Watercolor bookmarks

 A lot of my craft supplies are still packed and stored from my move so I've started small on this week's craft project. The good news: it looks super cool and is easy for just about anyone to do. All you need is some heavy paper (I used watercolor paper), watercolor paints, a fine tipped marker, and some good scissors. 

Swirl paint all over your paper and let it dry. The pattern doesn't matter, just whatever looks good to you. While the paper is drying, cut out your template. I drew a stylized feather for my main design.

Once my watercolor was dry, I traced my template on the paper. Again, placement doesn't matter, just whatever looks good to you. I was able to fit about 6 feathers on my paper. Go over the outline and any details with your marker and then cut it out. 

 

lovely watercolor feathers

 

After cutting out my feathers I had some decent sized scraps of paper left, so I also made some llamas.

Book review - Gone Dark

Title: Gone Dark

Author: Amanda Panitch

Genre: adventure/survival

Similar books: 96 Miles by JL Esplin

                      How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Rating:

 

sort of loses the track towards the end

Summary (provided by publisher): When seventeen-year-old Zara escaped her father’s backwoods survivalist compound five years ago, she traded crossbows and skinning hides for electricity and video games…and tried to forget the tragedy that drove her away.
Until a malware attack on the United States electrical grids cuts off the entire country’s power.
In the wake of the disaster and the chaos that ensues, Zara is forced to call upon skills she thought she’d never use again—and her best bet to survive is to go back to the home she left behind. Drawing upon a resilience she didn’t know she had, Zara leads a growing group of friends on an epic journey across a crumbling country back to her father’s compound, where their only hope for salvation lies.
But with every step she takes, Zara wonders if she truly has what it takes to face her father and the secrets of her past, or if she’d be better off hiding in the dark.

My opinion: Most of us have probably entertained the idea: what happens to the world if the grid goes down? It should come as no surprise then that authors explore this in teen novels. In this case we have a character with the perfect skill set to survive in an emergency. She knows how to protect herself, where to go for safety, and has emergency supplies ready to go. This can't protect her from chaos, though. From random events that make her survival much less of a guarantee. It informs her choices, makes her and her crew more likely to survive to be sure. The first couple of chapters are tense and action packed. As her group travels, though, their challenges become increasingly strange. Society seems to be crumbling at an accelerated pace. As they face bizarre foes, my ability to engage with the plot waned. What began as an interesting though experiment became chaos and meaningless violence.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
 

Graphic Novel Spotlight - The Well

 

The Well by Jake Wyatt

In this book Wyatt has presented us with a unique concept. The set-up is actually fairly familiar if you read much fantasy - a group of isolated islands, largely held captive by a monster. But we don't jump directly into the secrets that lead to the situation. Instead our protagonist gets involved with wishes, with the magic at the core of the area. Through an impending curse she, and thus the reader, learns about fleeting, destructive, or selfish all consuming nature of wishes. The story is equal parts reflective and action oriented, perfectly suited to the graphic novel format. 

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Non-fiction book review - The Astronomer Who Questioned Everything

 

The Astronomer Who Questioned Everything By Laura Alary

 I love reading these children's biographies and recognizing what the reader is meant to apply to their own life from the details that the author gives focus. In this book Alary devotes most of the focus on Mitchell learning to ask questions, to be curious in an era that didn't encourage such things for girls. So the reader can gather the importance of thinking for yourself when it comes to innovation The story is fairly simple, easy enough for elementary readers to follow. The illustrations are stylized but not to a degree that makes them hard to follow. A solid addition to a picture book biography collection, especially one with a STEM focus.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Book review - Family of Liars

 

Title: Family of Liars

Author: e. lockhart

Genre: realistic fiction

Similar books: Where Secrets Lie by Eva V. Gibson

                     The Whole Thing Together by Ann Brashares

Rating:

 

not as good as it's predecessor

Summary (provided by publisher):A windswept private island off the coast of Massachusetts.
A hungry ocean, churning with secrets and sorrow.
A fiery, addicted heiress. An irresistible, unpredictable boy.
A summer of unforgivable betrayal and terrible mistakes.
Welcome back to the Sinclair family.
They were always liars.

My opinion: We Were Liars captured a lot of attention upon it's release and with good reason. Not only did it shine a stark light on privileged families and the destructive nature of inter-generational wealth, it did so with a compelling narrative and innovative structure. And it was a complete engaging book that left us thinking, left enough unanswered that we thought about it and debated it afterwards. But it didn't leave much room for further exploration, at least not in the form of a sequel. So it was not surprising when I learned that Lockhart was revisiting the Sinclair family that this was done in the form of a prequel. There are references in the first book to secrets and lies from the previous generation and this book endeavors to tell us about those secrets. But I'm not sure we really needed this. It doesn't break ground the way the first book did, ends up feeling like a rehash of the same ideas. If you're a true fan of We Were Liars this might be worth a read but I wouldn't make it a "must-read".

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Book review - Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians

 

Title: Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Genre: adventure/humor

Similar books: The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch

                     The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Rating:

 

a clever collection of details

Summary (provided by publisher): Everything I'd known about the world was a lie.
On my thirteenth birthday, I, Alcatraz Smedry (yes, I got named after a prison, don’t ask) received my inheritance: a bag of sand. And then I accidentally destroyed my foster parents’ kitchen. It’s not my fault, things just break around me, I swear!
I thought the sand was a joke until evil Librarians came to steal it. You’re probably thinking, “Librarians are nice people who recommend good books,” but that’s just what they want you to think! It turns out they’re actually a secret cult keeping the truth from you—a hidden world filled with magical eyeglasses, talking dinosaurs, and knights with crystal swords!
Or so my Grandpa Smedry claimed when he suddenly showed up to rescue me. So now I have to go with him to invade the local library and get that sand back, before it's used to conquer the world. And Grandpa says how I keep breaking things is actually an amazing talent. There’s no way that can all be true, right?
Will I ever make it back home alive?

My opinion: There is a very specific subgenre of middle grade fiction that this book fits into: books where reality is not what we think. Where a very normal kid finds themself in the midst of a wild adventure with villains and sword fights, with mythological beasts and plots to take over the world. And peculiarities about yourself turn out to be signs that you are meant for something bigger. Sand, weird glasses, and a tendency to break things don't sound like elements that would make for an exciting story so it is a testament to Sanderson's skill and creativity that this book makes any kind of sense. It follows an internal logic even if it defies the logic of the natural world. This is a book that will be too much for many readers but is worth a look if you like the off-beat.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Picture books for everyone

 

Franz's Phantasmagorical Machine by Beth Anderson

In this book Anderson tells the story of Austrian inventor Franz Gsellmann. He's some one most of us will never have heard of. He didn't invent something we use every day or that everyone admires for it's ingenuity. In fact, what he invented is really just an oddity, more of an art piece than an invention. That's actually what makes this book worth reading. It's not a story of innovation, constantly striving to make a thing better. It's a celebration of curiosity, of doing a thing simply because it brings you joy. While it may be of limited interest to the average reader, I could easily see using this in a classroom setting to introduce a creative project.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.