84. Dear Lily by Drew Davies

read on my iPhone
2019 Bookouture
276 pgs.
Adult CRF-Epistolary
Finished September 1, 2019
Goodreads rating:  3.77 - 493 ratings
My rating: 2
Setting:  contemporary Copenhagen, Denmark

My comments:   I had to force myself to finish this one, not even sure why I didn't.  Darn, I even paid full price for it, it sounded that good.  It's pretty depressing and meandering and always made me feel gloomy.  It's about a young woman whose life in her mid 30s is not at all what she had thought it would be.  So after losing her much-loved sister she moves to Copenhagen, Denmark to "start new."  She smokes too much and drinks too much, becomes a hermit and lies around all day, and is just plain unhappy and depressed.  The she "sees the light" and begins to change.  Yes, there were dabs of humor, but just little dabs.  This one didn't do it for me at all.  Bummer.

Goodreads synopsis:  Dear Lily, 
          It’s me, Joy, your much wiser and (very slightly) older sister. I thought I’d start a new tradition of letter writing – now that we’re long distance. 
          On the plane over here, I began to cry in seat 21C. I think the magnitude of it finally hit me, after everything that happened… 
          I haven’t even unpacked yet – the only thing I’ve taken out of my suitcase is Harville, your beloved childhood teddy. Sorry for stealing him, but I need him more than you do. Every time I look at that little brown bear I think about our childhood. Remember that dance we made up to Annie’s ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’? (Remember the broom choreography?) 
          I’m also sorry for abandoning you – I’ve always been your agony aunt, and a buffer in your infamous shouting matches with Mum. But I had to leave, Lily, I had to. 
          Anyway, I’m here now. I’m here to start over, and to face up to the past. I want to learn to laugh again, and to find someone to love who will maybe even love me back. You always told me I was just getting by, not actually living, so I’m finally doing it. Wish me luck, little sister. 
          Love, 
          Joy x 

A beautiful book-club read for anyone who has ever hit rock bottom, longed for a fresh start, or needed to heal a broken, aching heart.

70. Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer

listened on Audible
read by Brittany Pressley and Kirby Heybourne
Unabridged audio (10:16)
2017, Bloomsbury
391 pgs.
Contemporary YA Fiction
Finished 7/29/2019
Goodreads rating: 4.36 - 15,403 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary America

First line/s:   "I need to stop staring at this letter."

My comments: This was a pretty intense story about the relationship between two high school seniors who poured out their hearts to each other via anonymous letters and then emails.  Both had baggage.  Lots of baggage.  And very weird home lives, sad for one, debilitating for the other.  Their correspondence was better than therapy, and it was fun to watch as they discovered each others' real identity.  Definitely more intense than lighthearted, an interesting thought-provoking read.

Goodreads synopsis:  Juliet Young always writes letters to her mother, a world-traveling photojournalist. Even after her mother's death, she leaves letters at her grave. It's the only way Juliet can cope.
          Declan Murphy isn't the sort of guy you want to cross. In the midst of his court-ordered community service at the local cemetery, he's trying to escape the demons of his past.
          When Declan reads a haunting letter left beside a grave, he can't resist writing back. Soon, he's opening up to a perfect stranger, and their connection is immediate. But neither Declan nor Juliet knows that they're not actually strangers. When life at school interferes with their secret life of letters, sparks will fly as Juliet and Declan discover truths that might tear them apart.

PICTURE BOOK - Snail Mail: With Pull-Out Postcards by Sharon King-Chai

Illustrated by the author

2016, Hodder Children's Books (UK)

32 pgs. with 6 x 8 envelopes containing heavy-stock postcards

Goodreads rating: 5.0 - 2 ratings

My rating:  5

Endpapers: A map of the world with the "snail trail."

1^st line/s:  "Hi there!  I'm Sam, the Seashell Snail.  I live by the seashore."

My comments:  

I vacillated between a 4 and a 5 for this one, mainly because my adult mind questioned how snails could travel the world, and so quickly. But the premise of the book. - similar to the idea of the Jolly Postman books and Vera Williams' Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea - and the information presented are top-notch. So are the fun and fanciful Snail family and friends. Actually, the whole package is just plain FUN! It would fit perfectly into any sort of epistolary unit that a teacher may do in I vacillated between a 4 and a 5 for this one, mainly because my adult mind questioned how snails could travel the world, and so quickly. But the premise of the book. - similar to the idea of the Jolly Postman books and Vera Williams' Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea - and the information presented are top-notch. So are the fun and fanciful Snail family and friends. Actually, the whole package is just plain FUN! It would fit perfectly into any sort of epistolary unit that a teacher may do in school, too. Two thumbs up.

