Welcome to Litsy!

This book caught my eye at the checkout counter at a bookstore, so I borrowed the audiobook from the library and I don't regret it. I didn't realize the intended audience skewed a bit younger, but it was a wonderful tale with a beautiful voice that touched on a difficult subject in a way that didn't minimize the different forms of heartache that manifest around it.

Its almost funny, me wanting to forget the "everything that happened," when that was exactly where I was still stuck. Maybe the only way to get unstuck was to remember.

Sometimes a stretch of sorrow can make you serious, unsure of who you are on the other side of it all.

This is a story of a family dealing with some big things which come out slowly over the course of story. It‘s told in alternating chapters from the perspective of Ernest, one of the boys in the family who loves words, and Olivetti, the family‘s typewriter. The typewriter makes for an interesting point of view, and the story includes a wonderful group of characters.

#MiddleGrade #audiobook

📷: my tulips! 🌷

I loved the days when we all rooted for the underdog. Korman is a fantastic writer of friendship tales and this is no different.

Last night I had the privilege to attend the Natl Figure Skating Pairs and had the best time with friends. Today, just couldn‘t settle in with any current reads and so I searched for “month” on Libby and I selected this. #MiddleGrade #ReadICT

This is a story told through alternating timelines including Matthew in the U.S. in 2020 and 3 cousins in Soviet Ukraine and the U.S. in the 1930s. Mila has grown up never knowing want and believing the party propaganda, Nadiya‘s family has starved in the Holdomor but she manages to show up at Mila‘s door to ask for help, and Helen‘s family has immigrated to the U.S. but is still in touch with Nadiya.

#MiddleGrade #audiobook #Ukraine #TRS2024

Overall I liked this historical fiction from the point of view of a girl who stows away on the Titanic, but there were a few issues for me as a reader. Hazel sneaks onto the ship and then makes herself way too visible, including spending time in the first class areas. She asks specific questions that provide lots of clear information about the flaws/mistakes that led to the catastrophe, and of course it all works out well for her in the end.

“…as you heal and grow, something beautiful and layered and solid and lasting is formed.”

#DaysDevotedTo

#Hiking

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

“I love you and I‘m sorry and hold on are the last things he says to me though I barley hear the words over the screaming in my mind.”