Showing posts with label Spies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spies. Show all posts

#IMWAYR February 19, 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. Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. These are fabulous places to start your search for what to read next.


Happy Family Day to everyone! Here in British Columbia, it's a day off. I hope you all find time to spend with the ones dear to you.
 
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.

FICTION PICTURE BOOKS


"Six people from different corners of the world celebrate the history, culture, and beauty behind their names."
This summary from my library's website tells nothing about how gorgeous and important this book is. I struggled with the pronunciation of many of the names. It's a good thing Joanna Ho shares how to say them so people like me can practice them before reading the book to a group of students. 



A young boy wakes up to discover snow outside. As he waits to go out and play in it, he imagines himself going through the steps to build a perfect snowman. At last he is dressed and heads off to start. Things don't go as planned, but in the end he realizes that his creation is good enough. 
As I read this book, especially the step by step snowman building process, I wished I was still teaching so I could use it as mentor text for procedural writing. 


This beautifully illustrated book taught me things I didn't know about the moon and how it influences different creatures on our planet. 

Henry likes routines. He likes things to stay the same. He likes to know what is going to happen when. So when their regular class schedule is disrupted and share time is switched to a different time to make space for a parade, he isn't happy. 
Thankfully, Henry finds a way to participate in the parade on his own terms. 
 
Henry's anxiety ratchets up as the week progresses and the day of change draws nearer. Bailey and Song show us how his dread affects him at a physical level. He has volcanoes in his stomach and not even his friend Katie can help him feel better. 
I appreciate the diversity of Henry's classroom. I can't recommend this book enough!

GRAPHIC NOVELS

This is is a graphic adaptation of the book by the same name. It's a brilliant retelling of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, who kept books alive while living at Auschwitz. The artwork is just brilliant.
I haven't read the original book, so I can't compare the two versions of the story. I really appreciated this one. Even though I have read many other narratives about the camps, I had no idea that the Nazi's kept a separate compound of Jewish prisoners to trick the Red Cross into thinking that all were being treated fairly. 


Milo and his family have moved into a new house. He's busy exploring when his mother asks him to check the basement for his baby sister's missing pick sock that their grandmother knitted.
To be honest, I was terrified along with Milo when he first went down those dark stairs. Then he sees a rat and freaks out for a bit. Soon he discovers a key and a doorway into a new room. He spies the rat with the sock and takes off after it. In the process he discovers it is a "really big basement!" It has multiple levels full of all kinds of treasures as well as a few horrors. He meets and befriends some strange creatures in this underground world. Together they help him search for the sock. One of those horrors is a slimy green gobbler that devours whoever it comes across. When it eats his new friends, he has to come up with a way to rescue them.
This is a brilliant yarn. (pun intended) I couldn't stop flipping through the pages to see what Milo would discover next. The levels are full of stunning replicas of famous artwork. The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous.

ADULT/YA FICTION


When Dr. Sophie de Greer, a member of a government think tank goes missing, Anthony Sparrow, a bureaucrat close to the Prime Minister, accuses MI5 of disappearing her. Dianna Taverner, first desk of the agency, is their prime suspect. Meanwhile, the denizens of Slough House may or may not know where she is. 
Confusion, mayhem, treachery, and the usual backstabbing shenanigans ensue. 
I am now almost caught up in Mick Herron's Slough House series. I'm waiting for number 7, and then will have to wait along with everyone else for the next book to be published.


To be completely honest, I did not read all of this book. I don't do thrillers well, and when I came to the part where Pippa (the teen protagonist) figured out who the murderer was, I was too terrified to listen any more. I skipped to the end of the book to see how it all turned out. I do have a reserve on a text version of it so I can skim through the harrowing pages. 
Aside from that, I was completely invested in this debut novel. 
Pippa, who plans to become an investigative journalist, decides to examine a five year old murder for her final high school project. As she digs into the case she discovers that Andie Bell, the murder victim, wasn't the innocent she was purported to be. She discovers that many people close to her are keeping dangerous secrets, and that lies, racism, and corruption flourish under the town's patina of wholesomeness. I adored Pippa, her family, her friends, and her budding romance with Ravi, brother to the alleged murderer. 


