Small Reads for Brighters Days
When You Wish Upon a Rat, by?Maureen McCarthy (Amulet Books, 2012) Ruth Craze is not happy with her family or her friends. Her favorite aunt, the only person who really understands her, has given her a stuffed animal rat, and Ruth clings to Rodney Rat. Until her brother accidentally tosses him off a bridge. This […]
Liar & Spy, by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books, 2012) Stead follows up her Newbery win with another intriguing novel in which things aren’t always what they seem. Georges’ family has to move from his Brooklyn home to a nearby apartment, where he meets Safer, a kid his age who runs a Spy Club and […]
Kaleidoscope Eyes, by Jen Bryant (Knopf, 2009) This is the first novel in verse I’ve read on my Kindle (and because of that, I have no idea if the formatting I saw is how the author intended it). As with many novels in verse, I wouldn’t categorize this as poetry, so I think that classification […]
As my life gets busier, my reading time is eroding. Thus, my new vow: I am not going to read good books. You read that right. I am not going to read good books. Instead, I’m saving my reading time for great books. When I?find myself thinking, “This is decent,” but I’m thinking ahead to […]
Okay for Now – This book broke my heart about 10 different times. But it knit me back together, too. I read Wednesday Wars and liked it, but I don’t remember it very well (not unusual for me). You definitely don’t have to have read that first. This novel about Doug Swieteck and his family […]
OK, I see that the jacket copy and blurbs of Happy Families (Knopf, 2012), by award-winning novelist (and Poetry Princess) Tanita Davis, don’t reveal what the family secret is, even though it comes out fairly early in the book and is alluded to in the dedication (or maybe the epigram–don’t remember which) and on the […]
At the Boardwalk What a great book! My friend Kelly Ramsdell Fineman‘s new book, At the Boardwalk, is out! And it’s wonderful. The rhyme and meter are perfect, and the storyline is terrific. I was going to buy this book when I saw it on Barnes & Noble’s picture book wall Sunday (whee!), but there […]
I’m trying to keep a new commitment. When I love a book enough to give it 4 or 5 stars on Goodreads, I’m going to copy my notes on it here and on Amazon. I don’t do thorough or scholarly reviews, but I do want to at least publicly share books I love! Leaving Gee’s […]
I am so excited that BookSpeak! Poems About Books is a Finalist for the children’s category of the Minnesota Book Awards. The reason any kind of honor or award is wonderful is that you respect the judgment and choices of the committee making the choices. So this week, I thought I’d share the other three […]
I am so excited that BookSpeak! Poems About Books is a Finalist for the children’s category of the Minnesota Book Awards. The reason any kind of honor or award is wonderful is that you respect the judgment and choices of the committee making the choices. So this week, I thought I’d share the other three […]
