#IMWAYR May 23, 2022

Welcome readers! 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. 

How are you all doing? In spite of the miserable cold weather, I managed to get the vegetable garden planted. When I was at the nursery I also picked up a few flowering plants for the other gardens too. You can never have too much colour in the yard. 

It was a strange reading week for me. I finished a brilliant novel by TJ Klune, and then couldn't get into anything after that. I started listening to a number of books and gave up. I started reading a few titles with my eyes, but couldn't get into them either. Thank goodness I finally found a book that I could connect too. 

Here in Canada we are celebrating the Victoria Day Weekend. It's been quiet since we stayed home and our children did the same. I'm off on Tuesday to Vancouver where I will visit my grandchildren for a couple of sleeps before heading off to my annual Women's Weekend. 

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.

NON FICTION PICTURE BOOKS 

5 stars

111 Trees: How One Village Celebrates the Birth of Every Girl by Rina Singh & Marianne Ferrer (Illustrations) January 1, 2020  🍁

Shortly after Sundar Paliwal became leader of his village in India, he lost one of his daughters. He decided to honour her by planting 111 trees. Then he convinced the villagers to plant 111 trees every time a girl child was born into the village. He brought in engineers from the city to organize an irrigation system to keep the trees alive in the desert climate. Aloe Vera was planted to protect the trees from termites and other pests. From these plants women created health products to sell. Within a short period of time the community's health and wealth grew. Today more than 25000 trees have been planted. The landscape and lives of girls have been radically altered. 

In addition, through a shared community investment strategy, Sundar Paliwal ensured that each girl would go to school and not be married off until she was 18. 

Rendered in watercolor, gouache, and graphite, Marianne Ferrer's illustrations are just gorgeous. 

Our world needs more people like Sundar Paliwal. 

GRAPHIC

4 stars

Roll With It by Lee Durfey-Lavoie & Veronica Agarwal October 5, 2021

Thanks to Max at Completely Full Bookshelf for introducing me to this title. 

It is a story about a young girl with anxiety/OCD issues. In spite of this, her new year in middle school starts out well. She makes a new friend, joins an after school club, and seems to be settling in well. Things at home are mostly good. 

On the down side, one of her sisters might be leaving home, and there seems to be some kind of low crawling creature/monster lurking outside the school. As her anxiety increases, she starts to have trouble finishing homework. 

Maggie is controlled by a kind of magical thinking. Upon arriving home from school she engages in a ritual of switching the lights on and off. She carries a 20 sided die with her and rolls it continuously to help her make decisions. Her parents suggest she see a therapist, but despite the evidence, Maggie insists she is fine. By the end of the book, she realizes she needs help and goes to see one 

I liked a lot about this book. I liked that we see how therapy helped Maggie. I liked the inclusion of the role playing game. It took me back to the days when my sons were engrossed in Dungeons and Dragons. (They still play, but now that they are fathers, less often.) I appreciated the incidental diversity in the characters. I also liked the information in the back matter about how the book was developed. 

ADULT NOVELS 

5 stars

Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune & Kirt Graves (Narrator) September 21, 2021

What happens when a not very nice man dies unexpectedly and doesn't want to move on into the afterlife? Read this and discover one possibility: a possibility full of hilarity, sweetness, rehabilitation and romance. 
I did not want this book to end.
I am now an unapologetic fan of T.J. Klune. 

While this is an adult novel, I would happily include it in a high school library. 

ADULT NON FICTION

5 stars

Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion, Hilton Als & Kimberly Farr (Narrator) January 26, 2021

I have long been a fan of Joan Didion, but until listening to this collection of essays from her earlier life, had almost forgotten why. That woman could write! Didion made everything she wrote about seem fascinating. She challenges her readers to reexamine our own perceptions of subjects she addressed. Her essay on the media (written in 1968) feels scarily prescient for where we are today. 
Also, the introduction by Hilton Als is a brilliant overview of her life.

4 stars

Okanagan Geology South by Murray A. Roed and Robert J. Fulton (Editors) October 2017  🍁

I asked my partner a question about what mountain range we are part of, and he handed me this book. I finished it in one sitting. I suspect that people not acquainted with the area would not be as fascinated as I was to read about the area's geological history and existing features. Being able to make personal connections to the different areas written about made it all come alive. My one quibble about this book is that it was difficult to keep track of all the figures mentioned in the text. I also wish the index was more detailed. 

CURRENTLY

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro & Sara Siu (Narrator)

Cress Watercress by Gregory Maguire

UP NEXT 

Cold by Mariko Tamaki

An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives by Matt Richtel

READING GOALS

#MustReadFiction 11/24 

#MustReadNonFiction 8/18 

Canadian Authors 29/100

Canada Reads shortlist 5/5 

Indigenous Authors 11/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 120 /250

#IMWAYR November 9, 2020

Hello out there. 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.

Congratulations to all my American friends on a successful election. We celebrate with you, not only the first Black woman vice president, the first woman vice president! The days ahead might be rocky and there is a lot of work ahead to unity your fractured country, but for now we are revelling in the victory of democracy in your country. You have returned hope to many of us in the rest of the world. 

I'm working hard to finish up a quilt for my son and daughter in law. Using a quilt as you go process, I'm turning a Piet Mondrian painting into a reversible quilt. I'm now putting all the sections together. It's a lot of hand sewing for the final seam in each sashing. I'm getting a sense of what it will look like finished and am liking it more and more. I will post pictures next week.

 Titles with a 🍁 indicate this is a Canadian Author and or Illustrator. 

