January books

The first two books I read in January were picture books, which I decided to count in my reading log spreadsheet (adapted from BookRiot's; it is last year's so I had to change the dates etc.) but not in my StoryGraph (follow/friend me!). I bought both of them during Barnes & Noble's half-off books sale in late December. 

A Piñata in a Pine Tree: A Latino Twelve Days of Christmas by Pat Mora, illustrated by Magaly Morales 

This is a cute latine take on the Twelve Days of Christmas song, with stuff like tamalitos and farolitos taking the place of the birds and people of various professions in the original song. Pat Mora has written tons of Hispanic books for children and is very influential in the field, while the artist's first name is the same as one of my relatives. Behind the little girl cavorting with her stuff, we see her parents prepare, greet the visiting abuelita, leave (abuelita is babysitting), and come back with the final Christmas gift: a new baby sibling. Very cute, although the Spanglish may bother some (i.e. my dad and by extension me). I do recommend this. ★★★★½

Jan Brett's The Nutcracker, written and illustrated by Jan Brett

Jan Brett has been known for decades for her beautifully illustrated, richly detailed children's books. I was given her The Twelve Days of Christmas mini picture book in kindergarten by my teacher as a Christmas gift and reread it every year. This one is similarly lovely; I love the details of animals playing musical instruments on each page. I also recommend this one. ★★★★½

 

It feels like everyone I follow/whose posts I'm forced to view despite not following them online is obsessed with the TV show Heated Rivalry. I am not immune to FOMO; I would have watched it, but my brother cancelled his HBO Max account. 😢 The next best thing? The books the show is based on. As a stickler for series book order, I read Game Changer, the first book in the series, then Heated Rivalry, the second, through my public library and Libby (both ebooks). 

 

Game Changer by Rachel Reid

This is a famous athlete x normal person romance, where the famous athlete is a professional hockey player named Scott and the normal person is a service worker named Kip. They meet-cute at the smoothie shop Kip works at; after drinking Kip's recommended blueberry smoothie, Scott breaks his losing streak, to everyone's delight. Obviously that means he has to keep coming back before every game to buy another blueberry smoothie--just to keep winning games, definitely not to see the cute smoothie barista... Kip and Scott fall in love, but being famous in a bro-y sport means Scott is closeted, and Kip isn't sure being back in the closet is worth it. I liked this book a lot and found it both sweet and spicy. The characters' issues with self-worth and being in the closet felt realistic, and I rooted for things to work out for them. ★★★★ 🌶🌶🌶🌶

 

Heated Rivalry (Game Changer #2) by Rachel Reid

Reid's mlm hockey series seems to be loosely interconnected, and you don't really have to read GC first or else you're lost (although it does provide nice background context for That One Scene that Scott & Kip show up in). Shane is a Canadian good boy and does everything by the book; Ilya is a Russian bad boy and is always up in everyone's faces being a jerk. As the two best players in the entire hockey league, they have been in a ~heated rivalry~ since their rookie seasons--and have been secretly hooking up since then. I want to say this book takes place over 10 years? They wish they could quit each other (Brokeback Mountain reference) but can't. Can they open their hearts to love and be themselves without sacrificing the sport they love? I also liked this book a lot and recommend it to fans of the "rivals to lovers" trope. ★★★★ 🌶🌶🌶🌶

Weirdly enough, I was on the waiting list for a couple of weeks for the first book (which I expected), was shockingly able to read Heated Rivalry immediately with no wait, and am now on the waiting list for the third book... which is over 10 weeks long. Why.

The final ebook in S.T. Lynn's Black trans fairytales series became free last month, and I happily snapped it up. I enjoyed Lynn's takes on The Little Mermaid and Cinderella and was really looking forward to this one, as Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite fairytales. Beauty's Beast is very similar to most BatB takes that I've read; like Mer Made, it's based on the Disney movie (the servants were enchanted into furniture/furnishings). The Beast has antlers and communicates using sign language, which I thought was interesting. This novella is quite short, and I wished for more character development (especially for the relationship between Beauty and the Beast), but I liked the world the writer created. Their relationship felt more like friendship than romance, which is not IMO a bad thing. There were some writing issues and errors (I swear STL made Gaston blond in their book, but in his last description he has black hair??), which took me out of the story. Ultimately I did enjoy this, but the errors made me glad I waited to get this when it was free. There is a little transphobia, and some violence and blood/wounds. ★★★½ 

