#IMWAYR MARCH 11, 2024

 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.

My sister returned from galavanting around the world, so we started working on a quilt for one of our friends. Each May we go away for 4 days with a group of the same women. We have almost finished a quilt for each of them. This friend loves birds so we asked everyone what bird they most resonated with. This quilt is really pushing us way past our comfort zones since we are making our own paper pieced bird blocks. To make matters worse, I started working on these blocks last fall, and can't remember what I was doing. I think I am spending as much time picking out seams as I am sewing. 

The great Canada Reads Debate was last week, so I tried to keep on top of that even though I haven't read all the books. 

Aside from that, I worked two days and spent one day travelling for an appointment a couple of hours away. 

All this means that I didn't finish a whole lot last week. I was almost finished What Comes Echoing Back by Leo McKay Jr. but my book expired and the library took it back. Now I will have to wait to get it again. After than I started a number of books, but abandoned them when I couldn't get into them. I ended up listening to Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands again after just finishing it. I also read, with my eyes, the scary bits of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder that I had skipped over in the audiobook. 

I contemplated just leaving off posting this week, but two of our grandkids will be arriving to stay with us for the next 10 days, and next Sunday, another two will be joining in the fray. I don't expect to find much time for reading, never mind posting about what I am reading, till they have returned home.  

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.

PICTURE BOOKS

4 stars

What You Need to Be Warm by Neil Gaiman and illustrators: Yuliya Gwilym, Nadine Kaadan , Pam Smy, Daniel Egnéus, Beth Suzanna, Marie-Alice Harel, Petr Horáček, Chris Riddell, Bagram Ibatouilline, Benji Davies, Majid Adin, Richard Jones, & Oliver Jeffers October 31, 2023

Thanks to Myra @ Gathering books for the introduction to this one. 

Neil Gaiman crowd sourced memories of what it means to be warm. He took these ideas and transformed them into a poem. Each page is illustrated by a different artist. Gaiman donated the poem to the UN refugee agency. Funds from the sale of the book go towards keeping people warm. 

It's a beautiful poem full of gorgeous black and white  images with touches of reddish orange. 

All the Beating Hearts by Julie Fogliano & Catia Chien (Illustrator) January 31, 2023

I've gone through this a number of times and with each reread, I find more beauty in both the poem and the images. 

Ice Bears at Ice Edge by Robert Burleigh & Wendell Minor October 17, 2023

Thanks go to Linda Bai for introducing me to this absolutely stunning book!

This tale of a mother polar bear and her cub trapped on a disintegrating ice flow is riveting. Wendell Minor's illustrations are swoon worthy gorgeous. 

I appreciated that two pages in the back matter include additional polar bear facts and details how the climate crisis make their survival as a species precarious.

ADULT/YA FICTION

Slough House by Mick Herron & Gerard Doyle (Narrator) February 9, 2021

This is the seventh book in the Slough House series. I somehow missed it and read number 8, Bad Actors, first. This one filled in a number of gaps. Dianna Taverner, head of MI5 has got herself into a complicated mess. Because of it, a murder team from Russia is trying to kill off the Slough House agents - present and past. 

CURRENTLY

The Faint of Heart by Kerilynn Wilson June 13, 2023

Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower by Charlie Angus February 1, 2022  🍁

The Grace of Things by Heather Fawcett February 14, 2023

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

Besties Work It Out by Kayla Miller

I will continue to deal with the picture books pile.

READING GOALS 

#MustRead2024 3/25 one on the go

NonFiction 7/24 

Canadian Authors 8/50 one on the go

Indigenous Authors 4/25 

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 40/200