I live on a sixty-some acre property that includes a fair number of maple trees. So we have occasionally tapped the trees and made maple syrup. The sap is running now so this week we cooked up our first batch for the year. Here's the result of cooking down the first run sap.
What are you currently reading?
We Were Warned by Chelsea Ichaso - Legend has it anyone who trespasses on the abandoned Fairport Village resort is cursed to die, cursed by the former owner after she murdered her own son. Two teens have died already and Eden's senior class just held a party at the ruins.
What did you recently finish reading?
Down Came the Rain by Jennifer Mathieu - Two teens struggle with climate anxiety in the wake of a devastating hurricane.
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The Strongest Heart by Saadia Faruqi
If you want to capture the attention of young readers there are a couple of key phrases that you can use: weird, gross, deadly. And the construction here is solid. First we learn about the big cats - how they're defined, where they're found, that sort of thing. Once we have a basic introduction we look at what might make them deadly. Then we look at how many human/cat encounters there are on average and the rate of fatality. It lays out all of the metrics and a clear calculation for why one might be considered deadlier than another. In spite of this, the focus is definitely on education and conservation rather than any sort of fear mongering. While the illustrations are perhaps a bit simplistic, they add to the appeal overall.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
Author: Amanda Dewitt
Genre: mild sci-fi
Age range: teen
Similar book: Yesterday is History by Kosoko Jackson
Summary (provided by publisher): Thirty years ago, Grace’s mom left her hometown of Hermitage, Florida and never looked back—which is exactly why Grace thinks it’s the safest place to spend her summer now. Since her mom died in a car crash, Grace has been desperate to get away from the memories and reminders of her loss. Spending the summer transcribing cassette tapes for the Hermitage Historical Society might be boring, but boring is just what Grace needs.
Until she hears the voice of Jake Underwood—the boy who first recorded the cassette tapes back in 1992. When Grace realizes he can hear anything she records, despite thirty years of time between them, they strike up an impossible conversation through the tapes.
But the past isn’t any simpler than the present, and a mystery has haunted Hermitage through the generations. In the 1970’s, a hurricane made landfall and resulted in the tragic death of Jake’s uncle Charley. In a town as suffocatingly small as Hermitage, it’s impossible not to notice how no one talks about that storm, or Charley, and as the mystery unfurls, Grace can’t help but realize a worse truth: No one talks about Jake either.
What I liked: Time travel(ish) narratives can be a tricky thing to maneuver. Discovering you have a way to communicate with the past always introduces the question: can you change what has already happened? Dewitt's handling of this question is stellar. Without the conversational nature of the tapes this would be a standard true crime investigation, with Grace digging into the town's secrets. Giving her an interactive link to the past humanizes the victims, reminds us that the people involved were real, not just names on a screen. And I feel like the ultimate conclusion is realistic as well.
What I didn't like: The tension isn't always consistent. This is less a mystery than it is a story of a relationship. While Grace and Jake are reasonably complex, the other characters leave a little something to be desired.
Advanced Reader Copy provided b NetGalley
When I was a kid we were fascinated by the book The Way Things Work which broke down the mechanics of all sorts of inventions. This is in many ways the literary grandchild of that book. Only it doesn't stop at inventions. Or mechanics. This is the deep science of a lot of things. The selection of topics feels a bit random but does amount to a fair amount of scientific understanding. It's a book you can pick up in fits and starts and always learn something new.
More information: The Greatest Stuff on Earth releases March 4.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
What are you currently reading?
Bea Mullins Takes a Shot by Emily Deibert - After a bad experience on a basketball team, Bea vows never to play team sports again. But when circumstances for her to look into sports, she finds herself thrown onto a hockey team.
What did you recently finish reading?
Racing the Clouds by Sydney Dunlap - A car accident changed everything for Sage and opened the door to meeting her grandparents for the first time. Now she's uncovering secrets and finding out what happened to her family.
What do you think you'll read next?
The Quiet Unravelling of Eve Ellaway by Melanie Hooyenga
Stories about kids finding and helping aliens can be interesting. Add in a setting of Cold War era Texas and we could have a real winner. Let's give it a listen and find out.
Author: Kerry Madden-Lunsford
Genre: realistic fiction
Age range: middle grade
Summary (provided by publisher): 10-year-old Angus is unique. He quotes Shakespeare and wants to stage a Werewolf Hamlet play for his 5th grade legacy project. Angus's 17-year-old brother, Liam, is like a werewolf now—Angus never knows if he'll be nice or mean or when he'll sneak out to get drunk or worse.
Meanwhile, tension continues to build for Liam's family in Los Angeles. Mom and Dad are going to default on the mortgage. Older sister Hannah is fed up and ready to move herself to Maine, and little sister Sidney doesn't really get what's happening. Then Liam goes missing, and Angus decides he has to find him.
A realistic, heartfelt look at the complexities of family relationships and struggles. Along with Angus's loveable charm, sense of humor, and desire to stage his original play, Werewolf Hamlet is sure to win its audience—on and off the page—over.
