33. Macy McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess by Shari Green

read the actual book - from Bosler Library
2017, Pajama Press
239 pgs.
Mid Grades CRF in verse
Finished 4/9/18
Goodreads rating:  4.37 - 254 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary anywhere, USA

First line/s: 
"Our house on Pemberton Street
with the red front door
wildflower garden out back
window seat just right for reading
has a For Sale sign jammed
in the front lawn.
It's the ugliest thing
I've ever seen."

My comments:  Wow. As an adult, this book really spoke to me. Powerfully. It actually has many themes, but the strongest for me was the relationship that formed between the 11-year-old girl, Macy,  and her elderly neighbor, Iris, – who ended up being the rainbow goddess of the title. It’s all about the value of our stories, our memories, our “family.”  Since it’s written in verse, it didn’t take very long to read - and it was lovely. I’m going to want to read this one again.

Goodreads synopsis: Sixth grade is coming to an end, and so is life as Macy McMillan knows it. Already a For Sale sign mars the front lawn of her beloved house. Soon her mother will upend their little family, adding an unwelcome stepfather and pesky six-year-old twin stepsisters. To add insult to injury, what is Macy s final sixth grade assignment? A genealogy project. Well, she'll put it off―just like those wedding centerpieces she's supposed to be making. 
          Just when Macy's mother ought to be sympathetic, she sends her next door to help eighty-six-year-old Iris Gillan, who is also getting ready to move―in her case, into an assisted living facility. Iris can't move a single box on her own and, worse, she doesn't know sign language. How is Macy supposed to understand her? But Iris has stories to tell, and she isn't going to let Macy's deafness stop her. Soon, through notes and books and cookies, a friendship grows. And this friendship, odd and unexpected, may be just what Macy needs to face the changes in her life. 
          Shari Green, author of Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles, writes free verse with the lightest touch, spinning Macy out of her old story and into a new one full of warmth and promise for the future.

16. Ordinary Grace - William Kent Krueger

listened on Audible - read BEAUTIFULLY
2013 Atria Books
307 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 2/14/2018
Goodreads rating:  4.15 - 48,224 ratings
My rating:  4.5
Setting:1961 New Bremen, sourthern Minnesota

First line/s:   "All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks outside New Bremen, Minnesota, sliced into pieces by a thousand tons of steel speeding across the prairie toward South Dakota."

My comments:  This story is about a minister's family in New Bremen, Minnesota in the summer of 1961, told in the first person by the middle child, a 13-year old named Frank, called Frankie by his family.  The story examines faith and the "awesome grace of God."
     I am genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed this book.  Usually I go running in the other directions - screaming - when I discover a book contains ruminations about religion.  This one never ever shoved religion down my throat, and the minister father, Nathan Drum, was everything anyone could ever want in a minister.  It certainly game me lots to think about, particularly about grief.  It also made me ponder so many people's unquestionable belief that anything that happens is "God's will."  And, if anything, it strengthened my own beliefs. 
     So many strengths here - wonderful characterization, beautifully crafted plot, and really lovely writing.
     So many great things bout this book, but the best for me?  I really like the relationship between Frank and his stuttering younger brother, Jake.

Goodreads synopsis: From New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger comes a brilliant new novel about a young man, a small town, and murder in the summer of 1961.
         New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were at the ready at Halderson’s Drug Store soda counter, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a summer in which death assumed many forms.
          When tragedy unexpectedly comes to call on his family, which includes his Methodist minister father, his passionate, artistic mother, Juilliard-bound older sister, and wise-beyond-his years kid brother, Frank finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal.
          On the surface, Ordinary Grace is the story of the murder of a beautiful young woman, a beloved daughter and sister. At heart, it’s the story of what that tragedy does to a boy, his family, and ultimately the fabric of the small town in which he lives. Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, it is a moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.

14. Between, Georgia - Joshilyn Jackson

(Note:  I don't really like this cover....)
Audio read by the author - PERFECTLY!!

8 unabridged cds/ 9 hours

2006 Hachette Audio

294 pgs.

Adult Contemporary Realistic Fiction (Chick Lit, I guess....)
Finished 3/2/2014

Goodreads Rating: 3.85 (7,619 ratings)

My Rating:  Absolutely delightful (5)

PBS

Setting: Contemporary Between, Georgia (halfway between Atlanta and Athens, GA)

1^st sentence/s:  "The war began thirty years, nine months, and seven days ago when I was deaf and blind, floating silent and serene inside Hazel Crabtree."

