#IMWAYR August 29, 2022

Welcome readers! 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. Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.

It has been a very hectic couple of weeks. I gave up on blogging last weekend and contemplated leaving it for this one too. I decided against that because our son, his wife, and their two girls will be arriving Monday and will be here for a week. I fully expect to be exhausted next Sunday and will be desperate to do nothing. 

Because we expected to be away for a couple of weeks early September, we had to get a lot of food preservation accomplished in August. So, on the 16th I purchased 120 pounds of Roma tomatoes. They had to sit and finish ripening for a few days. Since they became ripe enough, I have canned 14 quarts of tomatoes, made 50 odd jars of salsa, 25 pints of tomato sauce and 14 jars of ratatouille. I also made a couple of quarts of dill pickles and a double batch of zucchini fritters to freeze. After all, the garden doesn't stop producing just because we are busy with other things. On Saturday, the 20th, a crew of us juiced another 320 pounds of tomatoes. We ended up with about 110 quarts of tomato juice. Only half of it is ours. 
It is very satisfying going to the cool room in the basement and looking at all the food on the shelves. 

This is our portion of juice cooling. My uncle reminded me of the good old days when we used to go and pick our own tomatoes and juice up to 1000 pounds.
We are a family that loves our red juice. 

In the middle of all that we got the message that we no longer have to be away. 

In addition to all the food processing, we have been trying to get the suite in our basement under control so my cousin can move in. Our last tenant left a huge mess that has taken a lot of work to clean and a lot of stuff to fix. I've painted the kitchen cupboards and my husband made new doors for them. I've done just about all the rest of the cleaning except the linoleum floor that I am leaving for him to look after. I am quite proud because I fixed the toilet all by myself and, after much scrubbing and half a bottle of bleach, got the bowl cleaned out. 

Needless to say, I did not get much reading with my eyes accomplished, but I made up for it listening to some brilliant audiobooks. 

I will do my best to respond to everyone's posts this week, but I'm not guaranteeing it will happen for the first few days. 

Hope you are all enjoying the end of summer. The weather the last couple of days has been a bit cooler. This hint of autumn has been much appreciated. 

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.

MG NOVELS


Me Three
by Susan Juby & Justin Miller (Narrator) March 22, 2022  πŸ

Rodney, his sister, and their mother have moved to a new town in a new state to start a new life. The two children start school using their mother's maiden name because of sexual abuse allegations made against their father. 
This epistolatory novel introduces us to Rodney and his family and they struggle to come to terms with what has happened and make new friends. At first Rodney thinks that the allegations must be false, but over time he comes to understand that they are true and that his father is not the man Rodney thought he was. 
I liked Rodney even if he seemed a bit young for his age. I appreciate that we see the ramifications on children when their parents are held accountable for their unscrupulous actions. I liked the complexity in Rodney's new friends even if some of their adventures terrified the bejeezus out of me. 
All the other Susan Juby books I've read have been set in Canada, so I was a bit disconcerted, and wondered why this one is set in the USA. I appreciated that one of Rodney's friends has a mother living here in BC Canada. 


The Fort
 by Gordon Korman June 28, 2022  πŸ

I am really enjoying Korman's work these days. The Fort is the story of a group of boys who discover an underground bunker. It was built in the 1980's by a now deceased, local capitalist. They end up selling the pure silver cutlery to purchase food and fix one of their group's phone.
A couple of older bullies figure they have money and end up harassing them to get them to let them in on what is going on.
The tale unfolds through each of their voices. I appreciate how the character of each of these boys has been developed. They all have important stories that reveal the kinds of challenges that real boys today are liable to connect to. Ultimately, the important thing is how they are there for each other.


Playing the Cards You're Dealt
 by Varian Johnson & Dion Graham (Narrator) October 5, 2021

Anthony, (Ant) idolizes his father and want desperately to impress him. Now that he is ten and in grade five, he plans to do this by winning the next spades tournament. His older brother, his father and his grandfather have been winners of this card game year after year. Unfortunately, a lot of things get in the way of this. He and his best friend and spades partner, Jamal, end up estranged. Ant pairs up with Shirley, a new girl in school and still hopes to win. But his father's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and strange until Ant's mother makes him leave. 
Varian Johnson has created another endearing character in Ant. My heart aches for him as he struggles to figure out how to become his own man in the middle of his father's failures. 


