🎄🎄🎄📚📚📚Forgiveness and a Fierce Grandmother!

 

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood was a delightful book that spoke deeply about forgiveness and how difficult and vital it is. The story is told by three different people: Violet Powell, a young woman serving time for manslaughter; Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher leading a prison book club; and Frank Daigle, a retired machinist and husband of the woman Violet killed. Will they meet? Will they all face challenges? Yes, and yes. Is forgiveness portrayed as easy? Is the cost light? No, and no. Highly recommend!

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    These three books by Richard Peck are a series. They are humourous, wise, and quite enjoyable. The first, A Long Way From Chicago, recounts the trials of Joe and Mary Alice traveling from Chicago to stay with their grandma in rural Illinois for a week each summer throughout the Depression. Grandma Dowdel reminds me of Loki--tricky and naughty--but with a fierce sense of justice for the underdog. Rural life is a lot for two city kids. In A Year Down Under, Mary Alice has to stay with Grandma Dowdel for a year because her father has lost his job. She learns much from Grandma about what matters. The final book, A Season of Gifts, jumps to 1958. Bob and his family move next door to Grandma. He endures bullying for being the new kid in town but gets help from Grandma Dowdel. It is the era of Elvis and Bobby Sox. Grandma is equal to it all.

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🌝 📚So Many Good Books!😵🕷️🪄

 

    At times, I find the holidays hectic and overwhelming. It is not the time for me to read painful, heartbreaking books. So, I am revisiting The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill. It is an excellent fantasy book where the evil witch is also the good witch, dragons are small, and unlikely people are brave heroes. I feel unfailingly hopeful when I read it. 

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I liked the goals of The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. It is a clever, intriguing romance book where females in a magical bookshop in Ireland find their power against the evil status quo patriarchy. I had several unanswered questions at the end. The book felt divided about men--abusers or angels, not much between. Woods clearly loves books, and that makes it a good read.

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    The Book That Broke the World by Marc Lawrence is the second of a trilogy. Trilogy middle books are the most difficult. As a reader, I want to finish the book with a feeling of completeness but also have significant unanswered questions that make reading the final book compelling. Some themes that Lawrence is tackling are knowledge of good and evil, sibling relationships, revenge, rags to riches, sacrifice, and more. Lawrence has a layered plot narrated by several characters. The ending feels muddled, and I don't fully understand what is happening. This may become apparent in the third book. It is still some of the best fantasy I've read.

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Mystery, podcast, amnesia, Texas

    True crime podcasts are big. In Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera, Lucy's best friend, Savvy, was murdered. Everyone in Lucy's small Texas town believes Lucy is the killer.; however, Lucy has amnesia surrounding the fatal night. She flees her hometown for LA. But, a podcaster starts to stir up trouble, and Lucy is drawn back to Plumpton, Texas, to face the hatred of the town and the ghosts of the past. This book was dark and humorous. It has a feisty grandma. I enjoyed this a great deal. It is terrific on audio.

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    Marilyn Singer invented a form of poetry called Reverso. Her book Echo, Echo: Reverso Poems About Greek Myths are poems read in one direction and then reversed. A poem that stands out is King Midas's daughter lamenting the lack of touch from her father. Her father then groans over, touching his daughter, causing her to become a statue. It is difficult to describe but amazing to see. Here is a link to an example:

https://kellyrfineman.livejournal.com/544639.html

This would be a good gift book for elementary school-age children because of its poems and intriguing illustrations.

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📚A Week with Two🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Books!

 

   The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Marc Lawrence was nominated for the Good Reads Fantasy Award. It is written by someone who is deeply knowledgeable about fantasy literature and skillful in crafting intricate stories. Two outsiders find each other in a quiet wood between their worlds. A guinea pig nibbles in the grass nearby. Lawrence creates a compelling, mysterious story with grand themes of xenophobia, the blessing and curse of knowledge, and the cost of friendship. I would easily compare it to The Lord of the Rings in its scope and reach. It has spunky, contemplative characters that captured my heart. I have the next book reserved and hope that Lawrence quickly finishes the final book!

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    My book club is reading Newberry Award winners, and this month, we read A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck. At the book's center is fierce, larger-than-life Grandma Dowdel, who lives in rural Illinois in 1937. Fifteen-year-old Chicago-raised granddaughter Mary Alice is forced by financial circumstances to live with her grandmother for a year. Mary Alice learned so much that year. She is like a city cat that moves to the country and discovers the joys of living a less gentile life. 

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