Non-fiction book review - Salt, Pepper, Season, Spice

 

Salt, Pepper, Season, Spice by Jacques Pasquet

Maybe you've wondered where spices come from. Even if you haven't, this book is surprisingly fascinating. It doesn't delve especially deeply into the origins or history of any individual spice but it does provide a brief overview. This includes region, varieties, and historical trivia. The text is easily understood with an accessible vocabulary, making it interesting for young readers and parents alike. And because each section is fairly short you can read it all at once or in fits and starts without difficulty. For anyone with an interest in food or culture, this book is worth a look.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Listen with me

 

Tangleroot by Kalela Williams

Tangleroot promises a tale of a girl unraveling a town's racist past and her mother's expectations. It could be thrilling and thought-provoking. Let's find out.

WWW Wednesday

What are you currently reading?

I Am Kavi by Thushanthi Ponweera - Kavi gets the opportunity of a lifetime - to move to the city and attend an exceptional school. She doesn't mean to lie to her new classmates but in order to make herself more interesting she does just that.

What did you recently finish reading?

Find Her by Ginger Reno - It's been five years since Wren's mom went missing and Wren hasn't stopped looking. Scouring message boards and following her mom's case has made her skilled at finding things. Now she's using that finding skill to discover what is happening to animals around town

What do you think you'll read next?

The Judgement of Yoyo Gold by Isaac Blum

Book review - The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science

 

Title: The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science

Author: Kate McKinnon

Genre: humor

Similar books: A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snickett

                     How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

Rating:

silly and delightful

Summary (provided by publisher): So, you want to be a young mad scientist. Congratulations! Admitting it is the first step. The second step is reading the (definitely true) tale of the Porch sisters…

Gertrude, Eugenia, and Dee-Dee Porch do not belong. They don’t belong in the snooty town of Antiquarium, where all girls have to go to etiquette school and the only dog allowed is the bichon frise. They don’t belong with their adoptive family, where all their cousins are named Lavinia and their Aunt has more brooches than books. And they certainly don’t belong at Mrs. Wintermacher’s etiquette school—they’re far more interested in science. After getting kicked out of the last etiquette school that would take them, the girls expect to be sent away for good... until they receive a mysterious invitation to new school.

 Suddenly the girls are under the tutelage of the infamous Millicent Quibb—a mad scientist with worms in her hair and oysters in her bathtub. At 231 Mysterium Way, the pizza is fatal, the bus is powered by Gerbils, and the Dean of Students is a hermit crab.  Dangerous? Yes! More fun than they’ve ever had? Absolutely! But when the sisters are asked to save their town from an evil cabal of nefarious mad scientists, they must learn to embrace what has always made them stand out, and determine what side they’re on—before it’s too late!

My opinion: If you like offbeat kids' books, this may be the book for you. Every detail of this novel is seemingly random nonsense but it works together quite well. McKinnon gives us a trio of outsiders trying to find their place in a restrictive world, thrown into a chaotic school that happens to suit them exactly. For all of it's silliness there is a heart at it's center that speaks to the need to belong and be accepted that we all experience. This is a quick read that provides fun at every turn.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Book review - The Hysterical Girls of St Bernadette's

 

Title: The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette's

Author: Hanna Alkaf

Genre: magical realism

Similar books: A House Unsettled by Trynne Delaney

                      The Changing Man by Tomi Oyemakinde

Rating:

nicely balanced

Summary (provided by publisher): For over a hundred years, girls have fought to attend St. Bernadette’s, with its reputation for shaping only the best and brightest young women.

Unfortunately, there is also the screaming.

When a student begins to scream in the middle of class, a chain reaction starts that impacts the entire school. By the end of the day, seventeen girls are affected—along with St. Bernadette’s stellar reputation.

Khadijah’s got her own scars to tend to, and watching her friends succumb to hysteria only rips apart wounds she’d rather keep closed. But when her sister falls to the screams, Khad knows she’s the only one who can save her.

Rachel has always been far too occupied trying to reconcile her overbearing mother’s expectations with her own secret ambitions to pay attention to school antics. But just as Rachel finds her voice, it turns into screams.

Together, the two girls find themselves digging deeper into the school’s dark history, hunting for the truth. Little do they know that a specter lurks in the darkness, watching, waiting, and hungry for its next victim…

My opinion: There is a lot going on in this book and it moves kind of slowly, making it a dense read, but it's worth it. It takes these complex, heavy ideas and combines them into a single plot. That could easily become overwhelming or underexplored in a lesser novel. In Alkaff's hands, though, it all weaves together in a sensible, understandable way. It's not a fun read, exactly, but it is a fascinating one and well worth the effort.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley

Pick 6: horror

October means it's time for my annual list of horror stories. Who doesn't love a good scare in October? It's almost required to prepare for Halloween by scaring yourself silly. Here are six horror books of varying degrees of scariness published in the last six months.

6 new horror novels:

1. The Boohag Flex by Justina Ireland
2. The Lamplighter by Crystal J Bell
3. So Witches We Became by Jill Bagochinski
4. Read at Your Own Risk by Remy Lai
5. It Came from the Trees by Ally Russell
6. The Midnight Game by Cynthia Murphy

Graphic novel spotlight - Taxi Ghost

 

Taxi Ghost by Sophie Escabasse

This book could have been tired and standard. The set-up is pretty common - a girl starting puberty discovers that she now has supernatural abilities. Right from the moment Adele discovers she can talk to ghosts, though, Escabasse presents us with unique twists. For one thing, the major female influence in her life - her grandmother - doesn't train her to use her abilities. All her grandmother wants to teach her is how to keep ghosts away. And the ghosts themselves are deeply involved in local affairs. They have unusual rules (riding in cars, an inability to walk in snow, etc) that present odd challenges that add to the charm of the book. More than just a story of ghosts and justice, Taxi Ghost explores the change that we can make and the value of listening. With detailed illustrations this is a book that can be enjoyed repeatedly.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley