Month: August 2016

22 Aug 2016

her life with (picture)books vol. 1

Reading for a book award committee was all sort of insane… but also just really really fun. Unlike a lot of folks, I’m a fan of the imposed read – of reading lists, personal goals, syllabi and required reads. Limits give me a mental freedom to really sink into the reading experience. Or I’m just really hopelessly Type A. Either way, I’m working with what I got over here.

Anyway, the most fun reading requirement of this particular committee was the Reading Stacks and Stacks of Picturebooks edict. Most weekends, I’d grab a tall stack, plunk it down beside the couch, and read until I hit the bottom. Not a bad way to live whatsoever.

You guys. I really really really love picturebooks. They are little lyrical short stories, concept lessons, mini-graphic novels, existential meditations, portable works of art. I haven’t kept up with what’s going on in picturebook-land (other than for work purposes) since I read hundreds and hundreds for grad school 5 years ago (FIVE YEARS AGO??), but I want desperately to mend my ways. Beautiful, funny, lovely, thoughtful, weird picturebooks: come to me.

An-y-wayyyyyyyy…

I read a lot a lot a lot of picturebooks, and so many I just loved. I mean my three favorites still stand, but if I could have awarded two dozen picturebooks I probably would have. So I’m going to share some of my favorites with you, my dear blog readers (hi, mom. hi, dad.) You might find these suggestion a bit… ah… dated, since they were all published between June 2014 to May 2015, BUT I still wanted to share them. I’m hoping that now that I have a little guy in the house, I’ll have incentive to share some newer books with you in the future.

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Sam and Dave and their Dog dig a hole and don’t find anything. Until they find something VERY WEIRD. I love a good picturebook with something VERY WEIRD at the end of it…

More graphic novel than picturebook, with fun, iconic art that feels like old comic strips. Also, ghost cats.

I am super into Lauren Castillo’s art right now, probably because I am 100% obsessed with her instagram account. Anyway, this one she writes and illustrates – there’s a naughty boy and a naught raccoon and just all the thick black outlining a girl could want. And I usually want a lot.

This is most certainly a picturebook, but it’s got chapters. And it’s about some heavy family shit. Can you say the word “shit” when describing picturebooks? Well, I’m just going to let someone else worry about that question and move on with my day. Anywayyyy, one might call this a Picturebook for Older Readers, which I usually interpret as books for 2nd grade and up. I feel like most of the PicBooksforOldReaders I come across are about Important Times in History and are usually illustrated with a heavy, painterly style, so I really liked seeing Emily’s realistic story coupled with Brown’s lovely, straightforward art.

 

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A little boy finds a little whale and hides it in his bathtub. Davies is really great at setting a scene – both his exteriors and interiors are evocative and delightfully detailed. I suspect his animation background has something to do with it. Also, the cutest teeny little whale ever.

  • Gaston by Kelly DiPucchio, illustrated by Christian Robinson

Love, love, love this one. The story – puppies switched at birth – is simple, fun, and fits perfectly into 32 pages. And Robinson’s art is just lovely. Great interiors (I really am a sucker for interiors…), expressive little pups, and some great page turns.

An unconventional tale about a family of hipster bunnies who adopt a small wolf. The story leads to a fun twist at the end and OHora’s art is – again – all thick black lines and blocks of color. I’m a girl who knows what I like.

Four little hunters trying to catch a little bird. The blue on blue on even more blue art is unique and sets the stealthy, sneaky mood – reviewers called the style “nocturnal,” which I think is apt. It also reminded me of Tomi Ungerer’s The Three Robbers, which is a high compliment.

20 Aug 2016

read – reading – to read

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Grown up, grown up, grown up books, as far as the eye can see. My Shiny New Library has a Shiny New “Lucky Day” collection. Does your library have such a shelf? These collections have different names, but they are all designed to provide browsing patrons access to high-demand titles. Instead of waiting in interminable hold lists, patrons who come in to the library will find a collection of new books that do not fill hold requests, but also cannot be checked out for a full 3 weeks or renewed. So it’s the luck of the draw. After hearing some persuasive pitches for Ann Leary’s The Children at PLA in April, I found it on the Lucky Day shelf and decided to check it out. It was quite fun. I like a good book about rich people who live in rich vacation homes. This one reminded me of a grown up We Were Liars but replace Lockhart’s gravitas with dark humor. Also,  notable – the single 20-something protag runs a fake mommy blog.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest felt like a similar read in terms of audience, but not in tone. Both books sit in that enjoyable middle ground that lies between “literary” and “commercial” adult fic, but where The Children is acerbic and little mysterious, Kitchens of the Great Midwest is more earnest. There’s a new narrator for every chapter, all of whom are players in the life of one Eva Thorvald, who grows from an orphaned, awkward child into a successful chef. All in all – pretty light, pretty fun.