Clicking on the title will take you to the Goodreads page of the book. 

RECENT BLOG POSTS

PICTURE BOOKS

My Hair is Beautiful by Shauntay Grant 🍁

This board book highlights different hairdos of black children. The last page has an embedded mirror for readers to look at themselves. I might not be the target audience, but looking at the faces of these happy toddlers brought joy into my heart. Shauntay Grant is the award winning Canadian author of Africville and Up Home.

One Mean Ant by Arthur Yorinks, Sergio Ruzzier (Goodreads Author) (Illustrations)

I am trying to get on top of this series. What a wacky and wonderful collaboration between Arthur Yorinks and Sergio Ruzzier. When Mean Ant ends up lost in the middle of the desert and asks, "Where the jalapeño am I?, I started laughing and chuckled all the way through to the end. I love the hilarious idioms and play on words. The comical interactions between the ant and the fly are delightful. If only my library had the next one.

NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS

I'm Trying to Love Rocks by Bethany Barton

This humorous book introduces young readers to the many aspects of studying geology. I sure wish it had been around when I was teaching this topic. If I was still in the library I would purchase 2 copies. 

Bethany Barton's earlier book, I'm Trying to Love Spiders, helped me come to some kind of truce with those creatures. While people might not have pathological fears to overcome with regards to rocks, this book is certain to make them passionate about learning more about them. 

It is a brilliant introduction for older readers ready for a deeper study these aspects. I'm pretty sure that my four year old grandson, who loves rocks, will love this.

DISCWORLD NOVELS

Maskerade by Terry Pratchett

This novel is both a murder mystery and parody of opera. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Og head off to Ankh-Morpork for a couple of reasons. The first is to deal with a shady publisher who has cheated Nanny Og. The second is to see if they can recruit Agnes Nit into their coven since Magrat Garlick has gone off and married the King of Lancre. Agnes knows their purpose, but is almost content at the opera house as a member of the chorus. Not only is the opera house haunted, the ghost has started murdering people. 
This might be one of the most hilarious novels in the series.  

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett & Nigel Planer (Narrator)

"Terry Pratchett pastiches the traditions of vampire literature" with hilarious results. When a group of modernized Vampires take over Lancre Castle, things look very dire indeed. Even the powerful Granny Weatherwax seems incapable of dealing with them. However, Granny's strength should never be underestimated. With the help of Brother Oats, the new priest, she is a force even Vampires shouldn't try to mess with.

NONFICTION

Waiting for First Light by Roméo Dallaire 🍁

This is a powerful look at what it means to have PTSD. Roméo Dallaire, a retired three star Canadian general and retired Senator, writes about the aftermath of his time in Rwanda. As leader of the peacekeeping troops there, he was unable to stop the genocide of the Tutsi and other people in 1994.

What Delaire makes clear in this book is that war is not what it once was: “The soldiers had changed, as had war itself: it was no longer a matter of superpowers meeting each other on the field of battle, but the new world disorder. We were Cold War warriors ready to fight huge armoured forces in Central Europe, hoping that these small, inter-state kerfuffles were just a passing phase. But we were no longer facing classic war, or even classic peacekeeping: in this new style of warfare civilians, even women and children, are not only on the front line, they are the front line. The Somalia mission was able to degenerate the way it did because our training had not adapted to these new realities.”

Not only does this book reveal how he deals with his own PTSD, it chronicles the ways he fought, and continues to fight for help for soldiers returning from recent conflict. In Canada, “We have lost more veterans to suicide during and since our mission in Afghanistan than we did in our thirteen years of combat there.”

If we truly claim to honor our soldiers and others who deal with traumatic experiences (police, ambulance, firefighters etc) then it is our duty to ensure that they are well cared for, emotionally, physically, and financially when they can no longer serve.

This is a challenging emotional read. I wept a number of times. 

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson & Robin Miles (Narrator) 

This is a powerful read that looks at America through the lens of a caste system. Isabel Wilkerson compares the USA to India and Nazi Germany. (Did you know that the German Nuremberg Laws were based on the segregation laws of the Southern states?) There are sections in this book I found challenging to read. I took breaks and went back to it because essentially it is bearing witness to historic atrocities.  
I read and finished this while Americans and the world waited for the results of the 2020 US election results. While I am happy with the results, after reading this, I'm also not surprised that 70 million people, almost all of them white, (five million more than last time) voted for that orange menace. 

I learned a lot from this book. I can't help but integrate the role global unfettered capitalism has in exacerbating the deep rooted issues Wilkerson identified here.

An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff, Alex Tresniowski & Pam Ward (Narrator)

I mostly enjoyed this feel good story. I appreciated the author's honesty and enjoyed reading about her early life. It was in her interactions with Maurice that I became uncomfortable. I don't think she fully grasped the responsibility she took on when she befriended this young boy. She acknowledges that it benefited her as much as him, but at the same time, once she found the man of her dreams, she very nearly abandoned him. 

I was glad that the afterward includes a letter from Maurice sharing his perspective of their relationship. In spite of my misgivings, I am glad that these two disparate people met.

CURRENTLY 

I've started Ghosts by David A Robertson. I'm listening to Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett. 

UP NEXT 

My next audiobook will be Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi. I'm hoping to get to Class Act by Jerry Craft and Bloom by Kenneth Oppel.  

PROGRESS ON MY READING GOALS 

#MustReadIn2020: 21/25 

#MustReadNFIn2020: 10/12 

Books by Canadian Indigenous Authors: 21/25 one in progress

Books by Canadian Authors: 121/100 

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 291/333