Seems sort of fitting to end 2018 with Fever Dream. Creepy, weird, creepy, weird, also kind of compelling. I should have looked away but couldn’t look away. It’s not a good book but it might be a great one. Or a really horrid one. I can’t decide.
JMP is trying to figure out this whole reading thing. It doesn’t come naturally to him and he is easily frustrated so… The Grandmas are on a mission to make reading fun and that led to me reading three children’s books last weekend.
Hi! Fly Guy, we listened to on audio as we drove from Kingsland, GA to pick up Momal at the JAX airport. It was quick and fun. I think I’ll grab a couple of these in print – they seem to be pretty easy to read and if we can get hooked on a series, that’s half the battle.
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies – we have a free version that came from a kids meal many years ago and I thought it would be fun to read and then do some activities based on the book or that were natural extensions from the book. Natural extensions are what “if this then that” is all about right? It was fun and I spent the weekend asking Pippin what happens if you do X.
Because it’s Christmas season and we’d been involved in Christmas ornament making and Christmas decorating because that’s what happens if you take a mouse to the movies… we listened to an audio version of The Gingerbread Man, which Pippin had already listened to in school, while making some Christmas ornaments so that we could think about baking cookies. (Turns out Pippin had never had gingerbread so we changed our cookie plans to gingerbread cookie plans.) It was a fine version but I found myself wishing I’d chosen differently and read one of our many print versions to him. No big deal, maybe I’ll pull out a bunch of versions and we’ll have a Gingerbread Man/Boy/Baby marathon and compare the differences and similarities another time (maybe when we read a House is a House for Me and build gingerbread houses.)
Three Children’s Books Read More »
Shortly after we moved to Chicagoland, we discovered a small independent bookstore in the next town over and found ourselves visiting it every year, on Christmas Eve, to purchase books for all of the kids. Yay, Book Bin! When we moved back to Florida, we inadvertently stumbled upon an bookstore in Fleming Island and that’s become our yearly shopping spot – but we don’t necessarily shop on Christmas Eve. This year we went on Black Friday.
While we were browsing, TW stumbled over a couple of baskets of ARCs of books and found a couple that she was interested in. I was skeptical because you’re really not supposed to sell those AND there were no price tags on the books… turns out, you get to choose one free for every $50 you purchase. I won’t tell you how many we got free (4) but an ARC of Lumberjanes Unicorn Power was one of them.
Friendship to the max! Lots of fun music references (Blondie’s Bring On Me on accordion? Sleater Kinney? Yes, please.) Unicorns that are pretty but smell really yuk. There’s also a non-binary or trans person with they/them pronouns. Totally fun!
Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power! Read More »
It’s been a long time since we listened to a #1 Ladies Detective Agency book. Our darn library has significantly reduced the number of audiobooks available (even on digital versions) so I was pretty pleased to see that one of their new e-Book services had The House of Unexpected Sisters. It was fun to listen to, mostly on our drive to WDW, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I have some of the other books recently published in the series.
The House of Unexpected Sisters Read More »
We listened to the first Scythe book on audio last month. It’s an actual real live Cybil, woohoo. It’s also pretty grim and gruesome but also very interesting.
Let’s suppose The Cloud takes over the world because human beings suck at taking care of the world (or themselves) and in doing so resolves all the world’s problems, including mortality. People keep being born but nobody is dying… that’s where the Scythes come in.
Makes sense… except that Scythes are humans and The Cloud hasn’t actually solved the fact that human beings are horrible… very interesting, really.
Scythe (Arc of a Scythe) Read More »
I ordered some Halloween books for the little boys and forgot to blog about them. So here they are:
Bonaparte Falls Apart was a big hit with Pippin.
ET: The Classic Illustrated Storybook – It’s the story of ET with great illustrations. I didn’t have time to read it to Pippin when I was babysitting.
Spooky Pookie – this one was cute. Squishy liked it but mostly just wanted to carry it around and look at it by himself rather than have me read it to him.
You’re My Little Pumpkin Pie – I didn’t like this one quite as well, (I wouldn’t), but Squishy seemed to enjoy me reading it to him. He sat all the way through and didn’t try to take the book away from me, lol.