Goodreads:   Sam the Seashell Snail is too young to go surfing around the world with his brother, Tiger. Not wanting Sam to miss out on the adventure, Tiger sends him Snail Mail from Brazil, America, India, Japan and France. Tiger's last Snail Mail has a very special birthday surprise!
          With pull-out postcards to pore over, this fun and charming picture book will captivate even the most tech-savvy of children.
          A Jolly Postman for this generation.

Boxes for Katje - Candace Fleming

Illustrated  by Stacey Dressen-McQueen

2003, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

HC $17.99

32 cram-packed pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.43 (320 ratings)

My rating: 5
TPPL

Endpapers: Excellent!
     Front - Mayfield, Indiana; May, 1945
     Back - Mayfield, Indiana; May, 1947 (yards FULL of tulips)

Illustrations:  Full page (no white :) edge-to-edge; bright, colorful, loaded with lots to take in. 

Title page:  Two-page painting of a girl (Rosie) with a package in her arms and her dog walking down a sidewalk towards in a "U.S. Mail" box

1^st line/s:  "After the war, there was little left in the tiny Dutch town of Olst.  The townspeople lived on cabbages and seed potatoes.  They patched and repatched their worn-thin clothing and they went without soap or milk, sugar or new shoes."

My comments:  I adore this story.  It's based on true happenings after World War II.  It's about people hearing of others with misfortune...and then doing something about it.  This is why I knit bears for orhans in South Africa and crochet 6 x 6 squares for afghans go to people who are colder than I am.  This story brought tears to my eyes.  I want a copy of my own!

Goodreads:  After World War II there is little left in Katje's town of Olst in Holland. Her family, like most Dutch families, must patch their old worn clothing and go without everyday things like soap and milk. Then one spring morning when the tulips bloom "thick and bright," Postman Kleinhoonte pedals his bicycle down Katje's street to deliver a mysterious box – a box from America! Full of soap, socks, and chocolate, the box has been sent by Rosie, an American girl from Mayfield, Indiana. Her package is part of a goodwill effort to help the people of Europe. What's inside so delights Katje that she sends off a letter of thanks – beginning an exchange that swells with so many surprises that the girls, as well as their townspeople, will never be the same.  This inspiring story, with strikingly original art, is based on the author's mother's childhood and will show young readers that they, too, can make a difference. 

My Pen Pal, Santa - Melissa Stanton

Illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell

2013 Random House Books for Young Readers

$9.99 smallish HC w/o dustcover

28 pages

Goodreads rating: 3.56

My rating: 3

Endpapers: lt. blue background with small Santas, snowmen, candy canes, ornaments, and gifts: red/white/aqua/green

Title Page: protagonist looking at plate of cookies marked "for Santa"

My comments:  This series of comments between Santa and Ava are very cute. She writes once a month, from just after Christmas in January to the following December, making comments and asking questions; Santa's return letters answer them.  Much is mentioned about believing in Santa vs. not believing in Santa (he's real for those who want to believe and not real for those who don't want to believe).  I think some ... most ... young children, still strong believers, after thinking about this, would have questions in their minds that might not have otherwise been there.  Therefore, I think this is great for older kids, those that don't really believe in Santa, but definitely NOT for those younger kids that still strongly believe.  Very sweet book.

Goodreads:  Writing a letter to Santa is fairly simple; you make your case and list your hoped-for gifts. But if you're a hard-core fan like Ava, a letter to Santa is something entirely different. A simple New Year's note to the North Pole about some uneaten cookies kicks off a year-long correspondence between a young girl and the jolly guy in the red suit in this joyful epistolary picturebook. This holiday story is perfect for those who believe and those who remember the wonder of the season.

"Please Write: Don't Phone" - Robert Watson

I spent a lot of time yesterday - hours, actually - browsing through the selection of "crafty" books at Barnes and Noble.  Some were really cool!  I love one called Good Mail Day (Hinchcliff/Wheeler) that included this poem, which I really like a lot.

