November 10, 2019

This book has been on my shelf for a long time, and I’ve just never gotten around to reading it.  I picked it up this week and can’t put it down!

Here’s the blurb from Goodreads:

This 2007 Newbery Honor Book is a humorous and heartwarming debut about feeling different and finding acceptance. Now in After Words paperback!
Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a normal life. Which is near impossible when you have a brother with autism and a family that revolves around his disability. She’s spent years trying to teach David the rules from “a peach is not a funny-looking apple” to “keep your pants on in public”—in order to head off David’s embarrassing behaviors.
But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a surprising, new sort-of friend, and Kristi, the next-door friend she’s always wished for, it’s her own shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask: What is normal?

I also read a few adult novels including:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love books that give me a chance to learn about new cultures, religions, and places.  This is a classic love story – a version of Pride and Prejudice – with a modern twist.

Here’s the blurb from Goodreads:

AYESHA SHAMSI has a lot going on.  Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn’t want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and dresses like he belongs in the seventh century.

When a surprise engagement between Khalid and Hafsa is announced, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and his family; and the truth she realizes about herself. But Khalid is also wrestling with what he believes and what he wants. And he just can’t get this beautiful, outspoken woman out of his mind.

 

I learned a lot about this particular period and place in history.  It was a heartwarming story.  I highly recommend it.

It’s 1947, and India, newly independent of British rule, has been separated into two countries: Pakistan and India. The divide has created much tension between Hindus and Muslims, and hundreds of thousands are killed crossing borders.

Half-Muslim, half-Hindu twelve-year-old Nisha doesn’t know where she belongs, or what her country is anymore. When Papa decides it’s too dangerous to stay in what is now Pakistan, Nisha and her family become refugees and embark first by train but later on foot to reach her new home. The journey is long, difficult, and dangerous, and after losing her mother as a baby, Nisha can’t imagine losing her homeland, too. But even if her country has been ripped apart, Nisha still believes in the possibility of putting herself back together.

Told through Nisha’s letters to her mother, The Night Diary is a heartfelt story of one girl’s search for home, for her own identity…and for a hopeful future.

 

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October 8, 2019

Lynda Mullaly Hunt is one of my FAVOURITE middle grade authors.  Her stories are important, full of heart, and I think many young readers can see themselves in her characters.  They feel real.

I loved “One for the Murphys” and “Fish in a Tree” so it’s no surprise that I’m enjoying this one so far.

Here’s the blurb from goodreads.com:

Delsie loves tracking the weather–lately, though, it seems the squalls are in her own life. She’s always lived with her kindhearted Grammy, but now she’s looking at their life with new eyes and wishing she could have a “regular family.” Delsie observes other changes in the air, too–the most painful being a friend who’s outgrown her. Luckily, she has neighbors with strong shoulders to support her, and Ronan, a new friend who is caring and courageous but also troubled by the losses he’s endured. As Ronan and Delsie traipse around Cape Cod on their adventures, they both learn what it means to be angry versus sad, broken versus whole, and abandoned versus loved. And that, together, they can weather any storm.

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September 8th, 2019

OH BOY!  It’s been a long time since I’ve put in an update here.  I’m going to have to accept the fact that I won’t be able to update this page every single time I start or finish a new book.  That’s why I’ve started putting up a sign on my classroom door with what I’m currently reading.  When I can’t update, I’ll just take a photo of the sign.  I think that’ll work.

Right now, though, I can tell you that I’ve just started this exciting new series:

The blurb from Goodreads.com reads:

The Earth is dying.
Darrow is a Red, a miner in the interior of Mars. His mission is to extract enough precious elements to one day tame the surface of the planet and allow humans to live on it.
The Reds are humanity’s last hope.

Or so it appears, until the day Darrow discovers it’s all a lie.

That Mars has been habitable – and inhabited – for generations, by a class of people calling themselves the Golds.
A class of people who look down on Darrow and his fellows as slave labour, to be exploited and worked to death without a second thought. Until the day that Darrow, with the help of a mysterious group of rebels, disguises himself as a Gold and infiltrates their command school, intent on taking down his oppressors from the inside.

But the command school is a battlefield – and Darrow isn’t the only student with an agenda.

Break the chains.

Live for more.

