#IMWAYR April 14, 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've been sewing up a storm and managed to finsh my granddaughter's birthday dress. She came up with the design, and when she was last here, picked the dark blue patterned fabric. Here's what I've come up with. I'll send it, along with a little capybara wall hanging, off to her later this week. 

front

back

The original design:
some day I will recreate this. 

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

Already All the Love by Diana Farid & Shar Tuiasoa (illustrator)

This book is a celebration of who and what a baby could someday become, as well as a reminder of how perfect they already are. This is an important message for all of us, no matter our ages. 

I might purchase this for someone I know who is expecting a baby. 

Shar Tuiasoa's art work is gorgeous! I wanted to dig out my scraps and embroidery floss to try and recreate it in fabric!

4 stars

Piper Chen Sings by Phillipa Soo, Maris Pasquale Doran, & Qin Leng 🍁 (Illustrator) April 2, 2024

Piper loves to sing. She sings everywhere and all the time. She especially enjoys singing in her school choir, but when she is asked to sing a solo, she ends up getting anxious and feeling butterflies in her tummy. 

At home she talks to Nai Nai, her grandmother, about her feelings. Nai Nai helps her change the way she thinks about those butterflies and instead of fearing them, learns to see them as a reminder that something exciting is about to happen. 

I love a lot about this book. First, I adore Qin Leng's illustrations. I love Piper's relationship with her grandmother. I love that they are both musically creative and that it's who Piper goes to for help. I love that while Nai Nai tells Piper about her butterflies, we also get a glimpse into her background story. The music teacher, Mr Harris, is pretty cool too when he tells Piper she can sing with the rest of the class instead of soloing if that's what she wants.  

I wish this book had been around when I was still teaching. It's a great resource for students like Piper who get anxious when they have to do anything in front of a crowd. 

GRAPHIC NOVELS

5 stars

Noodle and Bao by Shaina Lu October 15, 2024

Momo lives in Town 99. Her favourite restaurant is Noodle and Bau. Bau is also her best friend. When the building is sold and they are evicted, they struggle to make ends meet by selling their food from a cart parked across from their former restaurant. It now houses a high end cafe run by Ms. Jujube. None of the residents of Town 99 could afford to eat there.
Momo is determined to help Noodle and Bau get their restaurant back. Meanwhile, the community is changing. Rent is increasing, people are moving out, and new shiny shops are moving in. Even Momo's parents are having trouble dealing with the high cost of housing. 

At one point in the story, it looks like Noodle and Bau will succeed at getting their place back, but it turns out that Ms. Jujube has plans that will destroy their community even more.

Momo is determined to do everything to save their neighbourhood and stop the gentrification. She starts out working on her own, but it isn't until the whole community gets involved, that they can be successful. The importance of collective effort is a message we need now more than ever. 

Town 99 is populated by a collection of human and anthropomorphized animals. I thought they might represent the diversity of the population, but am not sure since Momo, who is shown as human, has two animal parents. Perhaps the animal people represent first generation immigrants and the more human looking ones are those who were born there.  Even the text, written in both English and Cantonese characters, highlights the complexity of the residents.  I was fascinated by the character of Ms. Jujube. On the one hand, she seems to be evil incarnate, but on the other, she is very supportive of Bau, and even pays for him to go to cooking school. 

If you want to read a much more thorough and considered review of this book, I encourage you to check out Max @ Completely Full Bookshelf's post from last week. 

 

ADULT NON FICTION

4 stars

Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik November 12, 2024

Joan Didion was the same age as my mother. I've been a fan ever since reading The Year of Magical Thinking. It helped me understand what my mother's life was like after my father died. I had never even heard of Eve Babitz until this book. 

When Babitz died, a box of her letters was discovered. This book, chronicling Eve's perspective of her relationship with Joan, as wall as many other aspects of her life, arose from them. 

I really enjoyed this book. A number of reviewers on Goodreads complained that the book was all gossip. I believe that our lives are made up of all kinds of stories and this book highlights the glory of these little vignettes. 

In many ways the two women seem to be competing opposites, but I agree with the author, that they are more like two sides of the same coin. "Yes their sensibilities were polarized, their styles clashing, their intentions though, were identical, to make literature that exploited what was novel and expose what was familiar in a city, a society, and an epic under convulsive pressure. Joan and Eve are the two halves of American womanhood representing forces that are, on the surface, in conflict, yet secretly align."

CURRENTLY 

Hell and Gone by Sam Wiebe October 23, 2021 🍁

The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin May 1, 2012

Fantastic Lou: Little Comics from Real Life by Qin Leng January 28, 2025 🍁

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

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

A Two Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby & Mary Louisa Plummer May 3, 2016 🍁

2025 READING GOALS

#MustRead2025 10/25  one on the go

NonFiction 14/30

Poetry 1/12 

Canadian Authors 24/50  two on the go

Indigenous Authors 6/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 54/200