“By request of my employer, the contents of chapter thirteen have not only been omitted; they have been pulled directly from my typewriter, shredded, and used as terrarium liner for a particularly pungent frog.” Aah, Jackaby! 😆

I am a sucker for a beautiful book cover! And the fact that it contains the mind-blowing, wonderful poetry of Juan Felipe Herrera is pretty much a perfect pairing.

Starting this new Middle Grade read today. Love it when the library provides awesome surprises like this, on just a routine visit!

This cover is unforgettable! And it has demons and demonesses who rhyme. 😂

This series has just been phenomenal and the season concluding book 5 brought a lot of disparate threads together. I always look forward to the textual shenanigans Danielewski gets up to and this lion in text format is just awesome!

Mohsin Hamid delves into the immigrant experience with a little help from magical realism to stunning effect. Nadia and Saeed's journey takes them from a nameless city taken over by militants to Greece, London, and then the U.S. Hamid explores the way his characters change internally, emotionally, and how their relationship changes too; how these migrant characters change the geography and the cultural makeup of the places to which they escape.

"The thing is...when I want to read, what I REALLY REALLY need is a place to sit...just for a bit."

This book was an unexpected gem. The writing is understated and subtle; the narrative and characters intriguing and continually evolving. Whitaker does a great job of exploring the making of art, the price it demands, and raises questions about the moral limits and lengths an artist will go to for their art.

My son's pick for our book club for the month of July. Rocket, Groot, and Veronica (tm), totally awesome tape-dispenser (now with a color upgrade!), return for another hilarious and crazy adventure. There's mayhem, there's danger, there's "Captain Slog!", and plenty of ridiculous swearing: "for the love of Capybaras!" Perfect summer read!

Randomly found this at the library and got it for my son. He loved reading this one out loud to me (amid a lot of giggles and belly laughs!). He loved the Origami Yoda series by Angleberger, and now he's an even bigger fan of the author since Rocket and Groot are his favorite characters from Guardians of the Galaxy. But now his favorite character from the book is the totally awesome tape-dispenser, Veronica (tm).

Ferris's writing style lends itself to novels, not so much to the short story medium. The characters are a little too obvious, their desperation about time running out, the futility of reaching for something larger than their mundane lives writ large on each page. Where there should have been subtlety, there was a hammer!

I picked this one up right after reading Greenberg's The Encyclopedia of Early Earth. This was a different take on the Arabian Nights, a slightly underwhelming one. Some of the stories told by Hero were very interesting but the overarching premise was less so.

A big book of storytelling and storytellers and stories! The stories are often ones we can guess, old stories we've always known, but then the story of the storyteller is something else entirely. A boy looking for a missing piece of his soul, two people in love whose magnetic fields repel each other, this graphic novel brings us closer to words, words that are close to our soul, words that keep us away from others.

The least interesting mystery in this book turns out to be the identity of the eponymous Miniaturist! Burton does a great job building up the characters in the Brandt household, allowing them room to grow and slowly unwind their mysteries and secrets, while simultaneously honing in on the myriad ways they are caged, by society, religion, fear, their own desires, and their miscommunication. The Miniaturist (+Agnes!) were amplified without payoff.

The story of Luna, the girl who drank the moon, not as simple as I was expecting! It had layers and depth that kept me hooked but also made me think. A wonderful thing to find in a middle grade book! The writing itself is really good; Barnhill creates a world that is visual, each scene bringing to mind pictures, scents, atmosphere. This is a book to be savored for the characters, the stories told within and the idea of magic and love it explores.

It was wonderful reading these books that had elements of our culture! My daughter was especially excited to see the prayer rug in "Golden Domes..." and rushed to get her own to show me.

I just randomly picked this book up at the library because the name Hena Khan sounded familiar. She's also the author of "Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns" and "Night of the Moon," books I had been reading to my kids all Ramadan! It was very interesting to read about Amina and how she navigates her Pakistani and Muslim and American identities, stumbling and learning along the way. She sounds like my son when she complains about Sunday School! ♡

Marty Pants is going to save the world from annihilation by aliens...and the alien bent on destroying the planet? His teacher, Mr. McPhee! Yikes! Really fun read. My son found many moments he wanted to share with me that made him laugh. The illustrations along with the writing kept speeding the book along. Great first summer book for both me and my third grader to share!

Currently reading to baby and we found her older brother and sister in the book! So cute! Really depicts how kids can have a relationship with their toys and they find ways to bond with siblings through them.

Considering how great the writing is, it is baffling that the book isn't as good. There was a whole lot of build-up and no payoff. I felt like Smith picked so many interesting subjects to tackle in one book that none of them were explored in any depth. A whole lot of bouncing from the nature of friendship to racism to Africa to the skewering of cultural celebrity to the rise of Tablighi Islam in Africa, with no insights on any of them.

This is the second Warren the 13th book, just as engaging and interesting as the first. The illustrations and the writing both keep the reader engaged with clues to uncover and codes to decipher. Warren will dare to trek through the Malwoods to save his beloved hotel and his friends and it's easy to root for him as he puzzles his way through all the dangers he encounters.

I can barely wait to read this with my son over summer. Bonding over code-breaking! ♡

Nearly done with this 1000 page book and it is a testament to the abilities of the writer that I wish it was another 1000 pages long.

"Soon his home was more books than burrow." ♡

The fourth in a series of 27 books, Hades brings so many threads tantalizingly close to each other! It makes me wish I had all the books to read now. I am enjoying the sheer breadth of the storytelling and the characters and the inventiveness apparent on each page.