This was a delightful respite following the previous novel. It's a mostly cozy historical mystery set in Victorian England. Violet and her sixteen year old half sister, Sephora, live with their Aunt Adelia. When she heads off to the continent with a new beau, she leaves Violet responsible for answering the Dear Miss Hermoine letters for her published advice column. Luckily Bunty, their aunt's housekeeper is there to help her.
One of the letters troubles Violet so she heads off to the village of Willingdale to meet the author, Ivy Armstrong. She arrives in the village just in time to attend Ivy's funeral. Posing as a school friend, Violet determines that Ivy's death was neither accident nor suicide and sets out to uncover who murdered her. There are plenty of suspects.
Meanwhile, Sephora is having a clandestine relationship with a secret beau. When he disappears she sets off into dangerous part of London to find him.
The story is told from the perspectives of the two sisters. Whereas Violet is educated and studious, Sephora is a social butterfly. At first their two narratives seem unrelated, but eventually they weave together. 
Even though this has a number of hair raising episodes, it's also full of humour. I'm looking forward to reading the next in the series. 

I am a huge fan of fairy tales of any kind. I tell you this so you know I was predisposed to enjoy this, and I did. 
Emily Wilde is a adjunct professor at Cambridge who specializes in dryadology -  faerie folklore. She travels to the Scandinavian country of Ljosland to be the first person to document the local faeries and complete her Encyclopaedia of these creatures.
She doesn't get off to a good start with the local townspeople of Hrafnsvik. (Emily comes across as someone who might be on the autistic spectrum, since as brilliant as she is, she doesn't do social interaction well.) Then one of her colleagues, the handsome and charming Wendell Bambleby, shows up and offers to help. He is much more than he first seems. The two of them seem like opposites so you know romance is in the offing. 
What I like most about this book is the dark faerie lore and how it is integrated into the plot. It is full of changelings, enchantments, and all kinds of nasty faerie shenanigans.  
While Emily deals competently with many aspects of faerie folk, she also ends up over her head. As experienced as she is, she ends up caught in her own kind of fairy tale nightmare and has to be rescued by Bambleby and the rest of the townsfolk. 
I'm not happy with women needing rescue by men, but I'm still  planning on reading the sequel. 

CURRENTLY
 
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
Stazy and the Magic List by Nancy Hundal October 15, 2023  🍁
Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline  🍁

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

The Faint of Heart by Kerilynn Wilson June 13, 2023
Besties Work It Out by Kayla Miller

READING GOALS 

#MustRead2024 3/25 one on the go

NonFiction 4/24 one on the go

Canadian Authors 5/50 two on the go

Indigenous Authors 2/25 one on the go

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 29/200 
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#IMWAYR January 29th, 2024

 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.

Winter finally arrived and for two weeks we had snow and unusually cold weather. Then it warmed up. One day we had snow all over the ground and by the next afternoon it was almost gone. Now we have low cloud, fog, and rain. I'm not complaining. We need the moisture.
According to Goodreads, I am two books behind schedule. I figure it's a small miracle that I'm only this far behind. Between having a houseguest for a week, and then coming down with a sinus infection, it's amazing I managed to read at all.
Because of the sinus infection I missed a quilting workshop, but luckily had all the information already so I just sewed on my own at home. The workshop taught a relatively easy strategy for creating bargello quilts. I made two cushion covers instead of a quilt. Now that they are finished, it looks like we need a new sofa. 


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.

PICTURE BOOKS

5 stars

NO! Said Custard the Squirrel by Sergio Ruzzier September 6, 2022

Don't ask me what this book is all about because I'm still trying to figure it out. I really wish my grandkids were here so I could read it to them and we could talk about what they think. 
Custard the Squirrel looks a lot like a duck, but when asked all kinds of questions about his identity by a little rat in a diaper, he consistently replies no. 
Is this a celebration of being who you truly are? Maybe. 

