#IMWAYR JULY 10, 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. 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.

My life is very busy these days. Picking raspberries and trying to keep the weeds under control in the garden takes at least two to three hours a day. In spite of this, I've managed to get some creative projects completed! 

Thank goodness for audiobooks!

Here are two baby quilts my sister and I finished for the most recent babies in the extended family. 



I started this little bird in a workshop at the end of June and finished it the next day. I was inspired by the humble little house sparrows who live outside my kitchen window. 



I made this rug for my brother who shares a birthday with me. 


These days I am in the middle of taking apart the recliner that we inherited from my husband's parents. I'm hoping planning to reupholster it.  

Last weekend,  our sons and their children came for a four sleep visit. It was gloriously exhausting. I read all kinds of books with them, but didn't keep track. It was delightful to see my granddaughter, who just turned six, reading (all by herself) the Unicorn Diary series by Rebecca Elliott that we got her for her birthday. 
 
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.

MOST RECENT BLOG POST

FREE VERSE FRIDAY #7 JULY - HOT


CHILDREN'S NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS


This is a true story of young girls at residential school. While the horrors of the school are there, this focuses more on how their lives at home and what they learned there, afforded them with resilience and skills that enabled them to survive the school. In this case, the girls used the sewing skills they learned at home to sew secret pockets into their uniforms. With them they were able to pilfer food from the kitchen to feed themselves and younger children. 

GRAPHIC NOVELS


This book, right from the first page, was a time warp for me. In September of 1970 I started my last year of high school. The years dropped away as I became immersed in this story. We had girl basketball and volleyball teams when I was in high school, but they didn't get nearly the status or attendance as the boys teams.
Matt Tavares' "graphic novel dramatizes the historic struggle for gender equality in high school sports." It's based on a true story of a girls basketball team in Indiana. He tells the story of the Wilkins Regional High School girls’ basketball team. In 1975, the rookie team, without any support from the school, ended up winning the first state championship. Thanks to Linda Bai for introducing me to this wonderful book. While girl/women's leagues have come a long way, they still don't have the same stature as boys/men sports - even when they play better games. 

MIDDLE GRADE FICTION


I thought this would be more of a tear jerker than it ended up being, but it still isn't easy to read. It is the story of Reha, a young girl who's mother ends up with Leukemia. It's also much more than this. It's the story of a daughter of Southeast Asian immigrants trying to make her own way while she straddles being American on the one hand, and maintaining her cultural roots on the other. It's a tale many immigrant children will relate to. 

ADULT/YA FICTION


I wanted to love this more than I did. I listened to it while I was out working in the garden or taking my recliner apart. It's full of excitement and danger. Sometimes I was totally engaged in Sunny and her friends magical adventures, but other times I couldn't stay focused. 


Essentially, this is  the story of a father and teenage daughter finding connection and healing while on the land. When the father/grandfather dies, the two of them travel to the bush to find his old trapline and what remains of the house he grew up in. It's a journey fraught with danger and near disaster. 
I don't have anxiety issues, but it's obvious that Robertson is intimately acquainted with them. 

5 stars

Provenance (Imperial Radch #4) by Ann Leckie & Adjoa Andoh (Narrator) September 26, 2017

I was so excited to find another book in Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series! It turned out to be a book set in that world, rather than a continuation of the stories of the characters in the the first three books. I didn't really care. I was just happy to be there. Ingrid/Ingray, is a fascinating protagonist full of contradictions. In a difficult situation, it's a toss up whether she will cry, or act decisively. She is liable to do both. She and her brother are adopted. Both of them are in competition for their mother's affection and inheritance. Ingrid comes up with an audacious plan to free a thief from a prison planet. Not only does it all go wrong from the start, she finds herself mixed up in messy political intrigue and machinations. 
 
ADULT NON FICTION


This was an interesting and amusing look at how our digestive system works. The artwork by Jill Enders helps to make the science easier to grasp. I appreciated learning more about the multitude of bacteria that make us who we are. 


