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.
Our sons and grandkids visited for Canadian Thanksgiving last weekend. We all had a fabulous time. We got the feast over with on Saturday so they would be around to help eat the leftovers.We spent the rest of the weekend hiking around the country.
Halloween is drawing near and I've got a few books on my list today that fit the traditional kind of reading for this celebration. Yet, as I ponder other books on my list, as well as current events in the reality of the world today, I am reminded that there is really nothing scarier than real life.
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.
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CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS
In the third book of this series, Little Wolf has a dream that helps her address racism. She understands that when we hurt others because they are different, we end up hurting ourselves.
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| 3 stars |
Big by Vashti Harrison May 2, 2023
This book "traces a child's journey to self-love and shows the power of words to both hurt and heal."
I turned 70 this year and realized it was time to stop hating my body and just love and take care of it. I was never big like this girl, but I have friends who had to deal with the same kinds of crap the child in this book does. Hopefully having this book in the world will make a difference for children like them.
I like this series from these two authors, but this book didn't do what I wanted it to. I was hoping for something that might help a six year understand more about saying sorry. Instead it's more about feeling sorry but not being able to say the words. It's still a great book that deals with what it's like when friends have an argument and how to make things better.
I really wanted to love this, but it didn't work for me. The art work is spectacular though.
CHAPTER BOOKS
I loved this book from the very first page. It's spooky, has a formidable girl hero, and is about very different kind of people becoming best friends.
My mind was spinning with questions from the get go.
"One night,
My mind was spinning with questions from the get go.
"One night,
in the middle of the night,
while everyone was asleep,
Otilla finally ran away."
As I read on, I was even more delighted. I couldn't wait to share it with my six year old grandkids.
I shared it with my granddaughter first. When we read that first page we wondered why she had to run away. Ada suggested that maybe she was running away from a residential school. (Kids know a lot these days.) A few times during our reading I had to tell her that everything would end up happily every after. After we finished it together, she picked it a number of times to read by herself. When her cousin finally arrived, he looked at the cover and was having nothing to do with the book. After a few days we convinced him to give it a try. Now he too wants his own copy of it.
while everyone was asleep,
Otilla finally ran away."
As I read on, I was even more delighted. I couldn't wait to share it with my six year old grandkids.
I shared it with my granddaughter first. When we read that first page we wondered why she had to run away. Ada suggested that maybe she was running away from a residential school. (Kids know a lot these days.) A few times during our reading I had to tell her that everything would end up happily every after. After we finished it together, she picked it a number of times to read by herself. When her cousin finally arrived, he looked at the cover and was having nothing to do with the book. After a few days we convinced him to give it a try. Now he too wants his own copy of it.
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| 4 stars |
Charlie & Mouse Are Magic by Laurel Snyder & Emily Hughes (Illustrations)
My grandkids and I enjoyed this sixth book in the series as much as we like the earlier ones. It's like a peak into the lives of two ordinary boys and their parents. Charlie and Mouse are delightful brothers whose antics keep us smiling. In this one Mouse creates a magic potion. It might even work!
GRAPHIC NOVELS
You can watch the film here.
I'm a Remy Lai fan so when I learned about this new book, I immediately ordered it from my library.
July Chen is easily overlooked and forgotten. She can also see ghosts. During hungry ghost month her school holds a festival and her life gets really messy. She meets someone who she thinks is a ghost, but it turns out Will is someone who is in a coma in a hospital and his spirit is travelling. He's the first person to remember her and her name.
The story gets truly complicated as we learn more about how the two of them are connected and that July is the reason Will keeps having near fatal accidents.
This book is perfect reading for this time of year. It has fascinating characters, well developed ghost mythology, is full of adventure. and the hungry ghosts are really creepy!
ADULT/YA NON FICTION
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| 4 stars |
The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug by Steffanie Strathdee &Thomas Patterson 🍁
The Good Virus was my comprehensive introduction to the world of phages. As soon as I finished it I started this.
I thought that the danger of antibiotic resistant bacteria (superbugs) was at least a decade in the future, but Steffanie Strathdee's memoir opened my eyes to the reality of it today.
On a vacation in Egypt, her husband picked up Acinetobacter baumanniione, one of the most dangerous of these. As he deteriorated, and nothing seemed to help she came to realize that he was dying and that he was, “quickly becoming the poster child for the dystopian future of the post-antibiotic age.”
Her search for a cure to save his life took her into the world of phages. She sent out emails to phage scientists who might help her find the right phage to destroy the bacteria. A number of them stepped up to search for a cure. Even when they managed to identify some that would work, meeting the FDA standards for emergency treatment turned out to be a whole new challenge.
Today the two scientists are working on research to turn phage therapy into a viable treatment for antibiotic resistant bacterial infection.
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| 5 stars |
Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation by Andrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson & Greg Rogers (Narrator) August 30, 2022 🍁
I thought I had read a lot of Canadian history from an Indigenous perspective, but after reading this book, I realized I had barely scratched the surface. What makes this one unique is that the authors provide a detailed account of how systemic racism has worked and continues to work here in Canada with regards to Indigenous people. They highlight specific historical individuals and show exactly how their actions led to policies that kept Indigenous people living in poverty. At the same time as they paint this large picture, they show what this means for ordinary people. By following the lives of different families in two communities who live across the river from one another: Rossburn, a town settled by Ukrainians; and the Waywayseecappo Indian reserve; they provide intimate examples of what this looked like in real life.
CURRENTLY
On Air with Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
Real Tigers by Mick Herron
UP NEXT
Take Back The Fight: Organizing Feminism for the Digital Age by Nora Loreto
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
#MustReadNonFiction 14/20
Canadian Authors 42/75
Indigenous Authors 20/20
Goodreads Reading Challenge: 159/200
