From the Cybils shortlist, Sex & Violence has a lot of both and it was surprisingly good. Troubling, as sex and violence (particularly teen sex and teen violence) can be. The characters were all very likable and I wanted nothing more than for Evan to come through it all — at least partially intact.
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 »
From the Cybils Short List, The Bronte Sisters (and brother, because you can’t actually have a book about the three sisters without mentioning the poor brother — more than mention him, give him just about as much page space as the sisters…)
A pretty good book for kids who don’t know much about the Brontes. A little boring for me since I seem to have read quite a few books about them. The photos were a nice touch — helped with the dryness of the text from time to time. Nice job including sections from their works. Overall, nicely done.
The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Read More »
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 »
I decided to go ahead and buy And All the Stars since I finished the book I took to the hospital on Sunday and was book-less. (Though I’m guessing I’d have broken down and bought it eventually because I really don’t like leaving my Cybils shortlist unfinished.) And now… I’m officially done with this year’s Cybils Shortlist challenge. Yay.
And All the Stars is an Australian book and I find Australian books to be odd, in general. There’s just something about the voice… I guess maybe it’s an Australian voice? hah. I dunno. Just odd. And when it’s SciFi or Fantasy, it’s even odder.
This one was pretty odd. Aliens and blue skin with stars vs green skin people and weird powers and just mayhem. A bunch of kids save the world, which was fun. There’s also some gender stuff in there and some strong female characters.
Overall, I liked it. Not my favorite of all of the Cybils but I certainly didn’t hate it.
I’m not a fan of “boy” YA and when the boy YA is also sportscentric, I know it’s either going to be a total snoozer for me OR it’s going to be one of the best books ever.
Boy21 — one of the best books ever.
I was worried, particularly at the beginning, but right about the time Finley met “Boy21” I had settled in and was hooked. I read the book straight through after that. Now I’m left wondering what happened to Finley, Erin and Russ. I hope they all three had good, happy lives.
I had planned to read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl last because it’s the book I’d meant to read before it actually hit the Cybils shortlist. But, Boy21 is still on my holds list and the other one I haven’t read isn’t available at my library and I’m either going to have to buy it or be content with not reading all of the books on the shortlist…
So, I read it ALMOST last and enjoyed it.
I was afraid I’d see too many similarities with The Fault in Our Stars but it’s not that book AT ALL. Not at all. Yea, a girl dies and these are teens and that’s pretty much the only similarity. I liked Earl an awful lot and I totally groked Greg. This one might make a better movie than a book… I can really see this as a film.
Good book, not the best — but good. Very good. I wasn’t disappointed at all.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Read More »
I’m caught up with book blogging — and with reading the books from the Cybil short list. Thankfully since December is almost here giving me just a few very busy weeks to read three books. I can do this. Assuming those books are on my shelf… I should check, shouldn’t I?
Anyway, about these three. Some surprises, good surprises.
I expected to like The Theory of Everything. I like YA problem books and I’d seen some good reviews of this one. It was good. I liked the drawn journal type entries (the theories) — those were well done. Smart. I liked the happy ending where everyone cried. (And when I say happy I don’t really mean happy happy.)
The Storyteller. Oy. German. A lot of people die. And we’re supposed to maybe be confused by who was doing the killing. We’re also supposed to feel sympathy for the killer (which I did) and I think we’re also supposed to like Anna but I did not. Not one little bit. Which made it hard for me to really care about the rest of the characters as much as I should have.
Last but not least, the book I thought would be toward the bottom of my favorites list is now squarely in the top quarter – Endagndered. I didn’t expect to like Endangered nearly as much as I did. But I couldn’t help it. I liked Sophie and Otto (who is a bonobo). There were moments when I wanted to hate the book because NO WAY Sophie could have managed those things. NO WAY IN HELL. But I couldn’t help it — I liked her anyway and I cheered every time she made it past another obstacle.
Three Cybil YA Fiction Books 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 »