#IMWAYR September 6, 2021

 Hello everyone. It's #IMWAYR time again, when readers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to in the past week. 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. Whatever you are looking forward to in your next great read, these are fabulous places to start your search.

Happy Labour Day Everyone!

I'm sharing a couple of weeks worth of reading because life has been exceptionally busy with camping, canning, company, gardening and sewing. Whew!

Here's a little outfit I made for my youngest Granddaughter's first birthday. It needs to be ironed. (I bought the jeans.)

I feel like I am entering a reading slump, and yet I see lots of stuff on my list today. Maybe it's just that there is so much going on that when I sit down to read I am easily distracted and plagued with guilt over other things I think I should be doing. Maybe I'm just overwhelmed by the books piling up around the house. Maybe I'm just overwhelmed. I'm really glad to be retired and not having to think about teaching. I am especially thankful for audiobooks, since it seems to be the main way I read these days.  

I still have to get around to reading people's #MustReadUpdates, but hope to do that this coming week. That will be after the juicing of 300 pounds of tomatoes. I grew up drinking home made tomato juice. Store bought just can't compare. These days my partner and I get together with my aunt and uncle and make it. That 300 pounds will end up in about 100 jars of juice. I drink a quart a week all by myself. 

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.

RECENT BLOG POSTS

#MustReadIn2021 Fall Update

BOOKS READ WITH GRANDKIDS

My son and his family spent five days with us. My four year old granddaughter and I read a couple more Princess in Black titles as well as many favourite picture books. 

Her 16 month old little sister is a huge fan of books! She carried around Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night, and climbed up on whatever lap was available and made the owner of the lap read it to her. 

5 stars

The Princess in Black and the Mysterious Playdate by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale & LeUyen Pham (Illustrations)

Princess Magnolia and Princess Sneezewort plan a playdate, but end up battling a monster who has followed Magnolia into the city. There are so many wonderful messages in these books about being a strong girl. 

5 stars

The Princess in Black Takes a Vacation by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale & LeUyen Pham (Illustrations)

An exhausted Princess Magnolia leaves the Goat Avenger in charge of the goats and heads off to the beach for a well desired rest. Her down time is disturbed by a a sea monster. Luckily she brought her Princess in Black disguise with her. 

5 stars

Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night by Brianna Caplan Sayres & Christian Slade (Illustrator)

What I think of this book is irrelevant.
It is obviously a hit for the target audience and it's actually fun to read out loud - even if it is over and over and over and over again.

PICTURE BOOKS

4 stars

Nimoshom and His Bus by Penny M. Thomas & Karen Hibbard (Illustrator) 🍁

This is a sweet story about a Cree school bus driver and his interactions with the students on his bus. Cree vocabulary is integrated into the text.

5 stars

Cat Dog Dog: The Story of a Blended Family by Nelly Buchet & Andrea Zuill (Illustrator)

This book is perfect for beginning readers. The words, cat dog dog are just about the only text in the book. The story, in all its hilarious, heartwarming brilliance, is revealed in Andrea Zuill’s illustrations!

Dear Librarian by Lydia M. Sigwarth, Romina Galotta (Illustrations) & Ira Glass (Foreword)

“Libraries are the last safe, free, truly public space where people from all walks of life may encounter each other.” Philipp Schmidt
Based on a true story, a girl, whose family are homeless, finds a home and friendship in the local library. I love the photographs at the end that show the reunion between the girl and the librarian who made a difference in her life.
In my time as a teacher librarian, the library was regularly a refuge for all the misfits - children who, for whatever reason, didn’t fit an expectation of normal.

SHORT STORY 

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory by Martha Wells

I enjoyed this ‘behind the scenes’ look at the process of establishing Murderbot on Preservation Station. I also liked that it’s from Mensah’s point of view.

NOVELS

5 stars

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger & Kinsale Hueston (Narrator)

I could have sworn I wrote a review of this book on Goodreads, but when I went to retrieve it, it's not there. Grrr.

In a North America parallel to our own, this story integrates Indigenous reality with paranormal creatures. It's full of magic, monsters and Indigenous ways of knowing the world. Our hero, Elatsoe, can talk to the ghosts of dead creatures. She needs it, and the help of her friends as they try to find out how her cousin was murdered and who did it.

5 stars

Elvis, Me, and the Lemonade Stand Summer by Leslie Gentile 🍁

This book is beautifully written.
Truly Bateman is a character who took hold of me from the get go and won’t let go. This eleven year old is so authentic I’m wondering how she turned out.
She lives in an Indigenous owned trailer park with Clarice, her disgrace of a mother. Luckily, the owner, Andy El, takes her under her wing and looks after her.
In the summer of 1978, a year after Elvis Presley’s death, Andy El has Truly set up a lemonade stand. Truly doesn’t expect much to come of her summer venture, but on the first day, an Elvis impersonator shows up to rent one of the trailers. Truly is sure he is the real deal.
Her lemonade business turns out to be a success. The rest of the community steps up to buy her lemonade and contribute other things to sell. She makes friends with Andy El’s two grandchildren. Clarice is away most of the time with her new boyfriend. It’s the best summer of her life.
Truly tells everyone that she is saving up for a dog, but secretly plans to take the ferry to Vancouver, find her father, and bring him home to meet Elvis.
Before she gets a chance, something terrible happens.
I cried.
This book highlights the importance it taking a community to raise a child. It’s a book about stepping up and doing what is needed. It’s about love and finding the family you need.
It’s wonderful.

Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater & Will Paton (Narrator) 

I'm so far into Maggie Stiefvater's Dreamer Trilogy that the only way out is to continue reading. I listened to this twice, and I'm still not sure what is going on. It is one heck of a ride/read.
If I am completely honest, I must admit that I am addicted to Will Patton's narration. For me, his voice is The Raven Cycle and now this spin off series.
Ronan, Hennessy, and Bryde attempt to destroy the places that interfere with ley lines. This reminded me a lot of the characters in The Understory who ended up resorting to violence to save old growth trees and forests. 

4 stars

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden & Kathleen Gati (Narrator)

This retelling of a Russian folktale is intense! It examines what constitutes evil from a number of perspectives. It contrasts the reality of the Christian church with a people who live close to the land. After a new priest extorts people to abandon their belief in the old ways, the community begins to suffer.
Vasilisa Petrovna, whose mother died at her birth, can see and communicate with the old spirits and tries her best to honour and support them, but her offerings are not enough. A great evil, working through Orthodox Christianity, is stalking her village.

NON FICTION

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis, Cornel West (Foreword) & Frank Barat (Introduction)

I appreciated reading this collection of essays. Davis always stretches my thinking about the inequities in the world.
“[Prison] relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.”

CURRENTLY

The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat and Fierce by Angie Manfredi 

Bear Wants to Sing by Cary Fagan

The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All by Josh Ritter

We Two Alone by Jack Wang

UP NEXT

Flight of the Puffin by Ann Braden
Truly Tyler by Terri Libenson
Under Shifting Stars by Alexandra Latos

Rez Dogs by Joseph Bruchac

BLOG POSTS PLANNED FOR NEXT WEEK (Hopefully)

Bear Wants to Sing by Cary Fagan

The Great Bear by David A. Robertson

The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All by Josh Ritter

PROGRESS ON MY READING GOALS

#MustReadIn2021 25/25 

#MustReadNFIn2021 9/12

#MustReadPBIn2021 51/100 

Big Book Summer Challenge 9 

Books by Canadian Indigenous Authors 30/25

Books by Canadian Authors: 83/100

Canada Reads 2021 4/5 

Discworld Series 41/41

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 321 /333 

Barnaby by Andrea Curtis & Kass Reich (Illustrator)

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. It was released April 15, 2021 by Owlkids Books.

Barnaby, a beautiful blue budgie, lives with a nice lady who feeds him "sunflower seeds and sweet mangos." He spends most of his time in a golden cage with activities there to entertain him. When the nice lady gets home, he is released from his cage to fly about the house. Barnaby enjoys his treats and "nuzzling his feathers against her neck."

Life seems sublime, but then the nice lady brings home a yellow budgie to be a friend for Barnaby. Barnaby is not impressed. He acts out and is punished. When he is next allowed out of his cage, Barnaby flies out the window.

Out in the wide world Barnaby ends up lost. Luckily he is befriended by a flock of birds who show him how to survive in the wild. He learns to be less self centered and begins to see beauty in the world around him. 

Still, he did not forget his kind lady and continued to search for his old home.

At first I saw Barnaby's reaction to the new budgie as something akin to the jealousy of an older sibling when a new baby enters the family. On the surface, it certainly seems like that. The behaviour parallels are genuine. Like in families, after a few initial issues, older children learn to love their baby siblings.

The thing is, I had a hard time with the fact that Barnaby was in a cage. I can't imagine keeping a dog or cat inside a cage while I am at work. Even the guinea pig we once owned had free range of our house. My discomfort lingered days after I finished reading this book. No matter how gilded it was, or how kind the lady was, it was still a cage. What if Barnaby wasn't so much upset at having a new sibling, as he was at having this new bird also kept in a cage? Barnaby's escape, and the help he had from a community of birds to live with that freedom, feels like an important message to me about how we humans can help each other get out of our own cages. 

I liked this book a lot. I like that it made me think much more than I expected it to. I like that Barnaby grew and developed to become a better 'person' through his adventures. I like that the ending leaves me wondering what Barnaby is planning. I like that I'm left with all kinds of questions about what home and freedom mean. 

I loved Kass Reich's artwork. It is serenely beautiful. I can imagine hanging a print or two on my walls. I searched the internet to find out more about her process. Here is what I learned: "She does a majority of her work by hand using acrylic and watercolour paint, adding further details in Photoshop. She makes a point to preserve all the charming imperfections that come with illustration done by hand. she works primarily with graphite, colored pencils and gouache." She states, "I use graphite for work in grayscale and gouache paint layered with colored pencil for my work in color. The more texture the better!"

I hope all readers find this picture book as fascinating as I did. I sure wish I had a group of students to read this with.