Three More Cybils

All three of these were pleasant surprises. Very pleasant surprises.

Dinosaur Hunt is a short chapter/easy reader that’s way too easy to be in the short chapter book category – kind of like the Mo Willems books. It can’t compete with Mo, unfortunately, but I liked it an awful lot. A cute little dog heads out to hunt dinosaurs in the yard – and he ends up building a dinosaur out of every day stuff you find in the yard. I liked it. Fun. Cute. I like Max Spaniel.

And then there was Anything But Typical – I was not expecting such an awesome book in that particular package. It’s one of those softcover paperbacks that you see in school book order forms – Scholastic type. I hope a lot of kids read this, expecting it to be lighter and easier than it was. I loved the Storyboard storyline and the Storyboard convention. I liked the online girlfriend twist. I like that all of the characters felt very real to me. I think that’s tough sometimes when you’re writing about autism.

The biggest surprise of all was Heart of a Shepherd. I didn’t remember this being on the Cybils list. When it came out of the library bag, at first I thought it was a Christian fiction large print that we had grabbed for TW’s mom. But no, it wasn’t large print. It also didn’t seem like something TW would have just plucked from the shelf. I shrugged, but it on the cart and forgot about it… until I needed another book, checked my Cybils post and discovered that book was MINE. Huh.

It started on a ranch and felt like some sort of old fashioned “western” story. I thought that’s what it was for a few pages until the boy’s dad was being sent to Iraq.  Then I wasn’t so confused. And I was pretty much hooked. I have no idea why the author had the boys’ mother living in Italy but whatever, it’s a small piece of an otherwise excellent story. And in the end, it could have been a very nice large print Christian fiction for TW’s mom. If it had been in large print. I’m guessing there will be a lot of kids who turn their noses up at this one. Too bad because I liked it.

Posted via email from Life. Flow. Fluctuate.