My comment so far: The blurb makes me think it might be sort of like The Hunger Games, so I think I’m going to be on the edge of my seat.  This was originally a trilogy and three additional books have been added, making it a series of 6 books!  And, if that’s not enough to keep a reader busy, the author separated Book 4 or 5 into two separate books. I’ll probably only buy the others if students want me to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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September 23, 2017

I just started this one.  Here’s the blurb from goodreads.

When a plane crash-lands in the arctic, eight young survivors step from the wreckage expecting to see nothing but ice and snow. Instead they find themselves lost in a strange jungle with no way to get home and little hope of rescue.

Food is running out. Water is scarce. And the jungle is full of threats unlike anything the survivors have ever seen before — from razor-beaked shredder birds to carnivorous vines and much, much worse.

With danger at every turn, these eight kids must learn to work together to survive. But cliques and rivalries threaten to tear them apart. And not everyone will make it out of the jungle alive.

 

 

 

 

This is an adult, historical fiction novel that I’m listening to via audio CDs.  This keeps me reading, even in the car!  Here’s the blurb from goodreads.

 

Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this powerful debut novel reveals an incredible story of love, redemption, and terrible secrets that were hidden for decades.
 
New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France.

An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. In a tense atmosphere of watchful eyes and suspecting neighbors, one false move can have dire consequences.

For the ambitious young German doctor, Herta Oberheuser, an ad for a government medical position seems her ticket out of a desolate life. Once hired, though, she finds herself trapped in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power.

The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland—as Caroline and Kasia strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.

In Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly has crafted a remarkable novel of unsung women and their quest for love, freedom, and second chances. It is a story that will keep readers bonded with the characters, searching for the truth, until the final pages.

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Once again, I’m late to update this page, so here goes:

I’m presently reading:

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Just started this one on Friday, November 19th, but I’m half-way through already.  This one is a very very compelling love story.  I’m sure all my ‘love-story’ female students will love it.  I haven’t purchased it yet (borrowed it from the SDG library), but I’m thinking I might just HAVE to! 🙂

Blurb from Goodreads.com

Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor… Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough…Eleanor.

Park… He knows she’ll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There’s a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises…Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

 

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Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz

I just finished this one on November 17th.  This was my second Alan Gratz historical fiction novel, the first being “Prisoner B-3087” a novel about the holocaust.

 

Gratz is amazing at writing believable characters, edge-of-your-seat action (007 anyone?) and teaching his readers a little bit of history in the meantime.  I really enjoyed this one, and I’m sure my students will too!

Blurb from Goodreads:

Infiltrate. Befriend. Sabotage.

World War II is raging. Michael O’Shaunessey, originally from Ireland, now lives in Nazi Germany with his parents. Like the other boys in his school, Michael is a member of the Hitler Youth.

But Michael has a secret. He and his parents are spies.

Michael despises everything the Nazis stand for. But he joins in the Hitler Youth’s horrific games and book burnings, playing the part so he can gain insider knowledge.

When Michael learns about Projekt 1065, a secret Nazi war mission, things get even more complicated. He must prove his loyalty to the Hitler Youth at all costs — even if it means risking everything he cares about.

Including… his own life.

From acclaimed author Alan Gratz (Prisoner B-3087) comes a pulse-pounding novel about facing fears and fighting for what matters most.

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Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I read this book in October, and it was excellent.  Although it took a little patience in the beginning to sort out the various characters and story lines, the writing was excellent, and I learned so much about a part of the world that I previously knew nothing about – Biafra.  This is definitely not a young adult book, rather more of an adult historical fiction novel.

 

 

Blurb from Goodreads:

With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.

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September 19, 2016

I started this book yesterday:

Blurb from Goodreads:

Dill has had to wrestle with vipers his whole life at home, as the only son of a Pentecostal minister who urges him to handle poisonous rattlesnakes, and at school, where he faces down bullies who target him for his father’s extreme faith and very public fall from grace.

The only antidote to all this venom is his friendship with fellow outcasts Travis and Lydia. But as they are starting their senior year, Dill feels the coils of his future tightening around him. Dill’s only escapes are his music and his secret feelings for Lydia neither of which he is brave enough to share. Graduation feels more like an ending to Dill than a beginning. But even before then, he must cope with another ending one that will rock his life to the core.

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September 11, 2016

I just started this book:

 

Blurb from Goodreads.com

“An odd shaped shell caught my eye. . . . I turned it over. . . . It was a tiny, perfect skull.”

