Readathon Week!

It was a good week! The weather was either pleasant or rainy, both of which I appreciated (my lawn needs water). I haven't yet made daily walks a habit, but it's getting better.

There were several (zoom) book clubs for me -- the library's Romance Reading Series met, and we discussed non-American romances, why we read them, and what makes good ones. The library had made a list of possibles, and people had read many different books, which gave us some good examples to explore. I picked up a few more for my reading list. 

And Foolscap has a monthly book club, where in the first half of the month we discuss a subgenre, and in the second half we read an example of that. This month was the SF version of cosy mysteries, and we read Curiosity Thrilled the Cat, where a librarian in a small Minnesota town solves crimes with the aid of her two cats, who have magical powers and a keen interest in sleuthing. 

Saturday was notable for being my younger son's birthday (he was at school, but answered my happy birthday call). I managed to make and send him cookies, and I went ahead and sent them to the other college kids as well. It was also the Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon. I'm too old to go for the full 24 hours, but I enjoyed an excuse to sit and read most of the day.

Sunday I met up with the birdwatchers again and saw an American Bushtit, and nesting Anna's Hummingbird, three kinds of swallows, and many herons moving sticks about. I call that a success!

For dinner I made Falafel with homemade pitas, which were pleasingly puffed but also stiff and kinda tasteless. I see I have more refinements to make to my baking. My other cooking night I made a Thai-based pasta with spicy peanut sauce, which my BIL and I enjoyed while my sister smiled politely before enjoying some cookies.

Alexander and I finished off Falcon and Winter Soldier. I really liked the Sam parts, I think Bucky is cool, and that Sharon's plan worked but wasn't really that clever. It's just that evil politicians will manage to be bad even when they are trying to be chagrined. 

My currently reading is inching back up -- 26. As usually I made up for finishing some books during the pandemic by starting a lot more! 

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" and I'm going to go sign up. Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. 

Started

The Stonekeeper's Curse, Kazu Kibuishi. Cybils finalist.

Stars Beyond, S.K. Dunstall. To read while eating solitary meals. 

The Courageous Princess: Beyond the Hundred Kingdoms, Rod Espinosa. Cybils finalist. 

Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold. Continuing my audio reread of the Five Gods world.

Two Rogues Make a Right, Cat Sebastian. My excuse is that my Romance Reading Series is doing non-American romances.

House on the Cerulean Sea, T.J. Kline. Sword and Laser pick for April.

The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison. Rereading before the sequel drops. 

Playing With Fire, April Henry. Recommended by Rachel Manija Brown. 

Switchback, Melissa F. Olson. Book two in a series.

Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare. Weekly read-aloud play.

Completed

Not So Normal Norbert, James Patterson & Joey Green. For elementary school book club. I forgot this one last week! The book club approved it, and we had a nice discussion. The librarian (who has to attend, since we meet over zoom and I'm not a school employee -- it's funny how I'm allowed to be alone with kids in person but not on zoom) talked about how she found the dystopian society hard to reconcile with the lighthearted tone of the book, but the kids and I appreciated the humor. We also laughed at how the pledge jokes went over the kids' heads because they don't recite it every morning -- I was the only one able to give the real version. I think they were interested when I went all literary on them and pointed out that the book was written in present tense -- they compared it to how they would tell a story and found it different. We talked a little about how that made the book feel. It was a fun book club!

Tempest, Beverly Jenkins. While Jenkins is good enough to make any book interesting, this felt a bit divided between being historical and being a romance, rather than being a unified historical romance. The action plot mostly involved showing off various bits of Wyoming history (massacre of Chinese railroad workers, women's suffrage, discrimination against African-American testimony at trials) and it didn't really track with the romance plot of the two characters moving from a marriage of convenience to a marriage based on love and passion. But I found the history interesting and the love story was fun, so they worked fine as two books taking turns on the page. 

