Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Sorry folks–all of the apples (plus a meeting) distracted me on Wednesday, and now I’m focused on some family time. See y’all Tuesday!

Okay, I’m just in a “Pitch Meeting” kind of mood–can you tell? Last night, however, I finished Sky Island (A Trot & Cap’n Bill Adventure), and it really did feel like a mashup of James Bond and Nancy Drew–and a touch of “Free Willy”–only with a Vietnamese-Californian flair. The pacing felt awkward to me as an adult, but perhaps that’s because the friendship rift is as important to its audience as the solving of the mystery and the confronting of the villain? I’m honestly not sure. I AM pretty sure, however, that my girls are going to thoroughly enjoy this seaside mystery. It’s not the kind of powerful literature that some graphic novels are, but it’s fast-paced adventure fare. Offer it to the readers in your lives accordingly!

On a different note, cross your fingers for tonight’s batch of fruit leather–I added some fresh raspberries and frozen strawberries to the cooking apples at the end. (I’ve still got five boxes of apples, but I’m trying!)

I finished reading Wolfie & Fly aloud to my 5-year-old this week, and honestly, I thought it was odd. There were lots of good things about it–Wolfie’s world getting stretched a bit, kids using their imaginations and working together, the absurdity of the adventure–but the amorphous quality of that adventure caused some problems for my OCD, and I did not love the parents’ lack of anything resembling parenting. Perhaps I would have liked it better if it had been more obviously fantastical? I don’t know. My youngest, however, gave it a thumbs up, and so it’s probably a good choice for the short chapter book stage–under 90 pages, some half-page illustrations, etc. Let me know what you think!

I’m actually doing it today–yippee! And by “IT” I mean reviewing Celia C. Perez’s (pretend that first “e” in “Perez” is accented) Strange Birds: A Field Guide to Ruffling Feathers, which I finished several days ago now. It was on my radar before it showed up on Granite School District’s “Best Books” list, but I moved it up when I saw it there, and I’m glad I did. Perez’s “strange birds” are a group of disparate girls who find themselves joining together in protest against a traditional hat used by the local Girl Scout-ish group, the Floras. Lane is spending the summer with her grandmother and trying NOT to think about her parents’ in-process divorce; Ofelia is hoping to convince her older and extremely protective parents to sign an application for a journalism contest that might culminate in a trip to New York; Cat has secretly dropped out of the Floras and hasn’t told her parents yet; and Aster, after being homeschooled by her grandfather thus far, is facing middle school in the fall. They’re a somewhat predictably unlikely group, but their journey is unexpected and realistically bumpy. A few pages here and there teeter on the edge of feeling didactic instead of an organic part of the story, but they never–quite–fall in, and what’s a few pages in a few places in a 350-page book? I enjoyed reading Strange Birds AND learned new things about Florida history, so I’d call that a win-win; older elementary girls are going to be fans of this one.

I was totally going to review a book last night–I was. Only my parents called in a chatty mood, and that distracted me enough that more than one task got put off. The book in question I shall review tomorrow, but since we’re currently experimenting with all things apple, tonight I offer up this Slow Cooker Apple Butter, which is hands down the best of the recipes I’ve tried thus far. It’s flavorful and lovely and I can get past the weirdness of the texture of apple butter, which is one of the reasons I haven’t been a huge fan up ’til now. I was generous with the spices while still using the measuring spoon indicated, and I turned off the slow cooker just before 5 hours, as I recall. (I also tossed the apples in a few splashes of lemon juice.) If you have extra apples and a bit of time, give this one a try!

Yes, I was supposed to post yesterday, but I was poopered by the time I could have–and it works out, because I finished reading Ruby Goldberg’s Bright Idea to my 11-year-old tonight, and now I can review that and take it back to the library tomorrow. Wahoo! We actually had the book in our house because my oldest picked it out for herself at the library…several years ago. I kept thinking that it was so short I’d go ahead and read it first and get it to her any day now, any week now, any month now, ANY YEAR NOW–you get the picture.

