State of the TBR Pile: March 2019

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It’s out of control again. Well, it was never really in control, but it was at least manageable. And now? Now, as I look ahead to a full week of working where I’m literally brain dead and exhausted at the end of the day, I wonder if I’ll ever read another book again. (I may be a bit down this morning. Daylight savings time always wipes me out.) Then again, I’ve got a plane flight to KidlitCon coming up here in a week and a half, so maybe I can catch up.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Fields Notes on Love by Jennifer A. Smith
Squint by Chad Morris and Shelly Brown
Grump by Liesl Shurtliff
The Three Rules of Everyday Magic by Amanda Rawson Hill
The Hummingbird Dagger by Cindy Anstey
The Everlasting Rose by Dhonielle Clayton
Internment by Samira Ahmed
Izzy & Tristan by Shannon Dunlap
The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe by Ally Condie

What’s on your TBR pile that you’re looking forward to?

Ben Braver and the Incredible Exploding Kid

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by Marcus Emerson
First Sentence: “Sixty miles per hour.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series (it’s probably better if you read this first): The Super Life of Ben Braver
Content: There’s fart and poop jokes (of course). There’s also lots of illustrations and white space with short chapters. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

This is a second in a series, and for many reasons (well, time mostly) I didn’t read the first. From what I can tell: Ben Braver is a perfectly normal kid who got sent to this boarding school for kids with superpowers. And he saved them from an evil supervillain. Except no one at the school knows that Ben doesn’t have powers (well, except for the Headmaster — who’s about as reliable as Dumbledore — and his best friends). It’s the new year, and there’s a new menace — sort of — and Ben’s doing his level best to hide his lack of powers while he gets more and more popular.

Actually, this one is more about the ability of fame to go to one’s head. Ben gets SUPER obnoxious while he gets more and more attention, but (of course) everything comes crashing down around him. And when the real threat presents itself, he does what he can to save the other students, but in the end, it’s an outside person (whose appearance was explained away in a sentence) who solves the problem. (Yeah, I have a problem with easy solutions like that.)

I really wanted to like this one more than I did. I think I was hoping for something fun and funny, and while there were some amusing points (humor is REALLY hard to do), it kind of all just fell flat for me. (There was one one-page comic that made me laugh, but that was it.) It’s probably great for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid crowd (I didn’t like those much either) and for those reluctant readers who want a lot of illustrations in their stories. But it really wasn’t my thing.


Lost Rainforest: Mez’s Magic

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by Eliot Schrefer
First sentence: “What’s wrong with me?”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are some moments of intense action. It’s in the middle grade section (grades 3-5) of the bookstore.

I picked this one up after hosting Eliot at a few school events last February. I learned SO much about the Amazon ecosystem and the animals in it, and Eliot was so charming and passionate about animals that I thought I really ought to give the book a try.

And? Well, it’s perfect for those who like prophecies and talking animals and friends who work together towards a single goal. It’s MUCH better than the Warriors books, and about as good as the Wings of Fire books (real animals instead of dragons though). Granted, I’m not a fan of talking animals, but even I liked this one. Schrefer knows how to plot really well, and I liked the small things like using “otherpaw” (for example) instead of “other hand”. You can tell, reading the book, that Schrefer knows his animals, and knows how they work together (or not) in an environment. And he knows how to write action, and how to keep the plot moving forward.

So, while this may not be my sort of book, it’s still a good one, and I’m glad I read it.

Sal and Gabi Break the Universe

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by Carlos Hernandez
First sentence: “There’s all sorts of bad advice out there about how to deal with bullies.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: It’s long and sometimes meandering, which might discourage reluctant readers. There are also hints of romance (but none actual) which might turn off squeamish kids. It’s in the middle grade section (grades 3-5) of the bookstore.

Sal Vidón has just moved to Miami from Connecticut, and is starting his first week at a really cool performing arts and technology school. The problem? It’s the third day of school, and it’s the third time he’s landed in the principal’s office. The first two were reasonable: to meet the principal on his first day, and the second because he was eating Skittles after PE and the gym teacher was unaware that Sal is diabetic. But this time? It’s because he played a prank — put a raw, whole chicken — into the locker of a kid who was bullying him. Sure, as a prank goes it’s mostly harmless. The real catch? Sal pulled that chicken out of a different universe.

And he was being watched: by Gabi Reál, student council president extraordinaire, and puzzle figure-outer. And once she turns her sights on Sal, his life is never going to be the same.

This is one part science fiction book: with multiverses, and calamity physics (is that a real thing?) and warping the space-time continuum, with self-driving cars (I want one, please) and really advanced AI. And one part Cuban family drama: Sal’s mother died six years ago, and he’s been pulling other versions of his Mami out of other universes ever since. There’s also Gabi’s drama with an infant baby brother fighting for his life, and the bully with a bigger backstory. There’s a lot going on in this book, but it all works, and works well together. Hernandez has given us a funny, clever Cuban speculative fiction book, that kept me turning pages and wondering where he was going to go next. There are cool teachers and Gabi’s gaggle of dads (too hard to explain), and it’s all just enormous amounts of fun.

First Sunday Daughter Reviews: March 2019

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It’s been a while since I’ve done this, mostly because they really haven’t been reading a whole lot. But, since the beginning of they year there’s been an uptick in books read. I’m not entirely sure why.

Except for A. She’s still stuck on this:

It’s an 800 page book and she’s a slow reader. She’s almost done, but she’s gotten to the creepy part of the book and she can’t read at night anymore. So far, though? It’s been an interesting experience. And she’s mostly enjoyed it.

K talked C into reading these:

C really liked them (duh, I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t been fascinated by this world) and had a couple of really interesting points about them. I’m glad she let K talk her into reading them!