What I liked: The topics discussed in this book are pretty heavy. The family is losing their house and the relationships are increasingly tense. It becomes apparent pretty quickly that big brother Liam has a substance abuse problem. That could make for a pretty dreary read. But Madden-Lunsford manages to make the bulk of the plot fairly light-hearted without ever making light of the serious issues. It allows the characters to address what is happening without making the book too intense.
What I didn't like: While the relatively light text is mostly beneficial it does tend to make the plot feel almost silly and unrealistic at times. It's a fine balance that is mostly positive but can be a bit eye-roll inducing on occasion.
More information: Werewolf Hamlet releases February 18.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
I decided I wanted to make Valentine's Day cards this year. I had some cards I'd made some errors on, so they seemed like the perfect base for some fun cards. I figured I'd just draw over the old designs. Because the cards I have are nice vibrant colors I thought I'd make them Pokemon themed. And that's where things went a bit off the rails. It seems I am incapable of being sincere when writing the sentiment on the card and I wanted these to be clever. So the result isn't exactly Valentines themed. Like, at all. But they are fun.
What are you currently reading?
(S)kin by Ibi Zoboi - A verse novel about two girls with vastly different lives, pulled together by forces they don't understand and deep family secrets.
What did you recently finish reading?
Ruby Finley vs the Interstellar Invasion by K Tempest Bradford - Ruby finds a strange bug in her yard that seems to cut it's way out of her room through the window screen. When she posts about it online, strange men appear in her neighborhood.
What do you think you'll read next?
Werewolf Hamlet by Kerry Madden-Lunsford
I qualify this book as non-fiction because, while there is a sort of narrative framework to the text, the primary focus is on sharing information about the process of bee-keeping. We walk through a year on a farm and learn about bees along the way. And the information extends beyond just the basics of types of bees and the structure of a hive. We learn about pollination, bee lifecycles, and observable behaviors like swarming and bearding. The information is surprisingly complete and easy to understand. A strong introduction to beekeeping appropriate for a young audience.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
If you like a graphic novel that is a bit off beat, you may enjoy the Snips. It takes the standard middle grade team dynamic - a cast of characters with unique abilities, all necessary to complete a job - and applies that to fighting crime through hair styling. It is, simply put, the best kind of strange. It absolutely does not take itself seriously. The illustration style is reminiscent of early cartoons and the color palette is slightly muted so it never becomes overwhelming. There's no serious takeaway here, just a simple entertaining story.
Culturally, we have something of an obsession with ghosts. Sometimes it's a malicious haunting. Others, it's a spirit imparting wisdom to the living. These stories run the gamut from scary to funny and appeal to a wide ranging audience. Here are six books featuring ghosts published in the past six months.
Six new books featuring ghosts:
The science of corn doesn't exactly sound thrilling. And if that's all this book was it would be a hard sell indeed. McClintock's story, though, is about much more than just corn. It's a story of determination, of defying societal and familial expectations. Even more than that, it's a story of finding the thing that thrills you and pursuing it. McClintock seems to have found real thrills in examining the heredity of corn. And through it, advanced our knowledge of DNA. Alexander tells the story in a traditional narrative fashion with asides explaining the science at the time and how it has advanced over time. The fact that corn is central here may still make it a bit of a hard sell but this book is absolutely worth the effort.
What are you currently reading?
Freaks by Brett Riley - Bullied teens find themselves with superhuman abilities, on the hunt for creatures that have accidentally entered our world.
What did you recently finish reading?
It's Watching by Lindsey Currie - While researching a story for the school paper three kids get the attention of a ghost. Now they have a very short time to figure out what the ghost wants.
What do you think you'll read next?
Wicked Darlings by Jordyn Taylor
Author: Randy Ribay
Age range: teen
Genre: realistic fiction
Similar book: Age 16 by Rosena Fung
Summary (provided by publisher): Watsonville, 1930. Francisco Maghabol barely ekes out a living in the fields of California. As he spends what little money he earns at dance halls and faces increasing violence from white men in town, Francisco wonders if he should’ve never left the Philippines.
Stockton, 1965. Between school days full of prejudice from white students and teachers and night shifts working at his aunt’s restaurant, Emil refuses to follow in the footsteps of his labor organizer father, Francisco. He’s going to make it in this country no matter what or who he has to leave behind.
Denver, 1983. Chris is determined to prove that his overbearing father, Emil, can’t control him. However, when a missed assignment on “ancestral history” sends Chris off the football team and into the library, he discovers a desire to know more about Filipino history―even if his father dismisses his interest as unamerican and unimportant.
Philadelphia, 2020. Enzo struggles to keep his anxiety in check as a global pandemic breaks out and his abrasive grandfather moves in. While tensions are high between his dad and his lolo, Enzo’s daily walks with Lolo Emil have him wondering if maybe he can help bridge their decades-long rift.
What I liked: We have four generations of men in this narrative. Four time periods and sets of challenges. Each generation influences the ones to come. And they all make mistakes. No single character is portrayed as fully wrong or fully innocent. They are human and have understandable motivations. Even as we see characters making choices that we know will harm themselves or others we can see why they make them.
What I didn't like: There's very little negative about this book. It is perhaps a bit long and slow paced for some readers but overall it's worth the effort.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