I bought two books from my friends at Something Novel Books during their pop-up last month, and I shockingly (for me) read one of them within days of buying it! I had watched and enjoyed The Thursday Murder Club movie on Netflix (the cast is excellent, especially Helen Mirren), so I was excited to read the book. I enjoyed the book even more than the movie! Four senior citizens at an English retirement village that used to be a nunnery get together to solve cold case murders in the Thursday Murder Club. To their shock and excitement, they all of a sudden have 2 new (and 1 old) murders to solve! In the process of sleuthing, they uncover the secrets of some of their community members. There is a lot that happens in this book, and a lot to keep track of. We often spend a chapter in various characters' heads, but the story is mainly told from Joyce's diary entries and Elizabeth's perspective. This book is also deeply funny; I was chortling at the reference desk reading it. I loved all the main characters and can't wait to read the rest of the books! This book is a bit too sad and violent to truly count as cozy mystery, but it's pretty close. Trigger warnings for the usual things you expect in a murder mystery (murder, blood, violence, nice police characters, etc.) as well as suicide, grief, and slight xenophobia. ★★★★ 

Rest of the year reads

November and December were pretty decent reading months. I don't feel like writing proper reviews so here we are.

November 

3 Agatha Christie books, all excellent mysteries that kept me guessing per usual:

• The Mystery of the Blue Train (Hercule Poirot) - classic murder on a train, locked room mystery. Murderer/s ended up being something out of left field that I feel was not set up well enough for the readers to have guessed it; it felt like cheating a bit. ★★★½

• The Seven Dials Mystery (Superintendent Battle, a new guy to me. He's a police super and looks big and wooden and dumb but is actually very smart.) Young people keep getting murdered, and a secret society called the Seven Dials might be behind it... The biggest twist ending of all of them! Some Jeeves books vibes with the Bright Young Things friend group. Very exciting. ★★★★

• Cards on the Table (both Hercule Poirot AND Superintendent Battle! glad I read T7DM first) A dinner party that is half murderers, half detectives/police results in a murder, naturally. Still is very twisty. Got wlw vibes from the two roommate bestie girls, but sadly no (not that I actually thought AC would go there). ★★★★

These were all ebooks. I usually try to stick to reading AC books in physical form since that fits the books' vibes better, but B&N did this weird thing where they had a ton of excellent legit ebooks (rather than the usual self-published stuff) for free, so I downloaded a bunch (including the above 3) before they changed their minds. 

I also read an excellent and relevant nonfiction book suggested by my therapist, but I overshare enough on this blog as it is, so I'm not telling you what it is. :P

December

I usually go ham on SimonTeen's 25 free reads of December, but this year I was very busy in December and/or wasn't feeling most of the books. There were some great ones I definitely was interested in and would have read under different circumstances, but alas. The only one I managed to read was Love at Second Sight by F.T. Lukens, whose book Otherwordly I read last year as it was part of SimonTeen's offerings for the 2024 25 free reads of December. This one is also a gay YA fantasy book, but this one is set in a world where witches and vampires and werewolves, etc. exist and live alongside humans. 15-year-old human Cam's plans for a normal sophomore year with his nonbinary witch bestie Al are derailed when he has a very scary premonition about the violent death of a young woman, and it turns out he's a clairvoyant with rare abilities whose alliance is desired by every supernatural group in town. Cam has to deal with the sudden popularity, the supernatural society politics he hasn't grown up with, his parents' anti-supernatural bigotry, and his popular werewolf crush noticing him. Oh, and he has to figure out how to stop the murder from happening.  I liked this book and found the mystery most compelling; the romance was cute but felt a bit underdeveloped. There was a lot going on in this book, though. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes this sort of thing (urban fantasy, I guess?). ★★★★

I had plans to finally read some of my Christmas romance ebooks I've downloaded over the years during this holiday season, but for some reason instead I reread The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis because I found the copy I had left at my parents' house (I have one at mine, obvs). It's basically CSL doing a take on The Pilgrim's Progress (a heavily Christian allegory about conversion and the Christian walk, etc.) but with his own spiritual life and conversion. This was not particularly easy to read, despite the chapters being fairly short; it's very philosophical and uses lots of academic language and quotes in Greek, Latin, and French that are not translated. I can kind of suss out the latter two depending on how similar the words are to Spanish, but this is not ideal. It's one of CSL's weirdest and weakest, I feel. Also it's racist and sexist ("brown girls" are a metaphor for lust 🤮). Not recommended unless you're studying him and his works academically or something. ★★★

I reread Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories by L.M. Montgomery, as I do every holiday season. The Christmas stories are much better and generally happier than the New Year's stories.  

