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. 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.
Life was busy for us last week. We had three special celebratory dinners. We only cooked two of them and were taken out for greek food one night. I am hoping for a calmer week.
I will be at a quilting workshop on Monday so I won't get to responding to anyone's posts till the next day. I try to read all of them, but I don't always respond.
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.
CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS
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| 4 stars |
Penny & Pip by Candace Fleming & Eric Rohmann (Illustrator) June 13, 2023
When Penny is visiting the natural history museum, she notices a dinosaur egg hatching. The little hatchling watches Penny and takes a shine to her. The baby follows her around the place and she feeds him part of her lunch. When it's time to go home, Penny hatches a plan so he won't be noticed when they leave.
I'm very sorry that I overlooked this book when my grandkids were visiting. The two youngest dinosaur mad girls would have loved it.
CHILDREN'S NON FICTION PICTURE BOOKS
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| 5 stars |
As Glenn as Can Be by Sarah Ellis & Nancy Vo (Illustrator) April 5, 2022 🍁
Glenn Gould is a Canadian treasure. What Sarah Ellis and Nancy Vo, (both Canadian treasures in their own right) show us in their book, is that he was a child prodigy. He was a quirky individual who liked animals better than people. He gave up public performing to focus on recording.
You can see him performing J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations in the video below.
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| 5 stars |
We Are Branches by Joyce Sidman & Beth Krommes (Illustrator) May 2, 2023
After reading this book, readers will become aware of the branching patterns in the world around them. It is beautifully written, and Beth Krommes artwork is just spectacular!
Each page is loaded with of details. I liked that many, if not all the animals and plants are labeled. The back matter has two pages of more information about branching.
MIDDLE GRADE NOVELS
I love this series. I am in awe of how Janae Marks deals with difficult topics with such grace and honesty. Also, Bahni Turpin is the narrator.
In the first book, Zoe managed to get Marcus, her birth father, who was in jail for a crime he didn't commit, released. In this one she is developing a relationship with him. When she learns that he wants to own his own restaurant someday, she wants to be part of it. They have to downgrade their plans to start out with a food truck, but getting funding is impossible because Marcus doesn't have a credit rating. They set up a go fund me project to try and raise the money.
At the same time as this is going on, Zoe starts a blog to raise awareness about the hardships for exonerees. She discovers that her two best friends 'like like' each other. Hannah, a girl who's mother is in prison for drug related offences, reaches out to Zoe and the two of them become friends.
I appreciate how relationships are negotiated in these books. Zoe's parents and grandmother are supportive of Marcus and Zoe's relationship. They even have Sunday dinners together. I like how Zoe takes her time to think things through before she acts - especially with regards to the growing romantic relationship between her friends.
As in the first book, there is cooking. I'm not sure I would make these red velvet whoopee pies, but I would certainly try them out!
ADULT/YA FICTION
Civil Townsend is fresh out of nursing school and dreams of making a positive difference in her community. She wants to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies. It comes as a shock when she has to give birth control shots to two children, just eleven and thirteen. The youngest hasn't even started menstruating yet. She takes the children and their family into her heart and goes out of her way to make their lives better.
One day a couple of other nurses come to their home, take the children to the hospital, and have their tubes tied.
Civil becomes involved in a court case that ends up becoming bigger than the treatment of these children.
A big theme in this book is that people, even with the best of intentions, can end up causing harm.
I'm working my way through this series and still enjoying them. I'm gobsmacked by the machinations of the leaders at the fictional MI5 headquarters. As usual, the disgraced and discarded operatives at Slough House are left to deal with their mess.
CURRENTLY
Take Back The Fight: Organizing Feminism for the Digital Age by Nora Loreto 🍁
Recursion by Blake Crouch
UP NEXT
Mindy Makes Some Space by Nathan Fairbairn & MSASSYK (illustrator),
I'm also going to continue to tackle a pile of picture books
READING GOALS
#MustReadFiction 18/24 one in progress
#MustReadNonFiction 14/20 one in progress
Canadian Authors 43/75
Indigenous Authors 20/20
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 165 /200
It is horrible what people did and still do to people who are considered "other". Take My Hand sounds gut-wrenching, Cheriee. Thanks for the others, too. I've read and so enjoyed "We Are Branches"! Have a great week ahead, reading & gardening & quilting. . .
ReplyDeleteIt is gut-wrenching indeed. I knew that this happened to Indigenous women here in Canada, but had no idea it was such a wide spread horror.
DeleteNice looking assortment of books. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
ReplyDeleteTake My Hand was eye-opening to me. I learn a lot from historical fiction, too.
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ReplyDeleteTake My Hand is high on my must-read list. It sounds fascinating!
ReplyDeleteIt's worth moving it to the top of your list.
DeleteZoe Washington inspires me to get things done when I'm reading her books. But once I finish, I'm back to watching clips on YouTube for hours on end.
ReplyDeleteI hear you! I feel kind of the same way as I'm reading The First Rule of Climate Club.
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