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 was fun! We had Labor Day off and spent the whole day having fun, and I started watching the 2.5 year old of my friends. I read a few longer books this week too. Here we go!
WE SHOULD HANG OUT SOMETIME
By Josh Sundquist
This book is a hoot.
Josh chronicles his relationships, or, in his case, lack thereof, from middle school on. He talks about each girl, the back story, the culminating moment when things fell apart or just didn’t happen, and then (I liked this part the best) he WENT BACK and talked to them about it to get closure!
Turns out some of the girls liked him too. Some barely remembered these moments he can recall so vividly. Throughout the story Josh learns about himself, his insecurities, and as the reader you’ll cringe at all the awkward moments, but maybe you’re cringing because something similar happened to you!
Man I felt for Josh. Good for him that he did this! A lot of the book also talked about his disability (he beat cancer as a kid but had one leg amputated in the process) and I thought it was awesome how he navigated through the world, being really successful. I think these insecurities he felt are felt by everyone.
I think I would have liked this book better if I were a little younger (Josh ends the book at 25 years old) but the story reads effortlessly. You’ll be cheering for Josh almost immediately and also thinking about your relationships, past and present. I bet young adults and new adults would devour this, they’d relate to it so much.
FISH FISH FISH
By Lee Nordling and Meritxwell Bosch
This is a wordless graphic novel that tells the same story from three points of view. There’s a little fish swimming all alone, a hungry barracuda, and a large group of small fish.
You can read this book many ways. Each page is split into three sections with three panels each; top, middle, and bottom. If you read just across the top, you get the story of the little fish. Just across the middle and you get the barracuda’s story. Just across the bottom and it’s the story of the group of fish.
But if you read each page top to bottom, you get the whole story! What a cool format! I think this would be a great book to bring up point of view. Kids will have a blast putting words to what is going on too.
I love that these suggestions for how to read the book are at the start of the book, so you know what to do. There’s some commentary at the end too. The illustrations are clean, bright, simple, and effectively communicate the story. I really like that each page is nine panels; it’s nice to have that predictable structure.
LUMBERJANES: BEWARE THE KITTEN HOLY
Created by Shannon Waters, Grace Ellis, and Noelle Stevenson, illustrated by Brooke Allen.
Part field manual, part graphic novel, but all fun! The LumberJanes are a group of five girls at summer camp who go on adventures and come across some weird stuff, including river monsters, weird foxes, ancient statues that somehow move, brainwashed boys, yetis, and a weird bear monster.
The characters are fun, the illustrations and story are action packed, and there are great bits of dialogue. My personal favorite: “what the junk!”
This has to be a series; the ending is such a cliff hanger! MG readers and up will love this adventure! 
YOU WERE THE FIRST
by Patricia MacLachlan,
illustrated by Stephanie Graegin
What a sweet book!
It reads like a love letter to the first born child. Written in second person, it chronicles all the things this baby was the first to do. My favorite: “you were the first to teach us how to be parents.”
The illustrations are very sweet; warm inviting pictures with good texture and color. I love the little baby and the family. This book is a quick little read, and would be a great reminder to the oldest child in a family that they are still special, even if the baby seems to be getting all the attention.
BUT I WANTED A BABY BROTHER
By Kate Feiffer, illustrated by Diane Goode.
Oliver wants a baby brother but gets a baby sister instead. Ugh. She doesn’t do anything he wants to do, so he and his dog set out on an extensive quest to find a suitable boy baby to trade. Along the way his appreciation for his sister grows.
I like that the book opens with an autobiography by Oliver. It really allows us to get to know his character. As a writer, I found it a very interesting way to get across his motivations quickly. This is the first time I’ve seen something like this in a picture book, and in this case I think it works very well.
The watercolor illustrations are very colorful and lively. The colors pop out on the otherwise white background pages. The text is pretty long, but doesn’t feel that long. There are some great visual jokes and spreads as well. I also really like the device of time changing. In two pages, a year goes by, while Oliver is out looking for a new baby brother. I had a feeling something like this would need to happen, because I knew we would see his sister a little bit older. This change in time doesn’t feel too forced and works really well.
This will be a great book for a new baby in the family obviously, especially if the older sibling doesn’t get the younger sibling that he or she wants. A cute story.
TUPELO RIDES THE RAILS
by Melissa Sweet
What a cute book! Tupelo is left by the side of the road with only his trusty sock toy. He wanders around and finds a pack of dogs, each with his or her own dream of a certain type of home. They hop on the rails with the nice hobo Garbage Pail Rex, and when they get to the next town, one by one they find a place, except Tupelo. Will she ever find a place to stay?
Another book with a lot of text that didn’t feel long. I really loved the reference to Sirius, the Dog Star. The very first page also has a fold out timeline in dog years of important dog moments. It’s really cool. I love Melissa Sweet’s illustrations. Here line is really loose and playful, her colors are the best, and her compositions are always awesome. Some pages have a bunch of little images going on while other spreads have one whole picture there are a few more times when the pages open out to a larger spread. One of my favorites is the one that shows off a bunch of constellations. This is a great story for anyone who loves dogs or great stories.
BOOK SCAVENGER
By Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
You guys, this MG rocked my socks off! It’s the story of Emily, a 7th grader who moves to San Francisco with her family (older brother, mom, and dad) because her parents have a goal to live in all 50 states. So she moves around a lot.
But that’s OK, because she always has books, and Book Scavenger, an online community and fun game involving secret clues and codes, where players get points for finding and hiding books. The cool thing about moving to San Francisco? The founder of Book Scavenger lives there. Rumor has it that he is about to release a new game with the biggest prize yet, but when he gets mugged in the BART station and goes into a coma, no one is sure if the game is still on. Emily and her new upstairs neighbor, James, find a mysterious book that just might be the start of the game. They have to solve lots of puzzles, avoid people who want to take the book for themselves, and navigate their new friendship to figure out what this mystery
I could not put this book down! I was FLYING through it, pulled along by the mystery, the characters, everything. Since I live close to San Fran, I really enjoyed all the references to the great city. Awesome book references too! The Book Scavenger site and community in the book is so cool!
I loved everything about the book; I would love a sequel! I love how it explored friendship, sibling relationships, and kids navigating in a world with adults as friends and sometimes foes! Well written and sharp, with great interior illustrations too.
Run, don’t walk, to buy this one. 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 🙂