In the wake of a family tragedy, twelve-year-old Minn Hotchkiss is sent to spend the summer with her sour grandmother in the tiny seaside town of Boulder Basin, Nova Scotia. Almost as soon as she arrives, Minn discovers the skull of a human child on the beach. She is swiftly caught up in a mystery that reaches back more than a century, to the aftermath of the most tragic shipwreck in Maritime history before the Titanic.

Over the course of this extraordinary summer, Minn will discover romance with a boy who turns out to be much more than he seems, and learn that the grandmother she resented is more curious, dedicated, and surprising than she had ever guessed. She might even meet a world-famous rock star!

By summer’s end, Minn will solve a ghostly mystery and, most importantly, finally be able to give up the terrible secret she has kept locked in her heart.

– I’m really enjoying it so far.  Surprisingly, I’ve had students read this one 10 years ago, and the cover just didn’t intrigue me, but the writing is much more exciting than the cover.  I’m glad I picked it up.  It reminds me that you “can’t judge a book by it’s cover.”  🙂

I finished this book a couple of days ago and gave it a 4 out of 5 stars.  The novel actually follows two stories, both Minn’s story of her struggle with a family tragedy, and the story of John Hindley, a young boy who was on the SS Atlantic in 1873 when it ran aground in a storm.  I love books based on true events in history because I learn so much through reading them.  I’d never heard of the shipwreck of the SS Atlantic off the coast of Nova Scotia, and now I know more about it. I also enjoyed the characters in this novel, especially the interaction between Minn and her very stern grandmother (who turned out to be less stern than Minn thought).

 

 

 

 

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Books I’ve read since September 2014

Winger by Andrew Smith

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your A… by Meg Medina

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

The Infinite Sea (The 5th Wave Book #2) by Rick Yancey

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October 2, 2014

I haven’t updated this page in a while, so I thought I’d just let you know that I’ve been reading, just not recording my reading here.

One awesome book that I’ve recently finished was “A Northern Light” by Jennifer Donnelly.  It is historical fiction, set in upper New York in the early 1900’s.  I’d say it’s historical feminist fiction because the themes of the book remind us that some of the women’s rights that we enjoy today were not always available to women.  I’d also say that this book is a good murder mystery, as the author includes the basic story of an actual murder that happened in the area at that time.

This book can be found in our school library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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September 6th, 2014

The Birth House by Ami McKay
Published by Vintage Canada
408 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:
The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of the Rare family. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing and a kitchen filled with herbs and folk remedies. During the turbulent years of World War I, Dora becomes the midwife’s apprentice. Together, they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives.

When Gilbert Thomas, a brash medical doctor, comes to Scots Bay with promises of fast, painless childbirth, some of the women begin to question Miss Babineau’s methods – and after Miss Babineau’s death, Dora is left to carry on alone. In the face of fierce opposition, she must summon all of her strength to protect the birthing traditions and wisdom that have been passed down to her.

Filled with details that are as compelling as they are surprising-childbirth in the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion, the prescribing of vibratory treatments to cure hysteria and a mysterious elixir called Beaver Brew- The Birth House is an unforgettable tale of the struggles women have faced to maintain control over their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.

My Review:

I love historical fiction, and historical fiction about Canada is even more intriguing to me. Not long ago, I read a book about the Halifax Explosion, and it was interesting to see this event embedded in the story about Dora, a young midwife living and working in a small town just when modern medicine was beginning to take control over the health of pregnant women and the process of birthing children.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dora’s story, her trials and tribulations as a midwife, an apprentice to the mysterious Mrs. B, and as a young woman living in a time when women were striving to find their voices in politics, community life, and sometimes even in their own homes.

This was definitely an adult fiction book. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars, but I believe it deserved a 4 1/2.

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August 23, 2014

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Published by Delacorte Press
240 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

My Review:

This is one of those books that’s really hard to review without giving away the story. All I can say is that it’s not like any other book I’ve read. It was shocking. It was heart-wrenching. It was beautifully written. I gave it 5 out of 5 stars!

Warning: Mature language and some mature themes.

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August 20, 2014

The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork
Published by Arthur A. Levine Books
344 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:

Two young men — one dying of cancer, one planning a murder — explore the true meanings of death and life in the tense and passionate new novel from the author of MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD.

