I have been very interested to re-read all those books that I called my “favorite” when I was younger. Caddie Woodlawn, I’m sure, was the title written on many school days infographic sheets that I filled in, along with The Wheel on the School and A Wrinkle in Time. I have had the bizarre pleasure…
It is hard to walk away from a book and expect to just re-approach it later and talk about it. Things have changed, they always have. And my memory never was what it used to be. I have the blog for that. In fact, after a couple years of always writing slightly behind myself (except…
When Anthony Bourdain passed away over the summer, all of a sudden I realized just how many other people were fans of his work. Except for his book, which often tops lists of food journalism, I thought I was sorta fringy watching every episode of his food journalism and bringing it up at parties (because…
I usually carry too many books with me. When we loaded the car for our annual summer trip to Syracuse, I limited myself. We had less than a week, this year, and I had been reading veeerrryy slowly. And we were going to be camping most the time. Little did I know I would start…
I have been looking forward to reading this book for a while. It comes up now and again, especially on best books lists. It’s also titled The Book Thief, which sounds so exciting and so very bookish. Let’s establish what this book is. It is a young adult novel about Nazi Germany. That’s pretty much…
I have been looking forward to re-reading this book for years, so it was advantageous when the movie was slated for release around the same time it was coming up on my son’s fourth grade reading list. You see, it was one of my favorite books when I was a kid and I read it…
I used to have a story for why I picked The Scarlet Letter up at the point in time I read it (2017). I am still reviewing from my backlog, however (though I have also been reviewing as I read: double-timing it) so I don’t remember all of the circumstances. I remember buying The Scarlet…
Just get used to it. You’re going to get a Roald Dahl review at least once a year. I love Roald Dahl. Some of my most favorite books in the world were written by Roald Dahl. (His titles include Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Witches, The Twits, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach,…
I have been out of the country. I have been recovering from jet lag. If I had it more together, I would have scheduled some pre-written posts for you while I was gone. I did manage to get my house cleaned and the luggage packed. So that’s good. I also seldom read as much on…
It’s hard for me to believe that I didn’t do this review earlier, though we did finish reading as I was tackling a sizable backlog. Boo! This series deserves better than a months-stale review. But it is what it is, and the least the series deserves is a late review. Amazon’s blurb for the first…
Apparently Fuschia Dunlop is a thing. Well, really she’s a person, but apparently she’s someone that I–someone obsessed with food and now a food magazine reporter (Did I not write that blog yet?)–should recognize in some capacity. Well, when I found her book on the shelf in the library, it was just because I was…
As you might already know, I am currently nearing the end of my first ever writing residency. I am taking a break from writing (ha!) and thought I would check in with some other part of my brain for a minute. While I keep typing. It is my fate. I feel like I could display…
Yes, yes. I am currently at my writing residency. But I have put a LOT of words on the page today, and I always try to keep up the blog. So, this is my “break.” Fresh reviews. I have admired, sometimes at a bit of a distance, Chris Van Allsburg since I was a kid.…
When I write a novel, or basically anything, I keep the volume around me at zero. Or at least at white noise, like the dull roar in a cafe. If I’m home though, there is no music that I listen to when I write. When I get asked that question, I just answer honestly: I…
A book like this hardly needs a review, let alone an introduction. In the dream library that I made for my future grandchildren–in my head–classics like this one will always find a place. Still, there is no telling with kids, especially very young ones. With them, there is no accounting for taste, for reals. They…
I had this whole list of novels that we were going to cover in fourth grade. About halfway through the year, my husband and son were wandering a bookstore when Eamon saw the cover for a Fablehaven novel and said, “I think that one looks cool.” My husband, bless his heart, ran to the library…
This is the second book that I have read in my learning-culture-through-fiction, China kick. I am going to China in July. Perhaps I can get four more books read. I already have three waiting on the shelf and one of them is a bit enormous. There are similarities between this novel and the previous, The…
If you are looking for comparison reviews, you will not find them here. I am just going to review the books that we used for fourth grade. For most subjects, we used whatever I had decided upon when I was researching material in the spring of 2017. There were a few times we switched, midway.…
When I made the Best Books list and started on the adventure of reading to children as they grew, I did not realize that so many of the “classics” of children’s chapter books come from the 50s. Even if they weren’t written in the 50s, many of them take place in or around the 50s.…
Announcement time! My daughter and I are headed to China! As you probably know, I very rarely solicit my bloggers. Like when I publish a novel (which is rarely). And when I go on some major humanitarian adventure. This post falls into the latter category. There is a woman from our church who has been…
the starving artist 