#IMWAYR March 31st, 2025

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. I'm also connecting up with the Sunday Salon. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


I managed to get a lot accomplished in the last few weeks. I didn't finish everything that was on my list, but I did complete things that were not on it.

Last Sunday one set of grandkids arrived, and then Monday I was at a quilt workshop. The children and their father left Thursday and I headed off to a quilting retreat. I really enjoyed the retreat and managed to get the quilt I started Monday finished. I also made headway with another project that I started about 1 1/2 years ago. 

Here's the top that I finished. Lydia, my four year old granddaughter, has claimed it as her own. 

Her seven year old brother had a pile of books that he brought with him. I had hoped to sneak a look at some of them, but after they went to bed, I was too exhausted. 

Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book

NON FICTION PICTURE BOOKS

Usborne Beginners

5 stars

Dangerous Animals by Rebecca Gilpin & Catriona Clarke July 01, 2008



My four year old granddaughter and I had a grand time reading these while she was here.
I used these nonfiction titles all the time when I was teaching. They are chock full of information. I love the pairing of one line of text with an image. These books were perfect for my ESL learners as well as primary students. When my husband and I were last visiting the Mosaic Bookstore in Kelowna, BC, I found some on sale for $1.99. I grabbed a copy of as many as I could find.


This book is a perfect example of why I read middle grade novels. Olivetti, a typewriter, is one of the main characters. Olivetti lived with the Brindle family for years. Before the introduction of personal computers, it was a valued member. Then it was mostly forgotten until one day, their mother, Beatrice, packed it up and took it to a pawnshop where she pawned it for $126. Then she disappeared. 
When the family are putting up missing posters for her, Quinn, the pawnshop owner's daughter, recognizes Beatrice, and connects with Ernest, her twelve year old son. Soon afterwards, Ernest discovers the door to the shop is open after hours, and steals Olivetti. As a way of helping the family find Mrs Brindle, Olivetti begins typing out the memories she once typed into it. 
I really appreciated that we never really understand out what is happening with Ernest until the mystery is solved and the connection is revealed. 
I adored this book. It packs an emotional wallop. Olivetti is a delightfully quirky character. I cared for Quinn, Ernest, and the rest of his family. 
Last summer, my seven year old granddaughter purchased a typewriter at a garage sale. I can't wait to share this novel with her. 

YA/ADULT NON FICTION


This Japanese mystery novel is both fascinating and creepy. When Yasuko Hanaoka’s abusive ex husband finds her and her daughter, they end up murdering him. It’s the only way they will ever be safe. Unexpectedly, their neighbour, Tetsuya Ishigami, a brilliant mathematician, comes to their rescue to help them get rid of the body.
He creates an elaborate plan telling them what to do and what to say should the police come knocking on their door.
Detective Kusanagi does eventually find the body and comes to interview the mother and daughter. They have a water tight alibi for where they were the night of the murder but the inspector feels that something isn’t quite right. When he talks about the case with his physicist friend, Dr. Manabu Yukawa, it turns out Yukawa is a friend of the mathematician. In the end, it’s the physicist who unravels what actually happened. I did not expect the convolutions that are revealed.

ADULT NON FICTION


The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism by Jen Gunter  May 25, 2021 🍁

Since I first read Dr. jen Gunter’s book, The Vagina Bible, I’ve been a fan of her work. I plan to purchase copies of Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation as a reference book for my grandchildren and their families. The latter is a book I really wish had been around when I was young. 
I am post menopausal, so I didn’t really think this book would have a whole lot to teach me. But then, it's Jen Gunter, so of course it did.
Jen Gunter's writing is full of empathy, but it's also straight up and no nonsense. These are the facts. This is the research. Here’s what to look out for so you aren't sucked into purchasing from corporations selling snake oil. Not only do we readers learn about history of menopause through a feminist lens, we learn what to look out for to ensure that we are truly taking care of our own health.