The Stonekeeper's Curse, Kazu Kibuishi. 2009 Cybils Elementary/Middle Grade Graphic Novel finalist. The illustrations are cosy and a bit slick, and the characters are so different that even I can tell them apart! I'm not a huge fan of the reluctant superhero trope, but eventually the girl realizes that she can either hero up or the world can die, and she was hoping to live in that world. And the Elf son is very interesting in a Zuko kind of way, so I hope to see more of him.

The Unspoken Name, A.K. Larkwood. For my Tuesday bookclub. I liked the mix of high fantasy descriptions with modern slang from the protagonist, which I guess was also a thing in Gideon the Ninth but I thought it worked better here. It's a very romantic book, with most of the plot driven by the love of Tal for his boss and the love of Csorwe for the cute magician she met while on the job. From lusty young love to the fall of empires! Several people in my book club felt that the last chapter was crammed a bit too tightly, but it mostly worked for me. I'm also not looking for a direct sequel; this is a good spot to say goodbye although there's more that could be happening in this world, and with these characters. I did feel that the author expected me to have more sympathy for Tal than I did; he has excellent reasons for being a real jerk, but I still don't appreciate jerks.

The Vanished Seas, Catherine Asaro. This is a Bhaaj story, a woman who came out of the underclass to make a career in the army and now wants to make it easier for her community to educate itself as it wishes, but without having to sacrifice their culture for it. She does this while working as an investigator for an aristocratic family, and maintaining her relationship with the owner of the biggest speakeasy in the city. The society has a lot of depth, since Asaro has been writing it for decades now, and I enjoy the flipped gender assumptions -- men and women are equal, but men are assumed to be a bit less competent and a bit more in need of help. And Asaro likes to work various physics concepts into her plot, and that's always fun to unravel. 

Two Rogues Make a Right, Cat Sebastian. This was charming and easy, and a good book to read just before my Romance Club met to discuss non-American romances. It's about a third brother and I skipped the second one, so I didn't know as much as I think the author suspected, but it was easy to pick up what I needed. The title is a bit of a misnomer; neither of these dudes is a rogue, but they had a good mix of young love and young stubbornness, and the problems facing them were real. A cosy afternoon reading. 

Reckless, Selena Montgomery. For my Cloudy book club. I wanted to like this one, but I disliked the guy too much. Contemporary romances are always hard for me as the problems keeping the romance from working are often very contrived. In this case, the problem seems to be the contempt the guy has for the woman, and the bizarre expectations he has. She's a lawyer, and he seems to think a good proof of her love for him (a cop, and not overburdened with scruples) would be for her to tell him all about her case and what her client has been been saying. The meet cute involved him writing her a ticket for something we hear him thinking that she didn't do (he remembers her sliding under the yellow light as he writes the ticket for her running a red light). I think it's just a tough time to enjoy a cop romance with these issues.  

House on the Cerulean Sea, T.J. Kline. Sword and Laser pick for April. This is a very sweet book about a man realizing he can expand his horizons and do good in the world, both generally and very specifically with the children he meets by the cerulean sea. It also has a romance that doesn't work nearly as well; the adult relationship seems very naive about many things. But although the book sadly ended with the romance, most of the story is about the children, which is where the book shines, as Linus learns to make himself vulnerable and earns the trust of the kids.

Superman Smashes the Clan, Gene Luen Yang. 2020 Cybils Young Adult Graphic Novel finalist. I have no idea why this is Young Adult when Go With the Flow is middle grade, but luckily I don't have to make those decisions. I really liked how Superman's issues with understanding his powers and their source match up with Roberta's issue with fitting in as an Asian in a mostly-white neighborhood. And I appreciate how this revision of the original radio series let the girls have parts too. The afterward really helped put the story and its history in context, both with America and with the author's own personal history. Good book. 

