Bronwyn
Fun little holiday themed I Spy book. I loved the I Spy books when I was young.
eta: This works much better when my son understands what to do!
Enjoyed this much more the second time. There was still a bit much about the war and Tut, and I still wish there was more about the staff, but I didn't mind so much this go ‘round. Almina sounds like she was a force to be reckoned with.
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Overall I enjoyed the book but I wish there had been more about the house and staff and more of the day to day work that went on. I didn't need as much about the war and all of the King Tut stuff; it had little to actually do with the home itself.
I kind of want to reread this immediately... I'm not going to, but oh to do it... :)
Eh, let's say 2.5 stars. This was fine. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. It felt like a goth teen wrote a vampire book. At the end there's all the acknowledgements of all the vampire books Black read growing up, and that added to the feeling of it being teen-y; here's all these vampirey things I've read about! Together! I finished it though, so it wasn't awful. But. Meh.
What a gorgeous, heartbreaking book. Just beautiful. There's so much here about the history of Afghanistan and the changing roles of women and interpersonal relationships. Just wonderful and sad.
My son loves Elmo and loves these little lift the flap books. They're a big hit over here!
Another good one, ground breaking telling of the mystery. Being familiar with this let me see if I could notice things throughout.
This was pretty good, but not great. Colleen was a bit too self-absorbed (but that's high school I guess). Everything and nothing worked out. I did like the references to Howe's The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.
Another I apparently never logged.
This is a fun little book. My son likes all the different animals. The illustrations are cute and I like that it's about being happy with who you are.
This was really cute. My son asked for it specifically. :) It ends a bit abruptly and some of the rhymes are iffy, but it's fun.
Won through Goodreads.
This book was fine. Some parts were better than others. I agree with the other reviewer/s who said that it seemed like the author had a lot of information that she wanted to include and just stuck it in. There was so much that only roughly all tied together. The main case Hempel focused on was interesting, but not enough for a book. Trying to tell the stories of the toxicologist and sort of one of the cops just didn't work. There are ways to tell multiple stories in one book, but this just isn't one of them.
The parts dealing directly with the Bodle case were interesting and those were the parts that read the quickest for me. All of the technical and peripheral information just dragged on and on. Having the synopsis on the back make it sound like this book was about George Bodle's murder was misleading; the book was only slightly centered on that case.
It's an interesting book, but I don't know that I'd really recommend it to many people.
I didn't dislike this, but I didn't really like it either. The writing is beautiful and I wanted to know what would happen, but at the same time nothing really happened. And I don't necessarily need to be given backstory, but I feel like I still don't know what happened and is happening in this world. I don't know. :/
This is cute and the illustrations are lovely. My son loves it and we've read it probably close to a dozen times already. We'll have to look for the other Duck and Goose books.
I love this little book. (I knit, so of course.) It's a charming little story and the illustrations are excellent.
This was gorgeous. The writing is beautiful and the story is really well done - it's very quiet overall. I don't generally care for historical fiction because it so rarely feels right, but this felt right. I loved it.
I've finished. I'm not rating it though because I just don't feel like I should. I didn't dislike this, but I didn't really like it either. I feel like I understood very little of it - all the religious and philosophical stuff went over my head. :/ I'm glad to have read it though because I'd always heard about it. It didn't live up to what I expected though.
I didn't think I was going to enjoy this at first. It was too quippy and Hazel and Augustus seemed too pulled out of “Juno” for me to like it (a problem I have with a lot of tv and movies lately... Books, less so, but sometimes). That went away after about 60 pages. They were still just as smart and clever as they'd been, it just didn't bother me as much anymore. There was so much else going on that I was able to get past the dialogue (something I can't always, so this was good). The story was so sweet and sad and heartfelt and I cried. It's not the best book I've ever read, but it was very good and definitely makes me think about some things differently.
Have read this a lot and have forgotten to shelve this. This is a cute, simplified version of the book. My son likes the fish pictures and the moveable fish at the top.
My son loves Elmo and loves these little lift the flap books. They're a big hit over here!
My son loves Elmo and loves these little lift the flap books. They're a big hit over here!
About to start the American Girls podcast, so I'm rereading my AG books before I listen to the episodes.
I haven't read this in probably nearly 25 years, so I only remembered broad strokes of this. I've always loved Felicity, but rereading this I think it's because we look alike, and I loved that as a child, rather than because we were alike. Felicity is rambunctious and doesn't like sitting still. She loves her family and horses. In this book she sets herself to save the tanner's new horse (whom she has named Penny), from his abuse. It's a sweet story about working for what you love and letting things go when it's for the best.
I fully credit American Girl and Ann Rinaldi books with my love of history, and I can definitely see what elementary-aged me loved about this book.
