Wrap Up: February 2017
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
Saturday, February 25, 2017
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Series: The Paper Magician Trilogy, book 1
Author: Charlie N. Holmberg
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Publisher: 47North
Date: September 2014
Length: 224 pages / Audio Book 7 hours 25 minutes
Free through Kindle Unlimited Subscription
Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic… forever.
Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined — animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.
An Excisioner — a practitioner of dark, flesh magic — invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.
Description from Goodreads
HOW DID I MISS THIS BOOK?! I'm so upset, it's so great, so many students would love it, and I MISSED IT! I've even contacted some upper school librarian friends to tell them to consider this book for their collection. It might seem impossible for a book to be a light hearted Gothic story, but The Paper Magician pulls it off. I enjoyed this story so much and I just want to share it with all of my kids. I think there's a lot here that will appeal. My Kindle Unlimited download also included the audiobook version (which is fantastic, btw). I was so into this book that I played the audiobook in the car while I was ferrying my children all over creation. It even made me want to jog so that I could listen to the audiobook. (But let's be honest, jogging most definitely didn't happen.)
Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Author: Various
Illustrator: Various
Genre: Graphic Novels, Superheroes
Publisher: DC Comic on February 14, 2017
Length: 166 pages
Free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Goodreads
The collection focuses on battles that highlight her characteristics and values: hope, the power of the mind, defending the innocent, peace, etc. While this might sound a bit preachy or dull, the issues chosen also have a healthy dose of humor and, of course, LOTS of action.
Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Power of a Protest Song by Gary Golio
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
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Author: Gary Golio
Illustrator: Charlotte Riley-Webb
Genre: Children's Non Fiction, Picture Book
Publisher: Millbrook Press
Date: February 1, 2017
Length: 40 pages
This book was free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
This picture book for older readers tells the story of how the racism protest song "Strange Fruit" came into being in 1939. This is also the story of two outsiders - Billie Holiday, a young black woman raised in poverty, and Abel Meeropol, the son of Jewish immigrants - whose combined talents created a truly unforgettable song.
Description from Goodreads
Several years ago I purchased the song "Strange Fruit" without knowing anything about it. I don't listen to it a lot, but I have loaned it to high school teachers to use in class. It' a haunting and beautiful song about horrible and terrifying crime that was normalized in the South at that time. I jumped at the chance to read this book, I had high hopes for it as a fit in the school library. Unfortunately it fell short of my expectations.
Love-a-thon Mini Challenge #1 - Mad Libs
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Alas, the Viscount of the country became jealous and wanted to own this mascara. So, he
became a wanted person and had to flee into the forest to find a place to hide. After twirling around for hours, hungry and tired, he stumbled upon a restaurant. An old lady appeared, offering him shelter from the bitter cold. She looked at him with embarrassment and said: "I will protect you, but I need your help first. Years ago I lost something precious and I want it back. You need to climb into the sky and get my ukulele back. Here is a magical chicken wing, throw it into the earth, sprinkle with water and it will sprout a beanstalk. You have 62 days to return before the stalk withers."
Let the Love-A-Thon Begin!
An Introduction to You and Your Blog
1. My name is Jennifer, but I normally comment as Inkling because there are so many Jennifers out there. (I even have a cousin named Jennifer.) I'm blogging from Arkansas, USA.
City of Saints & Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson
Friday, February 17, 2017
Author: Natalie C. Anderson
Genre: Mystery & Suspense, Realistic Fiction
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Date: January 24, 2017
Length: 432 pages
Free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets Gone Girl in this enthralling YA murder mystery set in Kenya. In the shadows of Sangui City, there lives a girl who doesn't exist. After fleeing the Congo as refugees, Tina and her mother arrived in Kenya looking for the chance to build a new life and home. Her mother quickly found work as a maid for a prominent family, headed by Roland Greyhill, one of the city’s most respected business leaders. But Tina soon learns that the Greyhill fortune was made from a life of corruption and crime. So when her mother is found shot to death in Mr. Greyhill's personal study, she knows exactly who’s behind it.
With revenge always on her mind, Tina spends the next four years surviving on the streets alone, working as a master thief for the Goondas, Sangui City’s local gang. It’s a job for the Goondas that finally brings Tina back to the Greyhill estate, giving her the chance for vengeance she’s been waiting for. But as soon as she steps inside the lavish home, she’s overtaken by the pain of old wounds and the pull of past friendships, setting into motion a dangerous cascade of events that could, at any moment, cost Tina her life. But finally uncovering the incredible truth about who killed her mother—and why—keeps her holding on in this fast-paced nail-biting thriller.