The Courageous Princess: Beyond the Hundred Kingdoms, Rod Espinosa. 2007 Cybils Elementary/Middle Grade Graphic Novel finalist. I like the distance this book travels. We see the growth of the princess from her parent's longing to her awkward adolescence as a slightly ugly, rambunctious girl who is not like the other girls, to her slight difficulty with the evil dragon, to the many friends she makes during her escape who all unite in loyalty to her, which is earned by her kindness and common sense. The map needed some hints for me, since it was hard to find the places, but then I mostly ignored it anyway.

Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare. This guy wrote some good plays! I like listening to a group reading them aloud on Discord, and having a chat window to ask questions, admire lines, or smirk at a risque allusion. There's no rehearsal, and some people read easily and others in a dramatic fashion, but it works. The woman doing the fool managed to bring into songs for the songs, which was awesome. I found the instant-emotions a bit silly but the play itself full of great lines and scenes. 

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Uncompromising Honor 63/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. People planning.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Ancient Sword and Laser pick. Nothing.

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein, Farah Mendelson. Hugo finalist. Nothing.

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. Didn't touch it.

The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum. Didn't touch it.

The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brien.  Progress

An Extraordinary Union, Alyssa Cole. Progress. 

Seven Sisters, Lucinda Riley. I told it to try again later.

High Cotton, Robin Kristie Johnson. A LibraryThing EarlyReaders book. Progress!

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen. Read-aloud.

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien. Read-aloud.

Temporary, Hilary Leichter. Progress!

Sharks in the Time of Saviors, Kawai Strong Washburn. For the KCLS new author's program. I didn't finish before the talk with the author, but I'm liking it (and I liked the author) enough to buy a copy, which should arrive soon.

Picture Books / Short Stories:

None.

Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; lately I use them bribes to get me to deal with the mail. Hmm. I should get back to that. 

The Educated Child, William Bennett. 

Wool, Hugh Howey.

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. 

Under the Eye of the Storm, John Hersey. 

Dates From Hell, Kim Harrison & others. 

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. 

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2020. One graphic novel. 
2. Early Cybils: Two graphic novels. 
3. KCLS 10 To Try: 8/10. I did get a recommendation from a librarian, but I'll probably read that with a book club this summer. Epistolary will be hard.
4. Tacoma Extreme Reading Challenge. 29/55. Stalled!
5. Reading My Library. Nothing. Well, my library is closed. I can sorta count the grab-bags, so Temporary and Tempest almost count. Well, Tempest is from the wrong library.
6. Where Am I Reading 2021: 16/51 states. 10 Countries. Added Wyoming!

Future Plans

I'm putting this at the end because I suspect it's complete fiction, but I feel I should attempt some structure.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Not sure. Next: 
• Library Book: Temporary. Next: Playing With Fire. or Switchback
• Ebook I own: Extraordinary Union  Up Next: Paladin's Strength
• Library Ebook: Luminaries. Up Next: a cat mystery
• Book Club Book: Medical Apartheid Up Next: Cloudy pick.
• Tuesday Book Club Book: The Consuming Fire. Next: I need to finish The Wind Dark Sea
• Review Book: High Cotton. Next: Back Home
• Hugo Book: The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein. Next: Joanna Russ.
• Rereading:  Goblin Emperor
• Meal Companion: Stars Beyond
• Audio: Curse of Chalion

Spring 2021 Dewey 24 Hour Readathon

Hooray -- it's time for the Dewey 24 Hour Readathon! A great excuse for a lot of reading.

Maybe a need a 7-Day readathon....

We'll see what happens.

Oh -- I almost forgot. There's a BINGO cards. I will track BINGO at the bottom.

5:00 Start:

zzzzzzzzzzz

7:45 Awake

Set up blog, check out web page, get ready for walk

8:00- 8:30 Start The House on the Cerulean Sea (coin flip !)

Listen to Curse of Chaleon for 15 minutes

8:30 - 10:00 Walk

10:00 - 10:30 Listen to Northanger Abbey

10:30 - 11:00 Listen to The Hobbit

Total Reading so far: 90 minutes (1.5 hours)

Social time: 15 minutes

11:00 Sit and Read!

