Our Time is Now by Stacey Abrams: Book Review

4 Stars. Reading Our Time is Now in the wake of the 2020 election felt a bit like a victory dance. Anyone who isn't outraged by voter suppression doesn't have a good concept of what "government by the people" means. As a white woman, I've never experienced anything like what Ms. Abrams details in these pages. This review keeps [...]

A Promised Land by Barack Obama: Book Review

4 Stars. I miss Obama in the White House, I really do. Reading his thoughts and decision-making processes, his deliberations, his efforts to reflect many voices from many backgrounds in his policies--I just miss that stability and thoughtfulness. That said, I'll start with my one complaint. At 703 pages (751 with the index), the [...]

True or False by Cindy L. Otis: Book Review

4 Stars. In this information age, we find ourselves bombarded with facts or "facts," as the case may be. A fringe group believing a kooky conspiracy theory may seem fairly harmless but when large swathes of the population believe anything they read that reinforces their own beliefs, we have a huge problem. Consider these sobering statistics [...]

Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

Hmmm.... Where to start? I mostly found this book fascinating and the inaccurate history we are taught infuriating but I also had problems with the tone. I'll start with the positives.... Loewen's main complaint is that our American history textbooks invariably teach from the point of view of White males of European descent. The [...]

Toil & Trouble edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe: Book Review

Any short story collection is going to be a bit uneven but I truly enjoyed the vast majority of these. I would like to read novels based on some of these characters and I will be seeking out longer works by some of these authors. I appreciated that the writers are a culturally-diverse group and their characters reflect that. [...]

This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman: Book Review

The rhyming couplets and colorful pictures in this book are sure to please little readers (or listeners, as the case may be). The parade is full of colorful characters, some in fancy dress, others in outfits that can be found at a Village People concert, but all happy and excited to be a part of this celebration. The illustrator [...]

Melissa (Formerly Published as George) by Alex Gino: Book Review

Oh my goodness. I inhaled this book in just a few hours and it left me with so much joy for George, I was almost in tears. George is afraid to tell anyone that she’s really a girl. What will they think? But as she slowly starts to share her secret, she finds so much love and acceptance. The road isn’t perfectly smooth—that would [...]

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo: Book Review

Marlon Bundo is the BOTUS, the Bunny of the United States. He lives a lonely life in a big, boring house until one day he meets Wesley, the most bunny-beautiful rabbit in the garden. It’s love at first sight. They decide they want to get married and hop together forever. But the Stink Bug tells them that boy bunnies can only marry girl bunnies. What can they do? [...]

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan: Book Review

5 Stars. First of all, I loved listening to this audiobook. Each part has a different narrator and they each do a fabulous job. What I really loved were the musical numbers by Corky Siegel. If Mike was playing “America the Beautiful” in the text, a harmonica would play the song softly in the background, for example. That kind of thing is [...]

I Should Have Honor by Khalida Brohi: Book Review

I was a bit familiar with the practice of honor killings and was of course appalled by them. The patriarch of a family apparently has complete discretion to order a woman in the family to be killed if she brings dishonor on the family. In the examples in the book, this usually comes about when a "woman" (usually barely past [...]