January 6, 2016January 4, 2016 by Sharlene

Best books my kids read in 2015

2016, board books, Books, kidlit, Picture books, Reading, review, Summing up, wee reader
children's books, kidlit
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My kids (aged 2 and 4) love reading, and as we are big fans of our library, and visit it nearly every week, we borrow several hundred books a year!

Here are some of our favourites last year.

Favourite series

The kids continue to love Mo Willems’ Piggie and Gerald stories. And last year, we discovered Cynthia Rylant’s Mr Putter and Tabby, a series about an old man and his old cat, and their neighbours Mrs Teaberry and her dog Zeke. It’s about ordinary things like taking a train or making soup or walking the dog, but has some funny bits and it’s just good old fun. Also, because boys will be boys, we read Thomas books nearly every day. And there are plenty of Cars (as in Pixar Cars) books too.

The Pout-Pout Fish
We loved it so much we’ve read all the Pout-pout fish books so far.

Good night, Gorilla – Peggy Rathmann
The best part, as the kids say, is in the dark.

Bear Stays Up for Christmas – Karma Wilson
Bear’s friends make him stay up for Christmas by decorating a tree, baking and more.

Noni the Pony goes to the beach – Alison Lester
Gentle simple rhymes and delightful illustrations

The fantastic flying books of Mr Morris Lessmore – William Joyce and Joe Bluhm
A must for a booklover!

Wandering whale sharks Susumu Shingu ; translators: Ann B. Cary and Yasuko Shingu
A muted palate of blues, whites and blacks add to this non-fiction picture book about whale sharks

Mr. Postmouse’s rounds – Marianne Dubuc
Darling illustrations of animals’ homes, and a postmouse who has to deliver their mail

One Cool Friend – Toni Buzzeo; David Small
So many things work great in this book – the penguins, the very proper young boy and his father, that surprise ending. I wasn’t sure if the kids would find it as delightful but they asked for it again and again.

Pizza – Frank Asch

My two-year-old asks for this book nearly every night. Needless to say, he loves pizza.

My Humongous Hamster goes to school – Lorna Freytag

This one was the older boy’s favourite. He likes hamsters and thought it was hilarious.

Magritte’s Marvelous Hat – DB Johnson

You might know some of the famous paintings by Belgian surrealist artist Rene Magritte, but even if you don’t, this picture book will surely inspire you to see things differently.

Little Owl Lost – Chris Haughton

It’s a simple story. A baby owl falls from his nest and looks for his mummy, with the earnest help of Squirrel who doesn’t quite get things right. Love the bold illustrations!

Stick Man – Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheppler

Ok so I’m starting to love Julia Donaldson’s books. Great illustrations and fantastic rhymes, and that bit of whimsy, whether it’s Tabby McTat or Highway Rat. Although oddly, we have yet to read The Gruffalo. Must amend that.

“I’m Stick Man, I’m Stick Man, I’M STICK MAN, that’s me!”

There are plenty more books that I could have highlighted that I think I will have to get my act together and do a proper round-up each month of the best kids’ books we read.

What were some of your favorite picture books of last year?

November 7, 2015November 4, 2015 by Sharlene

Weekend Cooking: Books for little foodies

2015, board books, Books, Food, kidlit, Picture books, Reading, wee reader, weekend cooking
Food, kidlit, picture books, weekend cooking
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Do you have a little foodie in your house? I’ve been trying to cultivate my four-year-old’s palate ever since he was born.

We’ve had a lot of problems with food early on. He had really bad eczema all over his face and arms ever since he was a few months old and finally we took him for allergy testing – first blood then when he was a bit older, skin. And discovered that he’s allergic to tree nuts and peanuts. And initially eggs and wheat too. You wouldn’t know he had eczema today though. A combination of bleach baths, steroids, lots of moisturizing and regular visits with allergists and dermatologists, at least for the first couple of years of his life.

