Cybil Challenge

The Meaning of Maggie

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction /

From the Cybils shortlist, a middle grade fiction… The Meaning of Maggi. I really liked Maggie and I especially liked her family. These were real people… dad worked at Hartsfield and worked his way up from a baggage handler to ticketing. Mom got a job at a fancy Atlanta hotel, cleaning rooms and doing laundry. They ate some junk food.

What I didn’t like was the way they kept Maggie in the dark about her father’s health. I get it but… I didn’t like that aspect of the story. I also cannot picture any of my kids as 6th graders grokking this at all. Maggie was so young, in so many ways — for someone especially bright. Infantile, even. This… was troubling, particularly when Maggie had the breakdown at the end. She was completely unprepared and that was messed up.

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2 Cybils YA Fiction

2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

I’ll Give You the Sun started slowly and the chapters are really long but I got hooked really quickly and could not put it down. I love both twins and the other kids and adults in the book. Great characters. Well done, well done.

We listened to Noggin on audio and enjoyed this one, too. Poor kid. Seriously. I cannot imagine. I even mostly liked the ending, though for awhile there I was afraid it was going to be stupid. I should have known better, obviously. That whole Travis and Cate thing… gah. Also, I’ve decided I wouldn’t opt for having my head cryogenically frozen. Nope. Not doing it.

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Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood

2015, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

I wasn’t sure about Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood. I was either going to love it or hate it, and I was pretty sure it would be the latter. Turns out, I loved it.

It’s a quick read and it didn’t take more than a few pages for me to fall in love with Abby and her mom and her grandparents and her friends. It took me longer to fall in love with Abby’s dad, but that’s to be expected.

I did a lot of talking out loud to the book. I gasped when Abby talked to the reporters towards the end. TW was confused by my vocal engagement with the book. I couldn’t help it, I felt compelled to talk to or commiserate with Abby.

Who would have guessed?

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When I Was The Greatest

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

I had to take a little break from reading When I Was the Greatest because I was afraid things were going to go very very wrong for Ali, Needles and Noodles and I just didn’t feel like I could deal with that the day or two after the Charleston shooting.

I did eventually go back to the book and really enjoyed it. Things did go badly for the boys but not THAT badly. It could have been so much worse.

Interesting story — interesting characters. Well worthy of the Cybils shortlist. Pst, there’s knitting in this book!

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Gabi, A Girl In Pieces

2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Women, Young Adult /

We very much enjoyed listining to Gabi, A Girl In Pieces. I loved Gabi, her family and her friends. I loved the honesty in this book. It felt very realistic, to me. I can see teen girls feeling all of these things. I can see teen girls being confused about all of the same things. It was also a YA trouble book that didn’t leave me feeling like the author just threw in all of the possible teen problems just to throw in all of the possible teen problems, as so many YA books do.

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The Freedom Summer Murders

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Daily Dose, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

This is hard.

I read Freedom Summer Murders because it was on the Cybils shortlist. It was a good book for kids who don’t know much about Freedom Summer. I was glad I read it.

I also got sucked down a hole of thinking about education in South Carolina which led me to spend a good bit of time on Wednesday evening looking at articles about the history of education in South Carolina.

All of that caused me to be somewhat amazed by the fact that I had any black teachers at all… growing up in Charleston, SC. It caused me to think more kindly upon a black teacher I had, who really — wasn’t a great teacher. It caused me to think even more kindly about a black high school English teacher that was a good teacher, though I liked nothing more than to complain about her when I was in her class.

It also caused me to spend more time thinking about how people should know more about Septima Clark. We rarely hear her mentioned when we read about the fight to end segregation. It also caused me to wonder if Crosstown in Charleston was ever officially re-named for her. (It was.)

And shortly after all of that wondering and thinking and stuff… I saw the news about the shooting at Emanuel AME and … how can we be here in this time, after all of these amazing people fought so hard. After people gave their lives. How can my home state and our country still be so steeped in racism that this can happen? How?

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The Living

2015, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

It’s books like The Living that cause me to say NO cruises. NO living on the west coast. And, thank goodness JMP no longer lives in Hawaii. Quick read. I wasn’t thrilled with the characters at the beginning of the book but they grew on me.

I’m not sure I’m going to read the next book, though it does stink to not know what happens next. After all of that horrible stuff and I don’t know how it ends? Ugh. Totally annoying.

There are too many darn sequels in the world now. Have you noticed this? I’m really getting tired of sequels when we don’t need sequels. We need authors to write books and give them a real live ENDING every now and then. Sheesh.

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The Crossover

2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Poetry, Young Adult /

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about TheCrossover — we listened to it on audio and it’s about basketball. Not generally our sort of thing. Turns out… amazing book. Amazing. I loved everything about it. The poetry. The characters. The plot. *sniff* I’m not going to say best book ever but damn it was a good book.

Read it. Listen to it on audio. Give it to your kids.

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