Showing posts with label #NFPictureBook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #NFPictureBook. Show all posts

#IMWAYR October 23rd, 2023

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

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

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.


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. 


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


One of the reasons I read historical fiction is to learn about events I would otherwise probably never be aware of. In Take My Hand, Dolen Perkins-Valdez writes about the illegal sterilization of black, indigenous, latino, and other poor people in the United States. 
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 
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#IMWAYR July 24, 2023

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.

As I write this on Sunday morning, I realize that only one week ago I was hyped on coffee and boogieing to gospel music at the Vancouver Island Music festival in Courtenay BC. It was three days of heat, sunshine, multiple genres of music from around the world, late nights, and maybe, a bit too much wine. We had a fabulous time listening to familiar artists and becoming fans of previously unknown (to us) ones. 

We were away for a week so by the time I got home, I had to work to get the garden back under control. It's a losing battle, since it's been just to hot to spend much time out there. On a positive note, we have been eating corn, tomatoes, eggplant, spinach, cucumbers, peppers, basil and other produce from it.  We have company coming this week, so now I have to focus on getting the house in shape!

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 NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS

5 stars

Just Like Beverly: A Biography of Beverly Cleary by Vicki Conrad & David Hohn (Illustrator) August 13, 2019

I have no idea how many Beverly Cleary books I have read to children, but it has been a lot! I remember her work being devoured by readers ever since I started teaching. Recently my son told me that he has been reading the Henry Huggens series to his six year old son. Both of them love them. 
It was an absolute joy to read this book and find out more about the author and how she came to write so many books that have filled the hearts and minds of youngsters. 

5 stars

The Wisdom of Trees: How Trees Work Together to Form a Natural Kingdom by Lita Judge March 2, 2021

Here in British Columbia where I live, our government dithers while the last remaining old growth forests are decimated. Last year, across the globe, more than 15,300,000,000 trees were cut down. That's the equivalent of two per person on the planet. It equals 3000 rolls of toilet paper.

This book is chock full of information. You might even use the word 'stuffed' with data. At the same time, it's a gorgeous picture book. Each themed two page spread includes stunning artwork, with a poem on the right side. On the left is a side bar with details expanding on the theme. If this isn't enough, following the author's note, the back matter is full of additional material pertaining to the specific trees in each illustration. I appreciate that it has advice for how to help forests. The book concludes with a glossary and sources section.
I would be tempted to purchase two copies of this if I was still working in my school library. Not only is it fine just as it is for younger intermediate learners, it is also a brilliant starting point for more mature students ready to research the themes in more depth.


I had heard of Rosetta Tharpe, but really knew little about her. This NF picture book is a delightful introduction to her life and music. It captures the spirit of the little girl who became the Queen of Rock and Roll.
Upon finishing it, I went off and spent an hour or so listening to her music.


I don't much care for gothic tales so I am not a Brontë fan. I picked this up only because I AM a huge Isabel Greenberg fan!
This strange tale is a combination of truth and fiction. Against a backdrop of actual events in the Brontë family, Greenberg has used the information from her research to create a magical story that takes us inside the imaginary worlds created by the siblings. I ended up being fascinated, captivated, and sometimes, disturbed. 

ADULT/YA FICTION

If you like character driven books that give you insight into other people's worlds and experiences, this book is perfect for you.
It is the story of Baxter, a queer Black sleeping car porter. He is saving up to go to school and become a dentist. He only needs another hundred dollars, but he already has fifty demerits. If he gets ten more he will be fired. On a trip across Canada, we see what his life is like while he performs his duties and deals with all kinds of people. A challenging journey becomes even more so when the train is stranded due to a landslide across the tracks. I really appreciated how the community of porters came to his defence when it looked like he was going to get fired.
Baxter's exhaustion, hunger and fear are brilliantly portrayed by Suzette Mayr.


This was a hard audiobook to finish.
It’s a collection of short stories. Mostly they are full of tenderness, love, and brutality.
I abandoned the last story as soon as I understood what was coming. I tried a couple of times to finish it, but in the end, I downloaded a print version and merely skimmed over the last pages. I can’t imagine attending a lynching, never mind bringing a child to one, but this kind of party spectacle was once all too commonplace in the American South.
If you haven’t read any James Baldwin, I encourage you to pick up his work and read it. Maybe you don’t want to start with this one, but his writing is brilliant.

I am now a hard core Jesse Q. Sutanto fan. I absolutely adored this book! It's hilarious, but it's also loaded with all kinds of important truths.
One morning, Vera Wong, the 60 year old Chinese owner of Vera Wang's World Famous Teashop, comes downstairs to open her shop. She finds a dead body on the floor. Before the police arrive, she pilfers a flash drive from the murder victim's hand.
Vera has opinions. She is sure she can do a better job of finding the murderer than the police can. In the process of accumulating a group of young suspects, she builds a found family and her life becomes much richer.
When the murderer is finally revealed, it's not unexpected, but it is a bit of a surprise.
If you are looking for the perfect summer read, look no farther.

