Books in Bed

Three YA Non-Fiction from the Cybils Shortlist

2014, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

First, the one I liked the least — Breakfast on Mars. I actually liked it a lot, there are some great essays in this book. But, as examples of great essays for kids who have to write essays — I’m not so sure. They’re too good. Though as I type this, my problem might be that I really thought this book was focused at middle grade, not YA readers (because it’s middle grade kids that could really use the proper foundation for writing an essay.)

Next, The President Has Been Shot was good. Very cleanly written. No extraneous emotions for flowy words to try and push emotion. You either feel emotional while reading this book or you don’t. That’s a good thing. But, that also makes it a little dry and for kids a dry non-fiction book is very close to feeling like a text book. The photos were excellent. The diagrams were excellent. Very good book.

My favorite of the three, Imprisoned. There are not enough books about the Japanese internment during WW2 for people of any age but especially for kids. So — five stars! I loved the photos. I loved the clean writing. I did not love the complete absence of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. We just skipped right over that little fact and went straight to the release and aftermath. If you’re telling the hard, bad stuff then why skip that? Otherwise — excellent book. Everyone should read it (and more about this horrible period in our history.)

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Beauty Queens

1 Comment / 2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Favorites, Young Adult /

We didn’t have any books on audio so I decided this was the perfect time to grab Beauty Queens. Nope, I’ve never read it — which is crazy because I’ve wanted to read it since it first came out. But, I also had a very strong desire to hear it on audio. I’m glad I held tight to that idea. It was SO MUCH FUN on audio. Seriously.

Loved, loved, loved it. We even listened to the acknowledgements and the author interview at the end because Libba Bray is funny as hell. And awesome. She is very awesome.

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Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga)

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Mermaids. I like mermaids. I should have liked Deep Blue more than I did.

I didn’t actually really start to enjoy it until it was almost over and then I was kind of grouchy because it ended and now I have to get book two in order to find out what happens next (all while hoping that I enjoy the beginning of book two more than I enjoyed the beginning of book one. Which I’m not all that inclined to do, right now. Maybe later.)

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A Survey!

2014, Books in Bed, Library /

We went to the library yesterday to pick up the reserves that were waiting for me. While I grabbed those, TW went over to the new arrivals section. The FICTION new arrivals, obviously. I joined her and was ready to go when I saw a man walk around to where the non-fiction new arrivals USED TO BE. He scratched his head and looked around and muttered to himself.

I chuckled.

Then, he asked a librarian where the non-fiction new arrivals were — I mouthed what she said, as she said it, “Upstairs with the rest of the non-fiction.” I chuckled some more. Not exactly happy that someone else was as annoyed by this as I am but … yea, glad it’s not just me and TW and some of the librarians who think this was stupid.

As I’m chuckling and muttering about this to myself, I hear the librarian call him to the research desk and tell him to fill out a survey… because they are taking a survey about this issue.

What?! A survey? Let me in on that. (And how come they blogged about moving the books but didn’t blog about taking a survey to find out how folks felt about the move? Whatevs.)

I rushed over and asked if I could fill out the survey too. I chatted with the guy and that librarian about how much I hated the nonfiction books being up there. The librarian nodded and said “A lot of people agree with you. That’s why we’re doing the survey.”

I ran back to TW and told her about the survey and made her go take it, too.

I was all giddy about this.

A SURVEY! They are taking a SURVEY! Maybe we’ll get our non-fiction new arrivals back downstairs where they belong. But even if they don’t — at least they’re doing the right thing and asking library patrons how they feel about this. That’s a step in the right direction.

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This One Summer

2014, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Favorites, Young Adult /

Sassymonkey mentioned This One Summer to me recently on Convo and I decided I needed to read it. Though I didn’t love Skim as much as most people did, I liked it quite a lot and wanted to see how this one compared.

I liked this one even more (though based on some Good Reads reviews I read, I might be alone.)

I liked this one for the reasons that most people did not.

Growing up is hard. Growing up as a girl is really hard. And when your parents are dealing with their own shit, everything is even harder and weirder and confusing.

And you know what? Kids don’t always learn (immediately) from their experiences. I liked that Rose didn’t immediately and obviously learn the hard lessons. I suspect that what she went through that one summer will stay with her and help her become whoever it is she becomes. Kids don’t immediately grok why slut-shaming is wrong just because a friend says it’s wrong. That kind of thing takes time. Kids don’t immediately grasp the complexities of other people’s relationships and their opinions are formed around what they know of the world, so it made perfect sense that Rose might not see things from Jane’s point of view and she certainly would not have understood her mother or her father.

It was just one summer. Kids don’t evolve into complete and wonderfully deep human beings in just one summer. That was the truth, for me, of this book.

Oh yea, the drawings were wonderful — as you’d expect.

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Dollface

2014, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

Dollface wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. Chicago during prohibition. Mob madness, etc. etc. I didn’t like Vera enough to really love this book. I’m not sure why, but I just didn’t. I liked her best when she was bootlegging but the rest of the time, I just kind of found her annoying.

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The Princess Bride

2013, Books in Bed, Fiction /

TW picked up The Princess Bride a couple of weeks ago and I was perplexed. Turns out, it was a good impulse selection since it was the 2013 version with the beginning of Buttercup’s Baby included. Of course, this just means I want to read the entire Buttercup’s Baby, sigh.

Another note… good lord this book is heavy. They’ve used nice, heavy paper and while it was a joy to turn the pages — it was like reading a 1300 page chunkster because it was so heavy!

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Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library

1 Comment / 2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Library /

Best book from the Cybils shortlist so far this year! I loved Escape From Mr Lemoncello’s Library and I’m extra glad we listened to it on audio.

We chuckled our way through it and were sad when it ended. Equally sad that Nickelodeon optioned it for a TV movie. Sure wish Pixar would have grabbed it. It would make a great movie — and a great theme park attraction.

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