11:00 -11:15  Blog and check web page

11:15 - 11:45 Read Cerulean Sea

11:45 - 12:00 noon. Blog, web page

12:-- - 1:00 Reading sprint! Cerulean Sea

1:00-2:15 Read 75

Reading Time: 30+60+75 = 165 minutes (2 hours 45 minutes)

Social: 30 minutes

2:15 Read Some More!

2:15-2:30 Internet - check Blog and Goodreads

2:30:-3:30 Nap

3:30 - 6:00 read. Cerulean Sea is complete 

Reading Time: 150 minutes (2 hours 30 minutes)

Social: 15 minute

6:00 Oh the Humanity!

6:00-6:15 Updated blog, checked out other streams

6:15-6:30 hung out on discord with some friends

6:30-7:00 Dinner with the family

7:00 -8:00 Chatted with friends, did my question for Hour 15

8:00-9:00  Started Goblin Emperor 

9:00 - 10:00  Finished Superman Smashes the Clan (p. 180 - 239)

Reading time: 120 minutes (2 hours)

Social: 30 minutes

Getting Late

10:00 - 11:30    Working on Courageous Princess

11:30 - 12:30     Read Temporary, pp 25 -75

12:30 - 1:30    Read Playing With Fire pp 1-50

1:30 -- Blog and sleep!

Total Times:

Reading time: 90+165+150+120

Social time: 90 minutes

BINGO

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O O O O

O O X X O

O O X X O

B
x Read a Book that's won an award The House in the Cerulean Sea (Alex Award)
x Read a humorous book Temporary
x A book set in the Spring/Summer Playing With Fire
x Read a total of 150 Pages:  The House in the Cerulean Sea
x Read a children's book Superman Smashes the Klan
I
x Read a book w/ no Supernatural Elements Playing With Fire
x Read a book w/ a 1 word title Temporary
x Participate in a Challenge: Bad Books Twitter challenge
x Read a book w/ an even number page count The House in the Cerulean Sea 
x Read a book w/ an animal on the cover The Courageous Princess : Beyond the Hundred Kingdoms
N
x Read a book w/ a unique cover Temporary
x Read a standalone House in the Cerulean Sea
x FREE
- Read the oldest book on your TBR
- Read a book recommended/gifted to you
G
x Flip a coin to pick your first read: The House on the Cerulean Sea
x Re-Read a Fav.: Goblin Emperor
x Read in 3 separate locations: Living Room, Bedroom, car
- Read a book published before 2000
- Share a recipe on social media
O
x Participate in a 60 min Reading Sprint (read House in the Cerulean Sea)
x Enjoy a Snack/Treat that's new to you: home made pita bread
x Read a book w/ a character that shares similar characteristics to you Courageous Princess (girl, stumbles in heels, likes pigs)
x  Make your own bookmark : all scraps are bookmarks to me
x Read in your PJs

Vaccine Envy -- And Vaccine Received!

Another double report, since I got distracted last weekend. Probably by the lovely weather -- it's been bright and and clear, even edging up to overly hot, which is uncommon in April. I've been doing yard work and going on walks, and may soon start jogging again.

I spent the first part of April deep in vaccine envy; everyone I knew except me was getting one and I wasn't even eligible. So I signed up for an experimental vaccine just so I'd stop obsessing, since telling myself I was being silly wasn't happening. But my weight has rocketed up so much during the winter parts of this year that I wasn't quite eligible and so I tried again to schedule an appointment and Kaiser Permanente had just opened up the system to people who would soon be eligible so I got a shot for the first possible Saturday and now I'm on the track to help herd immunity!

That is a huge relief. Now I just have to make cookies to send to far away birthday people and get ready for May, which will probably involve helping my college kids change housing.