Description from Goodreads
Who's the good guy, who's the bad guy, and who's the bad guy you can live with?
Tina is a 16 year old so full of love for her family that she has devoted her life to revenge. She hid her sister in a gated school, joined a gang, and became the best thief in Sangui City. She hones herself into an instrument of destruction in order to utterly ruin her mother's murderer, with little care for the other innocents that will get caught up in his downfall.
Tina is a 16 year old so full of love for her family that she has devoted her life to revenge. She hid her sister in a gated school, joined a gang, and became the best thief in Sangui City. She hones herself into an instrument of destruction in order to utterly ruin her mother's murderer, with little care for the other innocents that will get caught up in his downfall.
It's a challenge & a book club (with Patricia McKillip!!!) - Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge 2017
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Honestly, I hadn't really planned on signing up for another challenge, but the Flights of Fantasy Challenge (hosted by Alexa Loves Books and Hello, Chelly) was also going to double as a book club. I'm not always a fan of book club selections, BUT it would be a fantasy book club, so I kept reading. And then I saw the book listed for April/June: Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia McKillip. I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH! I immediately signed up. I don't even know what the rest of the book club books are, but I've signed up. I'm aiming for fantasy books this year. Since Urban and Paranormal Fantasy count for this challenge I think I'll easily meet my goal.
Cover vs. Cover: P.S. I like you by Kasie West
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
In our first monthly matchup between book covers, the US and Indonesian covers of Katie West's "P.S. I Like You" duke it out!
"While spacing out in chemistry class, Lily scribbles some of her favorite song lyrics onto her desk. The next day, she finds that someone has continued the lyrics on the desk and added a message to her. Intrigue!" - Goodreads
Winter 2017 Comment Challenge: MARCH edition
I'm a K-12 librarian and I review, recommend, and talk about books every day. The reason I started blogging was to continue doing this with a different audience and hopefully connect readers to books they enjoy. I love book discussions but I find it difficult to get them started through comments. I always feel that my comments or first thoughts seem canned. So I'm forcing myself to up my game and enter the March Comment Challenge. The challenge is hosted by Lonnie at FLYLēF and Alicia at A Kernel of Nonsense. Instead of hopping around several blogs, participants are assigned a partner for this challenge. I like that it makes you get to know a specific blogger and their style. I'm hoping this will help me get into the groove of better online engagement.
It's a pretty simple, straight forward event so I can just focus on my challenge partner and not jump through a lot of hoops. Sometimes that's fun, sometimes I don't have time and just need easy.
If you're looking for a way to engage other bloggers and readers I think this might be a fun and easy challenge for you to try. (They even have a giveaway). The challenge starts March 1st, so you still have time to signup.
Moletown by Torben Kuhlmann
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Author & Illustrator: Torben Kuhlmann
Genre: Wordless Picture Book
Publisher: NorthSouth
Date: October 2015
Length: 32 pages
My kids picked it out at the library
Torben Kulhmann's stunningly illustrated, nearly wordless tale offers a fascinating window into an imaginary, yet hauntingly familiar world under our feet, where a mole suddenly recognizes the precarious balance between progress and preservation. Kulhmann's open ended text encourages thoughtful exploration into possible solutions, and his delightful endpapers depict a montage of solutions that could very well save the moles' world and ours.
Description from Goodreads
Moletown is a whimsical take on the growth of a city. From the first settler to the development of industry and beyond, children will enjoy exploring the illustrations in this almost wordless picture book.
Space Carrier Avalon by Glynn Stewart
Saturday, February 11, 2017
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Series: Castle Federation, book 1
Author: Glynn Stewart
Genre: Science Fiction, Military Fiction
Publisher: Faolan's Pen Publishing, Inc.
Date: June 14, 2015
Length: 343 pages
This book was free through my Kindle Unlimited subscription
THE FLEET'S OLD LADY - OUT FOR ONE LAST DANCE
Avalon was the flagship of the Castle Federation in the last war, now twenty years past. The first of the deep space carriers, no other warship in the fleet holds as many honors or has recorded as many kills.
No other warship in the fleet is as old.
Accepting the inevitable, the Federation Space Navy has decided to refit her and send her on a tour of the frontier, showing the flag to their allies and enemies as a reminder of her glory – and then decommission her for good.
But Avalon has been a backwater posting for ten years – and has problems a mere refit can’t fix. The systems along her planned tour have been seeing pirates for the first time in decades, and there are rumblings of Commonwealth scouting ships all along the border.
It may be Avalon’s final tour – but it looks to be anything but quiet!