And K has been plowing through books. She read the entire Raven Cycle (Dream Thieves is her favorite, and she really didn’t like where Stiefvater took Blue and Gansey in the Raven King) and is now working on this:

So far, she thinks it’s good, even if it’s intense and she doesn’t like some of the bunnies.

What are your kids reading?

Monthly Round-Up: February 2019

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Oh, what a month. I swear I’ve worked more this month (even though I’m stepping down!) than I have in a LONG time. That said, I did get some reading done. Some.

My favorite this month (no surprise):

The Library Book

Fascinating, imminently readable and just really really good.

As for the rest…

Middle Grade:

To Night Owl from Dogfish
The Lost Girls
Freya & Zoose
The Size of the Truth

Non-fiction:

Kitchen Yarns (audio)

Adult Fiction:

Where the Crawdads Sing (audio)

YA:

Finding Yvonne (audio)
Courting Darkness
The Poet X
Words on Bathroom Walls

Words on Bathroom Walls

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by Julia Walton
First sentence: “My first doctor said it was unusual for the symptoms to manifest in someone so young.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and some tasteful on-screen sex. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Adam is a regular teen. Mostly. He has regular teen boy desires, interests… the only difference is that he’s been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The kind that make you see things — in Adam’s case, he sees people and hears voices. He’s on a new trial drug, though, and as part of it, he’s required to go to therapy. He doesn’t want to, and he doesn’t want to talk to the therapist, so the book is a series of diary entries where Adam describes what’s going on in his life, how he’s reacting to the drug, and answering the therapist’s questions, such as they are.

I found the format of the book to be super fascinating: it got us in Adam’s head, while not being mundane or super weird; the entries were made weekly, so Adam was able to reflect on the week. So, while he may have had episodes, the book never took the reader through the middle of them, since the entries were always written afterward. I thoroughly enjoyed being in Adam’s head; he had a super strong voice that came through, and I enjoyed his sense of humor around his mental health. It was also a case in which the parents (hooray!) were absolutely fantastic. They fought for Adam and his rights and wanted nothing but the best for him. The conflict was partially internal — Adam against his mental health — and from his peers, who just don’t understand what’s going on.

It’s a really excellent book; definitely a good look at a mental health issue that not many people know much about.

The Library Book

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by Susan Orlean
First sentence: “Even in Los Angeles, where there is no shortage of remarkable hairdos, Harry Peak attracted attention.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some mild swearing and a few disturbing moments. It’s in the History section of the bookstore.

In the spring of 1986, in between the Challenger explosion and the Chernobyl disaster, the Central Library in Los Angeles caught fire. It was a huge fire, burning for hours and destroying hundreds of thousands of books. It’s something that people in LA remember, but outside of LA? Who knew? So Orlean, who is a masterful non-fiction writer, tackled the story. It’s not just an investigation into the fire — they suspected someone and arrested him, but they never had enough evidence to charge him, and then he later died from AIDS — but a history of the LA library system and an exploration of what the LA library is now.

It’s probably no surprise, but I loved this one. It’s incredibly well-written and utterly fascinating. I think part of me was hoping that she’d “solve” the arson — though she did have a chapter talking about arson crimes, and how investigating them has changed in the last 30 years, and speculated that maybe the LA fire wasn’t arson — but, really, I was just along for the wonderful ride.

And do pick up a real copy of this book. The package is absolutely beautiful. It’s a reminder why books — and libraries! — are important.

Audio book: Kitchen Yarns

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by Ann Hood
Read by Nina Alvamar
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Listen at Libro. fm
Content: There is some mild swearing and one f-bomb. It’s in the creative non-fiction section of the bookstore, but it could just as easily go in with the cookbooks.

This is a collection of (previously published?) essays and recipes as Hood recalls her life, from her childhood in her Italian American family, through her first marriage and death of her daughter to her current marriage. It’s a very chatty book (which I liked a lot), and while it’s not incredibly linear (she jumps around in time and repeats herself some), it is thoroughly enjoyable.

I’m not sure what made me pick this one up… I do like foody books and memoirs and maybe the combination of the two? (And while the narrator was excellent, I felt let down that it wasn’t Hood narrating her own book.)

As for listening, while I enjoyed it, I might also want to pick up a paper copy, because I want to try out a couple of the recipes, and that’s difficult with just the audio version! But it was a delightful listen, being immersed in food, especially during these winter days.

The Size of the Truth

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by Andrew Smith
First sentence: “This all starts with my first enormous truth, which was a hole.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: March 26, 2019
Content: It’s odd, and Smith’s reputation for edgy YA might turn some people off, but there’s really nothing in this that a 4/5-6/7th grader wouldn’t like. It will be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) of the bookstore.

Sam Abernathy is known for one thing: falling down a well when he was four and being trapped for three days. It’s not something you want to be remembered for, especially when you are 11 years old and just got pushed up to the 8th grade. No, it’s not something he wanted. He also doesn’t want to go on survival campout weekends with his dad. Or be a part of the Science Club. Or go to MIT to study science something. Or be in 8th grade PE.

What does he want? To cook. But no one seems to hear that.

Yes, this is a very Andrew Smith book: delightfully weird, slightly off-kilter, and yet completely full of heart and soul. There’s a talking armadillo (who may or may not be a figment of four year old Sam’s imagination). There’s another 8th grader, James Jenkins, who Sam’s sure is going to kill him. But what it is really, is a reflection on figuring out who YOU are (and not who your parents or community want you to be) and what YOU want to do with your life. And then sticking up for it.

And it’s absolutely perfect for those fourth-seventh graders who are just trying to figure things out.

I loved it.