CURRENTLY 

Cut You Down by Sam Wiebe February 13, 2018 🍁

The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett August 27, 2015

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters by Charan Ranganath January 1, 2024

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong November 5, 2024

2025 READING GOALS

#MustRead2025 10/25

NonFiction 12/30 

Poetry 1/12 

Canadian Authors 22/50 one on the go

Indigenous Authors 6/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 48/200

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#IMWAYR March 17, 2025

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. I'm also connecting up with the Sunday Salon. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


Hurrah Hurrah! Spring break is here. I have plans for getting a lot accomplished in the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow, right after reading and responding to blog posts, I plan to get my tomato seeds potted! I've already got the dirt and the pots are clean. I also plan to clean out the garden and cut back the raspberry canes. In addition to that I hope to get caught up on my reading with my eyes and finishing up a couple of sewing/quilting projects I've started. I can't help but wonder how successful I will be. Probably not very.

Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book

This gorgeous picture book takes readers back in time to Tokyo in the early 1970's. The lyrical prose shows us demae (deliverymen) on bikes carrying towering trays of ceramic bowls filled with soba noodles to different places around the city. 

4 stars

My Sister, Daisy by Adria Karlsson & Linus Curci (Illustrator) September 1, 2021

This book is written from the perspective of a loving older brother.  When his younger brother informs the family she is a girl, he does his best to accept this change in their family. In spite of the many positive things that happen, he still experiences jealousy and anger at the special treatment she receives. 
I suspect this kind of reaction is probably common in any family with a child who, for whatever reason, requires extra parental attention. 
In the author's note in the back matter she explains that this book was written for her older child who went through this experience without the support of a book like this. 

"This beautifully illustrated graphic novel is an exploration of grief, love, and finding magic in the wilderness – and in ourselves."
Poppy and her mother are grieving the loss of grandmother and mother. While her mother remains almost immobilized by grief, Poppy is forced to leave the house to take their dog, Pepper, for walks. On one of these outings, Pepper drags her through a hole in a fence into a forest. In the forest she makes a new friend who helps her discover the healing power of wild spaces. It takes a while, but eventually she persuades her mother to join her. 
I especially appreciate that Poppy starts out completely glued to her phone, but eventually doesn't even bother to bring it with her. (I confess that I bring mine with me on hikes, but only to take photos and identify plants.)
The black and white illustrations in this book are jawdroppingly gorgeous. 
It was my mother who introduced me to the beauty and magical power of wilderness. I wish she was still here so I could share this book with her. 

Kiela and her assistant, Caz, a sentient talking spider plant, are forced to flee the Great Library of Alyssium when revolutionary forces set the building on fire. After escaping with a few crate loads of precious spellbooks, they end up on a remote island where Kiela was born and raised.
In the world of this novel, magic has been hoarded by the elite and the rest of the inhabitants suffer. When she settles into her family home, Kiela discovers this means crop failures, record breaking storms, and a decline in magical species.
With the help of a good looking neighbour and a few spells purloined from the books, she sets up a Jam and Remedy shop. Her new life is suddenly endangered when the person rescued during the last storm claims to be a government inspector searching for illegal magic.
I'm not really a huge romance fan, but this book had enough other stuff going on to delight me.


This book is a cross between hard boiled detective novel and noir thriller. I added it to my reading list because Sam Wiebe is a Canadian author, and his protagonist, Dave Wakeland, is a twenty nine year old former cop turned PI who lives and works in Vancouver BC. It's an intimate reading experience when my home, or even a place I know well, is the setting for the novel I'm into. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. 
In this debut novel, Wakeland takes on the eleven year old case of a missing woman, Chelsea Loam. Chelsea's dying mother wants to know what happened to her adopted daughter.
Here in Canada the issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls is a huge problem. This book is a fictional exploration into the life of one of them. 
Fans of Dashiell Hammett and Ross MacDonald will enjoy it. 
Even though I'm much more of a cosy mystery fan, I liked this so much that I immediately downloaded the next in the series. 