Description from Goodreads
This is a self published book and it does have some issues that a copy editor could have caught, but it is generally a good space opera. With A LOT of characters. Like, a lot, but the book follows three: Our hero Kyle Roberts; Michelle Williams a talented pilot who was assaulted and betrayed; and Michael Stanford, a natural leader who had his career abruptly sidelined when he and two admirals' daughters 'borrowed' a shuttle.
Inkling Cooks: My Sweet Kitchen by Linda Lomelino
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
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Author: Linda Lomelino
Genre: Cook Books
Publisher: Roost Books
Date: February 7, 2017
Length: 176 pages
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
With an offset spatula laden with buttercream in one hand and a camera in the other, Linda Lomelino has made her mark as one of the most exciting recipe creators and food photographers in the world. My Sweet Kitchen, Linda's third cookbook, is bursting with many of her favorite recipes for cookies, cakes, pies, cupcakes, donuts, spoon desserts, and other sweet delights.
Linda's desserts are renowned for their elegant blend of classic flavor combinations and unexpected style. Along with nearly 50 original recipes, the book also contains three chapters chock-full of tips on how to bake, decorate, style, and photograph your own creations at home.
Linda Lomelino openheartedly shares her secrets for successful baking, telling us what we should always keep in our well-stocked pantries for best results. What should we prioritize when baking complex cakes? Is it best to use a kitchen scale to weigh ingredients? (Hint: "accurate measurements" and "yes"!) With her trademark atmospheric photographs, every recipe in the book comes to life. Linda also shows us how to pipe icing, frost cakes, decorate with edible flowers, style food to be shared (and "liked") on social media, and even how to tell if we should invest in a new camera to take food photography to the next level. If you have even the slightest sweet tooth, this book will hook you.
Description from Goodreads
This is a delicious looking book and with recipes even a novice banker could tackle. The whole cookbook is just so pretty that I was a little intimidated at first. Was I going to have all of the equipment and space needed while children ran around trying to “help”? Did I need to go to a specialty grocery store to find ingredients? Was I going to have to babysit the bake through each step of the process? Nope, turns out these recipes were totally do-able with limited counter space. I could have half my attention on the baking and the other half on the kids. The ingredients weren’t expensive and could be picked up at my local store. Anything I felt was too "specialty" to bother with was easily substituted. I tried some of the recipes and my family loved them. Kid 2 and my dad especially loved the chocolate chip cookies. (Kid 2 loved everything, I had to take more pictures than anticipated because the corners always seemed to have blurry hands in mid grab.)
Recipes are a range of easy to fiddley, but nothing too overwhelming. I tend to save more involved recipes for holidays when I have more time. My dad is retired, has discovered baking, and LIVES for fiddley. This book is right up his ally and he's now going through Lomelino’s recipe blog. He’s ready for berries to be in season because he really wants to try her Barry Galettes recipe.
Recipes are a range of easy to fiddley, but nothing too overwhelming. I tend to save more involved recipes for holidays when I have more time. My dad is retired, has discovered baking, and LIVES for fiddley. This book is right up his ally and he's now going through Lomelino’s recipe blog. He’s ready for berries to be in season because he really wants to try her Barry Galettes recipe.
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| Snatching hands aren't staged. Also, that copper colored table was not the best background for a chocolate cake. |
The Pullman Porter by Vanita Oelschlager
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
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Author: Vanita Oelschlager
Illustrator: Mike Blanc
Genre: African American History, Non Fiction, Picture Book, Children's Book
Publisher: Vanita Books
Date: February 2014
Length: 44 pages
This book was free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
Description from Goodreads
I was so excited about THE PULLMAN PORTER, an important history lesson plus the always popular topic of trains! This sounded like a perfect pick for an elementary library. Unfortunately the book didn't reach it's full potential.
The extras: Oelschlager included quotes from other books and resources for further reading at the end of the book.
What I liked
Important subject matter: George Pullman hired ex-slaves to work in his train cars. This was a chance for these men to earn a salary, travel the country, and gain some education to better serve their passengers. Pullman Porters became respected members of their community and were the beginning of the African American middle class. While some might have seen their jobs as a type of adventure, "in reality (they) were degrading and difficult." Over the years these men formed a union, lobbied for better wages and treatment, worked with President Roosevelt, and fostering the Civil Rights movement. The Pullman Porters were so influential in their communities and in US history, but typically overlooked in the school curriculum. In fact this is the only book on the topic that I could find for elementary students.The extras: Oelschlager included quotes from other books and resources for further reading at the end of the book.
