Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
I am part of a YA for everyone book group at my local library. The organizer tries to pick books that fit the time of year, so for October, Halloween, we are reading Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. I had no idea what this book was about, which is sometimes a great way to be pleasantly surprised. Well, I really liked this book, it was such a fun ghost story. Yadriel is a trans teen who is trying to become a brujo. His Latinix family […]
The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale
English woman Alma Fielding has had a hard life. She has had numerous health issues, is in a dull marriage and struggling financially. The world around her is in chaos, too – war with Germany seems imminent. And to add to all of her stress she seems to have attracted an at first mischievous, at times violent spirit – a poltergeist. Alma’s haunting has attracted the local newspaper, and also the attention of Hungarian emigre Nandor Fodor, a journalist turned psychic phenomena investigator. Fodor has created his […]
Ghost by Jason Reynolds
Patina by Jason Reynolds
Sunny by Jason Reynolds
Lu by Jason Reynolds
CBR11 Bingo — And so it begins. I’ve desperately been trying to get my kids to read this summer. But in between camps, and summer classes, and the never-ending monster that is swim team, there just hasn’t been a lot of reading going on. So I’ve tried my best to make it easy for them, and to help them pick books that I just know they’ll respond to. Like I’m their personal book sommelier. And so far, we’ve had pretty good results. I picked up […]
Ghost by Jason Reynolds
Last month, Trevor Noah interviewed Jason Reynolds on the Daily Show and even before I had read any of his books, I became a fan. He talked about writing, reading, and young people in a powerful way and made a strong argument for the need to write books that would have spoken to him as a young teen growing up in the inner city. I’ve been a follower of the We Need Diverse Books organization and without mentioning the hashtag, Reynolds made their argument with […]
North Station; Autumn; Ghost; Patina; Code to Zero by Bae Suah; Karl Ove Knausgard; Jason Reynolds; Ken Follett
North Station: 4/5 Stars This is an interesting collection of longish short fiction by the Korean writer Bae Suah. It’s a recent translation (actually maybe brand new) from the University of Rochester imprint “Open Letter” and I received a subscription to their press as a gift from my old colleagues. This book presents a really interesting set of questions for me. I have read a few different books by Korean authors, but not many at all. In fact, I think it would be true that […]
Locke & Key by Joe Hill
Okay so, the version of this I added to my audiobook queue actually turned out to be the audio drama version, which I was not expecting. Thus there’s a chance it’s a bit different than the printed version due to the fact it was all told in dialogue. However, I will definitely say if you can get your hands on the audio drama, grab it. The voice acting was great and had some decent talent behind it (including Haley Joel Osment and Stephen King). […]