I don't say this very often about a nonfiction title, but I didn't want this book to end. Not only is it fascinating, Yong's writing is a pleasure to read (or in this case, listen to.)
I have been thinking about living in a democracy of all living things but not really understanding what this might mean. Ed Yong, by helping us understand the concept of umwelt, and what this means for different species, has enabled me to broaden my understanding of what it entails. At the end of the book he shows us how our activities can harm and or destroy different kinds of animals because we are so unaware of what their worlds are like.

CURRENTLY

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson 

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

UP NEXT 

Leeva at Last by Sara Pennypacker

Patient Zero by Lydia Kang

READING GOALS 

#MustReadFiction 12/24 one in progress

#MustReadNonFiction 9/20 one in progress

Canadian Authors 25/75 

Indigenous Authors 11/20 

Big Books Summer 2023 - 5 one in progress

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 99/200 


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FREE VERSE FRIDAY #7 JULY - HOT

I'm joining Beverly A Baird, Linda Schueler and others in a "year long poetry practice – on the first Friday of each Month," when they, and anyone else who joins, will be writing a poem based on the theme of the month and a photo taken relating to that theme.

You can find out more about this here.

June was cooler than usual. I longed for the heat, even though I know that when it comes I will moan about that. Today's poem is a reminiscence on the hot, dry, summers of my youth. In the Southern Okanagan Valley here in BC, we live in a semi desert. In summer especially, rain is a rare and special treat! 



Hot

I long for the hot
humid afternoons
of my youth,
hanging out with cousins
at granny’s house

waiting,
watching 
dark clouds
congregate on the horizon

the sky above us
looming,
ominous,
thrilling,

a portent of 
thunder,
lightning,
and rain,

rain for dancing in


The first time I participated, I didn't get the photograph first bit. I let the theme percolate throughout the month before posting and the poem more or less wrote itself. When I realized my mistake, I sent a half decent draft of it to my partner, Randy Rotheisler, and a friend, Ron Peace, both gifted photographers, asking for images to accompany it. We have continued this process. 
Both have brilliantly captured the nostalgia of times gone by in today's poem. 
In case you are interested, both these photographs can be purchased from the photographers. Let me know if you want their contact information. 

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#IMWAYR June 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. 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.

My husband and I went out for curry dinner last night to celebrate Father's day. We brought home enough leftovers for a couple more meals. Hope all the dads out there had a wonderful day. 

What the heck happened to summer? It was so cold yesterday that I finally gave up and turned on the furnace! It was only 9°c this morning! The good thing about this weather is that I have been able to get the garden weeded. I've been harvesting cucumbers and radishes and yesterday I picked the first zucchini. The raspberries are coming on and wow are they delicious! 

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.

CHILDREN'S NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS

4 stars

Mary Wears What She Wants by Keith Negley January 29, 2019

Mary Walker was an exceptional woman who wore whatever she wanted. She was an abolitionist, prohibitionist, prisoner of war and surgeon, and the only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor.
I enjoyed reading about her but wish more people had accepted women and girl's right to wear long pants before I went to school in the 1960's.


I was already a gushing fan of Isobel Greenberg's graphic novels and illustration, so I was predestined to love this feminist, graphic retelling of the myth of Gaia. I wish so much that I was still working in the library so I could purchase this book and share it with readers.
The first part of the book introduces readers to the different gods and goddesses with both an illustration and a write up. The rest of the book is the story of these characters told from Gaia's perspective.
I am looking forward to reading more work by this duo. 

MIDDLE GRADE FICTION
Miriam Brockman and her family have moved to a small town to run, what they soon discover to be, a very run down motel. Miriam is left looking after her little brother while the family is busy working to get it halfway decent for guests. In spite of this, Miriam makes friends with Kate, whose grandmother owns the diner next door. She also connects with Maria, the young adult housekeeper who works at the inn.
When it looks like both the diner and the motel are going to fail, Miriam and Kate come up with a plan to save them all. Whether or not it is ethical, no matter how successful it becomes, is an issue neither of the girls really wants to deal with.
There are other side issues - Miriam is terrified of water but her uncle, who is helping out at the inn until school starts in September, is helping her learn to swim. There are some differences between Miriam's Jewish family and the Christian community, but mostly they adopt a few of each other's foods and get along. When antisemitism raises it's head, and a near tragedy occurs, the family are supported by the rest of the community.