CURRENTLY 

Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test: How Behavior Evolves and Why It Matters by Marlene Zuk August 9, 2022

The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism by Jen Gunter  May 25, 2021 🍁

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew 🍁

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

2025 READING GOALS

#MustRead2025 10/25

NonFiction 11/30 two on the go

Poetry 1/12 

Canadian Authors 21/50 one on the go

Indigenous Authors 6/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 43/200

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#IMWAYR March 10, 2025

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. I'm also connecting up with the Sunday Salon. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


Some day I will write reviews of books as soon as I finish reading them, or at the very least, make notes, but the truth is, I don't. If I had done this the week before last, the unexpected visit from my grandkids wouldn't have interfered with getting in a blog post. I didn't though, and so when I had to choose between writing or spending time with my darling ones, it was a no brainer. 

We probably read more picture books than the one's I'm sharing here, but I can't remember them if we did.

After they left to go home I finished this little wall hanging/placemat for the youngest one who is mad about capybaras these days. The pattern is designed by Kimberley Arnold. The background is more blue green than it appears here.


Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book

PREVIOUS BLOG POST

PICTURE BOOKS

5 stars

Knight Owl and Early Bird by Christopher Denise (October 15, 2024)

Early Bird might not be able to guard the castle during the night, but that doesn't mean, they don't have many other talents.
This book is a celebration of individual differences and strengths. At the same time, in the end, it's also about the power of many. 
Be warned that this tale can get pretty scary. My seven year old granddaughter was terrified, even though I reminded her it would have a happy ending. 

This is an alphabet book showing creatures that are a combination of two different animals.  The illustrations are delightfully imaginative. It is, ultimately, a book that highlights and celebrates mixed race identity. The author is of European and Japanese descent. 

3.5 stars

Nori and His Delicious Dreams by Jeff Chiba Stearns March 1, 2020 🍁

Nori goes to bed each night dreaming of sleeping with food. What I liked most about this book is that it takes the reader on a multicultural culinary journey. A double page spread in the back of the book explains where all the dishes come from.

My grandkids brought these Jeff Chiba Stearns books with them last weekend. They were excited to share them with me. It's a testimony to the power of having author visits. Ada, the eldest of the girls, arranged to have these two signed for her younger sister. 

Jeff Chiba Stearns is an animator as well as an author. I hope you make time for, and enjoy his animated memoir here. 

   


Elise Gravel is a Canadian treasure. She writes fabulous books, both fiction and nonfiction, for the younger crowd. This is one of them. In here, her charming little little monsters explain quite brilliantly the basics of how our brains work. 


This is a book that would work well as an introduction to a more in depth conversation about gender expectations, stereotypes, and social justice. 

This book won the Andre Norton Award in 2011.
Amid a climate of suspicion and prejudice, Tiffany, now fifteen, is fully immersed in her role as witch of the chalk. It turns out that the Cunning Man, a demonic spirit, is spreading hatred of witches in general, and is coming for Tiffany in particular. Even when she identifies who is responsible, and learns how it all began, it doesn't stop the monster. In the end, Tiffany, like many witches before her, has to figure out how to deal with him herself.
I loved that Eskarina Smith, the witch/wizard from Equal Rites, shows up to offer her guidance.
I appreciate that Pratchett shows us how rumour, hatred, racism and bigotry work in our world. While I value the importance of an individual speaking up, I wish that he had shown a group of individuals working together to overcome this evil, instead of the trope of the lone heroine saving the day. Tiffany might have had only one Cunning Man to deal with, but there are many Cunning Men stoking hatred and division among us today. It is going to take a massive amount of collective effort to defeat it.


