Break Time Is Lovely, Even With Snow

I went back to see Black Panther again with another crowd -- still fun the second time through. Snow fell from the sky, curtailing some of our break plans, although since they were more business than fun (college visits) no one minded too much. And the snow has mostly been banished from the ground so I didn't panic too much.

I'm enjoying this brief season of the year when I am as young as my baby sister. Next month I pull ahead again and the wisdom of the ages returns to me.

I can count the remaining Cybils of last year on one hand, which is a huge improvement. Currently Reading is still hovering around 30 but it is on a downward slope.

The Book Date does a weekly roundup of what people are reading, want to read, or have read each week called It's Monday! What Are You Reading so I'll join in there. There's also a version that is kidlit focussed at either Teach Mentor Text or UnLeashing Readers. All my Cybils reading keeps me very eligible for that.

This Week I started:




The Dispossessed, Ursula LeGuin. My Tuesday book club was hazy on which LeGuin to read, so I ended up reading neither. Trying to catch up now.

The Power, Naomi Alderman. For my Feminist book club. Unfortunately my library wants it back a few months before the meeting.

Sarah's Orphans, Vannetta Chapman. My next Reading My Library Quest book. Set in Oklahoma.

Fish in a Tree, Lynda Hunt. For my elementary school book club.

Home, Nnedi Okorafor. 2nd in the Binti series.

Silent in the Sanctuary, Deanna Raybourn. Second in the Lady Grey series.


I finished:



Full of Beans, Jennifer Holm. Cybils middle grade. I liked the details of life in Florida during the Great Depression, from the keys to the fire alarm boxes to the lure of movie theaters. Of course the boy protagonist had to make his disdain for girls loudly obvious, a common feature of kidlit that for some reason has lately begun to grate on me.

Potions and Pastries, Bailey Cates. The incompetent murderer would have gotten away with it if he had just ignored our main character, as she never came close to figuring out who dunnit. She's nice enough, but definitely not a Sherlock Holmes type.

Miss Ellicott's School for the Magically Minded, Sage Blackwood. 2017 Cybils. Once again Blackwood has a slowly deepening fantasy with many unexpected bursts of insight, where children competently deal with complex situations and flawed adults, along with a few shabby ones.

Some Kind of Happiness, Claire Legrand. Cybils middle grade. I really liked some parts of this -- the messy family, the Finley's feelings about and reactions to her parent's divorce, the friendship between the two sets of children. Other parts didn't work as well for me -- the weaving of the imaginative story with the lives of the kids felt forced and I didn't quite buy Finley's understanding of her depression.

Fish in a Tree, Lynda Hunt. I'm a sucker for books about a difficult child saved by a dedicated teacher, and this was no exception. The portrayal of a smart kid who masks her dyslexia by pretending to be a clown or disinterested felt realistic, and the small details of life with a father in the army or a brother with similar learning difficulties rang true as well. I'll see what the kids think.

The Goblin's Puzzle, Andrew Chilton. Cybils middle grade. This was a lot of fun, since I think logic puzzles are fun. There are sages and goblins who will split hairs and chop logic, and princesses and slaves who just want to do the right thing. And a dragon.

Home, Nnedi Okorafor. 2nd in the Binti series. I liked this one even better than the first, because of the view of the contrasting cultures at the University, at home with Binti's family, the aggression of the Khourse and Oklu's willingness to meet it, and the Desert People. The beauty and strength of her Himba heritage is shown next to the costs that unity imposes on those who don't confirm to its ideals.

The Memory Thief, Bryce Moore. Cybils middle grade. I liked the themes of memory and identity, and how the loss of memories impacted personality, and I liked Benji's struggle to deal with the situation, especially after his more assertive sister was sidelined. Sometimes I found him too passive though; even the final climactic battle came down to random chance rather than action by the young hero.


Bookmarks moved in:




Alliance of Equals, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. Episode 39. To my surprise, the Korval party is going well. Shan's kid isn't doing as well, and maybe he'll eventually notice.