The Stone Child
by David Alexander Robertson & Brefny Caribou (Narrator) August 2, 2022  πŸ

There are two individual, but linked adventures in this novel. It begins as Morgan wakes to finds Eli near death at the base of the great tree. His soul has been stolen. To save him she has to call on everyone she trusts. She brings her best friend, Emily, from the everyday world to Misewa. Together with Arik, they travel into the dangerous North Woods, to search for Eli's soul. They are helped by an unexpected saviour. On their return home Eli realizes that another soul has been trapped inside the tree. In order to set it free, they have to destroy their portal to Misewa. 
The second part of the story involves their search for a new portal and Morgan connecting to her grandmother and deceased mother. 
I liked this a lot. My adrenalin ratcheted up while reading of their terrifying experiences in the North Woods. (At least there were no spiders.) I liked the romance that is blossoming between Emily and Morgan. I liked that the children are appreciating their foster parents more and in turn, the foster parents are doing their best for the children.  
I can hardly wait to find out what will happen to them all when they visit Misewa in the next book. 


Wings
 (
Bromeliad Trilogy #3) by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Briggs (Narrator) January 1, 1990

I love this series so much that I've listened to each book twice. 
This quote from a wiki page explains the series much better than I can: "The main theme in the trilogy is the struggle of challenging society's accepted beliefs in the face of new information. This theme recurs through the books and includes changes in the scientific establishment, political establishment, religious beliefs, accepted history and family values of the nomes."
Wings is a companion book to Diggers in that it takes place at the same time. While the main group of Nomes are trying to deal with humans invading the quarry, this small group sneaks aboard an airplane and flies to NASA. With the help of 'the thing,' they end up contacting their spaceship, and returning to the quarry just in time to save the rest of the Nomes. 

Like the other novels in the series, this book is chock full of humour and rich commentary by the Nomes that ends up showing us ourselves. 
Some of the humour comes from how the Nomes think about the world: 

'What was that thing, Thing?’ said Masklin.
The Thing extended one of its sensors.
‘A long-necked turtle.’
‘Oh.’
The turtle swam peacefully away.
‘Lucky, really,’ said Gurder.
‘What?’ said Angalo.
‘It having a long neck like that and being called a long-necked turtle. It’d be really awkward having a name like that if it had a short neck.'

Some of it comes from how they see us:
 
'I don't think humans want to know things that disturb them.'

Nomes live ten times faster than humans. They're harder to see than a high- speed mouse. That's one reason why most humans hardly ever see them. The other is that humans are very good at not seeing things they know aren't there. And, since sensible humans know that there are no such things as people four inches high, a nome who doesn't want to be seen probably won't be seen.
  
"The other humans around it are trying to explain to it what a planet is."
"Doesn't it know?"
"Many humans don't. Mistervicepresident is one of them."

This series is deeply subversive. Don't let the book banners know anything about it. 

YA & ADULT FICTION


Huntress
by Malinda Lo & Emily Woo Zeller (Narrator) April 5, 2011

I was wowed by this fantasy novel. It's jam packed full of action and romance. "Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen. Taisin is a sage, thrumming with magic, and Kaede is of the earth, without a speck of the otherworldly." They travel with the Prince and a small group of guards. 
If the sequel, Ash, had been available, I would have started it right away. 


Homicide and Halo-Halo
by Mia P. Manansala & Danice Cabanela (Narrator) February 8, 2022

I kind of fell in love with Lila Macapagal and her aunties in Arsenic and Adobo, the first in Manansala's Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery series. They are cosy mysteries steeped in Filipino culture. Also, the food descriptions have me salivating nearly all the way through it.  
In this one, Lila, a former beauty queen herself, is roped into being one of the judges for this year's pageant. Then someone murders one of them and Lila's cousin, Bernadette becomes the prime suspect. Lila and the Filipino aunties (AKA the gossip brigade) get to work to clear her name.


Yolk
 by Mary H.K. Choi March 2, 2021

So many people have praised this book that I think I went into it with unreasonable expectations. I enjoyed it well enough, but it was loaded with too much relationship angst for me. It's the story of two Korean American sisters who grew up in Texas but now live in New York. June, the older, successful sister has cancer. Jayne, the younger one is a student struggling to deal with an eating disorder and feelings of inadequacy. While the relationship between the two siblings is fraught with all kinds of tension and squabbling, it isn't the angst that arises from this that bothered me.
It's the angst that is embedded in Jayne's relationships with men that was hard for me to deal with. I expect that this is because I am more of an age to these girl's parents and after 46 years of marriage have figured out that you just have to try and be as honest and upfront as you can. Also, if someone is a jerk, you either leave or kick them out. 