MIDDLE GRADE NOVELS

4 stars

The Portal Keeper The Misewa Saga #4 by David Alexander Robertson October 10, 2023  🍁

"Morgan and Eli are Indigenous children who discover a portal at their foster home to another world, Askī; there they discover talking animal beings who connect them to traditional ways, as well as help them deal with the challenges in the real world. A fantasy for readers aged ten and up, the Misewa Saga (“misewa” is Cree for “all that is”) series reflects stories of the sky and the constellations held within its great canvas."
 Eli, Morgan, and her friend, Emily have located another portal into Aski. They end up in World's End,  a different place than usual, and discover that something terrible is happening to the animal people there. Back in their own world they are horrified to discover what is going on and must come up with a way to save them. 
This is my favourite series by Robertson. I like that we have two queer characters, but it's not all there is. I like the closeness of the two foster children. I like that Eli is coming into his own kind of super power. 

4 stars

The Oceans Between Stars Chronicle of the Dark Star #2 by Kevin Emerson & Kevin T. Collins (Narrator) February 13, 2018

I read the first in this series ages ago and finally got around to reading the next one.
Liam and Phoebe are two teens who barely escaped with their lives when Mars, the planet they were living on, exploded. They are travelling in stasis with JEFF, their panda shaped robotic  assistant, as they try to catch up to the main ship and reunite with their parents. When they finally arrive, they discover their family's starliner has been destroyed.
Phoebe has secrets of her own. In the prelude we learn that her real name is Xela and her family ended up on Mars when their planet of Telos was destroyed in a ball of fire by humans. She and her people want vengeance. At the same time, she and Liam have become close friends. He accepts her when she finally reveals her true self. Unfortunately she is still keeping some dangerous secrets.
I liked so much about this book. I appreciate that nothing about space and time travel is dumbed down for younger readers. I appreciate the connection between what happened on Telos and colonialism here on our real world. It feels realistic that the two children who want to end the conflict between their two peoples, are mostly ignored by the adults around them. 
If I didn't already have so many books to read, I would probably have started on the final book in the trilogy right away. 

MIDDLE GRADE GRAPHIC NOVELS


This is a profound novel about losing a friend. When a member of close knit group of girls dies suddenly, the remaining girls deal with grief in different ways.
The story is based on the death of one of the authors’ friends. It’s set in the same town as where they grew up. I like that each character is based on one of the local animals of the area. 

YA/ADULT GRAPHIC NOVELS

5 stars

In Limbo by Deb J.J. Lee March 7, 2023

In this gorgeous, debut graphic memoir, Lee shares her story of growing up Korean in America. It's a painful story of trying to fit into a world where you are an outsider.  While her mother was supportive of her desire to create art, she was prone to violence and physically abused Lee. Her father let it happen. As her close friend began to distance herself she became increasingly insecure and depressed. By the time she graduated from high school, she had attempted suicide twice. 


For me, this Canada Reads title was a window into a world I scarcely new existed. It's a compelling narrative that reads like a collection of short stories with the same main character. It starts with a young Congolese  girl, Loli, shaving her head in order to pass a boy so she can get into Canada. This sets the stage for a gritty exploration of gender, sexualization of girls and women, mental health, and poverty. It's also a story of resilience and overcoming. It isn't for the faint of heart. 


This continues the story of John Bachelor, a character first introduced in the novella, The List. His many screwups have left him in financial straights. When a couple of Dogs (the service's internal security division) from MI5 rough him up and tell him to find one of the retired spies he's supposed to be minding, he thinks he might be able to find his way back into the good graces of the agencies leader. He's wrong of course, but the machinations of all the actors makes for a great read.

CURRENTLY

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon

Almost Brown: A Mixed-Race Family Memoir by Charlotte Gill

UP NEXT (MAYBE)

Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice

READING GOALS 

#MustRead2024 2/25 one on the go

NonFiction 1/25 one on the go

Canadian Authors 3/50

Indigenous Authors 1/25 

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 13/200 
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#IMWAYR April 25, 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? My sinus infection has disappeared, I'm on my last antibiotics and feeling almost human again. 