5 stars

Spell Sweeper by Lee Edward Födi & Sandy Rustin (Narrator) November 30, 2021 🍁

I have been meaning to read some Lee Edward Födi for ages. Now I wish I hadn't waited so darn long.
Cara Moone attends a prestigious school for wizards - but her family can't know what they do because magic is kept a secret from ordinary people. Unfortunately Cara failed the wizard aptitude test and is stuck in the spell sweeper department. She and her mates are left to clean up residual dust, leftover when their classmates and teachers perform magic. Because of her job, she's on the spot when a monster shows up  and reveals a rift in the fabric of magic. To fix the problem, Cara ends up working with her arch enemy, Harlee Wu, to stop the people causing it. 
This book is full of important messages for ordinary, non wizardly people about accepting and valuing ourselves for who we are. It highlights how important it is to challenge our biases and assumptions about other people and species. 
This was a really good read. I sure hope that this is not the end of Cara Moone's story. 


When her brother, Devin, heads off to university, Riley Henderson is bereft and bewildered. He took care of everything for her, including introducing her to dungeons and dragons. Over time Riley finally makes new friends and starts up a new D&D group. When her brother drops out of school and returns home, he wants things to go back as they were, but Riley and her mother have learned to cope just fine without him. Riley realizes that it's time for her to be the one to look after her brother.
I loved the relationships between Riley and her friends. I loved how they helped and supported one another.

4 stars

The Island of Monsters (Spirit Hunters #2) by Ellen Oh & Amielynn Abellera (Narrator)

This is about the level of horror I can manage. It begins with a spirit eating demon devouring Harper Raine's ghostly friends. Working with her grandmother they manage to find and destroy it. Then when the family is on vacation on a tropical island, they come upon a nest of the creatures. They are devouring the souls of living people and have marked her little brother. Harper's grandmother can't come to help her, so it's up to her to save him and destroy these evil creatures. 

The first book in this series, Ancillary Justice, is the only book to have won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and the Arthur C. Clark Award.

I adored this book even more than the first. 
It is the second in the Imperial Radch Series, staring Breq, a soldier who used to be a warship. Breq is now captain of her own ship. She ends up at Athoek Station where her goal is to protect the family of a lieutenant she once knew and was forced to kill.
The Rache are a nongendered culture. What we would call feminine pronouns are used for everyone. 
"Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy has become one of the new classics of science fiction. Beautifully written and forward thinking, it does what good science fiction does best, taking readers to bold new worlds with plenty of explosions along the way." 

5 stars

Ancillary Mercy (Imperial Radch #3) by Ann Leckie  & Adjoa Andoh (Narrator) October 6, 2015

I downloaded this book as soon as I finished the second, but forced myself to  listen to other audiobooks that would expire first. I finished one of those, but couldn't wait any longer. I just had to start listening to this one. I needed to be back in Ann Leckie's world. I kind of wish I never had to leave it. I adore her multidimensional characters. I relish the way my mind was bent trying to grasp what it would be like to be both an individual and part of a unit of cognitively connected mind - and what it would be like to lose that connection. I love that this book takes a deep look at what it means to be human, to have personhood, to what Leckie calls, have significance. 

CURRENTLY

Gut by Giulia Enders & Jill Enders (Illustrator)

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

The Secret Pocket by Peggy Janicki & Carrielynn Victor (Illustrator) April 11, 2023 🍁

UP NEXT 

Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg

Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca & Priya Ayyar

Hoops by Matt Tavares

READING GOALS 

#MustReadFiction 10/24 one in progress

#MustReadNonFiction 8/20 one in progress

Canadian Authors 23/75 

Indigenous Authors 9/20 

Big Books Summer 2023 - 1/5

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 90/200


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#IMWAYR June 5, 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. 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.


