Kristie

This was fantastic. Notes in book journal. Had been on TBR list forever.

Pulled this off the free shelf at work so I could use it to create my Spring planner. I felt like I had to read it and it was pretty good. They did not used to sugar coat kidlit back then.

Ellen and Corey go to the fair. Ellen gets her fortune read and it says the “little one” is in trouble. Corey sees an adult pickpocket and decides to be a hero. The pickpocket and his crew jump from stealing wallets to trying to murdering children pretty quick. Some truly scary moments here!

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced look. This was something else. It’s 2014, Elise and Tom have come from Brooklyn to Minnesota to work the beet harvest. Two weeks of hell for a couple of months rent. Except: workers start to go missing, animals are sick, Elise develops a bruise on the side of her neck. Also, the beets may be speaking to her.

I couldn’t put this down. I swore off “is this horrible situation or is she just crazy” books but I never once doubted Elise. Not sure I loved the ending but I enjoyed the ride.

Love these books!

Read for book club Feb pic. Charming and unique. Paris, 1949, the city is rebuilding. The Child’s are there and Julia’s (fictional) American friend, Tabitha, is on the case of a dead body found in the building. I loved the small details about daily life in a Paris apartment: the outdoor ice box, the dog with a bigger wardrobe than my own, the gossip at the market. The mystery was interesting and surprising! What dragged for me was the repetition. So many scenes gone over multiple times as Tabitha relays them to this character and then that character and if I heard Faygo soda Rock and Rye one more time it could have become a drinking game. Writing needs to be a bit tighter, a little less repetitive.

I might read the second one, if Julia has more to do in the story than make mayonnaise.

This year is going to be a tight Christmas for a lot of families. In these terrible economic times, I see folks everyday at the library who are struggling to make ends meet, and the crush of the materialistic pressure of an American Christmas can kill someone's spirit faster than pee in the punchbowl. The upside of this kind of economy is the return of the simple life-focus on friends, family, and small, meaningful traditions.
I was lucky enough to get a copy of A Homemade Christmas, and this book is charming.

I have read hundreds of craft books, and many of them have been Christmas craft books, but this one is a complete guide to simple holiday traditions to make the holidays special. From decorating to gifts, all of the ideas in this book are 1. affordable and 2. simple. You do not need to be Martha Stewart to pull these ideas off.
Two original ideas covered in this book that I loved were the creation of “Practical Baskets” and researching public events for free fun and entertainment. Tina gives examples of the kinds of venues for finding these events. The baskets are filled with goodies like batteries, stamps, and sponges. Seriously, I would love to get one of these-so much cooler than yet another coffee mug or -gasp- one more candle I will only regift. The next time my camera needs batteries and they are right there in the basket, I will thank my lucky stars for the giver of this gift.
From Christmas origami to how to knit a quick cap-this is a complete guide to a simple holiday. I would love to give this as a gift to a newly married friend, or, let's face it, any broke grad school student I know (and that is all of them).
One final thing, the illustrations are really charming and cool.
Okay people, fire up the glue guns....

I found about this one from Whole Living Magazine. It was really wonderful. Tracy Ross writes like she is sitting at the kitchen table with you and is just telling you her story. I could not put it down. She is so brave and I loved reading how she rescued herself from a really bad situation. It made me wish I was more connected to nature. Does drinking half the world's supply of coffee count?

Highly recommended for fans of The Glass Castle, Fierce: A Memoir, and The Girl's Guide to Homelessness.
Book clubs should be reading this right now.

This one is a short, sweet nerdy vampire tale. I did get a little tired of Jane putting herself down, just as one gets sick of a friend in real life who does that all of the time. The plot was a little screwy, and there are tones of R.L. Stine here (goofy horror). What was great was the snarky prose, there are a couple of laugh out loud lines here. I hope St. Onge writes more, as I think she might work magic with a realistic teen fiction story. Once the traps of corny vampire restrictions are removed Jane shines because she is a “real” girl. Other issues involve not fully developed characters, in fact, besides Jane, the reader has glimpse beneath the surface for any other character. In a comedy, which this is, I find that acceptable. Still, I wish we could have learned a bit more about Eli.