 

I decided to read a couple of children's books I had bought and hadn't read yet. It's my reading log and I'll count picture books if I want to :P 

Frida Kahlo y Sus Animalitos by Monica Brown, translated into Spanish by F. Isabel Campoy, and illustrated by John Parra, is a biographical nonfiction picture book about Frida and her pets. I didn't add it to my LibraryThing and there's no record of it in my order emails, so I must have bought it in person at a local indie bookstore, probably Cellar Door Books. The art style is very colorful, bold, and naive, which suits the subject matter. The book makes it sound like Frida had a lot of these pets as a child, when she actually had them as an adult (I'm pretty sure; I'm also sure she did have pets as a kid but don't remember having read about them). It's a cute book that's worth buying if you're a big a fan of Frida Kahlo as I am. ★★★★ 

 

Go Forth and Tell: The Life of Augusta Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller by Breanna J. McDaniel, illustrated by April Harrison, is a picture book biography of a very important Black librarian who knew the power of stories to let people know what is possible and how to rise up. Ms. Baker curated book lists of books with good African American representation (as well as writing her own) and went on to be the coordinator of children's services for the entire New York Public Library system (the first Black person to do so) and was hugely influential. This was an excellent book with bright, vivid, interesting mixed-media art, and I highly recommend it. I also enjoyed the author's story about the impact of her own childhood librarian. ★★★★½

Book review: The Classic Tales of Beatrix Potter

The March pick for The Enchanted Book Club was the tales of Beatrix Potter. I loved them growing up, as I did all animal books. My sister and I had a mini BP book set in a cardboard drawer that I think my grandma had thrifted; she (my sister) still has the drawer and the remaining books that haven't been lost. I checked out The Classic Tales of  Beatrix Potter: The 23 Original Peter Rabbit Books from my work library since I don't own them (yet). I had read most but not all of them; I don't think I'd read the pigs', hedgehog's, or squirrels' stories. The story I remember best is that of Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-Tail, who fall into Farmer McGregor's hands after eating too much lettuce; that story taught me the word soporific.

I enjoyed the stories very much; the art is beautiful and realistic, with each detail lovingly rendered. The animals really look like their real-life counterparts; Beatrix Potter was a nature illustrator, so this makes sense. The animals are so cute in their little clothes. I had to force myself to slow down and stop reading so fast and look at the pictures. I used to pore over the illustrations as a kid; who knows when that stopped?

I had read an article a while back about how heavily Beatrix Potter had borrowed from the Brer Rabbit stories without crediting them; this kept me from fully enjoying the stories as much as the first time around. So fucked up to steal folklore stories from enslaved people who were literally stolen from their countries and those stories were the only things they had left from their home countries, right?? That really bothers me. She should have been honest about her stories being based on someone else's stories. I was going to bring it up during the bookclub zoom meeting but I chickened out (there wasn't time for everyone to talk anyway). 

Something I'd completely forgotten about was how often the animals are in danger from humans. Of course I'd remembered the danger Farmer McGregor posed to the Peter Rabbit family, but I was kind of surprised by how often the threat of humans turned up with the other animals. It makes sense that the animals would hunt each other and whatnot, as they do in nature/the real world; what weirds me out is that these are sentient, talking animals who often wear clothing and walk on their hind legs, yet the humans in the BP world have zero qualms eating them. If I had talking animals as my neighbors, who could say good morning to me and inquire as to the direction of the market, I would not feel comfortable seeing them as food options, let alone killing and eating them. Why don't the humans consider killing and eating a sentient, talking, clothes-wearing animal to be murder? There's a story where a sailor manipulates a young pig (aka a child) into going on a ship with him, then feeds the pig until he falls asleep, and the ship takes off with the pig trapped on board, all so the sailors will have a pig to fatten and eat on their voyage! That's basically human trafficking, albeit with a pig. No one feels a moral quandary about this? The pig story is BP's fanfiction about how the pig with a ring in its nose got to that island the owl and the pussycat go to in the poem. Funny how she did credit that story. 😒

Anyway, highly recommended. If you want to read this to young children, keep in mind a lot of the animals are often in danger from predator animals and human beings, and a decent percentage of them get animalnapped. That may scare or bother toddlers and small kids; I know my nephews would be like "but why??" 