When Pancho arrives at St. Anthony’s Home, he knows his time there will be short: If his plans succeed, he’ll soon be arrested for the murder of his sister’s killer. But then he’s assigned to help D.Q., whose brain cancer has slowed neither his spirit nor his mouth. D.Q. tells Pancho all about his “Death Warrior’s Manifesto,” which will help him to live out his last days fully–ideally, he says, with the love of the beautiful Marisol. As Pancho tracks down his sister’s murderer, he finds himself falling under the influence of D.Q. and Marisol, who is everything D.Q. said she would be.

My Review:

Part love story, part story of hope and it’s flip side – despair, this book introduces the reader to some very profound ideas about life, family, and friendship as well as about the choices we make in our lives that inevitably define us. Could you choose to be a Death Warrior? I hope so. (You will have to read the book to find out what that means.) I gave this one 4 out of 5 stars!

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August 5, 2014

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks
294 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:

The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.

Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from “aging out” of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.

Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life – answers that will ultimately free them both.

Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.

My Review: coming soon

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July 30, 2014

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
Published by Harper Teen
419 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:
I’m dreaming of the boy in the tree. I tell him stories. About the Jellicoe School and the Townies and the Cadets from a school in Sydney. I tell him about the war between us for territory. And I tell him about Hannah, who lives in the unfinished house by the river. Hannah, who is too young to be hiding away from the world. Hannah, who found me on the Jellicoe Road six years ago.

Taylor is leader of the boarders at the Jellicoe School. She has to keep the upper hand in the territory wars and deal with Jonah Griggs – the enigmatic leader of the cadets, and someone she thought she would never see again.

And now Hannah, the person Taylor had come to rely on, has disappeared. Taylor’s only clue is a manuscript about five kids who lived in Jellicoe eighteen years ago. She needs to find out more, but this means confronting her own story, making sense of her strange, recurring dream, and finding her mother – who abandoned her on the Jellicoe Road.

The moving, joyous and brilliantly compelling new novel from the best-selling, multi-award-winning author of Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca.

My Review:

Even though I wasn’t sure what was going on in this story for the first 100 pages or so, I was so intrigued with the characters, the writing, and the jigsaw puzzle of a story that Melina Marchetta scattered, very carefully on the pages so as to let the story unfold bit by bit, that I just had to stick with it. And I’m so glad I did, because the puzzle – that turns out to be two stories rather than one – came together piece by piece in the most interesting way. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I held my breath for the last hundred pages. This was the first book of Marchetta’s that I’ve read, but it won’t be the last.

A caution to readers: this book has mature language and themes. I don’t own it, yet, but I know it’s in the NDDHS library if you’re interested.

I gave it 5 out of 5 stars!

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July 21, 2014
One Good Hustle by Billie Livingston
Published by Random House Canada
288 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:
From award-winning writer Billie Livingston, an unsparing novel of loyalty and survival that is fierce, sharp and funny even when it’s breaking your heart.

The child of 2 con artists, 16-year-old Sammie Bell always prided herself on knowing the score. But now she finds herself backed into a corner. After a hustle gone dangerously wrong, her mother, Marlene, is sliding into an abyss of alcoholic depression, spending her days fantasizing aloud about death–a goal Sammie is tempted to help her accomplish. Horrified by the appeal of this, Sammie packs a bag and leaves her mother to her own devices.

With her father missing in action, she has nowhere else to go but the home of a friend with 2 parents who seem to actually love their daughter and each other–and who awkwardly try to extend some semblance of family to Sammie. Throughout a long summer of crisis among the normals, Sammie is torn between her longing for the approval of the con-man father she was named for and her desire for the “weird, spearmint-fresh feeling” of life in the straight world. Sammie wants to be normal but fears that where she comes from makes that beyond the realm of possibility.

One Good Hustle chronicles 2 months in Sammie Bell’s struggle with her dread that she is somehow doomed genetically to be just another hustler.

My Review:
This one went down like butter. I loved Sammie’s voice, two-toned in that she’s a tough cookie who knows the ropes, the streets, and can read people like a fortune teller reads the tarot cards or tea leaves, but she’s also a little girl, afraid and quite alone.
“One Good Hustle” is another book for adult readers, and I wouldn’t recommend it to my students, but if you’re intrigued by the publisher’s blurb, you might like “One for the Murphys” by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, a book with similar themes that is aimed at the young adult reader.