My comments:  Joshilyn Jackson - the author - read this book so beautifully that I wanted it to go on and on.  Love stories/chick lit aren't usually my thing, but this was so much more.  I loved the writing, I enjoyed the story, I was fascinated by a mother being deaf AND blind, I was intrigued by the personalities of the three very different sisters, and I didn't mind taking a peek into a tiny Georgia community. "The south" is one part of the country that I do not relate to, or know very much about.  I read Gods in Alabama - also by Jackson - a couple of years ago and remember very much enjoying it. Think I'll try another, especially if she's reading it herself.

Goodreads Review:  Nonny Frett understands the meanings of "rock" and "hard place" better than any woman ever born. She's got two mothers, "one Deaf-blind and the other four baby steps from flat crazy." She's got two men: her husband, who's easing out the back door; and her best friend, who's laying siege to her heart in her front yard. She has a job that holds her in the city, and she's addicted to a little girl who's stuck deep in the country. And she has two families; the Fretts, who stole her and raised her right, and the Crabtrees, who lost her and can't forget that they've been done wrong.

Kami and the Yaks – Andrea Stenn Stryer

Illustrated by Bert Dodson

Bay Otter Press, Palo Alto, 2007

HC $16.95

Rating:  4

48 pages

Endpapers:  brick red

Large Book

Title Page:  Double page, left is illustrations of houses on the mountainside, right is solid navy with mustard and white font

Illustrations:  Really beautiful.  No white, pages that have only font use beige fond on dark navy.  Pictures are loarge and give the reader a wonderful feel for the setting.

Setting:  High in the Himalayas of Nepal in  small village of sherpas, contemporary .

OSS:  Kami helps his father find their four missing yaks as a huge storm – thunder, lightning, hail – approaches.

1^st sentence/s:  “High in a land where winds blow sonw clouds off tall mountain peaks, Kami stepped out into the early morning dark.  He sniffed the moistness.

Thoughts:  It is not revealed that Kami is deaf until the end of the fourth page, which firmly establishes that his disability is a part of his persona, not the definer.  He I, simply, a little boy that wants to help his father as well as find the four yaks he knows so well.

Since I have a friend who, just recently, made it to base camp at Mt. Everest, it made the story super-extra special.  It is a fit introduction into my examination of Nepal, Tibet, and the Himalayan region of Asia.

71. Wonderstruck - Brian Selznik

A novel in words and pictures
Scholastic Press, 2011
640 pgs.
For: everyone
Rating: Liked it
A visual masterpiece!

There are two stories for the first 500-or-so pages, one of a boy in 1977 Minnesota who has just lost his single-parent mom, and one of a deaf girl in Hoboken, NJ in 1927. They connect as you near the end of the book. One of the stories is using words, only. The other is using pictures, only.

In his acknowledgements, Brian Selznick says he spent seven rainy weeks in a cabin in the woods in Peterorough, NH, working on the book. These illustrations must have taken a lot longer than that, though!

77. & 78. - Love That Dog AND Hate That Cat - Sharon Creech

Love That Dog, 2001
Hate That Cat, 2008
Rating for both: FIVE!

Two very special books, both written in verse, both with layer upon layer of witty writing, clever intertwining of poetry, and a healthy dose of a very cool relationship between a student and his teacher. I LOVED these books. I've read Love That Dog twice, and just knew that Hate That Cat couldn't come close. WRONG!!! So wrong....I think Hate That Cat is even better! Both are short reads, although Love That Dog is a bit shorter, and perhaps a little harder for some kids to get into. I read it aloud to my fourth graders after spending a week prepping them by sharing Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "The Pasture", William Carlos William's "The Red Wheelbarrow:, many of Valerie Worth's SHORT poems, William Blake's "The Tyger," Walter Dean Myer's "Love That Boy", and some of the poetry of Arnold Adoff. They were oh-so prepared, and they loved it. It was great fun to read aloud, and the kids' reactions were very gratifying.

Now I'm preparing the pre-poetry for Hate That Cat. There's more William Carlos Williams and Valerie Worth,with additional poems from Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Lord Tennyson, T. S. Eliot ("The Naming of Cats"!!!), and Walter Dean Myer's son, Christopher. There's alliteration and onomotapoeia, similes and metaphors, rhythm and image. There's laugh-out-loud cleverness and a rolling, thought-provoking storyline.

I don't want to share the plots. They're a joy to watch unfold. They take 20-30 minutes each to read. Enjoy, enjoy.