Score: ★★★★.5 out of 5 stars
Read in: March 17-27
From: borrowed from the library where I work

Genres/classification: children's books, children's literature, children's classics, picture books, picture books anthology, animal books, English literature, low fantasy

Rest of non-HC childrens' books of 2022

I read Bravo! Poems About Amazing Hispanics back in September for Hispanic Heritage Month. It was purchased from Book Outlet. This brightly colored picture book contains short poem-bios of notable Hispanic figures from history (many of which I had not heard about) written by Margarita Engle and illustrated by Rafael Lopez. I've enjoyed every book I've read from Engle and know her to be a notable Hispanic author of Hispanic books for kids. This was no exception, and I learned a lot from this book, and want to learn more about the people in it.  Highly recommended. 5 stars, keeping.  Trigger warnings (that I remember): racism, discrimination, poverty, sexism, injustice

 

Another purchase from Book Outlet, Viva Frida is a dreamy picture book of/on/about Frida Kahlo. It's not really a biography as much as it is a book celebrating Frida, her aesthetic and imagination. It's written by Yuyi Morales, who has created many beautiful latine picture books, and the illustrations are actually pictures taken by Tim O'Meara of Yuyi's beautifully styled marionette puppets of Frida, Fulang Chang (Frida's monkey), the iconic Frida deer, etc. There are a few traditional illustrations for the dream aspects which are by Yuyi. This was a lovely, dreamy celebration of Frida and I enjoyed it. 4 out of 5 stars. No trigger warnings that I can think of, except dolls/marionettes

I hadn't bothered to put this in my reading spreadsheet, but I also bought and read another Frida kids' book from Book Outlet, per my goal to own every book about Frida Kahlo. A Parrot in the Painting: The Story of Frida Kahlo and Bonito is an early reader book for like first graders. It's a fictionalized story of Bonito, Frida's parrot, trying to think of things to do that would make Frida paint him. She'd painted her other pet animals but not him. It's a cute story that kids might enjoy. I may give this one to my nephew when he's old enough. No star grade. No trigger warnings except possibly for birds and animals, owning exotic pets (in the 1940s)

 

Okay, that's it, since the rest of the picture books I read were from HarperCollins or its subsidiaries, and the strike is ongoing.

Serial email ebooks and Christmas rereads

I subscribed to Dracula Daily due to peer pressure from tumblr and Twitter, and it was fun to slowly read the book via emails, which sent you the diary entries and letters that make up the book on the day they were "written". It was a fun and unique way to read the book, which I'd read ages before, and I liked seeing the memes and social media posts about it as we all read the book together and chatted about what our good friend Jonathan Harker had written. I don't think I'll do Dracula Daily again, but thanks to their recommendations I've subscribed to other ebooks-via-email subscriptions. Truly this is the best way to use Substack. 3.5 stars. Trigger warnings: blood (including consumption of), gore, body horror, off-page child murder, child endangerment, vampires kidnapping/feeding on children and adults, death, wolves/large dogs, various forms of horror

 

One of DD's recommendations was for Dickens December, which split up A Christmas Carol into equal-ish segments that were emailed out December 1 to 26. I also enjoyed reading ACC this way; I find the short email every day prompts more reflection than just reading the book in one gulp, which is what I usually do. I like to reread A Christmas Carol for Christmas anyway, and this was a fun way to do it. 4 stars. Trigger warnings: ghosts, supernatural horror, poverty, classism, death, homelessness mentions, prison mentions, a character flirts in a way that would be considered sexual harassment today

 

I reread Christmas with Anne, a compilation of L.M. Montgomery's holiday stories and the Christmas chapters from two Anne of Green Gables books. I reread it every year, and find the stories to be nice and old-fashioned in a comforting way. The non-Anne stories fall into one of three camps: an estranged family is reconciled during the holidays, stuck-up people learn humility due to sharing merry-making with others, or a poor family's children are gifted Christmas in a way they could not have imagined. Others may find the stories repetitive, but I don't mind it, having been inoculated due to repeated readings of the Christmas in My Heart books, which has even more repetitive stories despite being a 40-something book series. I believe this is now out of print, but you may be able to buy an inferior cover version that isn't as nice. 4 out of 5 stars, permanent collection. Trigger warnings: poverty, classism, xenophobia, lookism, fatphobia, sexism, controlling parental figure, death, loss, grief, past child abuse and neglect mentions, 1 brief infertility mention, loneliness, estranged families