CURRENTLY

The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett June 2, 2020

Stories of MΓ©tis Women: Tales My Kookum Told Me by Bailey Oster et al August 6, 2021  πŸ

UP NEXT

I've had these books on my up next list for a number of weeks now.  I do mean to get to them but have to admit that they are merely suggestions.

Barry Squires, Full Tilt by Heather Smith  πŸ
Cub by Cynthia L. Copeland, 

READING GOALS

#MustReadFiction 19/24

#MustReadNonFiction 13/18 one in progress

Canadian Authors 52/100 

Canada Reads shortlist 5/5 

Indigenous Authors 13/25 one in progress

2022 Big Book Summer Challenge 7

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 201/250

17 comments:

  1. I have read a lot of Pratchett but never those books!

    That is a lot of tomatoes!!

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    1. It really is a lot of tomatoes! This series has everything I love about Pratchett's work!

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  2. Wow! So much canning! My mom used to do some to preserve her garden's production. Your books do sound good. Come see my week here. Happy reading!

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    1. It is a lot of canning, but we will appreciate it in the colder weather!

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  3. I can't believe you shared so many books and did all that tomato work, along with pickles! Wow, Cheriee, thanks for sharing the books. Each sound good. I will never keep up! Have a fun week ahead with that company!

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    1. Well, it is two weeks of reading! It's amazing how much listening you can do when you are involved in otherwise mindless activity.

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  4. The Fort sounds very interesting and I've heard others say they enjoyed it. It's on my list to read.

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  5. I'm so sorry things have been so hectic, Cheriee, but I somewhat selfishly am glad you decided to post this week, because I always look forward to your posts! I cannot believe you had to race through all that food preservation and *then* find out there was no rush after all—at least it's finished, I guess! It certainly seems like you have a ton of delicious food to enjoy now. Also, wow—all the work you're doing on your basement suite seems exhausting, but you should be proud of getting all that done! I hope you have a wonderful visit with your family this week.

    For books, all of these look fantastic! Me Three sounds like a really compelling read, as does Playing the Cards You're Dealt, which I've heard many good things about. The Stone Child sounds really intriguing, and I also noticed the cover art is by Natasha Donovan—her art is so distinctive, and I feel like I see her everywhere now! I also always love reading your thoughts on Terry Pratchett's books. I made note of Huntress, because Malinda Lo is an excellent author! I also appreciate your thoughts on Yolk—I think it's definitely one of those books where the protagonist makes some obviously terrible decisions, but it clicked for me because I could see why Jayne made them and also how she might eventually grow out of them. But I can definitely understand reading it and just being really aggravated by her terrible choices! Thanks so much for the wonderful, thoughtful post—I enjoyed every word!

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    1. Harvest season is always busy, but at least this year it is almost done. We have decided to go to Vancouver anyway, just to spend time visiting with friends and family there. I do hope you find time for some Pratchett in your reading life. The Bromeliad series would be a good introduction, although I became a fan after reading Nation.

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  6. That's a lot of tomatoes! But as you point out, you can never really have too many. :) You have a nice mix of books this week.

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    1. Exactly! We have already been drinking the use and using the tomato sauce!

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  7. Great job on the tomatoes! My wife enjoys making salsa but one of the tradeoffs of a slightly cooler summer is that they do not seem to be ripening as quickly. I also added The Fort to my next Scholastic purchase. I don't use them as much as I used to but they have a good deal on this book. Playing the Cards You are Dealt sounds interesting. Kids don't seem to play cards much, I am not sure how they will take to that one, but it is a good thing to encourage. I really enjoyed The Stone Child, and Me Three. Thanks for all the shares, all of your books look really good.

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    1. Everything in the garden has really slowed down. I'm hoping I have enough cucumbers to harvest so my daughter in law and I can make cucumber kimchi today.
      I used to have a group of boys who would play magic cards after school in the library one day a week. Other than that, I don't know about card games. I suspect not many adults do either anymore now that everyone has games on devices to entertain themselves with.

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  8. Wow! My husband has been dabbling in canning the past couple of years, but nothing on that level!
    I haven't kept up with children's and YA lit, but Gordon Korman was always a favorite of mine, especially on audio. Enjoy your family visits! Our daughter living in NYC ended up staying with our other daughter instead of us this past weekend because we came down with Covid while traveling. :(

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    1. One of my sons is a Gordon Korman fan. He tells me he is looking forward to reading the McDonald high books to his son. His books and characters have much more depth these days than they did then.
      I am so sorry that you ended up with Covid!

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  9. I have Homicide and Halo-Halo, too. It looks good. I loved the first book in the series. Hope you've been having a good week!

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