What I’ve Finished Reading

I finished this year’s Newbery winner, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, which on paper sounds like exactly the sort of thing I should have like - there’s a dash of dystopia and a bit of magic and a little natural history and a very small dragon - but the thing glueing it all together was soppy sentimentality (did you know ( Read more... )

I was curious to get to Sylvester and the Magic Pebble on the Caldecott list, because unlike many of the other older books, I've heard of it before: it was banned because some people objected the police, in a world of anthropomorphic animals, are drawn as pigs ( Read more... )

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s The War That Saved My Life, a 2016 Newbery Honor book which I sort of wish had won the medal itself, although it certainly might have added to the Newbery’s reputation for grimness. (Although it’s not even in the same misery league as Out of the Dust. I don’t think anything can touch Out ( Read more... )

What I’ve Finished Reading

I finished Welcome to Night Vale: The Novel. The propulsive force in the plot did eventually grab me and drag me along, but ultimately I wasn’t too impressed with the book; I feel like Night Vale’s world-building probably works much better in radio program form than as a novel, where you have to try to get down to brass ( Read more... )

I quite enjoyed Victoria Jamieson’s Roller Girl, a graphic novel about roller derby that got a Newbery Honor award this year. It’s sort of one-half sports movie (with a few knowing winks at this fact: there’s an awesome scene where Astrid brainstorms training techniques that she’s culled from sports movies, ending with “watch more sports movies”) ( Read more... )

Last Stop on Market Street is the picture book that won the 2016 Newbery Medal. The fact that it's a picture book gave me some pause - nothing against picture books, but you really can't pack the same complexity into a few hundred odd words as you could into a novel - but once I read it, I quite liked it, and it certainly deserves awards even if it ( Read more... )

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy, which evelyn_b recommended. This is actually a reread, though it’s been so many years since I read it that I’d forgotten most of it. It’s about two small girls (four/five years old) who live across the street from each other, and become best friends, and play imaginative adventure games, and ( Read more... )

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I finished Ann Patchett’s This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, which I liked more than I expected per last week’s review. Of course it helped that there are a couple essays near the middle of the book about Truth & Beauty and the controversy that erupted when the book was assigned as summer reading for incoming ( Read more... )

The Second Half
by Kwame Alexander (from The Crossover)

Vondie strips the ball
at center court,
shoots a short pass
to JB, who
skips
            downtown

zips
            around,
then double dips
it in the bowl.
SWOOSH
Man, that was cold.
We're up by two.
These cats are BALLINGJB is on fire ( Read more... )

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Nancy Jo Sales’ The Bling Ring: How a Gang of Fame-Obsessed Teens Ripped of Hollywood and Shocked the World, which disappointed me terribly. I thought Sales might use the case to get an interesting new viewpoint on the cult of celebrity and reality TV, the way that historical true crime writers use cases as windows ( Read more... )