Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Third Time the Charm?

Snow fell on us! Not enough to ruin anything, but enough to make me want to stay inside and avoid driving whenever possible. Although I did volunteer to drive my son to work, since the thought of waiting around for a bus in the snow felt too horrible.  

 Then it was back to frantically reading more Cybils books. 

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 think I'm in time this week (barely)! Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. This is my third week of blogging after my long haitus, so it's taking me a bit of work to get back on a schedule. But this time I think I finished my Monday post in time to sign up with the other Mondays!


Started


This still includes things that I really started ages ago but for various reasons am still working on.

Fridays with the Wizards (Castle Glower, #4)You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty, and Other ThingsCramm This Book: So You Know Wtf Is Going on in the World Today
A Snake Falls to EarthThreadbare (Storm Fronts, #1)Coming of Age in 2020: Teenagers on the Year that Changed Everything
TinWhat the Fact?: Debunking Disinformation to Detangle the TruthThe Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life
Gwen Jorgensen: USA's First Olympic Gold Medal TriathleteA Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and TomorrowAscendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Volume 1First Phone: A Child's Guide to Digital Responsibility, Safety, and Etiquette



Fridays With the Wizards, Jessica Day George. An audio CD from Renton Highlands library, part of my Reading My Library Quest there, where I read a book from each shelf. I forgot about this one. I listen to it in the car, because that's the only place where I can play CDs. 

You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty and Other Things, Cory Silverberg. Cybils nominee.

Cramm This Book So You Know WTF Is Going on in the World Today, Olivia Seltzer. Cybils nominee.

A Snake Falls to Earth, Darcie Little Badger. I liked her previous book.

Threadbare, Elle E. Ire. Book club pick from a few months back. 

Coming of Age in 2020: Teenagers on the Year the Changed Everything, Katherine Schulten. Cybils nominee.

Tin, Kenny Padraig. Next audio in my Renton Highlands Library Quest. 

What the Fact?: Debunking Disinformation to Detangle the Truth, Seema Yasmin. Cybils nominee.

The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life, Amy Butler Greenfield. Cybils nominee. 

Gwen Jorgensen: USA's First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete, Elizabeth Jorgensen. Cybils nominee.

A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, Laura Taylor Namey. 2021 Cybils finalist. 

Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 5, Vol. 1, Miya Kazuki. Yay, it's out!

First Phone: A Child's Guide to Digital Responsibility, Safety, And Etiquette, Catherine Pearlman. Cybils nominee.



Completed


Detector Dogs, Dynamite Dolphins, and More Animals with Super Sensory PowersFridays with the Wizards (Castle Glower, #4)Six Wakes
You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty, and Other ThingsStormsong (The Kingston Cycle, #2)Gwen Jorgensen: USA's First Olympic Gold Medal TriathleteFirst Phone: A Child's Guide to Digital Responsibility, Safety, and Etiquette


Detector Dogs, Dynamite Dolphins, and More Animals With Super Sensory Powers, Cara Giaimo. Cybils nominee. This was a fun, energetic read, with great descriptions of animals working with people in everything from mine detection to undergrowth depletion, and lots of good illustrations and comment boxes to keep a engaging tone. The chapters ended with suggestions for an activity or experiment to see how your senses match up with the creatures. 

Fridays With the Wizards, Jessica Day George. This was fun! I've read the first book, back when it came out, but I only vaguely remember, and I missed the other two (Wednesday and Thursday) but I knew mostly what was going on. I was confused on everybody's age, because a lot happened in those missing books and I wasn't sure how aged up everyone was. Also, I feel monarchy's are not the best form of government. But these royals seemed nice enough, and the castle likes 'em. 

Six Wakes, Mur Lafferty. Foolscap & Sword and Laser pick. I had completely forgotten whodunnit, so this reread was also suspenseful. But I often found that I was interested in different things that Lafferty was, which was a bit frustrating. I wanted to think more about what cloning meant, how responsible new clones should feel for their predecessors' actions, especially the ones they couldn't remember. Not being a clone, I didn't automatically feel that responsibility was there, so struggled with the characters' complete acceptance of that. So the mystery weighed less on me than on them. 

You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty and Other Things, Cory Silverberg. Cybils nominee. This does a great job explaining that there are no absolutes and instead a wide variation in when things happen, what they look like, and how they are experienced while still covering the things that will probably happen and the general range of how stuff appears and what to expect. But it's very sure of itself and its morality. The art work in the cartoons is very distinctive; it's fun but you either like it or you don't.

Stormsong, C.L. Polk. Not as strong as Witchmark, I thought. I kept hearing about how amazing the protagonist was, but I also kept seeing her being outmaneuvered and caught flat footed. She does manage to pull some stuff out at the end. The romance didn't really seem convincing; it was more of a crush until suddenly it was this huge thing.