London Rain, Nicola Upson. RML Audio book. OK, the twist where we are in the murderer's head while the murder is committed makes for an unpleasant book. I'm very concerned that I'm on disc 4 and there are 4 discs left because I don't want that. It's not a mystery anymore, just sticking me in the viewpoint where I don't want to be.

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula LeGuin. For Tuesday book club. Belatedly. I'd forgotten how much this isn't about gender roles, but then a memory surfaces that I thought that the last time I read it as well. What is new is how young Genly seems. I am officially old.

Arabella and the Battle of Venus, David Levine. I'm finding the gender politics in this one uncomfortable. Am I supposed to sympathize with the guy coercing sexual favors from her? Or with her sympathies with him?

Game Change, Joseph Monninger. Very philosophical still

Voyage to Magical North, Claire Fayers. Cybils middle grade. The protagonists wonders what her place is.

The Evil Wizard Smallbone, Delia Sherman. Cybils middle grade. We seem to have jumped back to the real world, so I am looking to see what state it happens in.

These I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.



Kenilworth, Sir Walter Scott.

A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George. I do not like any of these people.

The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox.

Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception, Wendelin Van Draanen.

Change of Heart, Norah McClintock.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca.

2018 Challenge Progress:

1. Cybils 2017! 6/104-ish. Finished the middle grade fantasy. Have a nonfiction lined up.
2. Cybils 2016!  101/10-ish. Five left. I need to find the missing board book.
3. Reading My Library: Working on London Rain which I'm disliking for the mystery. Finished Potions and Pastries and doing well with Sarah's Orphans.
4. Where Am I Reading 2018?: 18/51. Finished the books in Florida, Maine and Georgia. I've got an Oklahoma cooking and The Power just touched down in Maryland. I'm not getting my hopes up for that one yet.

Grown Up Stuff Is Hard

I'm doing some complicated stuff and it makes my head hurt.

I also saw Black Panther and The Post, which I enjoyed. And we opened Pandemic Legacy: Season Two in an attempt to save the world. Again.

My stack of last year's Cybils books is now off my library shelf and all in my currently-reading pile! Progress! Currently Reading is around hovering around 32 as a result of me starting so many of them, but it can only go down from here, right?

The Book Date does a weekly roundup of what people are reading, want to read, or have read each week called It's Monday! What Are You Reading so I'll join in there. There's also a version that is kidlit focussed at either Teach Mentor Text or UnLeashing Readers. All my Cybils reading keeps me very eligible for that.

This Week I started:



The Goblin's Puzzle, Andrew Chilton. Cybils middle grade.

Dead Heat, Patricia Briggs. A reread. The next one comes out next month.

Secrets in Death, J.D. Robb. A grab from the library Quick Picks shelf.

Some Kind of Happiness, Claire Legrand. Cybils middle grade.

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula LeGuin. For Tuesday book club. Belatedly.

Arabella and the Battle of Venus, David Levine. Because I liked the first one.

The Evil Wizard Smallbone, Delia Sherman. Cybils middle grade.

Save Me a Seat, Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadaragan. Cybils middle grade.

I finished:





Dead Heat, Patricia Briggs. A reread. I misjudged a bit, because now I'm ready to read the next one, but it doesn't come out until March. I like reading about Anna and Charles, and how the price of life is death but joy is worth the sorrow. Fun urban fantasy stuff.

Beast, Bria Spangler. Cybils. The cover text made this sound like it was about a boy who discovers his girlfriend is transgender. That happens, and he doesn't handle it well, but that's only a small part of what Beast is dealing with -- his own body dysphoria as he desperately hopes for a cure for his growth, his relationship with his dead dad that almost poisons his chances with Jamie, his relationship with his best friend who may have been only using him for the past ten years.

Secrets in Death, J.D. Robb. The victim is the bad guy, which is a nice change of pace and also means that the number of gruesome crime scenes is limited. I'm a bit alarmed at hints that Eve and Roarke are possible parents, which seems an unlikely development.