His first skin test

The first time he broke out in hives. It still happens once in a while, due more to high temperatures than with food

So we spent the first couple of years of his life worrying about his diet. We managed to slowly introduce eggs and wheat into his diet and he’s no longer allergic to eggs and wheat. Nuts are of course a different matter. So for a kid with allergies, or really, for a four-year-old in general, he’s done exceptionally well for his age I reckon, as he is wiling to try new things, like smoked salmon. His favourite meals include avocado sushi, mac and cheese, He’s also the kid who says “yay! Roasted cauliflower!” when he hears what’s for dinner. Asked to name his favourite vegetables and he includes Brussels sprouts, corn and edamame. We generally eat together as a family and I don’t make separate meals for the kids but I do try to come up with a variety of different styles of foods, pasta one day, rice, meat, veg the next, noodles, that kind of thing.

He loves his carbs

I also have a two-year-old and he is in an absolute anti-vegetable stage at the moment. I have only recently managed to get him to like eating baby carrots again, after serving it with Japanese mayonnaise. He’s a funny one, he’s kind of like an old Asian man, telling me today that the leftover birthday cake was “too cold”. He has had a love for soups – clear, Asian-style soup – since he was 1.5. He prefers to eat rice instead of baked potatoes and loves noodles.

Anyway, about those books, I recently picked up Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park and illustrated by Ho Baek Lee from the library book sale. It’s a fun little book about a girl and her family preparing beebimbop (bibimbap?) and then sitting down to eat it for dinner. There’s even a recipe for bibimbap at the back of the book. Of course after reading it, the kids asked for it for dinner. I’ve made it several times before but this time they really seemed to like it. I made it with beef, carrots, eggs, mushrooms and peas and corn.

Then I started thinking of all those foodie books for kids that we’ve borrowed in the past few years.

Minette’s Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat, by Susanna Reich and Amy Bales

Told from the point of view of Julia Child’s cat! It has a rustic, handpainted, almost vintage look to its illustrations. And by that I mean, it seems more geared towards adults than younger children.

Dim Sum for Everyone – Grace Lin

The family goes out for dim sum and everyone gets to choose their favourite dish. Simple language, colourful drawings. A hit with my kids.

For babies, there are foodie board books like My First Book of Sushi by Amy Wilson Sanger. Sanger isn’t just doing books about sushi, she’s also written books about dim sum, Italian food, Indian food, soul food and more. The rhymes are simple and the pictures colourful, just right for little ones.

LMNO Peas – Keith Baker

Peas are the stars of this alphabet book

Round is a mooncake and Green is a chile pepper– Roseanne Thong

We’ve not yet read Green is a chile pepper but Thong uses different cultures to demonstrate these concepts – shapes and colours.

In the Night kitchen – Maurice Sendak

A classic, and lots of fun

Max makes a cake – Michelle Edwards ; illustrated by Charles Santoso

And not just any cake, a surprise Passover birthday cake for his mummy! It involves a lot of frosting, so my older son was very pleased.

Frank Asch has also written a few food-related books, like

I loved this book as a kid and was delighted to find a copy at my library’s book sale

Monica Wellington is another children’s book author who has a few food-related ones:

There are plenty of other books that I’ve come across, but that we’ve not yet read, like

Julia, Child – Kyo Maclear (Author), Julie Morstad (Illustrator)

What are some foodie picture books that you’ve come across lately?

Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, beer, wine, photographs

July 24, 2015July 24, 2015 by Sharlene

Library Looting plenty of picture books and more

2015, board books, Books, kidlit, library loot, Picture books, Reading, wee reader
library loot
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Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

It has been ages since I’ve done a Library Loot post!

Which is odd as ever since we discovered the little library that opens only on Wednesdays and more importantly, has a great playground in the park behind, we’ve been going every week.

The library always has a great selection of picture books and board books. Recently, I’ve been picking up more non-fiction books for the four-year-old who is especially interested in the solar system and the universe these days. Who knows what we will read about next?

However, the adult sections are a bit scanty.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes was something I did find on the shelves (Hood is on Scribd). But the Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear is a request that I made from another library.