Gwen Jorgensen: USA's First Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete, Elizabeth Jorgensen. Cybils nominee. I liked the double timeline -- Gwen starts counting down to her Olympic race and in between flashes back to her athletic life, from swim team as a child through high school and college performance, where she was always not quite the elite. She loved swimming but excelled at track, and had to pick up bicycling when the triathlete team recruited her. The book caught me up in the drama and I even liked the bits of advice where Gwen tells about routines or habits she thinks really helped. 

First Phone: A Child's Guide to Digital Responsibility, Safety, And Etiquette, Catherine Pearlman. Cybils nominee. Lots of good advice, but definitely advice. Do kids take advice?


Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Primary Inversion (Saga of the Skolian Empire, #1)Four Streets and a Square: A History of Manhattan and the New York IdeaWhite Fragility (Adapted for Young Adults): Why Understanding Racism Can Be So Hard for White People (Adapted for Young Adults)You Are More Than Magic: The Black and Brown Girls' Guide to Finding Your Voice
Still Stace: My Gay Christian Coming-of-Age StoryCobra (Cobra, #1)Animal Allies: 15 Amazing Women in Wildlife Research
Absurd Words: A kids’ fun and hilarious vocabulary builder for future word nerdsConcrete Rose (The Hate U Give, #0)Hattie Big Sky (Hattie, #1)Why We Fly
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Antigua_sailing_ship.jpg/320px-Antigua_sailing_ship.jpg



Primary Inversion, Catherine Asaro. My kitchen cleaning book. It is a sad tribute to my housekeeping that I still keep finding Thanksgiving messes to deal with. 

Four Streets and a Square: A History of Manhattan and the New York Idea, Marc Aronson. Cybils nominee. 

White Fragility (Adapted For Young Adults): Why Understanding Racism Can Be So Hard For White People, Toni Graves Williamson. Cybils nominee.

You Are More Than Magic: The Black and Brown Girls' Guide to Finding Your Voice, Minda Harts. Cybils nominee.

Still Stace: My Gay Christian Coming-of-Age Story, Stacy Chomiak. Cybils nominee.

Cobra, Timothy Zahn. Oh -- I forgot about the serial Baen is giving me as part of their weekly podcast. I had fallen behind but now I'm catching up.

Animal Allies: 15 Amazing Women in Wildlife Research, Elizabeth Pagel-Hogan. Cybils nominee.

Absurd Words: A Kids' Fun and Hilarious Vocabulary Builder For Future Word Nerds, Tara Lazar. Cybils nominee.

Concrete Rose, Angie Thomas. 2021 Cybils finalist. 

Hattie Big Sky, Kirby Larson. Previous Cybils finalist.

Why We Fly, Kimberly Jones. 2021 Cybils finalist.

Ship Without Sails, Sherwood Smith. I lost this and now I've found it again. Really continued reading but covered under my COMPLETE AMNESTY (see last week). 

(You can tell we are in the gotta-read-them-all stage of Cybils judging, because I keep switching to the ones that my library has that others don't.)



Picture Books / Short Stories:


Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; lately I use them as bribes to get me to deal with the mail. I've been ignoring my mail.


Dates from HellStingerDragon's Breath (The Tales of the Frog Princess, #2)You Can Write Children's BooksYEAR OF WONDER: Classical Music for Every Day

 
Dates From Hell, Kim Harrison & others. 

50 Great Poets, ed. Milton Crane (no picture). I like seeing how different people translated Horace and other Latin guys.

Stinger, Nancy Kress.  

Dragon's Breath, E.D. Baker. I think I've been brought up to speed (this is not the first book in this series)

You Can Write Children's Books, Tracey E. Dils. Middle grade. 

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. I'm mostly keeping up with the present December selections. Mostly.


Reading Challenges
  1. Cybils 2021: Not done.
  2. Early Cybils:  Not done.
  3. Reading My Library. My libraries have many shelves. 
  4. Where Am I Reading 2022
  5. Libraries: 44/55 for the Tacoma Extreme Challenge: 

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: Red Dragon Codex
  • Library Book: Simmer Down  
  • Ebook I own: Ascendance of a Bookworm 5.1 
  • Library Ebook:  The Woman Who Split the Atom
  • Book Club Book: 
  • Tuesday Book Club Book: The Woman All Spies Fear
  • Hugo Book: She Who Became the Sun
  • Review Book: Back Home 
  • Rereading: Steerswoman 
  • Meal Companion: Snake Who Fell From the Sky
  • Audio: Primary Inversion

2 comments:

kmitcham said...

Did we do "Six Wakes" for book club? It seems vaguely familiar. In a spaceship, and a murder happened...

Cheriee Weichel said...

I just downloaded A Snake Falls to Earth again. I hope to find time to listen to it this time. Like you, I liked her previous book. Enjoy reading this week.