 

Another Christmas reread was Jan Brett's picture book The Twelve Days of Christmas, which was a gift from my kindergarten teacher when I was five. It's beautifully, sumptuously illustrated, with lots of lovely details and interpretations of each of the true love's gifts. Truly a picture book to lose yourself in. 5 stars, permanent collection.

picture courtesy of Abebooks

Rest of March books - children's books

Continuing my Narnia reread, next up was The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This book has many of the same characters as Prince Caspian, and introduces the Pevensies' cousin Eustace Scrubb, a deeply annoying stuck-up brat. In the first two books, the Pevensies were called (or blundered into) Narnia to save it from an invading colonizing force; in this one, Edmund and Lucy (and Eustace) just get to chill on the Dawn Treader and go on cool interesting adventures with Caspian (now King) without any specific quest they have to do. Don't Peter and Susan deserve such a vacation?? The gang only has like 2 near-death experiences instead of being in near-constant danger and discomfort! Only 3 years have passed for Narnia, instead of the 1,000 or so in Prince Caspian. Each chapter deals with a new adventure, as Caspian and co. find out what happened to his fathers' friends who went that way some 20+ years before them and were never heard from again. They also try to get to the end of the world. I love VotDT, as the stakes aren't very high (in one adventure, Caspian, the Pevensies and Eustace are kidnapped into slavery but are rescued like 2 hours later) and the different adventures are fun and fascinating to read about. The pacing and vibe is different from the first two books; reluctant readers might do better with this one. 4.5 stars, permanent collection. I read the copy from my OG Dillons cover art series. Trigger warnings for this book: horror (psychological mostly), suspense and creepiness, death (off-page), dragon cannibalism, slavery, bullying, greed, period-typical sexism, feminism depicted as stupid (sole feminist sentiments given to worst, most annoying character), danger, animal bullied (altho Reep can take care of himself), swords and weapons, pro-monarchy statements, they almost run out of drinking water on the boat at one point

I feel like I bought A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston (illustrator) from Barnes & Noble, although of course at this point I have no record of that. I bought it several years ago and displayed it propped up on top of my AC unit, then finally read it in March. Summary below:

A little girl sails her raft across a sea of words, arriving at the house of a small boy and calling him away on an adventure. Through forests of fairy tales and across mountains of make-believe, the two travel together on a fantastical journey that unlocks the boy’s imagination. Now a lifetime of magic and adventure lies ahead of him . . . but who will be next? 

 It's exactly the kind of picture book I love to read: full of book love, wonder, and whimsical illustrations. It leaves you with such a wonderful, warm feeling after reading it. I was surprised by how grayscale the illustrations were, however; while beautiful, creative, and text-based (the text is taken from classic works of literature and classic children's books), hardly any colors were used in the illustrations. I would have also liked to see more diversity; both children appear to be white. I do highly recommend this book, especially to metabook lovers (metabook = books about books). 4.5 stars, keeping. Trigger warnings for this book: if I remember correctly, the children get into slightly dangerous situations? being chased by trolls etc. but nothing major or "real"

January 2022 books

 'Twas a picture book-heavy reading list this month. I am very firmly a mood reader, so I never set my reading list ahead of time. These were mostly lying around the house.

Finding Narnia: The Story of C.S. Lewis and His Brother Warnie is the first book I read this year. As you know, I collect books about Narnia and C.S. Lewis (and by him). This one is a picture book biography by Caroline McAlister and illustrated by Jessica Lanan. It briefly tells the big-picture, broad-strokes story of C.S. Lewis's imaginative, creative, and physical life, from his childhood to his middle age (when he wrote The Chronicles of Narnia). It focuses a bit more on young Jack and Warnie's fantasy kingdoms that they made up, and how they joined them so they could play together. I learned a few things, such as that Warnie was the one who typed the manuscripts of The Chronicles of Narnia, which CSL handwrote! The illustrations appear to be watercolor, and I was pleasantly surprised to find an illustrator's note after the story where Jessica Lanan wrote about going to these places in Lewis's life (the Kilns, Oxford, etc.) and how she patterned places and objects to look like the real thing. She includes endnotes about liberties she took (for example, she painted the wardrobe that inspired THE wardrobe lighter than the one in real life, in order to show off the carved details). I appreciated this, and the illustrator's notes made me like this book even more. This book was a real treat, and CSL fans will love it. It deals with Narnia less than the title suggests, but Narnia fans will like this too, I think. I'm not sure how kids will like it past Jack & Warnie's childhoods. 4.5 out of 5 stars, keeping obviously. Source: Book Outlet. Trigger warnings for this book: death, war mentions, wound mention, grief mention, atheism and Christianity