I also have recently downloaded some e-books from the library. These are from the 3M catalogue.

Naomi Novik is a new-to-me author. And I have been wanting to read Swimming to Antarctica for a while now. Cox has been long-distance swimming since a teenager! I mean, just read this:

By age sixteen, she had broken all records for swimming the English Channel. Her daring eventually led her to the Bering Strait, where she swam five miles in thirty-eight-degree water in just a swimsuit, cap, and goggles. In between those accomplishments, she became the first to swim the Strait of Magellan, narrowly escaped a shark attack off the Cape of Good Hope, and was cheered across the twenty-mile Cook Strait of New Zealand by dolphins. She even swam a mile in the Antarctic.

I do realize that an exciting life doesn’t necessarily make for a good read, but we will see how it goes!

March 6, 2015March 6, 2015 by Sharlene

Can’t wait to read these Library Loot books

board books, Books, E-books, kidlit, library loot, Picture books, Reading, wee reader
books, kidlit, library, library loot
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With grandma around to read to the boys for a bit, I got to wander among the fiction shelves and pick up some goodies.

Fortunately the Milk – Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Skottie Young

Yup this was more for me than the kids! Hee hee!

“I bought the milk,” said my father. “I walked out of the corner shop, and heard a noise like this: T h u m m t h u m m. I looked up and saw a huge silver disc hovering in the air above Marshall Road.”

“Hullo,” I said to myself. That’s not something you see every day.” And then something odd happened.

Find out just how odd things get in this hilarious story of time travel and breakfast cereal.

Mildred Pierce – James M Cain
I just realized this would be perfect for Back to the Classics. I’ve watched a little of the HBO series via Amazon Instant Video and Kate Winslet is amazing as always, even playing an American housewife.

Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses: a yen for shiftless men, and an unreasoning devotion to a monstrous daughter.

Out of these elements, Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devastating emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.

Four Souls – Louise Erdrich

Ok I did not know that this was a continuation! Hopefully it will work reading it on its own.

Four Souls begins with Fleur Pillager’s journey from North Dakota to Minneapolis, where she plans to avenge the loss of her family’s land to a white man. After a dream vision that gives her a powerful new name, Four Souls, she enters the household of John James Mauser. A man notorious for his wealth and his mansion on a hill, Mauser became rich by deceiving young Indian women and taking possession of their ancestral lands. What promises to be a straightforward tale of revenge, however, slowly metamorphoses into a more complex evocation of human nature. The story of anger and retribution that begins in Tracks becomes a story of healing and love in Four Souls.

Children of the Sea #1 – Daisuke Igarashi

I kind of love these covers

When Ruka was younger, she saw a ghost in the water at the aquarium where her dad works. Now she feels drawn toward the aquarium and the two mysterious boys she meets there, Umi and Sora. They were raised by dugongs and hear the same strange calls from the sea as she does.Ruka’s dad and the other adults who work at the aquarium are only distantly aware of what the children are experiencing as they get caught up in the mystery of the worldwide disappearance of the oceans’ fish.

Children of the Sea #2 – Daisuke Igarashi

The sea has a story to tell you, one you’ve never heard before. Umi and Sora are not alone in their strange connection to the sea. Forty years ago, Jim met another young boy with the same powers. As penance for letting the boy die, Jim has been searching the world for other children with those same ties to the ocean. Anglade, a wunderkind who was once Jim’s research partner, lures Sora away with the promise of answers. This leaves Umi severely depressed, and it is up to Ruka to help her new friend find his brother. But time is quickly running out… When Ruka was younger, she saw a ghost in the water at the aquarium where her dad works. Now she feels drawn toward the aquarium and the two mysterious boys she meets there, Umi and Sora. They were raised by dugongs and hear the same strange calls from the sea that she does. Ruka’s dad and the other adults who work at the aquarium are only distantly aware of what the children are experiencing as they get caught up in the mystery of the worldwide disappearance of the ocean’s fish.

