Hooray!
More books for you!
Every Friday I recap what I’ve read during the week.
I post the picture of the book
that I took when I finished reading it,
and underneath, my thoughts.
This week I spent a lot of time trying to get my office organized (keyword, trying!) so not so much reading. But I did manage to read 7 books!
Here we go!
PENGUIN IN LOVE
by Salina Yoon
You guys, let me let you in on a little secret: this is my go to book for wedding presents. “Wait,” you say, “a BOARD BOOK as a wedding present?”
“Yes,” I say, “exactly.”
It is just the absolute sweetest.
One day Penguin finds a mitten. He asks around, but no one seems to be missing one. Meanwhile, his friend Bootsy is knitting snout cozies to keep the noses of friendly animals warm. “Knitting warmed her lonely heart.” Seriously. Talk about tugging on your heart strings. Penguin knits the mitten a mate when two puffins fly in from out of town.
The mystery is solved! One of the puffins dropped the cozy. Penguin admires them and thinks they are a perfect pair. The puffins hatch a plan to get Penguin and Bootsy together, and it’s an epic quest filled with fun, friends, and lots of yarn.
The illustrations are bright, adorable, engaging, and tell so much of the story. This book will warm your heart, and everyone will love it! Check it out!
THE THING ABOUT LUCK
by Cynthia Kadohata
I flew through this book. It’s about Summer, her brother Jaz, and her grandparents heading out to harvest the wheat all over the country. Her grandfather, Jiichan, drives a combine, and she and her grandmother, Obaachan, cook for the workers. Summer has her first crush, works very hard, thinks about her place in the universe, and navigates her summer.
I love how ordinary this novel feels, even though this is not an ordinary subject. I had never heard of harvesters before; it was fascinating to learn about. There are many great details about it in the book, including drawings! It’s a completely different coming of age story. There are many funny moments and great family moments too.
Reading this felt like watching in on Summer for just a little while, and by the end, I knew she would be ok and I was fine to let her go back to her life without me watching. Does that make sense? Love the first person narration too. A great book!
EVERYWHERE BABIES
By Susan Meyers, illustrated by Marla Frazee.
This board book is so cute! The rhyming text is simple and sweet, pointing out the many things babies do. You’ll get into the rhythm! The layout of the book is great too; hand lettered text for the start of each sentence, then the text placed on the page for the rest of the sentence to guide your eyes through the illustrations!
Oh man, the illustrations! Marla Frazee is one of my absolute favorites. This book is packed with so many babies, so cute, so diverse, and doing so many fun things. All kinds of families are represented too.
The whole thing is an absolute treat and a MUST for new parents. Buy this one for the baby shower you’re heading to, or the baby already in the world and in your life!
JOHN PAUL JONES: THE PIRATE PATRIOT
By Armstrong Sperry
I teach about the American Revolution, and one of the characters in the program I do is John Paul Jones. He is famous for his line, “I have not yet begun to fight!” when the British demanded he surrender. Also, at the time, his ship was sinking. No problem, he just hopped over to the British ship and took it over.
This was a fun way to learn more about him. I learned of more battles he was in, what a gentleman he was, how he was good pals with Ben Franklin, and more. There are great technical illustrations in here and lists of technical terms for ship loving folks.
This would be a great addition to a 5th grade curriculum, and awesome for someone interested in sailing. Found it in a random used bookstore where every book was one dollar. Yeah, it was heaven!
THE CATEGORICAL UNIVERSE OF CANDICE PHEE
By Barry Jonsberg
Candice is such a great character. She’s very particular and takes thing literally. So when she’s given an assignment to write about herself in an essay, 26 paragraphs total, each starting with a letter of the alphabet, she’s worried that one paragraph for each letter won’t do.
So she wrote this book. Each chapter is inspired by a word starting with the next letter of the alphabet.
Candice has a penpal (who is not answering back) a pet fish, a friend from another dimension, a family that’s still mourning the loss of her sister, a rich uncle, and lots of wacky but sweet ideas.
This book is peculiar and wacky and charming and sweet and I would have loved it as a kid. Give it a try! You may love it too!
And I double love that it takes place in Australia! Fun to see another setting!
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE
by J.K. Rowling.
I’m not going to do a review on this one; most everyone knows about this book, right? Danny and I finished reading it though (my hand on the left, his on the right) and we’ve moved on to reading Chamber of Secrets. Well, I read and he listens. It’s delightful!
YOU’RE NEVER WEIRD ON THE INTERNET (almost)
By Felicia Day
You guys, this is a GREAT memoir. Going into this, I knew very little about Felicia Day. I knew she was coming to Bookshop Santa Cruz. I knew she sounded awesome from the jacket flap. And I knew it was a good sign when my husband saw her, immediately put on THE GUILD for me to watch, and we watched the whole first season. (He’s seen all of it; I have some catching up to do.) I HAD seen her in Doctor Horrible.
Why do I say all of this? As proof that anyone will enjoy this book, not just huge fans or hardcore gamers, even though after reading this I know I will become a huge fan, and I game in the tabletop way 🙂
Ok but the book! So honest and heartfelt. It feels like you are sitting across the table from her, listening to all her funny life stories. (and man does she have a ton of them!) It’s not all sugarcoated though; she talks about anxiety, depression, and her weird childhood.
The part about wanting to be an orphan when she was a kid because orphans always got the best deal in kids books cracked me up. I wrote a TON about orphans as a kid, for the same reason!
I LOVED all the fun Photoshopped pictures in the book too, and her tone. It’s encouraging and hopeful. This book is like a love letter to creatives from someone on the other side who made it, cheering you on, reminding you to be weird because that’s who you are and why would you take those parts of you away? She encourages us to be kinder, support each other, and find our community and artistic voice.
It’s an inspiring read. I’m so happy I got to meet her and hear her speak. She is just as marvelous in person as she is in this book. She took time to talk to every single person AND take a posed photo. I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but when you have to do that pose hundreds of times, it is.
I think anyone would like this book, but teenagers will be really encouraged too. I talked to a college kid at the event who was unsure about what he wanted to do after college, but told me he relaxed a bit after reading this book because someone he admired didn’t have it all figured out at 22 either.
Get this and read it!
Have you read any of these?
I’d love to hear what you thought of them!
See you next Friday with more books!
Bye for now,
KE
P.S. Full disclosure: The links above go to Indiebound and are affiliate links. If you buy at Indiebound, I’ll get a little kick back. That would of course be nice, but really I’m happy to be linking to an Indie site 🙂