When the Sea Turned to Silver, Grace Lin. Cybils middle grade. Reading this instead of listening it made me more willing to accept that the kids' main quest was to give the evil emperor a powerful magic token, which seemed a bad idea. This time around it was easier to sympathize with kids just trying to save their family. And the illustrations are charming.

this is where it ends, Marieke Nijkamp. Cybils YA. Wow, talk about topical. This is the story of a boy who goes back to his high school and shoots dozens of students and teachers, including his sister and himself. I read most of it in a day, and then saw the news about the Florida massacre.

Save Me a Seat, Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadaragan. Cybils middle grade. Fast story of two fifth graders who overcome initial misunderstandings through a shared wariness of the class bully. The kids are maybe a bit too introspective, but the final scene with leeches made everything worth while.

In the Shadow of Liberty, Kenneth Davis. Cybils NF. Davis is the author of the popular My Teacher Never Told Me history books, so I expected the good writing that I found. I found the discussions of the difficulty of knowing what was happening beyond the limelight fascinating; sometimes there were scraps, sometimes less than that. I found the careful language a bit distracting; the modern preference for adjectives over nouns doesn't seem that profound to me ("enslaved person" vs "slave").

Trashed, Derf Backderf. Cybils graphic novel. I liked the mix of fiction and facts, where we follow a young college dropout turned trash collector but take breaks to see what Backderf has researched about the garbage industry's seamy underside or history or misconceptions. I found the narrator rather unsympathetic; he seemed shallow and selfish so I never really cared about his life beyond how he illustrated small town garbage services.

The Plot to Kill Hitler, Patricia McCormick. Cybils nonfiction. This biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer looks at another slice of World War II, as religious leaders grapple with (and sometimes accomodate or encourage) Hitler and his Nazi party. Bonhoeffer spent some time in America and was interested in civil rights; some of the people I saw in other history books this year would have read his sermons. I found the end a bit muddled as McCormick struggles to keep his history and the end of the war distinct.

Radioactive!: How Irene Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World, Winifred Conkling. Cybils nonfiction. Biographies of two scientists doing Nobel worthy work right before (and during, and after) World War II. Why Meitner was never awarded a Nobel is a topic that is covered, by the way. Interesting science, new insights into history, but the two stories didn't naturally fit together as the women didn't really work together.

Bookmarks moved in:




Alliance of Equals, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. Episode 37. Looks like the entire AI team was suckered.

Voyage to Magical North, Claire Fayers. Cybils middle grade. I like the tentacles.

Potions and Pastries, Bailey Cates. I'm not really seeing a mystery here. OK, I mean someone died, but I'm not sure why our hero is investigating.

London Rain, Nicola Upson. Audio book. I chose this one because Josephine Tey sounded familiar, but it's a fictional mystery novel about the writer Josephine Tey. Once again I'm coming at this from a very odd angle, as I haven't ready any actual Josephine Tey books.

Miss Ellicott's School for the Magically Minded, Sage Blackwood. A snake in one's brain is a very vivid metaphor.

Full of Beans, Jennifer Holm. There is a lot of talk of people's bottoms in this book set in Florida during the depression.

Game Change, Joseph Monninger. Oddly I find myself wishing there was more football and less probing of emotional shades.

These I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.



Kenilworth, Sir Walter Scott.

A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George.

The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox.

Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception, Wendelin Van Draanen.

Change of Heart, Norah McClintock.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca.

2018 Challenge Progress:

1. Cybils 2017! 5/104-ish. Working on a middle grade fantasy. Also read a board book, and it was the right one.
2. Cybils 2016!  90/107-ish. Actually, more, but my records aren't all updated yet.
3. Reading My Library: Working on London Rain which I'm enjoying for the history (it's set at King George 6's coronation). Plugging away at Potions and Pastries.
4. Where Am I Reading 2018?: 15/51. Picked up New Jersey, Arizona and Oregon, and I have bookmarks in Florida and Georgia.