E-books:

Black Water Rising – Attica Locke

I’m supposed to read Locke’s latest, Pleasantville, for an upcoming book tour. But didn’t know that it had the same characters as Black Water Rising. So thought I would try to read this first! Also, I enjoyed reading her previous book, The Cutting Season.

Writing in the tradition of Dennis Lehane and Greg Iles, Attica Locke, a powerful new voice in American fiction, delivers a brilliant debut thriller that readers will not soon forget.

Jay Porter is hardly the lawyer he set out to be. His most promising client is a low-rent call girl and he runs his fledgling law practice out of a dingy strip mall. But he’s long since made peace with not living the American Dream and carefully tucked away his darkest sins: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him.

Houston, Texas, 1981. It is here that Jay believes he can make a fresh start. That is, until the night in a boat out on the bayou when he impulsively saves a woman from drowning—and opens a Pandora’s box. Her secrets put Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family, and even his life. But before he can get to the bottom of a tangled mystery that reaches into the upper echelons of Houston’s corporate power brokers, Jay must confront the demons of his past.

With pacing that captures the reader from the first scene through an exhilarating climax, Black Water Rising marks the arrival of an electrifying new talent.

Kids’ loot:

December 10, 2014 by Sharlene

Library Loot (Dec 10 2014)

2014, board books, Books, kidlit, library loot, Picture books, Reading, wee reader
books, library, library loot, reading
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Lots of books to return. A storm brewing. Hurry hurry home with library loot! Just one for me. I haven’t downloaded any new e-books either. Hmmm what is going on??!?!

Kill my mother: a graphic novel – Jules Feiffer
Not sure why I requested this but the hold came in and I picked it up. Ok rather long blurb here from Goodreads

Adding to a legendary career that includes a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, Obie Awards, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Cartoonist Society and the Writers Guild of America, Jules Feiffer now presents his first noir graphic novel. Kill My Mother is a loving homage to the pulp-inspired films and comic strips of his youth. Channeling Eisner’s The Spirit, along with the likes of Hammett, Chandler, Cain, John Huston, and Billy Wilder, and spiced with the deft humor for which Feiffer is renowned, Kill My Mother centers on five formidable women from two unrelated families, linked fatefully and fatally by a has-been, hard-drinking private detective.

As our story begins, we meet Annie Hannigan, an out-of-control teenager, jitterbugging in the 1930s. Annie dreams of offing her mother, Elsie, whom she blames for abandoning her for a job soon after her husband, a cop, is shot and killed. Now, employed by her husband s best friend an over-the-hill and perpetually soused private eye Elsie finds herself covering up his missteps as she is drawn into a case of a mysterious client, who leads her into a decade-long drama of deception and dual identities sprawling from the Depression era to World War II Hollywood and the jungles of the South Pacific.

Along with three femme fatales, an obsessed daughter, and a loner heroine, Kill My Mother features a fighter turned tap dancer, a small-time thug who dreams of being a hit man, a name-dropping cab driver, a communist liquor store owner, and a hunky movie star with a mind-boggling secret. Culminating in a U.S.O. tour on a war-torn Pacific island, this disparate band of old enemies congregate to settle scores.

In a drawing style derived from Steve Canyon and The Spirit, Feiffer combines his long-honed skills as cartoonist, playwright, and screenwriter to draw us into this seductively menacing world where streets are black with soot and rain, and base motives and betrayal are served on the rocks in bars unsafe to enter. Bluesy, fast-moving, and funny, Kill My Mother is a trip to Hammett-Chandler-Cain Land: a noir-graphic novel like the movies they don t make anymore.”

The kids’ loot.
We are becoming fans of Mo Willems in our house. Wee Reader has caught on to the sense of humor and quite enjoys it. And of course the usual construction-related books, some of which we had borrowed before and that I’ve not featured here.

What did you get from your library this week?

October 21, 2014October 19, 2014 by Sharlene

Library Loot (October 18 2014)

2014, board books, Books, kidlit, library loot, Picture books, Reading, wee reader

These books were borrowed from two different libraries on Friday and Saturday. This other little library, a bit further from our house, has a Friday morning storytime session and more importantly, a playground right outside! And the train tracks are not too far so the kids can watch the trains from the playground. Its selection of books and puzzles is smaller, and so is the carpark. So we don’t really go that often. But it’s nice to mix up our routine once in a while.