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July 19, 2014
The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick

Adult Fiction
Published by Harper
281 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:
Call it fate. Call it synchronicity. Call it an act of God. Call it . . . The Good Luck of Right Now. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook comes an entertaining and inspiring tale that will leave you pondering the rhythms of the universe and marveling at the power of kindness and love.

For thirty-eight years, Bartholomew Neil has lived with his mother. When she gets sick and dies, he has no idea how to be on his own. His redheaded grief counselor, Wendy, says he needs to find his flock and leave the nest. But how does a man whose whole life has been grounded in his mom, Saturday mass, and the library learn how to fly?

Bartholomew thinks he’s found a clue when he discovers a “Free Tibet” letter from Richard Gere hidden in his mother’s underwear drawer. In her final days, mom called him Richard—there must be a cosmic connection. Believing that the actor is meant to help him, Bartholomew awkwardly starts his new life, writing Richard Gere a series of highly intimate letters. Jung and the Dalai Lama, philosophy and faith, alien abduction and cat telepathy, the Catholic Church and the mystery of women are all explored in his soul-baring epistles. But mostly the letters reveal one man’s heartbreakingly earnest attempt to assemble a family of his own.

A struggling priest, a “Girlbrarian,” her feline-loving, foul-mouthed brother, and the spirit of Richard Gere join the quest to help Bartholomew. In a rented Ford Focus, they travel to Canada to see the cat Parliament and find his biological father . . . and discover so much more.

My Review:

First, I’ve got to say that although I loved this book (another 5 starred book), it’s not for kids. So, maybe just the parents reading this review or the teachers who happen by might want to give this one a try, but the graphic language and some adult themes make this book more for adults.

You know that friend you have who is just a tad different? You know the one who, when you’re introducing him/her to other friends naturally elicits the raised eyebrow, a slight tilt of the head. And you remember, at that moment of introductions, how you too thought your friend was rather quirky when you first met.

Well, Bartholomew Neil is that friend, maybe even a bit quirkier, and I’ll admit that that after reading the first few pages of this novel, I wasn’t sure if a friendship between me and Bartholomew was ever going to blossom. I wasn’t sure if another book with a sort-of autism spectre disordered protagonist (or whatever it is that makes Bartholomew, Bartholomew) was going to be my soup de jour.

But, just like that friend of yours, Bartholomew, if you give him a chance, grows on you till the point where eventually, you forget that he’s even quirky and you just see Bartholomew. And he’s your friend.

I’m so glad I chose to stick with this one. All of Quick’s characters in The Good Luck of Right Now are quirky, and yet they’re real too. Bartholomew has spent the first 39 years of his life with his mom, who had a unique perspective on life, who took care of Bartholomew, who loved Richard Gere, and who has just died of cancer. Bartholomew is not sure what comes next. He has a friend in Father McNamee, another quirky but loveable character. He’s in therapy – sort of – with Wendy, and as a result Bartholomew has a few life goals, like having a drink in a bar with an age-appropriate friend. And having a drink in a bar with a girl, hopefully Girlbrarian, whom he’s been studying from across the library for some time now.

With mom gone, Bartholomew’s life takes a few twists and turns. He meets new people, and has some adventures, and all of this is chronicled through his letters to Richard Gere, mom’s favourite actor, and Bartholomew’s sort-of namesake (don’t ask!).

This book was The Good Luck of Right Now for me. You’ll know what I mean when you read it.

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July 15th, 2014
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Young Adult Historical Fiction
Published by Philomel Books
344 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously–and at great risk–documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

My Review:

I knew very little about what happened in Lithuania during WWII and this beautifully written novel provided me with a taste of the hardships, the atrocities that thousands of innocent Lithuanians experienced at the hands of the Soviets.

I particularly liked the way Sepetys used the small moments in the narrative – a visual image or sound or word in dialogue, that the protagonist experiences in the ‘now’ – to share some of Lina’s pre-war experiences of home and family, giving the reader a clear sense of the sharp contrast between pre-war family life and her life as a prisoner of the Soviet regime.

Lina, an aspiring artist and writer, chooses to document her experiences through her drawings despite the fact that doing so is strictly forbidden and, if discovered, could put her and her family in grave danger. In this way, she engages in a form of quiet rebellion, and we come see this rebellion as the wellspring that gives Lina the strength to endure her suffering. Lina’s acts of rebellion reminded me of so many others – holocaust survivors included – who have attributed their survival of atrocities because of their sheer determination to disclose the evil deeds of their oppressors, to chronicle the pain, the suffering, and the triumphs of their fellow prisoners.