Princess Princess Ever After is a book I saw on some list of LGBTQ books in June or maybe October? I don’t know but it was in my Evernote mixed up with other LGBTQ titles. It’s a graphic novel for young middle grade kids. It’s cute – princess rescues princess and rescues a prince and then the other princess kind of rescues everyone and becomes queen. Then some amount of time passes (a lot, I’d guess) and the princess comes back to the castle to marry the queen. I could have done without that marrying the queen bit (patriarchy, etc. etc.) and time passed without us seeing the princess or the queen at work. That kind of stinks. If you were going to do that, it should be a series where we watch the kids grow up, do their own things, and then come back together again. (I clearly have strong thoughts about this book, lol.)
Five Children’s Books Read More »
We did it… we finished an Overdrive audiobook before it was viciously yanked from my account by the library’s annoying rule about NO renewals of Overdrive books. Hmph. Anyway, we listened to To Die But Once and yippee, Maisie Dobbs.
In the (very long) epilogue I started feeling some anxiety about how Maisie Dobbs and Maggie Hope are crossing streams. I keep picturing Maisie as the woman in the Maggie Hope books who oversees the Prime Minister’s special project, (what is her name? It isn’t Maisie Dobbs, that’s for sure.)… and the picture just doesn’t work. I might have to just be very careful not to read the two series really close together. (Big problem since there’s a Maggie Hope book waiting for us at the library and because I’m about to reserve the next Maisie Dobbs. Ugh.)
I crapped out at 12:20 p.m. last night with 90 pages left in Limelight. I just couldn’t make it. No big deal since I managed to get a Blackout on #Readathon Bingo, heh. Everything else was gravy.
Woke up late this morning and lazily finished Limelight out on the back deck with the dogs. Limelight was fun – a beach read or something to read before you head to NYC for a fun vacation.
We’re spending the rest of today doing a #FakeReadathon because we can. I’m reading Every Heart a Doorway next.
And, here’s my end of #Readathon survey:
1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
– 11 a.m. (and I took a nap, hah) and again at 11 p.m. – I didn’t manage to hold out much later than that last one.
2. Tell us ALLLLL the books you read!
– I finished The Bear and the Nightingale.
– I read a horror short story by Somer Canon and an essay/short story by Carole Maso.
– I read a Manga, The World’s Greatest Love.
– A cookbook, Dinner Illustrated.
– Two children’s picture books: I’m a Girl and Introducing Teddy.
– Some Maisie Dobbs on audio.
– And, most of Limelight.
3. Which books would you recommend to other Read-a-thoners?
– The Bear and the Nightingale was fabulous. The cookbook is pretty good. Anything by Carole Maso is amazing. I’m a Girl is really well done. Limelight is good, for a beach read.
4. What’s a really rad thing we could do during the next Read-a-thon that would make you happy?
– I really liked the bingo idea and I loved, loved, loved having all of the mini-challenges ready from the start, rather than having to check in hourly to see which new challenges are live.
5. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? Would you be interested in volunteering to help organize and prep?
– Of course I’ll do #Readathon again. I almost always do. Volunteering to organize/prep… maybe.
Post-#Readathon Survey and Update Read More »
I finished The Bear and the Nightingale and it was excellent. (Truthfully, I started reading it, a few pages at a time, more than a month ago and only started reading it as my primary book earlier this week.) And, I just discovered it is the first book in a trilogy and now I’m psyched to read the others!
It’s a Russian fairy tale type of story. Well written, great characters, beautifully done.
I’m off to spend a half hour or so cheering other readers along, so I can fill another Bingo square (and also the community is a big part of #Readathon and I like to visit people.)
#Readathon One Book Down, 30 Minutes of Cheerleading! Read More »
Yep, I finished two Maggie Hope books this month. Back to back, even! (The Queen’s Accomplice and the Paris Spy.)
I ranted for a bit after the Queen’s Accomplice because it seemed like a bit of a wasted book. Did we really need that fake Jack the Ripper stuff? Also, I think it was titled poorly. In the past, the X’s _____ meant Maggie worked with or on behalf of the X. In this book, not so much really. Instead, Maggie took advantage of her relationship with the Queen to ask for favors. That’s not her being the Queen’s accomplice. That’s the Queen being HER accomplice. I didn’t hate the book, I just felt like it dragged on and the places where the storyline progressed could have been done more quickly and efficiently in other ways.
Having said that, the Paris Spy was nicely set up by the events that did happy in The Queen’s Accomplice. (Minus the fake Jack the Ripper stuff.) And I think this is one of my favorite Maggie Hope books in a long, long time. The cliffhanger is VERY CLIFFHANGERY and I need the next book ASAP. Sheesh.
Two Maggie Hope Books! Read More »