I didn’t get anything from the library, as I had already downloaded quite a few e-books for the readathon! Plus Drood is still hanging around my house, it’s the thing that goes THUMP in the night.

The kids’ loot:

October 5, 2014 by Sharlene

Library Loot (5 October 2014)

2014, board books, Books, kidlit, library loot, Picture books, Reading, wee reader
books, library loot, reading
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Oops! I meant to write this on Friday, when we actually went to the library. And it’s already Sunday! Oh well, better late than never!

We hit the library when it opened at 11 (I really wish they would open earlier, but I guess I’m just glad they open everyday!) and Wee Reader decided to check out the 1130 storytime with Grandma. Wee-er Reader was more interested in the new magnetic puzzles and wandering around. But then everyone got hungry and we headed home for lunch.

The Iron Ring – Lloyd Alexander

I’m curious about this one. I LOVED Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series when I was growing up but realised that I have not read anything else by him. And it seems that he wrote many books, including a few other series.

Driven by his sense of “dharma,” or honor, young King Tamar sets off on a perilous journey, with a significance greater than he can imagine, during which he meets talking animals, villainous and noble kings, demons, and the love of his life.

Alexander’s latest epic adventure is rooted in the mythology of ancient India. A losing game of chance with a mysterious stranger seems like a dream to young King Tamar, but the iron ring on his finger is a very real token that his life may be forfeit. A journey to the stranger’s distant kingdom seems his only chance to discover the truth. Many adventures and diversions crop up along the way as Tamar gains some surprising companions, including a brave and beautiful milkmaid, a cowardly eagle, and a wiley monkey king who used to be a man. The author’s flexible style moves smoothly from comedy to tragedy and back again; from battle scenes to ridiculous situations, Alexander never loses the thread. Set within the action are small gems of poetry and folktales. The concept of dharma, or proper conduct, and the rigid caste system deeply affect Tamar’s actions. Plot, characters, and setting all have their parts to play, but it is the tension set up among the lively characters and the cultural conventions binding them that create the structure of the story and lead inevitably to its conclusion. This wise and witty adventure can be enjoyed on many levels

Strangers in Paradise #1 – Terry Moore

Katchoo is a beautiful young woman living a quiet life with everything going for her. She’s smart, independent and very much in love with her best friend, Francine. Then Katchoo meets David, a gentle but persistent young man who is determined to win Katchoo’s heart. The resulting love triangle is a touching comedy of romantic errors until Katchoo’s former employer comes looking for her and $850,000 in missing mob money. As her idyllic life begins to fall apart, Katchoo discovers no one can be trusted and that the past she thought she left behind now threatens to destroy her and everything she loves, including Francine. This is the first edition in the series – don’t miss it!

Kids’ loot:

What did you get from your library this week?

September 19, 2014September 19, 2014 by Sharlene

Picture books and graphic novels this Library Loot

2014, board books, Books, library loot, Reading, wee reader
books, library loot, reading
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Grabbed some graphic novels today and bumped into two friends while looking for picture books at the library!

