4.5 Stars. Oh my goodness. This was so much fun! But it also had a lot of depth. And just look at that gorgeous cover!I loved Amari. She’s a fighter. Life is hard and unfair for her, largely because of things completely outside her control, but she keeps hanging in there. Cruel adults or mean girls, she meets each challenge the […]
3 Stars. The title and the official synopsis led me to believe that I was going to read a book centered on Queen Lakshmi of Jhansi, “India’s Joan of Arc.” Imagine my surprise when I started reading chapter after chapter describing Sita’s life in a small village. It was interesting enough but I honestly chose the book to meet the […]
4 Stars. What a cute little book! I read it in about an hour but I enjoyed myself immensely. Nathaniel is a fairly complex character. He’s a timid little thing but Aunt Phil pushes him to face his fears. He has a kind heart that leads him to befriend creatures that Aunt Phil dismisses as pests. Most living things will respond […]
3 Stars. I expected something like The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, which sets the bar awfully high. There’s a superficial similarity in the plot summary but that’s as far as any resemblance goes. There’s plenty of action to kick off this trilogy but it’s action that doesn’t seem to be relevant to the main story. I didn’t know […]
3 Stars. I really liked the first half of the book. Charlotte is feisty, if a bit too practical, and she’s creative in addressing the mill’s myriad problems. I wondered how the author was going to weave Rumpelstiltskin into the tale but she did it beautifully. The village of Shearing, like any self-respecting small town, is full […]
4.5 Stars. I’ve struggled a little lately with a bit of a reading slump. I can usually break out of those by reading a few quick fantasies. This book should not have worked for me right now but it absolutely did. I know very little Indian history so I didn’t know anything about this emperor, his wives, or even this period in […]
3.5 Stars. This was a pretty fun entry in the series. It’s nice to read something set fairly early in Dresden’s life, before things get so…messy. The mystery is pretty straightforward and engaging enough. Harry tries to be his sarcastic self but I think the shorter format interferes with that a bit. How many panels of snark […]
4 Stars. I wasn’t quite sure to what to expect when I downloaded this book from the library but I liked it. It’s quirky and funny but there’s a lot of substance lurking beneath the exterior. won’t hazard a guess as to what might be “wrong” with Keiko but she really doesn’t think like most other people. But is that bad? She […]
5 Stars. Fatima is totally relatable. She feels overshadowed by her smart older sister and she doesn’t always feel like she fits in at school. She’s a little nervous about sleeping in a tent, especially when she and her sister spy a “monster” outside the tent in the night. They laugh the next morning when they see what it was [….]
4 Stars. I downloaded this book on a whim from the library, thinking that it would work for the 2021 Nonfiction Reader Challenge “hobby” category since I can’t resist picking up seashells when I’m at the beach. As I read, I decided it would work better for the “oceanography” category but either way, I found the book captivating [….]
4 Stars. What an inspirational story! William and his family have almost nothing by Western standards but they do have each other and William has dreams and the willingness to teach himself and try. That takes him farther than he could even dream of. The part describing the famine was extremely difficult to read. People starve […]