Oops. Just realized I never blogged Squish (5) — I read it two days after I read 1-4 and 5 is the one that’s on the Cybils shortlist.
It’s just as fun as 1-4 — I particularly liked the video game fixation storyline — creeping black mold! So much fun.
I wasn’t really expecting much from Bluffton: My Summers with Buster Keaton. I’m not a big Buster Keaton fan. Turns out, I really enjoyed this book.
It was well drawn/colored and the story was cute. It even made me kind of want to watch The General again. I’m not sure whether this is a really appealing book for kids. Most of them probably won’t have a clue as to who Buster Keaton is… will they?
Bluffton: My Summers with Buster Keaton Read More »
Since I didn’t love love love the first Hereville book last year, I wasn’t so sure I’d enjoy How Mirka Met a Meteorite but it turns out, I loved it! I quite enjoyed it and found it much better than How Mirka Got Her Sword (I think that’s what the first one was called.) I highly recommend it. (This one is on the Cybils shortlist)
Next, four books in the Squish series, none of which is on the Cybils shortlist but I wanted to read these first because #5 IS on the shortlist… now I’m waiting for it to be ready for me at the library.
I really like this series. There’s just a tiny bit of science in here, disguised as fun. I love all three of the main characters, plus Squish’s dad and the extra characters that appear to help us learn good growing up lessons. I do hope we see Squish’s mom someday… This series is by the Babymouse author and I love Babymouse so it makes sense that I’d like Squish, too. Oh, the science experiment and “How to draw…” pages in the back are EXCELLENT.
5 Children’s Graphic Novels (One Cybils Shortlist) Read More »
Next, middle grade fiction by Holly Black, Doll Bones.
I discovered this one when I started thinking about doing a prequel/sequel challenge. I was looking up authors, of series we’ve read and noticed that I had not read this one… though it’s not in a series (yet?), I do generally like Holly Black so I reserved it.
And it was good.
Three middle schoolers, all with somewhat troubling home lives find themselves going on a real quest. With a bone china doll — a very creepy bone china doll, which is kind of obvious since bone china dolls are by their very nature — creepy.
I enjoyed it and was kind of sorry to see it end so soon.
Yippee! It’s here! The list! The Cybils shortlist. You’ll notice SciFi/Fantasy is now called Speculative Fiction. Which is fine but I’m not going to change my category on the sidebar. I’ll probably end up jumping and back and forth between calling it scifi or fantasy or specfic. Oh so complicated but you know it when you see it, right?
Elementary and Middle Grade
Fiction Picture Books
– Count the Monkeys
– If You Want to See a Whale
– Journey
– Mr Tiger Goes Wild
– Open This Little Book
– Sophie’s Squash
– The Bear’s Song
Nonfiction
– Anubis Speaks!
– Barbed Wire Baseball
– How Big Were Dinosaurs?
– Locomotive
– Look Up! Bird-Watching In Your Own Backyard
– The Boy Who Loved Math
– Volcano Rising
Easy Readers
– A Big Guy Took My Ball
– Joe and Sparky Go to School
– Love Is In the Air
– Penny and Her Marble
– The Meanest Birthday Girl
– Urgency Emergency: Big Bad Wolf!
Early Chapter Books
– Dragonbreath #9
– Home Sweet Horror
– Kelsey Green, Reading Queen
– Lulu and the Dog from the Sea
– The Life of Ty: Penguin Problems
– Violet Mackerel’s Natural Habitat
Poetry
– Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems
– Forest Has a Song: Poems
– Poems to Learn By Heart
– Pug and Other Animal Poems
– The Pet Project: Cute and Cuddly Vicious Verses
– What the Heart Knows: Chants, Charms and Blessings
– When Thunder Comes
Graphic Novels
– Bluffton: My Summers With Buster Keaton
– Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite
– March Book 1
– Monster on the Hill
– Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Donner Dinner Party
– Squish #5
– The Lost Boy
Speculative Fiction
– Jinx
– Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase
– Rose
– Sidekicked
– The Rithmatist
– The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp
– The Water Castle
Middle Grade Fiction
– Escape From Mr Lemoncello’s Library
– Prisoner B-3087
– Serafina’s Promise
– The 14 Fibs of Gregory K
– Ultra
Young Adult
Graphic Novels
– Bad Machinery
– Boxers & Saints Boxes Set
– Captain Marvel #1: In Pursuit of Flight
– Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant
– Templar
– Uzumaki: Deluxe Edition
– War Brothers: Graphic Novel
Nonfiction
– Breakfast on Mars
– Imprisoned
– The Boy on the Wooden Box
– The Bronte Sisters
– The President Has Been Shot
Speculative Fiction
– Conjured
– Dark Triumph (His Fair Assassin)
– Pantomime
– Shadows
– The Summer Prince
– The Waking Dark
– William Shakespeare’s Star Wars I didn’t read it.