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories – Al Williamson

Barely old enough to drink when he joined the EC Comics stable, Al Williamson may have been the new kid on the block, but a lifetime of studying such classic adventure cartoonists as Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) and Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) had made him a kid to reckon with — as he proved again and again in the stories he created for EC’s legendary “New Trend” comics, in particular Weird Science and Weird Fantasy. As a result of Williamson’s focus, it’s possible to compile all of Williamson’s “New Trend” EC work into one book — which Fantagraphics is finally doing here. Sci-fi aficionados should note that although most of the stories were written by Al Feldstein, 50 Girls 50 features three of EC’s legendary Ray Bradbury adaptations, including “I, Rocket” and “A Sound of Thunder” — and a unique curiosity, a strip adapted from a short story submitted by a teenage Harlan Ellison. Williamson ran with a gang of like-minded young Turks dubbed the “Fleagle Gang,” who would help one another out on assignments. Thus this book includes three stories upon which Williamson was joined by the legendary Frank Frazetta, and one story (“Food for Thought”) where Roy Krenkel provided his exquisite alien landscapes, to make it one of the most gorgeous EC stories ever printed. As a supplementary bonus, 50 Girls 50 includes three stories drawn by Fleagles sans Williamson: Frazetta’s Shock SuspenStories short “Squeeze Play”; Krenkel’s meticulous “Time to Leave”; and Angelo Torres’s “An Eye for an Eye,” an EC story that famously fell prey to censorship and was not released until the 1970s. As with other Fantagraphics EC titles, 50 Girls 50 will also include extensive story notes by EC experts.

Girl genius 1: Agatha Heterodyne & the beetleburg clank: a gaslamp fantasy with adventure, romance & mad science – Kaja & Phil Foglio

In a time when the Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war, Mad Science rules the World… with mixed success. At Transylvania Polygnostic University, Agatha Clay is a student with trouble concentrating and rotten luck. Dedicated to her studies but unable to build anything that actually works, she seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. But when the University is overthrown, a strange “clank” stalks the streets and it begins to look like Agatha might carry a spark of Mad Science after all.

Over Easy – Mimi Pond

A fast-paced semi-memoir about diners, drugs, and California in the 1970s.

Over Easy is a brilliant portrayal of a familiar coming-of-age story. After being denied financial aid to cover her last year of art school, Margaret finds salvation from the straightlaced world of college and the earnestness of both hippies and punks in the wisecracking, fast-talking, drug-taking group she encounters at the Imperial Café, where she makes the transformation from Margaret to Madge. At first she mimics these new and exotic grown-up friends, trying on the guise of adulthood with some awkward but funny stumbles. Gradually she realizes that the adults she looks up to are a mess of contradictions, misplaced artistic ambitions, sexual confusion, dependencies, and addictions.

Over Easy is equal parts time capsule of late 1970s life in California—with its deadheads, punks, disco rollers, casual sex, and drug use—and bildungsroman of a young woman who grows from a naïve, sexually inexperienced art-school dropout into a self-aware, self-confident artist. Mimi Pond’s chatty, slyly observant anecdotes create a compelling portrait of a distinct moment in time. Over Easy is an immediate, limber, and precise semi-memoir narrated with an eye for the humor in every situation

E-books:

The Traitor in the Tunnel (The Agency #3) – YS Lee

Queen Victoria has a little problem: there’s a petty thief at work in Buckingham Palace. Charged with discretion, the Agency puts quickwitted Mary Quinn on the case, where she must pose as a domestic while fending off the attentions of a feckless Prince of Wales. But when the prince witnesses the murder of one of his friends in an opium den, the potential for scandal looms large. And Mary faces an even more unsettling possibility: the accused killer, a Chinese sailor imprisoned in the Tower of London, shares a name with her long-lost father. Meanwhile, engineer James Easton, Mary’s onetime paramour, is at work shoring up the sewers beneath the palace, where an unexpected tunnel seems to be very much in use. Can Mary and James trust each other (and put their simmering feelings aside) long enough to solve the mystery and protect the Royal Family? Hoist on your waders for Mary’s most personal case yet, where the stakes couldn’t be higher – and she has everything to lose

Greenglass House – Kate Milford

Nominated for the National Book Award Young People’s Lit longlist

A rambling old inn, a strange map, an attic packed with treasures, squabbling guests, theft, friendship, and an unusual haunting mark this smart middle grade mystery in the tradition of the Mysterious Benedict Society books and Blue Balliet’s Chasing Vermeer series.

It’s wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler’s inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers’ adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again. Soon Milo’s home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects go missing and tempers flare, Milo and Meddy, the cook’s daughter, must decipher clues and untangle the web of deepening mysteries to discover the truth about Greenglass House-and themselves.