I started this one on the train on my way home from BEA and it held my attention. I found myself cheering for Ophelia and really enjoying all of the space elements (the world building is really well done if it does sometimes seem to give homage to Star Wars-especially with this Han and Leia type romance). This is the second book in the series, and I did not read the first, but I felt it stood alone. The species of aliens are very original and creative. The Diviner religion is also very creative. I do not read romance, like, ever, but I sped through the flirting, etc and was focused on the plot.
My favorite character was Jenny, as she was rather kick ass. Recommended for fantasy readers, especially fans of Ann Aguirre's Jax series.

This one held zero surprises. It's a good solid read, for middle school age. Having been to Key West, I could relate to the setting. I was looking for something a little grittier about teen runaways. I wanted to get to know the characters a little better. It felt...unfinished.
It is a good, short (very) read.

I enjoyed this very much. It is sweet and quaint. I admit I rather spent the entire book waiting for something to pop out and eat an orphan or someone to do magic (my mind could not cope with all of the sweetness, I guess).
I think this book would be adored by the odd child who finds Series of Unfortunate Events too scary and Winnie the Pooh too babyish.

I love American tall tales and steampunk so this one had great appeal. Add in an awesome story and great art and I was hooked. My only complaint is in the construction. I was the first to read this and I always treat books gently, but while I was reading this two pages came loose and a staple is working it's way out of the spine and is going to cut someone's hand if I don't get some tape on it. Shame.

A very pleasing read. I grabbed this galley not knowing anything about it, but this is a story that is both heartbreaking and captivating. Two little girls are lost in the dangerous brush after a horrific boat wreck and are adopted by a pair of tigers. The girls slowly lose their human traits as they bond with the tigers. Honestly, I couldn't put it down and at 180 pages it is a really short story. I'm not sure how realistic it is, but stories of feral kids have always been a fave of mine. The book is made up of mostly male characters, many of whom are not shiny examples of humans, but the girls are really brave.

I really liked this, it's a great intro to history for beginner readers. The Middle Ages is also a tough time to tackle with little guys. My only concern is the dragon. I am a concerned that the dragon may be taken as factual, and that is confusing. I hope whoever is reading this with a kid explains that.

This one is perfect for kids who are just starting with chapter books, and kids who like the Dollhouse People books as well as classics like The Borrowers. The writing is simple, and this requires a great deal of willing suspension of disbelief. It is a sweet, simple, short book.

I almost didn't read this book because of some of the reviews on here, and that will teach me for putting stock in reviews. I must have read five that said this was for middle schoolers. No way.
This book uses surface shallowness to get to the heart of some very deep issues: body confidence, self confidence, the value of other people's opinions, how your parents treat you, what is “real”, and much more. The only thing that I wished Snow had touched on more here was the value of education. Of course, I'm an adult with an education so that matters to me, but poor Freesia really has the equivalent of an eighth grade education here.
Most interesting is the whole product of the environment study going on here. For example, students of Avalon have invented their own language, morals, and standards. Their pasts have been repressed, the only adult figures present are fake, and the kids have complete control of their world (minus the agreement to “earn” money for attending classes to curtail shopping).

I think this book rocked. I knew going in what was going to happen halfway through because of the reviews and because of the foreshadowing, but I read along looking forward to it. Snow could have bored people to death with Avalon, but instead invents fantastic things to make it more interesting. Yes, Fressia and Jelissa talk like Valley Girls, but how cool is the zipline to school?
The real world, in contrast, is stark and almost painful. I also appreciated the correlations between the virtual state of Bubble World vs the contraption we use in the real world to make it more virtual (cellphones, video chat, automated voices, etc. This was a smart read, with a great many jumping off points into great discussions for a book club.

I really enjoyed this collection. Normally, I hate short story collections. After awhile the stories usually just jam together in my mind. That happened here, too. Even these lyrical little scary beauties did not really stand out toward the end, but this is my bad. Yardley's writing is awesome and clever.
This bit is worth the price of the book alone: “She seemed like such a nice girl, so the whole ‘being an axe murderer' thing was pretty hard to handle.” Most of the stories in this collection have hooks like this. Some play out like a demented dream, some whisp away like a puff of smoke.
I highly recommend Broken, Black Mary, Axes, and Untied.
I hope this is the beginning of a great career for Yardley. I'll look for more of her titles in the future.

This was a short easy read. Loved it. I did feel bad for his baby sister, but overall this is a cute read for kids who are past easy readers and not quite ready for bigger chapter books yet. Now I have another good series to recommend.