Despite the cooler than usual weather, I've been out working in the garden attempting to rid the vegetable patch of wild geranium. (Thank goodness audiobooks keep me entertained while I am out mucking in the dirt.) I thought I had it almost finished and then we had a few days of rain. When I went out today I noticed hundreds, if not thousands, of sprouting geranium seedlings. They are amazingly resilient plants. I might even admire them if they were not trying to invade my garden.

On Sunday I realized that I was supposed to be posting a MustReadIn2022 update post for everyone to link to. I have been working on it and promise it will be ready to connect to by the end of the day on April 25th. 


I am content to have continued with the April Poem a Day writing challenge. I almost missed one day but ended up writing late into the evening. 

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.

PICTURE BOOKS 


Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle by Nina LaCour & Kaylani Juanita (Illustrator) March 29, 2022

This exquisitely illustrated book shows us a young girl missing one of her mothers who is away on a work trip. From the returning of blueberries at the grocery store, to laying prostrate on the floor, her sadness is brilliantly revealed in the artwork.


This is a powerfully emotional book.
River, a young Indigenous girl, is recovering from some kind of illness that is never identified. I suspect it might be cancer of some kind since there is a remark about her hair growing again. The family is going to a Powwow for the first time since she was sick.
River is a jingle dancer, but this year, as much as she would like to, she has no energy and is unable to participate. In spite of this, she understands that next year she will dance again.
The back matter is full of additional information about powwows. I especially appreciated the information on the history and purpose of jingle dancing.


I am so happy that this book is in the world. We need more like this - books that stretch our expectations for what boys and girls can do.

GRAPHIC


The 'mean time' is when Stuntboy's parents are fighting. They are fighting a lot. Readers understand that they are separating/divorcing, but Stuntboy doesn't realize this at first.
I suspect that a lot of children will see themselves in Stuntboy. I suspect that many adults will see themselves in his parents. For the rest of us, this book provides a window into divorce from one child's perspective.
My only complaint is that this book ends on cliffhanger.

NOVELS 


This coming of age novel addresses body image and mental health issues. It is full of complex characters you believe are real and connect to on an emotional level. It is my favourite kind of book.
Darius is half Persian and half American. His family travels to Iran where he meets his grandparents and extended Iranian family for the first time. While there he makes his first real friend, Sohrab.
Initially Darius and his father seem to be in perpetual conflict. The two have much in common since Darius has inherited the genetics for depression from his father. Things come to head between the two of them in Iran and the source of the antagonism is revealed.


I love reading about the adventures of this diverse group of teen spies. Each one of them has their own special skills. In this novel they end up travelling to San Francisco and tracking down a mole in MI6.
I might be a little bit addicted to this series.

ADULT NOVELS 


This is a brilliant debut novel.
If Eddie Toma was a real person, he would have been just a few years older than me. Children just like him grew up in the same part of the world as I did. I suppose it's no wonder I connected so profoundly to this character.
Through Eddie, Brian Thomas Isaac shows us what life was like for young indigenous children in the 1950s and 60s. Eddie has to contend with poverty, racism, betrayal and violence.
If you are interested in dystopian fiction, you don't have to read futuristic novels. Just read the history of Indigenous people in Canada and the USA. It doesn't get much more dystopian than that.
This could be a YA or an adult read. 

4 stars

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, Lesley Manville (Narrator) & Marian Keyes (Narrator) September 03, 2020

I enjoyed this British cosy mystery. It's one of those stories that in spite of having a plot full of twists, turns and red herrings, it's loaded with gentle humour. Mostly though, it's really all about the characters. They are just brilliant: rich and complex with fascinating histories, like older folks you could meet anywhere. The only difference is that the four members of the club are fascinated by murder.

CURRENTLY
  • The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber & David Wengrow
  • Ain't Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds & Jason Griffin (Illustrations)
  • A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger, Darcie
UP NEXT 
  • Five Little Indians by Michelle Good 
  • Bobbi Lee, Indian Rebel by Lee Maracle
READING GOALS

#MustReadFiction 10/24 one in progress

#MustReadNonFiction 5/18 one in progress

Canadian Authors 25/100

Canada Reads shortlist 5/5 

Indigenous Authors 10/25 one in progress

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 97/250
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