Cooking -- one week I scheduled my grocery pick up for the wrong day and then realized the Friday was book club. so I didn't cook at all. But last week I made the meals I had planned and am still enjoying my pesto lasagna and chicken pasta with tomato-cream sauce leftovers. (I added veggies to the sliced chicken for the pasta, and I think the spinach, onions and garlic enhanced it.)

I feel like I've been very social -- I had a zoom book club, my regular Tuesday night Skype games, met with a friend to give blood (I gave SUPER BLOOD, which is scary and takes longer but I think helps people more?), and I drove into the city to get rejected for the vaccine trial, and then on Saturday drove to the building where the vaccine was and spent five minutes waiting in line and then fifteen minutes in a big hall with other people waiting to see if I exploded or fell over or something (I did not).

On television I've been watching the Falcon and Winter Soldier with my son (we text each other from our respective homes), and also finished off season 5 of Nailed It, which had the pleasing twist of letting two people work as a team as they failed to transform into specialty bakers. I also watched Snowpiercer becauae it's about to fall off Netflix and it was good but really brutal and I am a delicate flower so I can't say I enjoyed it.

My currently reading is inching back up -- 26. Still too high, but I knocked off one of the books I've been reading forever. The problem is partly that I'm counting all the serials I'm listening to, so those are supposed to last for weeks and they have pushed up my count. I'm actually doing better in general with finishing things!

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" and I'm going to go sign up. Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. 

Started

The Physicians of Vilnoc, Lois McMaster. The last chronological Penric. (Until the new one comes out in a few weeks!)

Go With the Flow, Lily Williams & Karen Schneeman. 2020 Cybils finalist. 

Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants, Andrea Beaty. I am chasing down this series.

Tempest, Beverly Jenkins. From a library romance grab-bag, to read while eating.

Sharks in the Time of Saviors, Kawai Strong Washburn. For the KCLS new author's program.

Temporary, Hilary Leichter. From a library fiction grab-bag.

Curiosity Thrilled the Cat, Sofie Kelly. For the Foolscap Book Club.

A Bride's Story Vol 10, Kaoru Mori. I'm enjoying this author.

Crogan's Vengeance, Chris Schweizer. Cybils finalist. 

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen. Read-aloud.

The Vanished Seas, Catherine Asaro. I like this author.

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien. Read-aloud.

Iggy Peck and the Mysterious Mansion, Andrea Beaty. I like this series.

Castle Waiting, Vol 1, Linda Medley. Cybils finalist.

Not So Normal Norbert, James Patterson & Joey Green. For elementary school book club.

An Ideal Husband, Oscar Wilde. A weekly play read-aloud.

Superman Smashes the Clan, Gene Luen Yang, 2020 Cybils finalist.

Completed

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Kim Michele Richardson. I really enjoyed the librarian aspects of this, learning about the Kentucky women who brought books to families and schools deep in the mountains through the eyes of a dedicated Blue woman. The blue people were also fascinating; I didn't feel the color aspects were completely understood but the glimpses of how racism worked when finding anomalies was disturbing, especially when it tore families apart. I do wish the author had stuck closer to history in the understanding of the blood condition.

Network Effect, Martha Wells. Yay, my book club enjoyed these. Most people went back and read the novellas, because they like to read things in order. But I liked hanging out with Murderbot again and seeing how it dealt with annoying relatives of its favorite people, and how some of those relatives moved up to be its favorite people. I also liked the relationship between Murderbot and Art, and how they relied on each other when they had no where else to turn. 

Flight, Vol 4, ed. Kazu Kibuishi. 2007 Cybils Teen/Young Adult Graphic Novel finalist. Some stories were fun, some were sad, some were colorful, some were dark. It's a varied book of graphic short stories, although I, being a shallow sort, prefered the happy colorful ones. 

The Physicians of Vilnoc, Lois McMaster. I like seeing Penric be awesome at things that he is reluctantly good at. Here is is forced to go back to medical practice, with all the dangers that comes from someone who doesn't know how to give up and whose instinct is always to help. I really like how the gods in this world interact with the people.

