What are you currently reading?
Where the Heart Should Be by Sarah Crossan - A verse novel about the Potato Famine
What did you recently finish reading?
The Secret of Honeycake by Kimberly Newton Fusco - When her sister falls ill with TB, a girl is sent to live with her strict aunt
What do you think you'll read next?
Danilo Was Here by Tamika Burgess
I've read books about kids being raised by preppers, but this may be the first I've read where the teen is the one instigating the changes. This book promises a protagonist responding to climate anxiety and trauma with prepping and a boy who turns her world upside down.
Until the book Al Capone Does My Shirts I hadn't given much thought to the lives of children of Alcatraz guards. Most schools teach little about the prison, focusing primarily on it's fearsome reputation, but not much about the details of life there. This book aims to change that. We learn about the way the prison was set up, allowing for some families to live on island, and how the prison was a part of their daily lives. This book is very accessible, with simple language and easy to follow text all well-supported by photos and charts. There is, of course, little detail but it's compelling reading.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
Let's start out the year with excitement and wonder. And what better way to do that than with a book filled with magic? Some of these books feature a whole fantasy world populated by faeries and witches. Others have a small element of magic existing in an otherwise familiar world. No matter how it is represented, magic sparks our imagination and suggests that anything is possible. Here are six books published in the past six months that feature some form of magic.
Six new magical novels
When I started this blog ten years ago, I established a set structure for book reviews that I've followed ever since. It's worked for me thus far but recently I've found it more confining than helpful. So I've decided that 2025 is the year of new things. We're going to experiment with some different formats and find the one that works going forward. I'd love to hear any feedback you have as I implement these changes.
What are you currently reading?
Same Page by Elly Swartz
Girl Forgotten by April Henry
assorted Asterix books
What did you recently finish reading?
Holler of the Fireflies by David Barclay Moore
What do you think you'll read next?
Ravencave by Marcus Sedgwick
What's a cool book you reread last year?
Primates by Jim Ottaviani
What book are you looking forward to this year?
The Greatest Stuff on Earth by Steve Tomecek
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Throughout the year I read a number of books. Some are good, some less so. Most of my favorites end up here on my blog on featured reviews. Others are hard to describe or get pushed out by scheduling issues. So here's a short list of books that I read this year that I feel are worth your time but, for whatever reason, didn't post about already.
the Cat's Cradle series by Jo Rioux (ongoing)
We are the Beasts by Gigi Griffis
The Ghostkeeper by Johanna Taylor
the Marius Grey series by MR Fournet (ongoing)
Learning to Fall by Sally Engelfried
The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman by Gennifer Choldenko
Major Impossible by Nathan Hale
Unicorn Boy by Dave Roman
We Are Mayhem by Beck Rourke-Mooney
That's it for 2024. Anyone excited to see what 2025 will bring?