Kids’ loot:

What did you get from your library this week?

September 5, 2014 by Sharlene

Library Loot

2014, board books, Books, library loot, Reading
books, library loot, reading
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A quick run to the library just after it opened at 11, and then hurry hurry home for a lunch of mac and cheese with the two hungry kids.

This One Summer – Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

Hooray, this hold finally came in! I might have first heard about it from Buried in Print

Every summer, Rose goes with her mom and dad to a lake house in Awago Beach. It’s their getaway, their refuge. Rosie’s friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had. But this summer is different. Rose’s mom and dad won’t stop fighting, and when Rose and Windy seek a distraction from the drama, they find themselves with a whole new set of problems. It’s a summer of secrets and sorrow and growing up, and it’s a good thing Rose and Windy have each other.

In This One Summer two stellar creators redefine the teen graphic novel. Cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, the team behind Skim, have collaborated on this gorgeous, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful story about a girl on the cusp of her teen age—a story of renewal and revelation

The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood #2) – NK Jemisin

For Diversiverse/RIP

Gujaareh, the city of dreams, suffers under the imperial rule of the Kisuati Protectorate. A city where the only law was peace now knows violence and oppression. And nightmares: a mysterious and deadly plague haunts the citizens of Gujaareh, dooming the infected to die screaming in their sleep. Trapped between dark dreams and cruel overlords, the people yearn to rise up — but Gujaareh has known peace for too long.

Someone must show them the way.

Hope lies with two outcasts: the first woman ever allowed to join the dream goddess’ priesthood and an exiled prince who longs to reclaim his birthright. Together, they must resist the Kisuati occupation and uncover the source of the killing dreams… before Gujaareh is lost forever

Kids’ loot:

What did you get from your library this week?

May 17, 2014 by Sharlene

Bout of Books Day 5 and a Library Loot

2014, board books, Books, Bout of Books, Currently Reading, library loot, readathon, Reading, wee reader
books, bout of books, library loot, reading
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After a not-so-great reading Thursday, I pushed myself on Friday to read and read!

And as a result, I managed to finish reading…. Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers! Hooray! I started it before Bout of Books began though I was only at at 30-odd% mark, so said the Overdrive app. Goodreads tells me the book is 262 pages long and while that doesn’t sound like much, it kind of is, because this is a tough read. And I mean that in a gutwrenching, heartbreaking kind of read. To know that these are the actual lives of people, of children, living or rather trying desperately to survive in the slums. The corruption, the poverty, the deaths, they are all not something that were made up. Sure, we see those statistics in the newspapers every day. We know that there are very many men, women and children who live in poverty, who can barely make ends meet. But to read of their stories, to know that Katherine Boo spent years with them, talking to them, interviewing them, observing them, and writing this important book to let the rest of us know what it is really, truly, like out there. This is a book about hope and desperation. It is neverending sadness, a daily struggle to put food on the table, to ensure that their most basic of necessities can be afforded, whether it be via corruption or stealing or trading garbage. It is hard to stomach.

Here’s my total so far:

Books read: Fangirl (the second half)

The Silence of our Friends (graphic novel)

Behind the Beautiful Forevers (non-fiction)

Currently reading:

Bitter in the Mouth

The Care and Management of Lies

Everyone got dragged out to the library today. My mother-in-law was even inspired to start reading again, so I lent her one of my books (Mrs Queen Takes the Train – a very cute book that would charm most readers). And while the grandparents entertained the kids (Wee Reader is very into checking out the computers in the kids section these days – he always says that he wants to “do work”), I popped upstairs to the non-fiction section and grabbed some graphic novels! Hooray!

Sailor Twain; or the mermaid in the Hudson – Mark Siegel

Are you my mother? a comic drama – Alison Bechdel

Level up – Gene Luen Yang; Thien Pham

Morning glories Vol 5: Tests – Nick Spencer, words ; Joe Eisma, art

Morning glories Vol 6: Demerits – Nick Spencer, words ; Joe Eisma, art