This is a fascinating, in depth, look at diseases across time. Kang and Pedersen examine the world's worst diseases looking at their origin, how they evolved, and the ramifications politically, socially, and historically. They discuss different treatments, including the really wacky ones as well as the development of antibiotics and vaccines.
It's a delightfully accessible read. 

CURRENTLY

Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson 

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck January 1, 1961

To Track a Traitor by Iona Whishaw May 2, 2023

UP NEXT 

Leeva at Last by Sara Pennypacker

READING GOALS 

#MustReadFiction 14/24 

#MustReadNonFiction 11/20 

Canadian Authors 26/75 

Indigenous Authors 11/20 

Big Books Summer 2023 - 7 - 3 in progress

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 107/200 


 

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IMWAYR April 23, 2023

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.


I have been away. I have been busy. I did not read much. I have been writing. All this is true and why I have not been posting. I am doing my best to not get overly stressed. It isn't easy.
 
Last weekend our guild quilt show was a smashing success. As co-chair of the committee, I can't take much credit. It's because of the individual committee members that it went off so brilliantly. Since it was my first quilt show, I did a lot of worrying. I am really good at that.
You can read about the show here. 

My reading life has been in fits and starts. I have picked up and abandoned a lot of titles. I sent a huge pile of library books back to the library unread. After reading Orwell's Roses by  Rebecca Solnit, I thought I would reread 1984. I got about half way into it before realizing it was way too dark and only going to get darker. 

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.

MOST RECENT BLOG POST

PICTURE BOOKS

5 stars

Lift by Minh Lê & Dan Santat (Illustrator) May 5, 2020

When Iris' little brother takes over her job of pressing elevator buttons, she is seriously miffed. In retaliation she presses the button so many times that it breaks. When the repairman tosses the broken piece into the garbage, she rescues it and tapes it onto her bedroom wall. She's surprised and delighted to discover that pushing the button opens a portal into other worlds.

Just Wow! I have ordered copies of this for my two grandkids for their 6th birthday.
It's gorgeously illustrated (as is anything created by Jenkins.) Sure I'm impressed by the quality of the information, but it's how it's presented that really wows me. Each page has a paragraph explaining the tools the species is using. The simply captioned illustrations show the animal using it. I also really like the silhouetted sections that show the size of the creature compared to a human. The back matter contains additional information about the animals in the book, but really, it's not needed.


I almost abandoned this one because it seemed like it was going to end up as one of those mean girl kind of books. I continued because this is Barbara Dee, and she has never let me down before. She didn't this time either.
Haven is full of eco-anxiety. It gets in the way of her completing her school work, but after a conversation with her social studies teacher, gets an extension. In science class they discover that their local river is in trouble. Species are missing and the acid ph level is too high. With the help of others, Haven organizes a river awareness and cleanup party. When she realizes that it isn't enough, she tries to emulate her hero, a Greta Thunberg kind of character. In the end, with the help of her teachers, parents, and others, she discovers a way to make a serious difference.
I ended up really liking this story. I like that Haven's relationship with the girl she had problems with is resolved and becomes a positive one. I like that there are all kinds of students and adults working along side Haven to improve the world. I like that Haven becomes a role model herself, but I think the most important message here, is that real change can only be accomplished if we work together.

Some readers suggested that reading the previous books would help figure out all that was going on. This might be true. I did have trouble keeping track of who was who and what was happening to them. That the author inserts little snippets of life for ordinary people doesn't help. I liked Simon Vance's voice as narrator, but suspect that had I read this with my eyes, my confusion might have been less of an issue.
You might think after that little spiel, that I didn't enjoy this book. You would be wrong. In spite of being confused more often that I like to be, I got completely caught up in this fantasy. The writing is gorgeous. The world building - a combination of historical reality and fantasy is powerful and authentic. The characters are appealing and real - even the nasty ones!


I thought I had written about this when I finished it, but discovered that I didn't. I think I wanted to mull it over, but what I really wanted, was to read it with a book club. I was/am desperate to talk about it with others who have read it. 
This book made me crazy with rage. Having lived through, and grown into my teens in the 1950's and 1960's, I lived through this reality. I saw my mother struggle through it. Unfortunately, it feels all still relevant today. I would like to transform into a dragon. 

4 stars

A Match Made for Murder (Lane Winslow #7) by Iona Whishaw & Marilla Wex (Narrator) April 28, 2020 🍁

I was delighted to return to this world and these characters. Lane and her husband, Darling, are in Arizona on their honeymoon. A murder in their hotel ends up pulling them into the investigation.
Meanwhile, back in Nelson, Sergeant Ames has a murder, and a missing teen girl to deal with. It turns out that the different cases in two different countries are connected.
I liked that this one addresses the issues of domestic and sexual violence for women and girls.

