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. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.
Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian or Indigenous Canadian Author and or Illustrator.
FIRST FRIDAY POETRY JANUARY 2024
Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book.
PREVIOUS POST
FIRST FRIDAY POETRY JANUARY 2024
NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS
Maud Lewis was a painter from Nova Scotia, Canada. The most important thing about her is that she found and brought joy into the world. Her life was hard, yet her art celebrates the beauty of the world around her. Her paintings might represent earlier times, but they inspire us to find the glory in our own everyday lives today.
I really appreciate that in the two pages of additional information in the back matter, Stinson addresses the complexity of Maud's relationship with her husband, Everett Lewin. She questions whether his insistence on continuing to live in poverty, even when they had enough money to make life easier for Maud, was with malicious intent, or if he was just one of those people who, for whatever reasons, couldn't handle change.
Lauren Soloy's art is so beautiful and true to Maud's own work, you would be forgiven for thinking she is channeling Maud's spirit.
MIDDLE GRADE NOVELS
 |
| 5 stars |
Remember Us by Jacqueline Woodson (Author and Narrator) October 10, 2023
Sage and her mother live in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn in the mid 1970's. It's the time of fires. Tenement houses were being burned by owners for the insurance money and the local newspaper referred to their community as the matchbook. But they are much more than this. Sage likes to hang out with friends (boys) playing basketball. Her father, a firefighter who died on the job, taught her how to play. She's better than all of them.
It's a time of transition for Sage in multiple ways. She has become aware of being different from her other girl friends. Then, when she is alone on the court, a bully steals the ball her father gave her, and accuses her of not being a real girl. It's a traumatic event that sends her into a tail spin and she stops basketball.
Eventually she and her mom move to a brick house far from their neighbourhood. Over time she builds a new life and starts a group of girls who play basketball together.
What I liked most of this book is how it is a window for me. It's a look into the reality of students growing up about the same time as I was, but far away from me and dealing with different experiences.
Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch (Eva Evergreen, #1) by Julie Abe & Caitlin Kelly (Narrator) August 4, 2020
This was delightfully entertaining even if I have a few quibbles with parts of it.
Eva Evergreen came into her magic late. Her mother is a high ranking witch with influence in high places. She is very supportive of Eva. Once the problem with her apprenticeship is sorted out, Eva ends up in a small town by the sea. She manages to get a guardian, but the local mayor won't sign her official papers unless she can find a way to protect the town from The Culling, a mysterious, cursed weather phenomenon. This is something that even the strongest witches in the country haven't been able to do.
I liked that this is set in Japan. I liked that Eva had such supportive parents. I liked that she made good friends in the town of Auteri and it's largely because of this friendship that she is able to achieve the rank of Novice Witch. Eva herself is a charming character.
I could have done without the conflict between Eva and the other witch candidate. I don't understand why the adults didn't address his bullying. The nastiness of his father, a witch equal to her mother, makes more sense to the plot, and especially with the tease at the end about his role in the bigger picture of the book's world, and what's coming up in the sequel.
MIDDLE GRADE GRAPHIC NOVELS
This is a novel about hair. Through Marlene's struggles to learn how to deal with her seriously curly hair, a whole world of cultural norms, and their impact on individuals is opened up. I loved how supportive Marlene's best friend and aunt are. I appreciated that her mother truly cares for her and does what she does out of love, even if it a large part of Marlene's struggle.
As someone with straight hair, I always envied people who have naturally curly hair. I had no idea about the racist connections to curly hair like Marlene's or how much work goes into looking after it.
ADULT/YA FICTION
Joe Country (Slough House #6) by Mick Herron & Gerard Doyle (Narrator) June 20, 2019
I am completely taken with Mick Herron's writing. Seriously, how can you not want to read more with an introduction like this:
“The owl flew screaming from the barn, its wingtips bright with flame. For a moment, silhouetted against the blank sky, it was a dying angel, scorched by its own divinity, and then it was just a city husk, dropping like an anvil into the nearby trees.”
The misfit crew of spies end up in Wales in the middle of snowstorm. Some of them die. There are evil machinations going on at MI5 headquarters that bode nothing but ill for the residents at Slough House. I can't wait to find out what Jackson Lamb will do about it.
I've already put the next one on reserve. In the meantime, I've downloaded The Catch - a novella that follows this title.
If we accept that there is no such thing as free will, then we have to look at the real issues that cause people to do the things they do. We might not be able to predict exactly who will commit a certain crime, but we know that there are certain conditions that lead to antisocial behaviour. Belief in the concept of free will is just an excuse to not address the societal problems that influence who we become and the choices we make.
When a crime is committed, it's turtles all the way down.
I started listening to Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky but at 790 pages (24 hours of listening), decided to save it for the Big Book Challenge this summer.
CURRENTLY
Dear Rosie by Meghan Boehman & Rachael Briner
In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee
The Catch by Mick Herron
READING GOALS
#MustRead2024 2/25
NonFiction 1/25
Canadian Authors 1/50
Indigenous Authors /25 one in progress
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 7/200
Nice looking assortment of books. Good luck on reaching your 2024 goals. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kathy
DeleteIt was good to read your thoughts about Remember Us. I have the book in my to read pile. I love Woodson's writing - her words hold so much beauty, power, and insight. I liked Frizzy a lot.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about Woodson's writing. She creates an intimacy between herself and her reader - like making a new friend.
DeleteI have Remember Us, too, will try to get to it soon, Cheriee. I almost hate to begin a new mystery series like the Slough House ones, but if you say they're good. . . Thanks for Frizzy, too, new to me! I bookmarked Determined, too! Lots of good books for us!
ReplyDeleteI encourage you to just read the first in the series Linda. Then you will know if you want to read more. Mick Herron is also a poet, and his writing reflects this.
DeleteSo many great books here, Cheriee! I made note of Remember Us—I have only read two Jacqueline Woodson books, unfortunately, but both were truly stunning. And I enjoyed Frizzy over the summer, so I'm glad you got the chance to pick it up! Determined sounds like such a fascinating read—I don't think it's a wild idea that we don't have free will, since in a sense, our decision-making process is just a thing that ends in an outcome, which could be pre-ordained for all we know. I'll be curious to see your thoughts on Dear Rosie, which I read a few weeks ago, and I really hope you get to try In Limbo—it's one of the best graphic novels I've ever read, and I still think about it sometimes. Thanks so much for all the thoughtful reviews, as always, and have a great week!
ReplyDeleteI will absolutely be getting to Limbo next after reading your remarks here. I think I have always been a determinist and so this book more or less just confirmed my thinking. The bit I read in Behave is a fascinating look into the biological factors behind determinism.
DeleteWow - DETERMINED sounds like an intense read, with a lot to process. I remember reading an article about luck, and about how reluctant many highly successful people are to admit the huge role luck plays in our life and how things play out for us. We can all make choices, but there are so many elements at play that impact the choices that are available to us and the choices we decide to make.
ReplyDeleteDetermined is one of the best books I've read in ages. I expect it will be one of my best for this year. I think that if we all accepted that free will is at best, very limited and exists within the context of determinism, we would organize our society in ways that would make life easier for everyone.
DeleteI've read one of Julie Abe's other books. It was good but way too long. I think if they had broken the book down to two volumes, I would have been more inclined to continue the series.
ReplyDeleteFrizzy is LOVED LOVED LOVED in our school. I have it in Spanish and English and they are both always checked out.
ReplyDeleteAnd I cannot wait to read Remember Us.
Happy reading :)