YA Fiction
– Dr Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets
– Eleanor & Park
– Out of the Easy
– Rose Under Fire
– Sex & Violence
– Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass
Cybils Shortlist (2013) Read More »
The last of the Cybils non-fiction about Temple Grandin. I was a little surprised since it seemed like Temple Grandin was every where a few years ago and I thought I’d probably be bored with this. I wasn’t. And, TW especially liked it, though that shouldn’t surprise anyone — Moo!
Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World Read More »
I’m kind of ODing on middle grade and YA books. This is what happens when I don’t read enough throughout the year… gah. The end of the tunnel, I can see it. I swear!
Planesrunner, the YA scifi I thought I wouldn’t enjoy, particularly since I had so much trouble getting past the first chapter, turned out to be a lot better than I expected. Physics is not my thing. Neither are books where ONE paragraph is more than a full damn page. Other than that — it turned out to be a pretty fun book. The airships made it great (and the solid female characters, in a boy story, too.)
Geeks, Girls and Secret Identities is Middle Grade scifi/fantasy and I had a hard time getting started with that too… what’s with all of the comic book superhero stuff lately? After about 30 pages, I was in and enjoying it. I particularly liked what happened with Polly, Captain Stupendous and Vincent’s mom. Super female characters in what’s mostly a boy story.
Two Cybils SciFi/Fantasy Read More »
Still playing catch up on my Cybils blogging but the end is in sight!
Fourmile — I liked it a lot which is unusual since it’s a boy book and boy books don’t always work for me. Watt Key, the author, is excellent though so I shouldn’t be surprised to have liked it. It didn’t feel so much like middle grade but more like YA. The violence seemed awfully violent for middle graders.
Almost Home was very middle grade fiction sort of trouble book. Homeless kid finds herself with a community of awesome adults (and kids). And, she has a cute puppy who seems to not prevent her from landing in a shelter, a group home, or a foster home. (Which would never happen, sigh.) A very feel good book, even though there are places that made me almost cry.
The Adventures of Beanboy was so much fun. I loved it. The development of Beanboy as a character… fantastic.
Three Middle Grade Fiction Read More »
Beswitched — I didn’t love it. In fact, for most of the book I strongly disliked it. I did not like Flora Fox at all. Not one little bit. Even as she “grew up” I didn’t find myself liking her much better than on page one. I didn’t like her grandmother either. I’m much more interested in the other Flora — the one who took her place and whose place she took. I’d probably like her better, I think.
The Peculiar is another one I didn’t love. I just didn’t care about any of the characters. Bartholomew – sure, but only a little. I’d have probably liked Hetty more if I’d gotten to know her. It wasn’t a bad book — just not great.
Finally, one I enjoyed — Cabinet of Earths. Pretty cool story. Solid characters. I even liked the ending, which is oh so rare, sometimes. Those three grains of “earth”… I’d be freaked out about that, too, if I were Maya.
Three Middle Grade SciFi/Fantasy Books from the Cybils Shortlist Read More »
More catch up book blogging — Cybil blogging, to be specific.
Bomb: The Race to Build–and Steal–the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon was the book I didn’t expect to love because how many times can you read about this topic and learn something new or find it fresh and interesting. Or maybe that’s just me because chemistry and bombs are not my thing. However, this was better than I expected — not so much for the spy factor, but for the inclusion of the race toward the bomb that was happening in the USSR and in Germany. That made it more interesting than just a straight how we got the bomb (and used it) sort of thing.
I really enjoyed the Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War. I mean really enjoyed it. Those poor kids. I cannot imagine how confused they, particularly the older ones and not the babies, were.
I liked Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 well enough. It was a little long but Moonbird himself is awesome. Which reminds me, I meant to see if there had been any more sightings since this book was written.
I’m not a big fan of books about the Titanic but I liked Titanic: Voices From the Disaster more than I expected to. It, too, was a little long but not so boring that I didn’t read it straight through.
4 Middle Grade and YA Non-Fiction Read More »