I must admit that I shed a few tears here and there as I learned of the horrors of the work camps, the brutality of the Siberian climate, and the hatred bestowed upon them by their Soviet captors. Be forewarned that this is not an easy book to read because of the subject matter, and yet Sepetys provides more than just a chronicle of evil deeds. “Between Shades of Gray” also reveals the power of family, of community, and the sheer will to live.

Students who love historical fiction, and in particular, war stories, will really enjoy this book. I gave it 5 out of 5 stars. It was that good!

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July 15th, 2014
The Smartest Kids in the World: And How they Got That Way by Amanda Ripley

Nonfiction
Published by Simon and Schuster
238 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:
Through the compelling stories of three American teenagers living abroad and attending the world’s top-notch public high schools, an investigative reporter explains how these systems cultivate the “smartest” kids on the planet.

America has long compared its students to top-performing kids of other nations. But how do the world’s education superpowers look through the eyes of an American high school student? Author Amanda Ripley follows three teenagers who chose to spend one school year living and learning in Finland, South Korea, and Poland. Through their adventures, Ripley discovers startling truths about how attitudes, parenting, and rigorous teaching have revolutionized these countries’ education results.

In The Smartest Kids in the World, Ripley’s astonishing new insights reveal that top-performing countries have achieved greatness only in the past several decades; that the kids who live there are learning to think for themselves, partly through failing early and often; and that persistence, hard work, and resilience matter more to our children’s life chances than self-esteem or sports.

Ripley’s investigative work seamlessly weaves narrative and research, providing in-depth analysis and gripping details that will keep you turning the pages. Written in a clear and engaging style, The Smartest Kids in the World will enliven public as well as dinner table debates over what makes for brighter and better students.

My Review:

This was a fascinating read. First, I have to say that I’m proud that Canada’s ranking, according to PISA, is right below Finland and above Poland, two of the countries that the author researched for this book. While it’s true that Canada’s scores dipped a bit on the last PISA in 2012, we’re still up there, so we must be doing something right.

Ripley drives home several key factors that contribute to producing those ‘smart kids’ and although each of the countries she explored each did it in their own style, all of them had communities or a culture in which everyone – parents, teachers, students . . . everyone recognized the importance of a good education.

to be continued . . .

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JULY 9, 2014
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Adult Fiction
Published by Knopf Canada
336 pages

Publisher’s Blurb:
Miriam Toews is beloved for her irresistible voice, for mingling laughter and heartwrenching poignancy like no other writer. In her most passionate novel yet, she brings us the riveting story of two sisters, and a love that illuminates life.

You won’t forget Elf and Yoli, two smart and loving sisters. Elfrieda, a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yolandi, divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men as she tries to find true love: she desperately wants to keep her older sister alive. Yoli is a beguiling mess, wickedly funny even as she stumbles through life struggling to keep her teenage kids and mother happy, her exes from hating her, her sister from killing herself and her own heart from breaking.

But Elf’s latest suicide attempt is a shock: she is three weeks away from the opening of her highly anticipated international tour. Her long-time agent has been calling and neither Yoli nor Elf’s loving husband knows what to tell him. Can she be nursed back to “health” in time? Does it matter? As the situation becomes ever more complicated, Yoli faces the most terrifying decision of her life.

All My Puny Sorrows, at once tender and unquiet, offers a profound reflection on the limits of love, and the sometimes unimaginable challenges we experience when childhood becomes a new country of adult commitments and responsibilities. In her beautifully rendered new novel, Miriam Toews gives us a startling demonstration of how to carry on with hope and love and the business of living even when grief loads the heart.

My Review:

First, I have to tell you that this is definitely not a young adult or middle grades book. It’s adult fiction; it’s sad and yet I’m thoroughly enjoying Toews’ humour, despite the agonizingly sad themes of dealing with a suicidal family member.

I love Miriam Toews’ writing, her voice, the rawness of it, the way she can get under my skin, the way she can make me laugh and cry almost at the same time. And, I love the insights a book like this provides about how people cope with life’s struggles.

Since I’m still reading, I can’t rate this book yet, but I can tell you that Miriam Toews is becoming one of my favourite Canadian authors.