg Kehret.

Guinea Dog by Patrick Jennings: I loved, loved We Can’t All be Rattlesnakes by Jennings but this one let me down in a droopy dog sort of way. Maybe my expectations were too high. I thought Rufus was a fine character with odd parents. His mom substitutes a guinea pig when Rufus really, really wants a dog for a pet. While Rattlesnakes was filled with magical realism in that the book is told from the animals point-of-view this one has just one element…the guinea pig (Fido) is the closest one can come to a dog without actually having a dog-he barks, he follows, he catches frisbees-that is one monster guinea pig! Rufus’s mom is never able to locate the mysterious pet shop where she purchases Fido in the first place. Kids wishing for their own pet might love it.

Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta: As I put books away in the library one day I noticed quite a few baseball fiction titles not getting checked out. Baseball is not the cool thing it once was much to my dismay so I selected a few and plopped them up in a new location and hoped they might get scooped up. They did not but I took a chance and read this one. The young narrator, Roy, has lived in Moundville all of his life and it’s been raining that long as well. The town is cursed through a weird idea that a baseball game jinxed them years ago. Out of the blue (literally) one day the rain just stops and Roy and his dad set out to re-build the old baseball field. I love baseball but this one left me with a lot of questions unanswered which means it would be way confusing for my elementary students.

For me this was a great beginning to 2013. I stuck with my own goals of reading one of my ARC’s from L & B plus reading one off my pile-I read two off the pile and two Highland library books as well. {pat on the back} Now I can breathe and move into February with ease.