It has been a while since I last posted - just over a month. I started writing a number of times, but life just got in the way. I am determined to write at least every other week!

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.

MOST RECENT BLOG POST


PICTURE BOOKS

I downloaded this book to read with Ellis, my dinosaur crazed three year old granddaughter. There isn't much about dinosaurs in it, but it is a fun, alphabet, rhyming book about what animals can't do. Then in the back matter there is a bit of information explaining what each of the animals can do! Ellis wasn't to interested in it, but her six year old sister was fascinated. 

CHILDREN'S NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS


I nabbed this book from the library because I am a ginormous fan of Isabel Greenberg, the illustrator of this. Am I ever glad I did.
It is a book to help us (children and adults) grasp the enormity of large numbers. I say help, because really, how can anyone come close to making sense of a number like 100,000,000,000,000,000. Most of us can't really grasp 1,000,000,000.
I really appreciated that these massive numbers were written in words at the bottom of the pages where they were mentioned. My favourite page explains that the 10,000,000,000,000,000 ants that live on this planet weigh as much as the 7,500,000,000 people who they share it with.


I started reading this because of Isabel Greenberg's artwork. I ended up loving all of it.
This book makes connections that show how how important the ocean is to our lives, even if we live a long distance from it.
Did you know that seven out of every ten gulps of air you take contain oxygen created by ocean plants?
It's full of fascinating tidbits information about ocean creatures.
I especially appreciate the end of this book where it cycles back to us, revealing the many ways human actions affect the oceans.
Author's notes in the back matter expand on the information in the book.

These underwater photographs are just stunning.
They give the reader a glimpse of the world under the sea just off the coast of South Africa. It reveals a multitude of creatures who inhabit that realm.
While an octopus is shown, I expected a bit more about it. I think this is just because of the author and the text on the bottom of the cover.

YA FICTION


This is the story of a Metis teen who is the child of rape. Her biological father, just released from jail, is stalking her, claiming he will financially support her eduction goals if she will add his name to her birth certificate. 
This book is all about being 'the other.'
It's a story of romantic and sexual love. It shows a family working together to make a better life for each of it's members. It's about friendship and how important it is to be there for and stand up for the people we care for. 
It's also kind of terrifying. 

5 stars

The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill February 28, 2023

There I was with a group of women friends. They were outside in the sunshine, drinking wine, chatting and laughing while I was inside, totally absorbed by this weird and wonderful feminist retelling of The Crane Wife. 
I always loved Kelly Barnhill's children's books. I am now a hard core fan of her books for adults. Ok, since the protagonist here is a 15 year old girl who is trying to keep her brother safe and her family together while her mother works on her artwork, it's probably a YA book - or maybe it's just a book for readers of all ages. Things get extremely dark when her mother brings home a large crane, and she seems almost unaware of his brutality.

ADULT FICTION

4 stars

A Lethal Lesson by Iona Whishaw & Marilla Wex (Narrator) April 27, 2021 🍁

Lane ends up working as a substitute teacher after discovering the existing teacher  unconscious from a beating. This book addresses issues of abuse for women and children. 

4 stars

Framed in Fire by Iona Whishaw  & Marilla Wex (Narrator) April 26, 2022 🍁

When Lane goes to visit her friend Peter Barisoff in New Denver, she meets up with Tom, an indigenous man, who is looking for traces of his ancestors. They find Peter working in his garden where the three of them unearth a body. 
This book reveals a bit about the history of the indigenous people who once inhabited the West Kootenays. It also addresses issues of racism and prejudice. 

I was enthralled by this story of two friends, Fabienne and Agnès, growing up a small community in France after the war. The two thirteen year old girls write a novel. (Fabienne tells the story while Agnès transcribes it.) They get the local postmaster to help them get it published, with Agnès presented as the author. Her life is changed because of this. Ultimately this book is about about how much one of them will sacrifice to improve the life of the other.
I will reading more by Yiyun Li. Her writing is beautiful. 

