Easter and April Fools Day Should Not Coincide

I had a lovely week hanging out with my spring-breaking Alexander, who managed to get a few chores done, ignore a few others, and bake several batches of cookies. Oh, and do his taxes. Now he's gone and the house is quiet again.

I only cooked once, due to a sudden need to celebrate with Mexican food, but I think people liked the Italian caprese sandwiches. I needed more of them though. Next time I'll have more bread available

Oh, I guess Easter happened, and April Fools day, but I pretty much ignored those.

The movie this week was Ready Player One, which was about what I expected. It honored the book fairly well, and had a ridiculous premise (that people devoting their lives to memorizing useless trivia in order to win a lottery and escape their pathetic existence is somehow heroic) but the images were cute and the pace nice. The bad guy had a good time chewing up the scenery.

I am slogging my way through the last Cybils book from last year, and also not making progress on this years. Currently Reading has rocketed back up because I started lots of books in a fit of lost focus. I've fallen back into "what does the library want back TODAY" to pick what to concentrate on.

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. My elementary book club kept me eligible this week.

This Week I started:


Breadcrumbs, Anne Ursu. For 4th grade book club.

Air Awakens, Elise Kova. Vaginal Fantasy pick.

The Apprenticeship of Lucas Whitaker, Cynthia DeFelice. My nephew asked me to read it.

Gods Without Men, Hari Kunzru. For my Tuesday book club. OK, at thirty pages in I hate it and have given it to my brother so he can tell me whether I should struggle on.

I finished:




Breadcrumbs, Anne Ursu. Very few of the fourth graders had read it, which is not unexpected (it's a dense story) but made for a tough book club. I talked to them about fairy tale tropes, and the difficulties of moving to a new school and having your intentions misinterpreted, and then devolved into a quiz show where they tried to identify some of the references in the book. I still loved it.

An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon. Sword and Laser pick. Grimmer than most of my SF reading, this generation ship book rewarded dedication. I liked the complex society, technology and relationships and wanted to argue with the author about how it worked on all three levels. Good pick for a book club.

Arabella and the Battle of Venus, David Levine. Woot! I got my space battles! And the tedious love triangle evaporated like a puff of smoke as Arabella was reunited with her true love (I refer, of course, to the automaton Aadin). I am looking forward to the third book as I like the mix of Napoleonic sea battles with steampunk style space travel.

A Call to Arms, David Weber, Timothy Zahn, and Thomas Pope. Trevor steps up with some more rule stickling and unorthodox battle plans. It's fun to see how the authors contrive to keep him out of Manticorian history books, as no one in the later books ever mention him. I have to wade through a lot of techno- and politcial babble to get to my story, but most people reading this are probably more invested in Manticorian trivia than I am.

The Apprenticeship of Lucas Whitaker, Cynthia DeFelice. It is very interesting how my nephew also completely bought into the zombie story, just as much as the protagonist. Perhaps science hasn't settled very strongly on him. I am now ahead so it will be interesting to see if he eventually comes around as Lucas does.

Bookmarks moved in:





Alliance of Equals, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. Episode 39. The Admiral hears some hard truths about itself, and Shan tries to gentle Padi's start to training. This may bite them all on the bum.

London Rain, Nicola Upson. RML audio book. At least there is now a mystery, but I still don't want to be here.

Weight of Zero, Karen Fortunati. Cybils YA. I find teenagers very wearisome.

Giant Pumpkin Suite, Melanie Hill. Eek!

Game Change, Joseph Manniger. When this kid is fifty, I wonder if he'll remember this week because of the championship football game or because he got his first girlfriend.

Silent in the Sanctuary, Deanna Raybourne. The library gave me another chance! Now there's a jewel theft in addition to the murder. Yum.

Scythe, Neal Shusterman. Death is not an option! Except for the professionals.

Wolf Who Rules, Wen Spencer. My kid spent spring break bringing back some of the books that he borrowed and left at his dad's place. So now I keep picking them up and falling into the best bits instead of reshelving them. That's why a lot of books didn't quite get finished.

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! 7/104-ish. I read about five pages.
2. Cybils 2016!  104/106. Working incredibly slowly on the last YA.
3. Reading My Library: Working very very slowly on London Rain which at least at added a possible mystery. Ignoring All By Myself, Alone.
4. Where Am I Reading 2018?: 26/51. Added Minnesota. Half way!