What an amazing story teller!
I listened to this read by the author. It was an intimate experience - as though she was still here chatting about her life. If my library had her next book in audio format, I would have downloaded it immediately to continue.

CURRENTLY

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life by Amy Butler Greenfield

UP NEXT 

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by  Jenny Ferguson 🍁

READING GOALS 

#MustReadFiction 6/24

#MustReadNonFiction 7/20 one in progress

Canadian Authors 17/75 

Indigenous Authors 9/20 

Canada Reads Finalists 3/5

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 69/200


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#IMWAYR January 9, 2021


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.

Aside from attending important meetings connected to the quilt guid I am part of, I worked four days this week in high school. Well it was two half days and two full days, but it was still four days. I am not a high school teacher. 

I had no energy for reading much of anything: with my eyes or my ears. Two days later and I am still exhausted.

I am back to my maximum two days subbing from here on in! 

On a positive note, I did read and respond to almost everyone's posts last week. I also got two book reviews posted. 
 
Aside from planning to read 200 books, (50 down from last year) I still haven't gotten my reading challenges sorted out. I will do my best to have it under control by next week. 

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.

BLOG POSTS LAST WEEK


A Green Velvet Secret by Vicki Grant

PICTURE BOOKS


The Song that Called them Home by David Alexander Robertson & Maya McKibbin (Illustrator) April 4th 2023 🍁

Two children go on a trip to the land with their moshom (grandfather). While Moshom naps, the children, Lauren and James, take the canoe out onto the lake to go fishing. They end up in the land of the Memekwesewak, dancing around a huge fire and lose sense of time and purpose. It is the sound of their moshom's drum that calls them home. 
Click on the link here to read my full review. 

NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS


The Universe in You by Jason Chin December 13th 2022


This book is where cell biology, chemistry, and physics come together and become one science. It's mind boggling in it's complexity and beauty. High school and university teachers working in any of these areas should have a copy in their classrooms. 

NON FICTION GRAPHIC



My 20 month old granddaughter is crazy about dinosaurs, so I decided I better reacquaint myself with what we know about them now. It's been close to 35 years since her father was a fanatic and the world has changed a lot since then. I continue to be impressed with this series. While this one doesn't have the humour of Crows: Genius Birds, it sure is thorough. 
It takes us across the history of palaeontology showing readers how the science has transformed as new knowledge has become available. We learn about the egos of some men, the mistakes that were made, the misinformation that was spread. In the introduction, Leonard Finkelman, Assistant professor in Philosophy of Science at Linfield College, talks about how our restrained imaginations limit what we can learn. Our understanding of what dinosaurs might have looked like is very different these days. Alas this book is beyond my granddaughter's cognitive ability, but when she next visits, I might have to invest in the series, Prehistoric Planet. If her dad is here, I'm sure he will appreciate it too.

Did you ever imagine a dinosaur could look like this?


MG NOVELS



The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune July 14th 2020

Part of the reason I didn't get much reading done is that I have been listening to this. I adored the two other TJ Klune books I read. This one isn't working for me so I keep avoiding it. To be honest, I'm not much of a superhero fan to begin with. So there's that. 
Once I predicted what was going on between Seth and Nick, two queer best friends, it made waiting for Nick to figure out what was happening cringeworthy. It becomes obvious to the reader that Seth and another friend, Owen, are extraordinaries (super heroes) - although figuring out which one was hero and which was the villain was still up for grabs for me when I abandoned this. Nick seems to be over the top clueless and so scattered that I couldn't connect to him. Because he's neurodiverse I kept reading to try and figure him out. It must be exhausting being in his head. In the end, he's a character I felt sorry for, but didn't really like. His relationship with his father, even though it had it's loving moments, made me uncomfortable. His father disturbed me. Honestly, I wanted to smack him across the head. 
What I did like about this book is how, like David Levithan's novels, being queer is ordinary. I loved that Nick is accepted by his friends just for being who he is, ADHD and all. I adored his two lesbian friends, Jazz and Gibby. The book also has some screamingly hilarious bits. 
After I gave up on this book I went and read a bunch of reviews. I wish I had picked up more on some of the nuances that triggered Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour readers. I really appreciated TJ Klune's response to these criticisms. It is an example of how we all should react when we make mistakes. From one review of the second in the series, it seems like these issues have been addressed there.

CURRENTLY

Amari and the Great Game (Supernatural Investigations #2) by B.B. Alston

Blackmail and Bibinka by Mia P Manansala

Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao

UP NEXT 

I've got a pile of Graphic Novels to read for Cybils so I'll be working on those.

The Big Sting by Rachelle Delaney

READING GOALS 

#MustReadFiction 

#MustReadNonFiction 

Canadian Authors 1

Indigenous Authors 1

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 4/200



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