I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

At any rate, it was pretty short for her younger sister at this point, but it was just her thing–a school story defined by an emotional, relationship-driven component–and short makes for an easier read-aloud during the school year, anyway. Ruby Goldberg is determined to win gold at the science fair this year as well as cheer up her grandfather, whose beloved dog just died. Can she build the perfect Rube Goldberg machine while learning how to balance what’s most important in her life? Her growth is satisfying, and although the story arc is compressed into less than 130 pages of actual text, it worked for me. Middle elementary schoolers–especially those interested in gadgets of all types–should enjoy this one.

I have finished another graphic novel that my 11-year-old is going to grab with greedy little hands–or greedy rapidly growing hands, in her case–and I’m rather enjoying the image of her lighting up when she sees it. Kayla Miller’s Act follows Click and then Camp as the continuing adventures of Olive. (Whose last name is “Branche”, by the way. Tee hee.) In this third installment we see Olive learn about something she wants to change at her school and go about figuring out how to make it happen. She’s still well-liked to an incredible degree, but watching her struggle with bad dreams and gripe at her younger brother left me with a better sense of Olive-the-inevitably- flawed-human-being than the previous books did. Miller’s books don’t have the same level of depth as Svetlana Chmakova’s or Jerry Craft’s, but they have their own place in the graphic novel world, and I’m okay with that. Fans of the series and graphic novel fans in general should enjoy Olive’s continuing story.

In more ways than one, really. Clearly I didn’t make Saturday or Monday–not enough brain power, maybe?–but I’ve also gotten behind with “Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales”, and I aim to fix that now. (Okay, so I’m climbing back on the wagon because my 8-year-old reached the one I was on, but still.) We’re not going to talk about how long Lafayette!: A Revolutionary War Tale has been sitting on my shelf, but I have repented, and it’s going out into the rest of the house, where it will be read by several. I finished it last night, and I’m still feeling irritated with myself for waiting so long. Hale’s ongoing series of graphic histories is both a hoot and a brilliant way to teach history to young people, and Lafayette! is no exception. Hale gives us Lafayette’s life from childhood through his career in the American Revolution, and I learned all sorts of things about a man that (oddly enough) Louisa May Alcott introduced me to in An Old-Fashioned Girl. (Don’t skip the Correction Babies at the end, by the way.) These are great reads from 8 to 108, and I’m looking forward to moving on to Major Impossible!

I do enjoy reading Rob Buyea’s books, even if they cross the realistic line on occasion. (At least.) The thing is, they cross it in a feel-good, this-is-what-life-SHOULD-be-like kind of way, and–ESPECIALLY in 2020–who doesn’t need some of that on a fairly regular basis? In Saving Mr. Terupt, Buyea’s third Mr. Terupt installment, we see Peter, Luke, Jeffrey, Anna, Jessica, Lexie, and Danielle enter junior high. Their struggles feel solidly relatable, and their ups and down make for an engrossing story. (Their different personalities are also convincingly and appealingly drawn.) Conflict with each other is threatening to permanently dissolve their friendship when they discover another kind of conflict that brings them together again on their teacher’s behalf. This is a beautifully satisfying read and totally worth your time; I’d start with Buyea’s first Terupt book, however, and read all three (plus the fourth one, due out this December!) to see the characters develop over time. Go enjoy the feels!

When my friend Andrea picked Natalie Lloyd’s Over the Moon for book club a month or three ago, she warned me it was dystopian; she also said that her household had loved it and I was going to enjoy it in spite of its dystopian-ness.

She was right.

And okay, mountain community, children working in the mines–this is dystopian with a historical feel. That’s not the only reason I enjoyed it, though. Mallie is a character that you can’t NOT like, and her resolve to help her family and protect her brother is relatable in a fundamental way. Add to that the beauty of bringing hope back to a hopeless community–plus flying horses–and you have an entirely winning combination. (The narrator on the audiobook is also lovely.) There are some definite plot stretches and questions, but those didn’t seem to matter; the book did too good of a job of bringing the feels. (Also, there’s a legend-like quality to the end, or maybe a waking-from-a-bad-dream vibe, that smooths over the slightly questionable bits.) I ended up thoroughly enjoying Over the Moon, and it’s now headed down to my oldest daughter’s shelf. You should read it and tell me what you think!