Someplace To Be Flying, Charles de Lint. Despite the glacial pace at which I read this, I did like it. I like how the characters pay prices to when they make mistakes or need to compromise, I like how the magic and the world mix together, and I liked the big showdown at the end when the world almost, but not quite, gets destroyed.

Go With the Flow, Lily Williams & Karen Schneeman. 2020 Cybils Elementary/Middle Grade Graphic Novel finalist. Four kids (three old friends and a new girl) face the challenges of high school together, with a particular emphasis on how their periods affect things. It's a bit conspicuously diverse, but I really appreciate that in a graphic novel because I need broad strokes to tell people apart, and these four girls are deliberately different in race, body type, and energy. The color palette is red, again echoing the period theme, as the girls confront particular aspects of menstruation -- pain, irregularity, taboos, and supply issues, as well as the usual struggles of teendom. 

A Bride's Story Vol 10, Kaoru Mori. Lots of cool pictures of eagles as the young groom struggles to catch up to his older bride, and also treks through the mountains as our young Englishman pushes through to Turkey. I really like the art and don't mind when I have problems telling people apart.

Crown Duel, Sherwood Smith. It was great listening to this being read by the author. At the end she mentioned that if she were writing it today, she'd probably center different characters, but I enjoyed the antics of Meliana who only saw the edges of the events going on even as she precipitated so many of them.

Curiosity Thrilled the Cat, Sofie Kelly. For the Foolscap Book Club. I read one further along earlier, but I had fun seeing how we meet the cats and discover their powers, and learn some of the town along with our librarian protagonist. I like how the mystery drives the story but the cats still get to do magic.

Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants, Andrea Beaty. I'm going back to see all this series because I had so much fun with the politician one the Cybils showed me. Ada Twist is a scientist who also tends to get flustered and lose the ability to communicate when she is excited or stressed, so we see both her working out scientific principles and also navigating family dynamics and working to earn trust. The pants themselves were unfortunate, as they veer into fantasy, but the solution to the problem was more reliable.

The Blue Castle, L.M. Montgomery. This was a delight to listen to, especially since most of the audience knew and loved the book, but the reader was new to it. Valency is as delightful as I remember, and now I shall force my book club to read this. 

Crogan's Vengeance, Chris Schweizer.  2009 Cybils Teen/YA Graphic Novel finalist. I read the colorized version, which is good for me since I need a lot of help reading comics (I'm getting better!). I really liked the framing story, of a family using old family legends to underscore their values, and it gave context to the pirate story itself, and the ultimate arc of the young man trying to survive in a violent world. Not too violent for me, though. 

Iggy Peck and the Mysterious Mansion, Andrea Beaty. Eh, this one didn't really strike a chord for me. Iggy's fascination with architecture was a bit dull for me, and the references to the many structures he built from various foods seemed rather unappetizing. The fantasy helicopter was a further irritation, and it slid too far into the fantastical in general to satisfy my more scientific leanings. 

An Ideal Husband, Oscar Wilde. A weekly play read-aloud. The stage directions were very specific and a bit hilarious, and I also enjoyed the commentary from people who knew a lot more than me about the times and the references. The conclusion about the lesser worth of women grated a lot, but the twists between the characters and the struggle between acceptance of people and the need for a moral code was real. 

Castle Waiting, Vol 1, Linda Medley. 2006 Cybils 13 & Up Graphic Novel finalist. I enjoyed the various stories, both from the main character and the stories by the people she met, but the print was tiny! I'm too old for this. It was interesting to see what the author explained and what she just left there for us to see -- why does the baby have a tail? Why does the girl pretend to be a countess? Why are the people so bad at keeping secrets?

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Eleven -- that's not too bad, right?  

Uncompromising Honor 61-2/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. Honor is not compromising.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Ancient Sword and Laser pick. Nothing.