While this book is fiction, it is based on true events and the characters are, in many ways, composites of the lives of real women. 
It's the story of the prochoice abortion movement. It connects women across time - from the abusive maternity homes and deadly backroom abortions of earlier years, to the women and men who provided safe (but still against the law) abortions with the help of different kinds of underground networks, and finally to today, where in Canada at least, abortion on demand is still, theoretically at least, available. Finding a nearby clinic is impossible in some parts of the country. It's also about motherhood and what women go through to achieve it. 
Ultimately, it's about choice. 

I especially like the way Leckie deals with gender in this book. In the protagonists culture, everyone is a she, whereas in other cultures she often errs and misgenders people. We never really know what (if any) gender she is. I'm fascinated by her imagining of AI in a future world. I liked a lot about this book and am now reading the next in the series. It might even be better than the first. 


There are few things as satisfying as finding yourself lost in a book. I had no real idea of what I was in for when I started this, but ended up being fascinated by Elizebeth Smith Friedman's life and the times she lived through. She was brilliant. If she was alive today, I suspect she would have been one of the world's finest computer programers.
Not only did I learn more about codes, I learned about the their use and abuses across the span of her life. It was fascinating to learn about how the different aspects of government interacted.
Elizebeth and her husband were both code breakers and makers. As is usual in these cases, it was he who garnered most of the credit while they were alive. Her life is remarkable given that she was a woman born 1892. Getting an education was no mean feat. Becoming one of the countries foremost code breakers of her time is an especially remarkable accomplishment.


I worried this would be harder to listen to, but Yeonmi Park is almost dispassionate about some of the horror she and her family experienced. By North Korean standards, her family, at least until after her father was arrested, were privileged. Following his incarceration for smuggling, things changed drastically. 
Park and her mother's escape from North Korean to China is a story of sexual abuse and slavery. With the help of a missionary group, she eventually ended up in South Korea where she became involved in the human rights movement. She now lives in the USA. 

CURRENTLY

Gut by Giulia Enders & Jill Enders (Illustrator)
VenCo by Cherie Dimaline 🍁
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
The Secret Pocket by Peggy Janicki & Carrielynn Victor (Illustrator) April 11, 2023 🍁

UP NEXT 

Roll For the Initiative by Jaime Formato

READING GOALS 

#MustReadFiction 6/24

#MustReadNonFiction 8/20 one in progress

Canadian Authors 21/75 

Indigenous Authors 9/20 

Big Books Summer 2023 - 1/5

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 82/200


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FREE VERSE FRIDAY #6 JUNE SOLSTICE

I've decided to join Beverly A Baird, Linda Schueler and others in a "year long poetry practice – on the first Friday of each Month," when they, and anyone else who joins, will be writing a poem based on the theme of the month and a photo taken relating to that theme.

You can find out more about this here.

This month it felt like Spring was writing her story through me in this poem. I wonder what Summer will have to say?

The first time I participated, I didn't get the photograph first bit. I let the theme percolate throughout the month before posting and the poem more or less wrote itself. When I realized my mistake, I sent a half decent draft of it to my partner, Randy Rotheisler, and a friend, Ron Peace, both gifted photographers, asking for images to accompany it. We have continued this process. Both have remarked that this poem is dark and that finding images was challenging. In case you are interested, both these photographs can be purchased from the photographers. Let me know if you want their contact information. 

Moses by Ron Peace

Solstice

early on 

i two stepped 

lightly across the land 

now my feet, 

heavy,

drag across it


the season has been hard

harder than usual

Winter ignored the equinox,

threw white flurried tantrums well into April

now Summer,

always impatient,

blasts heat

well before her time


i’ve heard rumours 

those two are getting weird messages from the sun

a story about atmospheric interference 

too much carbon or something 


frankly, i’m too tired to care

i just want it to stop 


under these conditions 

it’s exhausting, 

almost impossible

to keep

my delicate charges alive,

never mind thrive


thankfully, 

my shift 

is almost over


soon i get to let go


soon


just as soon 

as the solstice arrives


it will be

someone else’s

turn to 

worry 

about 

the world


Descent by Randy Rotheisler
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