Listening to this felt like immersing myself in a dream. It has a mythic quality. The characters are like fleshed out archetypes living a world of magical realism.  
It's a book about relationships, connections and love. It begins with the ill fated romance and marriage of teens, Kismet Poe and Gary Geist, and Kismet's relationship with the brilliant Hugo. We see what love looks like over time through both their parent's partnerships. Because it is also about connections, it's less about romantic love than it is about mother and daughter love, love for family, love for community and love for the land. I suppose it might sound strange given that it seems to focus on the ill fated marriage, yet the marriage feels like a kind of catalyst. It's through that union that we come to understand and connect with the other characters and their motivations. 
It's also a book about tragedy and trauma and how all these people cope with it. 

YA NON FICTION


Like Medicine Wheel for the Planet by Jennifer Grenz, a book I talked about a few weeks ago, this book is all about forging a new kind of relationship with the natural world.
Our world needs this kind of perspective now more than ever. 

CURRENTLY 

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst July 9, 2024

Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test: How Behavior Evolves and Why It Matters by Marlene Zuk August 9, 2022

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew 🍁

2025 READING GOALS

#MustRead2025 9/25

NonFiction 11/30 

Poetry 1/12 

Canadian Authors 19/50

Indigenous Authors 6/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 38/200


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First Friday Poetry March 2025

 I'm joining Beverly A Baird & Linda Schueler again in a year long poetry practice. On the first Friday of each Month we, and anyone else who joins, writes a poem and shares it. This year the focus is going to be on using poems to inspire us.

From Linda: "This Friday for our First Friday Poetry challenge, we are going to be doing a cento (also called a collage poem). What’s a cento? A cento is a poem that is made up from the lines of other people’s poems. You can choose to borrow lines from one poet or many poets. You can even choose to use lines that do not come from poems. Here’s an example from Ronna Bloom. Make sure that you credit all the people whose poems you are taking lines from."

This was much harder than I expected it to be! I collected fragments of poetry and quotes from books all month long. In the end, I printed these out, cut them into strips and started playing around with them. 


Here is what I finally ended up with.


Never get over making everything such a big deal.

The heart is a continuously open wound.

People who simply want to love are instead forced to become warriors.

I do the little each person can do. 

It isn’t much.

A poem cannot stop a bullet. a novel can't defuse a bomb. but we are not helpless. we can sing the truth and name the liars.


In a pattern called a war,

Sunlight carries blessing


Wait awhile for love to come out of the darkness.

It's vast and endless and full of unbreakable hope.

Like the setting sun,

love comes quietly.

It’s subtle, takes practice.  

It is unspeakable.

It is everlasting.

It is for keeps.


Make a list of ten things you love and celebrate them.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy

give into it.

Dear, these are the things that count.




Here is where each line comes from:

The Last Thing by Ada Limon
Host by Chibueze Crouch-Anyarogbu
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
At the River Clarion by Mary Oliver
Salman Rushdie from speech at at the PEN World Voices Festival.
Patterns by Amy Lowell
Expectancy by William Moore
Rebel Seoul by Axie Oh
Everyone Sang by Siegried Sassoon
Love Comes Quietly by Robert Creely
Ways to Measure Trees by MaKshya Tolbert
For Keeps by Joy Harjo
2010 Interview with Ray Bradbury in The Paris Review
Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver
The Things That Count by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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#IMWAYR February 24, 2015

Welcome! It's #IMWAYR time again, when bloggers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. I'm also connecting up with the Sunday Salon. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


February has been a challenging month! I haven't been able to get much reading done. I've read a lot of news and magazine articles, but not many books. I did manage to finish up my Valentines day fridge magnets, but the grandkids told me they liked the brownies more. 

 
My Aunty Joan finally passed away so the house was full of people for a while. Isn't it fascinating to learn about early life of someone you only new as an over worked wife and mother? I had no idea that in her teen years she took flying lessons to become a pilot!

Then we headed off to Vancouver where we had tickets to see Ronnie Burkett's Wonderful Joe show. We visited with family and friends and tried to do more in six days than we would have done in a month when we were living there.

Adding to all that, the political upheaval has left me feeling worried and anxious. The following cartoon from the New Yorker describes my feelings completely.


Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book

PREVIOUS BLOG POST
BEGINNING CHAPTER BOOKS

4 stars

The Weird Sisters: A Note, a Goat, and a Casserole by Mark David Smith & Kari Rust (Illustrator) April 15, 2022  🍁

When three witch sisters move to the town of Covenly, not everyone is happy. They open up a pet store, and their first customer is Jessica Nibley, who is missing her pet goat. Together they head off in search of the goat, and whoever is sending nasty messages to the new citizens. Thankfully it all turns out alright in the end.
I really appreciated the humour and Kari Rust's fun illustrations. I'm looking forward to reading more of this series and sharing it with my grandkids.
 
YA GRAPHIC


This is the third book in the Surviving the City series. The teens are forced to address the discovery of children's bodies buried on the grounds of residential schools. 
In the end they conclude that together they can help each other and their people heal from the injustices of the past, as well as those in the present. 
Natasha Donovan's art work is just gorgeous. 

YA/ADULT FICTION


In this third book in the Tiffany Aching series, her new mentor, Miss Treason, takes her to a dark Morris dance - a ceremony where Summer passes the world over to Winter. Unable to stop herself, she joins the dancers and the Wintersmith becomes smitten with her. Because of this, she unwittingly disrupts the passage of the seasons and begins to take on some the characteristics of Summer with greenery sprouting from her feet.
Under the direction of Nanny Ogg the Nac Mac Feegles enlist Roland, Tiffany's childhood friend, to be a hero. Once they've taught him how to use a sword, they descend into the underworld to waken and return the real Lady Summer to the world.
There's another subplot where Miss Treason dies and an incompetent witch, Annagramma, is appointed to take over for her. Tiffany and the other young witches figure out a way to help her.
This time round I was more fascinated by Tiffany's relationship with the Wintersmith, who in his effort to woo her, tries his best to become human. At the same time as he terrifies her, she is also flattered that a god is interested in her. In the end, just in time, she figures out how to stop him. It's all part of how Pratchett messes around with Story and in the process, shows us how we too are capable of disrupting them. 


I listened to this, but think it might have been better to have read it with my eyes. Perhaps it's just that I listened to it in bits and pieces and lost track of the individual stories of these remarkable teens who worked at Bletchley Park.
On a positive note, listening to this against the backdrop of current events I was reminded of the brilliance, bravery, and strength of youth and ordinary people in times of war, conflict, and disaster. It inspired me with hope for the future.


This was a book club book. It's a complicated story about being a Yemeni immigrant in Israel. There are two distinct story lines. One tells the story of a young man and woman, Saida, living in a refuge camp in the 1950's. Although the two fall in love, she is already married. The other story line, set in the 1990's focuses on Zohara, one of the woman's daughters. When her mother dies, she returns  for the funeral. While cleaning up the family home, she learns about her mother's life ends up discovering secrets about her past. In the process, she embraces what it means to be Yemeni. 
There are a lot of characters in this book and at times I got confused. I appreciated learning about what it means to be a minority Jew inside Israeli culture. 


Once a year I spend time with women friends in a cabin on the ocean in what is the traditional territory of the Stz’uminus people. On the edges of the Gary Oak forest are the remains of camas plots originally developed by them. In a small bay just north of the cabin are the remains of oyster and clam beds established by these same people. Learning about this place began to change the way I understood what it meant to live in a hunter gatherer society. 
Jennifer Grenz's book helped me grasp this more fully. It is a book meant to change the way we look at and understand the 'natural' world. She shows us that trying to heal ecosystems in North America, and maybe even the world, without knowing how the Indigenous populations lived on the land, will inevitably fail. Part of this is about realizing that these peoples had an active responsibility for shaping and caring for where they lived, but more than this, it's about how they lived and continue to live, in relationship with their land. 

CURRENTLY 

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer November 19, 2024

2025 READING GOALS

#MustRead2025 9/25

NonFiction 8/30 

Poetry 1/12 

Canadian Authors 15/50

Indigenous Authors 4/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 29/200

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