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!
Even here in Canada we wait anxiously for the outcome of the election in the United States on Tuesday. Good Luck you all!
Our recent election here was a tight race between the Conservative Party: very right wing, and the New Democratic Party (NDP): middle of the road, but more to the left than the Democrats in the USA. After waiting for all the ballots to be counted and a number of recounts, the NDP squeaked in with a bare minority.
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.
I especially liked that there is so much more going on than just football. It addresses the usual friend meltdowns all too common in middle grade. Life at home is chaotic because her mother is coping with young twins. In the end Misty comes to understand that she needs to be herself and contribute to her family.
I enjoyed reading Misty Wilson's notes at the end of the book.
Red Bird Danced by Dawn Quigley June 4, 2024
MG NOVELS IN VERSE
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| 4 stars |
Red Bird Danced by Dawn Quigley June 4, 2024
Two urban indigenous youth, Ariel and Tomah, end up going through some intense changes in their lives and connect with their roots in their own way.
They live in an intertribal housing complex in the city. Ariel has to give up ballet because her family can't afford the fees. When she starts fancy dancing she finds a more profound joy and connection to her history and the world around her than she ever did with ballet. Tomah is a comedian and story teller. He's mostly a good student, but has some kind of reading problems. After his teacher starts working with him one on one, he begins to make sense of text and is able to write one of his one stories.All this takes place against the backdrop of Ariel's Auntie Bineshiinh going missing.
I listened to this, but I suspect that while I was engaged with the story of these two children, I would have gotten more out of it had I read it with my eyes. Poetry is like that.
I had no idea what I was getting into with this book. It ended up being a magnificently delightful concoction of genres. I adored it.
We never learn the narrators name, but she is, like the author herself, half British and half Cambodian. At the start, she finishes her last interview and lands a civil service job working as a 'bridge': a live in companion to an expat. She ends up with Commander Graham Gore, who supposedly died on the Franklin Expedition in 1840. He and other similar individuals have been kidnapped from their own times and brought unwilling into a time somewhere in our not too distant future.
I will read anything Ross Gay writes. This one required more focus than I needed with his Delight books. These essays are deeper and more intricate. They are filled with an intimacy that's complicatedly human. Some parts, like when he talks about the culture of basketball and what a toxic prison it was, were hard to take in. My main take away from this collection is that sorrow and joy can be two sides of the same coin, especially when sorrow becomes a vehicle that brings us together. Joy is incited in our connectedness with the humanity in others, with ourselves, and with nature.
Cougar Annie's Garden by Margaret Horsfield August 1, 1999 🍁
The Sherlock Society by James Ponti September 3, 2024
What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley September 3, 2024 🍁
ADULT/YA FICTION
We never learn the narrators name, but she is, like the author herself, half British and half Cambodian. At the start, she finishes her last interview and lands a civil service job working as a 'bridge': a live in companion to an expat. She ends up with Commander Graham Gore, who supposedly died on the Franklin Expedition in 1840. He and other similar individuals have been kidnapped from their own times and brought unwilling into a time somewhere in our not too distant future.
The romance part of this seems pretty inevitable. Eventually there are some pretty steamy lovemaking scenes. But before we get to that, a whole lot more is going on that involves, humour, murder, more time travel, spies, and even a historical narrative by a separate character. It addresses issues of morality, colonialism, racism, misogyny, climate disaster, and PTSD.
I was very surprised at the ending, but it was all pure pleasure to read.
ADULT/YA NON FICTION
I will read anything Ross Gay writes. This one required more focus than I needed with his Delight books. These essays are deeper and more intricate. They are filled with an intimacy that's complicatedly human. Some parts, like when he talks about the culture of basketball and what a toxic prison it was, were hard to take in. My main take away from this collection is that sorrow and joy can be two sides of the same coin, especially when sorrow becomes a vehicle that brings us together. Joy is incited in our connectedness with the humanity in others, with ourselves, and with nature.
"Joy is an act of resistance."
I didn't want this book to end - and yet it did. I tried savouring it, but I still wanted to start all over again after I finished. I think I would have taken much more from it. Unfortunately, the library took it back.CURRENTLY
A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver January 1, 1994
The Sherlock Society by James Ponti September 3, 2024
UP NEXT (MAYBE)
real ones by Katherena Vermette September 3, 2024 🍁
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 184/200
