It's Monday - and a New Year!

      Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and 

  

Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow! Happy Reading! 

Leigh-Anne Eck and Cheriee Weichel are now hosting the "MustRead" challenge for 2021 that Carrie Gelson started so long ago. If you are interested, go here! See my list above! Or the post yesterday.

Happy New Year! Here we go. . . Best wishes for a super year everyone!

Two Adult Books 

Good Evening, Mrs. Craven- The Wartime Stories of Molly Panter-Downes.

          I discovered this collection when it was donated to the used bookstore where I volunteer. I know I've read stories by Mollie Panter-Downes in the past because she wrote prolifically for The New Yorker, but this intrigued me because I thought it might have some connection to those responding to the Covid-19 Pandemic. This centers on the experiences in World War II Britain. The stories are dated from October 1939 to December 1944, bookended by two of her well-known Letters from London. I've loved every story, showing the emotions, the inner thoughts of people in crisis, sometimes grandiose, often selfish, lives being lived alone or with others. And I wondered how connected they are to today in 2020, now2021 as all of us live in our own strange new world? Find and read at least one of Panter-Downes' stories. You won't be sorry!

           I finally finished The Rose Code, a complicated and very long book about secrets at Bletchley Park (now a WWII Museum), codebreakers during WWII. It centers on three women, unlikely friends, but changes and betrayals both hurt and cemented the friendships. I won it from Goodreads and it is good, but the holidays took quite a lot of time and my reading detoured to some books below and other reading, like the magazines I hardly ever get to! If you enjoy Kate Quinn's historical fiction, this is another good one!

One lovely picture/short chapter book:

           I've loved Gary Schmidt's books in the past and knew this would be a good one, perhaps for lower-middle grades? It's a lovely, short story of a father and son, Samuel, off into a coming (then arriving) snowstorm to find a milk cow for Samuel's mother who wants it for the new baby. It's a story of how people used trading instead of money to see if what they have can turn into what they need. Starting with a bowie knife, Schmidt slowly shows the wise ways of the father and the sweetness of Samuel as during the trading, a few things come their way that he wishes "just a little bit, it wasn't a brown-eyed cow his mother was wanting." Showing some wishes, but selfless giving, Gary Schmidt and his late wife Elizabeth Stickney (her pen name) weave a sweet tale that turns out just right. You'll see! Eugene Yelchin, writer, and illustrator, paints some lovely full-page illustrations within the pages. I enjoyed this very much.

              Earlier in the year, I shared a picture book by this same couple. It's a lovely story, too! Almost Time, illustrated by G. Brian Karas, is all about the struggles to wait for something good. Clearly, Gary and Elizabeth know about young boys! My review on Goodreads is here. 

Picture Books:

        I know it's a Christmas book, yet it's also about people, enemies, reaching out with love on a special night. This is a fictional account from a song written by John McCutcheon, the book's author. Beautiful paintings by Henri Sorensen show the surprise, then wonder, and finally heartfelt feelings on a special night in the trenches of World War I. It connects to me today as I wonder how those in conflict here in the U.S. can find common ground? I am hopeful that we can, that we will.

Monday Reading - Books Loved This Week

              Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they've been reading, along with others who post their favorites.  Your TBR lists will grow! Happy Reading!
          Share with the hashtag #IMWAYR 

       It was a very busy week and I'm sharing fewer books than usual, but each one is a gem! Happy Reading!

             Kate Messner never fails to write stories I love. They are complex and joyful, entertaining and heartbreaking, like life! Chirp, in its many layers, celebrates that complexity by sharing a tale of one young girl, supported by mothers, female entrepreneurs, friends, and a grandmother who won't quit living her dream. Sometimes I do not want to tell the plot because I really want readers to experience the book without me telling them what it's about. So, only a brief few words about Chirp. I'd prefer you read it yourself!
         It's a mystery how Messner knits all the pieces together, but I'm so happy she does. Here are the parts needed in all of our lives: friends helping friends and family supporting each other. A varied group of friendly, cool, not cool, crooked, clever and joyful characters makes a wonderful book. "But nobody else got to say who she was going to be. Mia would decide that herself."

          It's hard to wait, especially when it's ALMOST TIME for the sap to run and for the loose tooth to come out! Day by day, Ethan has to eat his pancakes, his cereal, cornbread, too, without syrup. Night by night, Ethan waits for some light to show that days were longer. And one time, he notices he has a loose tooth. Dad says it will fall out before long. Gary Schmidt and Elizabeth Stickney (the pseudonym of Gary Schmidt's late wife) show the s.l.o.w trail that waiting takes when one waits for something very special, maple syrup and a tooth out! G. Brian Karas' illustrations show those ups and downs of a young boy waiting and his father's understanding. It's a sweet book!

          I read this on Valentine's Day, a love story to be sure to remember for next year. Here are poetic words and gorgeous ocean scenes by Anna Pignataro, an Australian writer and illustrator, out in the U.S. this past month. A whale sings as it swims through ocean creatures and plants, warming everyone's hearts, but his own. In the book, Pignataro writes: "weaving a path of starlight/into the seagrass taller than a forest." And, "Whale thought how quiet the sea could be at times . . . and how there was no song big enough to fill his empty heart." When he sighs, the grateful ocean responds by carrying his wish to the perfect place.


            
Now Reading/What's Next: I am still reading When We Were Vikings by Andrew David MacDonald an especially wonderful story, but fraught with tension. I'll start Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams (Newbery Honor) soon.