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein, Farah Mendelson. Hugo finalist. Made progress.

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. Didn't touch it.

The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum. Didn't touch it.

The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brien.  Progress

An Extraordinary Union, Alyssa Cole. Progress. 

Seven Sisters, Lucinda Riley. I told it to try again later.

High Cotton, Robin Kristie Johnson. A LibraryThing EarlyReaders book. I've found it!

Reckless, Selena Montgomery. For my Cloudy book club.

The Unspoken Name, A.K. Larkwood. For my Tuesday bookclub. 

Picture Books / Short Stories:

Adventures in Cartooning, James Sturm, Andrew Arnold & Alexis Frederick-Frost. 2009 Cybils Elementary/Middle Grade Graphic Novel finalist. A light story about defeating a dragon told with frequent asides about how drawing a comic works, from what are things like panels to how to arrange them for maximum effect. It would have been a good read for me back when I was creating my superhero comics about Fuzzman and his nemesis Stickman.

Black Heroes of the Wild West, James Otis Smith. 2020 Cybils Elementary/Middle Grade Graphic Novel finalist. Three exciting stories about people on the American frontier, including a stagecoach driver and all around frontier woman, a lawman, and a horse tamer. Each story has a slightly different focus, showing both a single exciting incident and their overall lives but with different emphasis on each. I felt smug about knowing one in advance (the lawman is famous). There is back matter for more details and context but the print was so small I struggled with it.

I Am Every Good Thing, Derrick Barnes. 2020 Cybils Picture Book finalist. I expected to love this, but I thought I'd enjoy it as an adult and think it just fine for kids. Instead I am enthusiastic to share this not just with teachers but also with kids; the active poses, delightful art, and rhythmic poetic language makes this something I would have expected my kids to delight in when they were young and we were reading picture books together. I'm looking around for kids to gift this to, which is how I like to feel after reading a Cybils finalist.

Don't Let the Penguin Drive the Batmobile, Jacob Lambert. My next elementary book club for 2/3rd graders is all the Pigeon books by Mo Willems. And when ordering up a batch from the library I saw this and read it through Hoopla. It's a fun parody, echoing the pigeon beats almost page for page but with fun twists using Batman characters and images in different ways. I smiled though it and think it would be fun for kids old enough to know Batman.

Palate Cleansers

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

The Educated Child, William Bennett. 

Wool, Hugh Howey.

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. 

Under the Eye of the Storm, John Hersey. The storm is here with a fury! And for reasons (a house fell in the bay?) they have to go out into the ocean. I tend to skip the nautical details. 

Dates From Hell, Kim Harrison & others. 

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. 

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2020. Four graphic novels, one that I classed as a picture book. 
2. Early Cybils: One graphic novel. 
3. KCLS 10 To Try: 8/10. I did get a recommendation from a librarian, but I'll probably read that with a book club this summer. Epistolary will be hard.
4. Tacoma Extreme Reading Challenge. 29/55. I'm not getting lucky as often.
5. Reading My Library. Nothing. Well, my library is closed.
6. Where Am I Reading 2021: 12/51 states. 9 Countries. A Bride's Story wandered into Turkey.

Future Plans

I'm putting this at the end because I suspect it's complete fiction, but I feel I should attempt some structure.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Reckless Next: Vanished Seas
• Library Book: Temporary. Next: Two Rogues Make a Right.
• Ebook I own: Extraordinary Union  Up Next: Paladin's Strength
• Library Ebook: Luminaries. 
• Book Club Book: Cerulean Sea Up Next: Medical Apartheid
• Tuesday Book Club Book: The Unspoken Name. Next: The Consuming Fire
• Review Book: High Cotton. Next: Back Home
• Hugo Book: The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein. Next: Joanna Russ.
• Rereading:  Goblin Emperor
• Meal Companion: 
• Audio: waiting for Curse of Chalion