I also continued my recent string of memoirs with Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face. This has been on my to-read list since I read Ann Patchett’s Truth and Beauty. Truth and Beauty is Patchett’s memoir about her friendship with Grealy – they met in college, and Patchett watched Grealy struggle with mental illness, addiction, and traumatic reconstructive facial surgeries. Autobiography of a Face is Grealy’s own memoir, focusing on a childhood spent in and out of hospitals, first battling cancer and then attempting to repair the radiation damage to her face. As a reading experience, I enjoyed Patchett’s story more, but I do have to say that Grealy says some startling truths about growing up with pain, illness, and difference. Given that I read a lot of children’s and teen books that feature characters who suffer in this way, it was really fascinating – and heartbreaking – to read a firsthand experience.

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As promised, it seems that my postpartum Super Reading Days are drawing to a close. The baby is a speedier eater and a fussier napper; when I do have a spare moment, it’s hard to keep my mind centered on a book. I’m trying to maintain a bit of momentum, though – trying to sit down and just read at least once a day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. But instead of barreling through books, I’m dipping in and out of whatever is handy, to mixed results. Lauren Wolk’s Wolf Hollow and Beverly Cleary’s memoir, A Girl from Yamhill, for example, are strangely similar in tone – I find the details of the two stories confusing in my mind. And with less time to plug into my headphones, I’ve had to renew Rainbow Rowell’s Landline twice now – maybe I need to temporarily give up Overdrive’s 14 day check out in favor of Hoopla’s 21? Given how much I loathe Hoopla’s interface, this is a significant departure.

What’s the same? My slow plod through A Song of Ice and Fire. For a long time, I read one chapter each morning with my coffee. I could do that now, but usually that morning coffee is gulped down quickly as my baby begins to stir. So my pace has slowed from chapter by chapter to page by page. Maybe I’ll finish reading it before my child heads off to college. Or not.

 

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Aside from a few upcoming review books, I’ve got nothing in particular guiding my reading these days. I’m also not reading at a particular fast rate, so it seems strange to think about books I’m not yet reading when I’m still far from finishing four. Who knows what kind of mood I’ll be in, what holds will be in, or what else the future holds?

So I’ll just throw out three guesses. For my next audiobook, perhaps Jojo Moyes’s Me Before You? I’m next in line on the holds queue, everyone on the planet has read it, and it’s a contemporary romance, which is a genre my brain can handle on audio right now. For my next eBook, perhaps Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which I’ve wanted to read for years but isn’t available on audio and I always have a more important print book to read. And speaking of print books, how about a Summer Reading List title that is short and sitting on my shelf, ready to read at any moment? Kwame Alexander’s Booked it is.

09 Aug 2016

beach reads: 2016 edition

Once upon a time, I prepared for my family’s annual sojourn to the Atlantic Ocean by shoving as many books into my luggage as I could manage. Or at least spent a few fun hours thinking strategically about which handful books I might like to read while plane flying, porch rocking, or beach bumming.

This year, I thought I’d set the bar low. Flying and beaching with a baby wouldn’t leave as much reading time as usual, and we were flying Spirit – no carry-ons, and limited poundage in the single checked bag I’d now be sharing with two other humans. It would be silly to pack 5 or 6 books for a 5 day vacation. Damn. Parenthood does lead to a certain level of boring pragmatism, doesn’t it.

I decided on two physical books. First, A Feast for Crows. I told my sister I’d mail her my copy to borrow when I send her a birthday gift in September – one more incentive to actually make some progress in this series I claim to love and have invested so much time in. I’m about halfway through! There’s hope!

Second, Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk. I’ve been feeling a little disconnected from what’s going on in kid/YA lit lately, and this middle grade debut has been getting some steady buzz since it came out in May. Also, this is my book club’s next pick, so if I can figure out how to juggle a baby with social outings, then I shall be prepared to discuss!

Any supplemental reading would be relegated to my Kindle. I’ve been doing most of my reading on my Kindle lately – it’s possible to nurse while reading a physical book, yes, but only if you can comfortably one-hand it. Library books are tough. Big Fat George R. R. Martin books don’t really work out. A Kindle, however, is a breastfeeding bookworm’s best friend. I hustled to finish Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face before leaving and queued up another memoir – Beverly Cleary’s A Girl from Yamhill.

Once upon a time, I’d pack 10 books for a 10 day trip. Once upon last week, I whittled my expectations down to three. I even started writing a nice little blog post about my beach vacation reading!

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Once upon two days ago, I had to ditch A Feast for Crows because our checked bag weighed 42 lbs.

And left my Kindle sitting at home on the charger.

Ah, parenthood.