 

 

Next up was the book itself by the man himself, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe! This is obviously a reread for me; I decided to reread the entire series this year since I haven't in quite a while. It was actually surprisingly difficult for me to read this; for some reason I could not stop thinking of reading this book aloud *while* reading it and of the voices I'd give each of the characters, often doing so. It kept taking me out of the story. I enjoyed it, of course. It strikes me each time I read a book I loved as a child that when I revisit it, the story is over too quickly, and it is no longer as deep and magical and mystical as I found it as a child. Now I just think of me reading it out loud to children myself. Such is growing up, I suppose. What I'm going to do next is read all of Tor's blog entries on LWW for the Great Narnia Re-Read and see what the author had to say about it. I'm going to read a book a month this way. I of course own multiple copies of the Narnia books; I read the full-color one (they added color to Pauline Baynes's illustrations). 4.5 stars, permanent collection. Source: thrift store I think. Trigger warnings for this book: war, death, murder, threats of the above, blood, spit, violent mob (lynching?), scary fantastical creatures, evil magic and enchantment, magic referred to as dark or light which we now know is racist, child endangerment, child soldiers, children using weapons, suspense (mostly kid-friendly)

After that I read The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish by Tim Flannery, which is a historical fiction/mystery novel set in Australia and partially the Venus Islands in the 1930s. This young museum anthropologist guy goes to live with the Venus Island people for five years, then has to readjust to white Australian life and keep the museum director happy while finding out what happened to missing museum curators. He suspects the VIF has something to do with it (see title). He also has to try to win back his girlfriend and would-be fiancee, who flipped out when he gave her a penile love token as a proposal. This had that fun retro vibe I look for in comic early twentieth century lit, but it was weighed down by period-typical racism towards Aboriginals and Venus Islanders (and Italian immigrants). The main guy's roommate sets out to learn about Australia's bloody, horrible colonial past (it's much like America's with the genocide and child murder, etc.). It's good that the author didn't shy away from that and just pretend colonial Australia was hunky dory, but it did make this a much more difficult read than I was anticipating. The fact that so much of museums' historical collections are stolen from indigenous and non-European/Western people  is also included in this book (the VIF is stolen). Personally, we spent way too much time with the roommate and the rich museum donor (sort of a Trump type); it didn't really add anything to the story. I wish we'd spent more time with the Venus Islanders; they were cool. The ending was kind of rushed and weird? I also didn't get the literary device of pretending the story was found in a stuffed monkey in the Sydney museum; it also didn't add anything to it. I did like reading a book from Australia; usually everything I read is from the US or England. I did overall enjoy this (minus the awful colonial racism parts). 3.5 stars. Source: Dollar Tree. Trigger warnings: all the awful colonial racist violence I mentioned, murder (including of children), violence, racism, genocide, candid descriptions of body parts and bones from dead people and animals, cultural insensitivity and theft of "foreign" items for the museum, racist evolutionary ideas, inappropriate museum and archival/preservation practices

 

 I went back to children's lit after this, reading two different picture books about libraries and books.

 

The Night Library by David Zeltser, illustrated by Raul Colón. This cute picture book has one of the famous New York Public Library lion statues coming to life at night and taking a little boy who doesn't like books to discover the magic of the public library. I liked the dreaminess of this one and its art. This is the sort of book I'd have pored over and loved as a child. Recommended for both children and adults, although if you read a lot like I do, the story is not unique. It also feels more like it should be a short film than a book. Supposedly the boy is latino; I did not pick up on that. Bonus diversity points, I guess? It was probably Raul Colón's doing. 3.5 stars, probably keeping. Source: Book Outlet. Trigger warnings: can't think of any. Might make children think lions are safe to ride? They might also start throwing library books around to make them fly

Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown, illustrated by John Parra. This book is about a little girl in Colombia who has only one book and dreams of more. Luckily, her town is visited one day by the Biblioburro, a traveling library on the backs of two burros named Alfa and Beto (I cry. Get it, alfabeto? Alphabet?). The bright, colorful, naive-ish Latin American-inspired illustrations are nice to look at. The librarian with the Biblioburro is real; this is based on a true story. I enjoyed this, and it's nice to see a library-related picture book that is from Latin America. Both author and illustrator are latines. 3.5 stars, probably keeping. Source: Book Outlet. Trigger warnings: hinted-at poverty, hinted-at educational neglect of children, suggested parentification of child, can't really think of anything else

End of Gaiman kick

After American Gods and Anansi Boys I read Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions, which turned out to be a collection of short stories (which I expected) and some poems (which I did not). Gaiman's poems are lovely and creepy, like his fiction. Some pieces were interesting (like the one about an author trying to negotiate with Hollywood people wanting to make his book into a movie and the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired pieces about the coming of Cthulhu and a werewolf) and some were too disturbing or confusing for me. I'd give it an average of 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Next I read Neverwhere, which was just great. I wish I'd read it first of all the other Gaiman books; the other books seemed to be competing with it in my mind...? idk. It's a very familiar story: the hapless ordinary guy who get sucked into a fantasy alternate world he didn't even know existed because of a girl he helps (or wants to bang. Luckily it's the former in this book) and then finds out What He's Made Of and proves himself a hero or whatever. Neil Gaiman made it original and wonderful, though. The tone was slightly closer to Anansi Boys'. I believe I mentioned the style reminded me of Terry Pratchett? I think I meant Douglas Adams (A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books), but whatever, I love all of them. Great stuff. I'd give it 4/5.

Here are the Gaiman books I read (I bought them for $1 each at a yard sale benefiting the school where I went to kindergarten. Did I mention that?), in the order of first to least favorite:

1. American Gods (I can't help it; it's so haunting and just stays with you. It pushed too many of my buttons. Shame about the explicit stuff)
2. Neverwhere (yay alternate London! and history! and stuff)
3. Anansi Boys (more funny than anything else. Slightly less awe but still great)
4. Smoke and Mirrors (I cannot write or read or even think of the title without getting this song stuck in my head)

With the addition of the other Gaiman books I've read (most to least favorite, again):

1. American Gods
2. The Graveyard Book (slightly more original than Neverwhere's premise. Also, the only book to date that has made me feel sorry for a vampire. And in the whole book the word vampire is never used! Gaiman respects our intelligence and knows we can figure it out on our own! I love him.)
3. Neverwhere
4. Instructions (Gaiman reads it here in the book trailer)
5. Anansi Boys, Stardust (It's been a while since I've read Stardust. I may like it slightly more or less than AB; I'm not sure)
6. Blueberry Girl (sweet book trailer here)
7. Smoke and Mirrors

Basically I need to read everything else by him. Coraline looks too creepy for me, though.

Book Review: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Ahhh this book was SO GOOD. I liked it so much it's a new favorite. It includes a lot of my favorite things to read about: secretly sneaking around inside of city walls and buildings, mysteries that might change people's destinies, people who are geniuses at something awesome (in this case, putting together mechanical things), lock-picking (I really want to learn how to do that), dreams, gorgeous black and white illustrations, etc. Oh, it also includes an old-fashioned key with a heart, which is featured prominently on a teaser poster for the movie (I really wish they had kept the original title because it's way more awesome and old-fashioned-sounding and mysterious. "HUGO" does not inspire me to go see a movie. Plus, the font they used is too childish and whimsical). I hope they sell necklaces with the key as a pendant for movie merchandise because I rilly rilly want one.
Anyway, Hugo is a mechanically talented boy with many secrets. What happens when he runs into an old man with similar mechanical talent and just as many secrets? Literary dynamite, that's what. Also, the man's goddaughter Louise is awesome and has just as many skills (the lock-picking with a bobby pin among them) and she's a bookworm so I love her. The story is told with tons of gorgeous black and white pencil drawings as well as photographs from old movies. TIOHC won the Caldecott Award that year, which caused an uproar since that award is for picture books and this book is a novel. However, the pictures are just as important to the story as the words are, so I'd say it counts. This book was fantastic and everyone should read it immediately, especially old movie buffs. 5/5 stars

"I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too."