What I'm on the fence about
The book is confused about its audience: I am left with the strong impression that this book doesn't know who its audience is supposed to be. Generally the book's softened tone seems more appropriate for 6-8 year olds, but would sometimes use details and quotes from other books better suited to 8-10 year olds. Of course any parent or teacher reading this book to younger children can alter the text to be more appropriate for younger kids or add details for older ones. I feel with some more detail and a firm idea on who the audience was, this could have been an excellent nonfiction picture book.Illustrations: Looking at the cover of The Pullman Porter I expected lovely, detailed, and colorful illustrations, and sometimes I got them. I assume Blanc was leaving the backgrounds (extremely) simple so that the focus would be on the more detailed people and action in the foreground. But sometimes even the people were a bit blurry and lacking. Some pages were wonderful and others felt rushed. The book is very colorful and the warmer yellow tones kind of give the illustrations a golden edge of nostalgia.
Rating: 2.5
My recommendation might seem as confused as this book. I'm rating it 2.5 as it had a several weaknesses. HOWEVER, it is a good introduction to the topic of the Pullman Porters, it would make a refreshing addition to Black History month, or American history in general (I really hate the implication that it can only be used once a year). If I were still working in an elementary school library I would include this in my nonfiction / history train unit for 2nd graders. And there's the rub, normally I would not order a 2.5 book for my library. BUT this is a good conversation starter, and used the right way THE PULLMAN PORTERS could be a great tool for parents and teachers.
Have you read any Pullman Porter books that would be a good fit for elementary age students?
Reliquary by Sarah Fine
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Title: ReliquarySeries: Reliquary, book 1
Author: Sarah Fine
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: 47North
Date: June 2016
Length: 331 pages
Free through Kindle Unlimited subscription
Mattie Carver’s engagement party should have marked the start of her own personal fairy tale. But when her fiancé, Ben, is violently abducted the next morning, her desperate quest to find him rips her away from small-town life and reveals a shattering truth: magic is real—and Ben is hooked. It’s not the stuff of storybooks. It’s wildly addictive, capable of producing everything from hellish anguish to sensual ecstasy almost beyond human endurance.
Determined to find out who took Ben and why, Mattie immerses herself in a shadowy underworld and comes face-to-face with the darkly alluring Asa Ward, a rogue magic dealer, infamous hustler…and her missing fiancé’s estranged brother. Asa has the power to sense magic, and he realizes Mattie is a reliquary, someone with the rare ability to carry magic within her own body, undetected. Asa agrees to help find Ben on one condition: Mattie must use her uncommon talent to assist his smuggling operations. Now, from magic-laced Vegas casinos to the netherworld clubs of Bangkok, Mattie is on a rescue mission. With Asa by her side, she’ll face not only the supernatural forces arrayed against her but the all-too-human temptation that she fears she can’t resist.
Description from Goodreads
Mattie is a small town girl living the perfect life. She has a job she loves working for her fiancé with whom she is head-over-heals in love, and is surrounded by friends and family. Then Ben is kidnapped and evidence comes to light that he might have faked everything in order to disappear. With her perfect world crumbling and fearing that the police are refusing to consider other leads, Mattie (without a badass bone in her body) is prepared to move heaven and earth to save him. Thank God for Asa.
Wishlist Wednesday: Kick butt YA in a mix of genres
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Featuring books that I really want to read but haven't actually made it to my embarrassingly large TBR pile yet.
I love graphic novels and I enjoyed The Lunar Chronicles, put them together and I'm super excited about Wires and Nerve. Lets go, Iko!
Author: Marissa Meyer
Release Date: January 31, 2017
In her first graphic novel, bestselling author Marissa Meyer extends the world of the Lunar Chronicles with a brand-new, action-packed story about Iko, the android with a heart of (mechanized) gold. When rogue packs of wolf-hybrid soldiers threaten the tenuous peace alliance between Earth and Luna, Iko takes it upon herself to hunt down the soldiers' leader. She is soon working with a handsome royal guard who forces her to question everything she knows about love, loyalty, and her own humanity. With appearances by Cinder and the rest of the Rampion crew, this is a must-have for fans of the bestselling series.
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I love graphic novels and I enjoyed The Lunar Chronicles, put them together and I'm super excited about Wires and Nerve. Lets go, Iko!
Release Date: January 31, 2017
In her first graphic novel, bestselling author Marissa Meyer extends the world of the Lunar Chronicles with a brand-new, action-packed story about Iko, the android with a heart of (mechanized) gold. When rogue packs of wolf-hybrid soldiers threaten the tenuous peace alliance between Earth and Luna, Iko takes it upon herself to hunt down the soldiers' leader. She is soon working with a handsome royal guard who forces her to question everything she knows about love, loyalty, and her own humanity. With appearances by Cinder and the rest of the Rampion crew, this is a must-have for fans of the bestselling series.