This was one of my faves from childhood. It's out of print so I bought this edition as a present to myself last year and just got around to reading it today (Snow Day!) again. It's still a lit bit of awesome. Many of the details had really stuck with me, but there was a lot I had not remembered. So glad I reread it.

I borrowed this from the Kindle free Lending Library. It started out okay. There are a great many typos in the book. I found sympathizing with Avalon very difficult. After a while the plot reminded me of a Syfy made for TV movie.
Here is what I DID like (I why I did not stop reading): The premise is a good one. I would have liked this story from a human POV, not Avalon's but okay. The world building was not too shabby, although I would like to know why every village is called an “arch”. Raeven is a very cool character.
Overall, I did not like it enough to continue reading this as a series. I think an editor would have greatly improved the pacing, grammar, and characterization.

I grabbed this one off the shelf, and despite the cover (which is a little hoaky), I took it home and could not put the damn thing down. It's funny, scary, and filled with action. Honestly, I had no idea this was a second book featuring these characters, but it did not slow the story down for me at all. I did find Samantha to be a bit of a b-word, and unnecessarily, but Henderson was pretty awesome. He is kind of a Mr. Giles from Buffy smashed with Doctor Who. This was a quick and easy read just perfect for this time of year. Part of me couldn't help thinking that this would make a great movie (as long as they put some money into special effects). So, once again, just browsing the shelf leads me to another treasure discovered.

I was super surprised to see a lack of reviews for this here and on Amazon. Really, folks, it belongs here. It's a good read.

I'm not a fan of Discworld. It's OK. Who I truly love is Moist van Lipwig, so I only read the books that feature Moist as the main character. I was looking forward to Raising Steam, and I have to say it took me a week to “chug” through it. Honestly, I have never run up against this before, but the book had no conflict. It moves along...they build a train, there is a sort of subplot with a dwarf uprising that reads more like a commercial interruption in the storyline, and there is some action. But everything just goes alone. If a problem comes up, it is solved in a paragraph or two. There are a couple of reveals...but they aren't really anything important. Raising Steam is, dare I say it? A bit boring.
There were two laugh out loud moments and some beautifully crafted sentences that made me read them over twice to appreciate the craft that went into them, but the story was boring. I never believed anyone's life was in danger, I never believed the changes the railroad made on society were going to be anything but positive, and I never stopped waiting for the real story to get started-until I closed the back cover on the last page.
Sigh.

Great resource, I actually attended this workshop years ago. I reread the book this weekend and while, sadly, it seems a bit dated already the book is still filled with this peppy optimism that I appreciated. I found the resources for tracking teen trends to still be viable, even though they now seem to be paid sites. Sigh.

This book was amazing. First, I thought that it was a tad unaccessible because there is a bit of slangy descriptors in the beginning, but they grew on me. I have read many books with many bad parents in them, but the mother in this one deserves a punch in the face. I would love to read more about the Underlanders, I was so charmed and thrilled by their lifestyle that I would read faster until we could get back to them. As a librarian THIS is exactly why I am so sensitive to children and adults who walk into the library who cannot produce id. I've never been a rule follower anyway, but just imagine if Blossom came into your library and was not able to get online because of a stupid rule. How detrimental that would be?
I know people like this exist, and whether it is an intended lifestyle or one forced onto them, we should have respect. It is possible to be a “citizen” and not walk around so completely self absorbed in our consumer culture.

We need more books like this, pronto. Or at least, I want to read them.

Edit: I forgot to mention the gorgeous cover. It's what drew me to the book, and at first I thought it was a graphic novel. So beautiful.

I actually read a ton of personal finance books, but I skim them so I never log them on here. This one is different. I read it cover to cover (in one sitting last night). It reads like a memoir, so I was super interested. Trejos and I have some things in common (student loans, car payment, etc) and I could have skipped the credit card debt portion, but I hung in there because I actually wanted to hear how she handled it. This is a clearly explained book that I found to be fun to read and I learned some stuff I did not know.

That said, I wanted to smack her by the end for 1. mooching food off her friends instead of learning to prepare meals at home and 2.bitching about her weight and paying for cabs. So what seems obvious to one person, can be missed by another.

I think millennials and my generation need to read more books like this because many of us were set up to fail financially.