Random Musings of a Bibliophile

Here are shorter musings of some recent realistic YA reads. The Fountains of Silence   by Ruta Sepetys I truly appreciate and love the amount of research Sepetys puts into her historical fiction writing. This novel has a better bibliography than most YA non-fiction books that are published. I also like how Sepetys tends to bring attention to historical moments that often go unremarked or unnoticed. In this case she is tackling life in Franco's Spain, and the kidnapping of children to give up for adoption that was rampant under the regime. While this book is a great intellectual exercise, I couldn't quite love it as a work of literature. I felt a distance between myself and the characters. It was almost clinical. I'm not sure if this is a fault of how they were written and developed or a fault in my own ability to want to immerse myself in so painful a reality. The prose is on the same level Sepetys typically gives us, and the setting is fully realized. Maybe This Time ...

April was an interesting month for me reading wise. After a slow start, I read my three favorites within a week, including my first 5 star MG read of the year. I also read the book that has infuriated me the most so far this year. I definitely covered the entire spectrum of feelings. The Favorites: The Chilbury Ladies' Choir  by Jennifer Ryan A Game of Fox and Squirrels  by Jennifer Reese Spooked! by Gail Jarrow April in Numbers: Total: 10 New:  8          Rereads: 2 MG: 2              YA:  3              Adult: 5 Contemporary: 2 Historical: 3 Fantasy: 4 Non-Fiction: 1 Here are some of the May Releases I'm looking forward to: Did you read any stand out books this month?

Here are some shorter musings on some recent realistic YA reads. Butterfly Yellow by Thanhhà Lai This, like all of Thanhha Lai's work, is excellent. It is historical fiction set in 1981 and follows a Vietnamese teen who has suffered a terrifying journey to America to find her younger brother who was taken from Vietnam as an orphan in the last wave of civilians leaving before the South fell. Along the way she employs the help of a wannabe rodeo cowboy fresh from high school graduation with a brand new truck and a dream. This is a wonderful tale about found family that covers a parts of the history Vietnam and America we often forget about, including that young Vietnamese people were risking their lives to make their way to refugee camps long after the war ended. Many of them paid until costs for this. Don't Date Rosa Santos  by Nina Moreno I thoroughly enjoyed this. This has the appearance (and description) of being a simple YA contemporary YA romance, but it is actually...

Here are some musings on some recent realistic MG reads. Look Both Ways  by Jason Reynolds This is an excellent MG book to give students who love realistic stories of friendship, family, and school. It is also a good selection for those who have more trouble concentrating on long form novels. The stories in here are all interconnected because the characters featured all go to the same school. However, each is its own separate story with a different characters. Each plot focuses on the walk home from school but in different ways. My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich  by Ibi Zoboi This is an interesting story about family troubles, friend troubles, and finding your place in community. It is quintessentially middle grade. It is a good book to have on hand for voracious readers of this story type. It takes place in the mid 1980s and is about an African American girl whose grandfather was one of the first African American NASA engineers. From him she has inherited a love for scie...

Here are my reading stats for the last month of 2019. Look at all those new reads! (See what three weeks off of school with nowhere to go can do!) December Favorites: Total Reads: 8 (7 new, 1 reread) MG: 2 YA: 2 Adult: 4 Contemporary: 5 Historical: 1 Fantasy: 2 Looking forward to January, here are the releases I'm most anticipating: How was everyone else's reading month? What are you looking forward to reading in January?

The Top Ten No Matter Age Category: Begone the Raggedy Witches by Celine Keirnan The Faithful Spy   by John Hendrix The Lost Girl  by Anne Ursu Lovely War  by Julie Berry On the Come Up  by Angie Thomas The Princess Who Flew with Dragons   by Stephanie Burgis Speak Easy, Speak Love by McKelle George Spinning Silver  by Naomi Novik There's Something about Sweetie  by Sandhya Menon Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind them All  by Laura Ruby Top MG: Top YA: Top Adult: Top Non-Fiction:

It is time for my Favorite Characters of the Year post. As I've said many times before, I am a character reader. I read for character arcs and development and the messy wonder of human relationships. Every year I like to do a post that covers some of the characters I fell in love with over the course of my reading year. (If I read a book from a series that I've already mentioned in a previous year, you can assume I still love the characters. This is for brand new characters I encountered.) Links are to my reviews. Descriptions are (for the most part) snippets from my reviews. Mup and Crow from Begone the Raggedy Witches   by Celine Kiernan Mup is such a delightful heroine. She begins her begins the book as a sheltered, rule-following, and seemingly meek little girl. As danger upon danger meets her, Mup discovers a core of strength and defiance in herself that serves her well. She has strong convictions about what is right and what is wrong. Crow is Mup's catalyst for d...

When I found out Laura Ruby had a new YA book coming out in 2019, I immediately pre-ordered it. My love for Bone Gap  knows no bounds, and I was looking forward to this new book with great anticipation. I went into expecting to love the writing, but I was a little wary of one part of the premise. Even after a third of the way through, I wasn't expecting to love this wholeheartedly. But reader, I do. Doors can be dangerous. you never know what's on the other side, what you're letting in.... In stories, girls are always opening doors, always the wrong ones. Always crossing thresholds thinking they're getting away free. Nothing is free... It doesn't matter which door you open...Three or ten or thirteen doorways, there are wolves behind them all. I'm going to do something I don't typically do and just use the publisher's synopsis for this one to avoid all any accidental spoilers: The unforgettable story of two young women—one living, one dead—deali...

I take the 2nd Friday of every month to highlight some upcoming releases I am looking forward to that I hope are Future Favorites. Feel free to do your own post, just please link back to my blog and tell me about your post in the comments. Soooo....Elizabeth Wein has written another WWII historical that Jamie will be a character in. That's it. That's my lead in. Enough said. 1940. Facing a seemingly endless war, fifteen-year-old Louisa Adair wants to fight back, make a difference, do something-anything to escape the Blitz and the ghosts of her parents, who were killed by enemy action. But when she accepts a position caring for an elderly German woman in the small village of Windyedge, Scotland, it hardly seems like a meaningful contribution. Still, the war feels closer than ever in Windyedge, where Ellen McEwen, a volunteer driver with the Royal Air Force, and Jamie Beaufort-Stuart, a flight leader for the 648 Squadron, are facing a barrage of unbreakable code and...

It's been a couple of years since I've done a book gift guide. I enjoyed doing them, and wanted to again. I hope someone out there will find it useful. If you are looking for a book to buy a kid in your life, here is one place where you can get some recommendations. This is clearly not an exhaustive list and I hope others will add their own ideas, either by making their own posts or mentioning books in the comments. These are all book I have read, and I can't read everything. There's not enough time. NOTE: In publishing the term Middle Grade (MG) refers to books marketed toward the 9ish-12ish range. This is not a reading level recommendation. Some kids can read them much younger, others enjoy reading MG well into adulthood. They're just good books. (I will do the Young Adult books for the 13 and over crowd later this week.) These are mostly books published in the past three years or so, but I have added a "tried and true" option to every category. I...