Please Write:  Don't Phone

While there is mail there is hope.
After we have hung up I can't recall
Your words, and  your voice sounds strange
Whether from distance, a bad cold, deceit
I don't know.  When you call I'm asleep
Or bathing or my mouth is full of toast.
I can't think of what to say.
"We have rain"? "We have snow"?
Let us write instead: surely our fingers spread out
With pen on paper touch more of the mind's flesh
Than the sound waves moving from throat to lips.
To phone, to wire, to one ear.
I can touch the paper you touch.
I can see  you undressed in your calligraphy.
I can read you over and over.
I can read you day after day.
I can wait at the mailbox with my hair combed,
In my best suit.
I hang up.  What did you say?
What did you say?  Your phone call is gone.
I hold the envelope you addressed in my hand.
I hold the skin that covers  you.

                             Robert Watson
                             from Good Mail Day (Hinchcliff/Wheeler)

Thea's Tree - Alison Jackson

Illustrated by Janet Pedersen
Dutton Children's Books, 2008
32 pages
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Dark blue

Thea Teawinkle, a budding scientist who lives in Topeka, Kansas, plants a purple seed as the beginning of a choose-your-own research project. But it is a very unusual plant -- making the dirt ooze and turn purple, growing excedingly rapidly and quite huge. And so begins a series of letters between Thea and various experts in their fields.

Thea's letters show the rapid growth, the strange noises she hears from above, and items (like a huge golden egg) that begin to appear beneath the giant immovable "tree." The information she receives - from all sorts of sources - doesn't help her at all...but they're such fun to read.

There's humor everywhere - in the watercolor illustrations that completely cover each green-bordered page, in the condescending answers she gets, even all the salutations cover the gambit from Enthusiastically, Carl Capshaw, Curator to Doubtfully, Ada Adler, First Bank of Kansas to Importantly, Anna Applebaum, Arboreal Acquisitions. Such fun.

Perfect for a letter-writing lesson. And how about a twisted faiy tale?

Seven for a Secret - Laurence Anholt

Illustrated by Jim Coplestone
Frances Lincoln Children's Books (London), 2006
24 pages (the last two open out to a quadruple page)
Rating: 4
Front endpapers: Scenes from the city
Back endpapers: Scenes from the country (both include a mail deliverer on a bicycle

This lovely story is told entirely in letters sent back and forth between a child in the city and her grandfather in the country. It is also based on a poem/saying called "The Magpie Song," of which I am unfamiliar. Perhaps it is British, as this book seems to be...

1 for Sorrow,
2 for Joy,
3 gor a Girl,
4 for a Boy,
5 for Silver,
6 for Gold,
7 for a Secret never to be told.

The girl's father worries about money, especially with a new baby on the way, and you can see that the grandfather's health is deteriorating. Eventually, Ruby frets because she hasn't heard from her grandfather. At the end of the book, you see Ruby and her family living happily in the grandfather's country home - without him. There's also a secret (#7 of the poem) that is answered at the very end.

This is a story for kids to figure out. It is a gentle way to discuss and/or show the end of life, especially of a loved one. Good book. Lovely, with the letters superimposed atop the illustrations that completely cover the pages.

First Year Letters - Julie Danneberg

Illustrated by Judy Love
Charlesbridge, 2003
32 pgs.
For Gr. 2-4 & teachers!

Now here's a great book to give a teacher! It's about a year of teaching, the second book about Sarah Jane Hartwell. (The first was First Day Teacher).

Full of humor and love, written entirely in letters, the story tells of a great school year and a great teacher. It includes science lessons, corresponding disasters, principal oabservations, escaped snakes, museum visits, and student inquisitiveness (hopefully that's a word.....).

This is a great fun read with pictures that beautifully compliment the letters.

36. Dying to Meet You (43 Old Cemetery Road: Book One) - Kate Klise

Illustrated by M. Sarah Klise (sisters)
Published: April, 2009
Harcourt/HMH
$15.00
160 pgs.
Quick read
Rating: 4
Front endpaper: house floorplans and "slice"
Back endpaper: Pictures and info on interior features

Meet I. B. Grumply (actually, Ignatius), Seymour Hope and his cat, Shadow, and Olive C. Spence. A grupmy, 60ish, has-been author, an abandoned 11 year-old boy, and an almost 200 year-old ghost are the protagonists in the story, set in Ghastly, Illinois, in a falling down old house on 43 Cemetery Road.

Grumply has rented the house for the summer, hoping that it will help loosen his writer's block so that he can write the 13th book in his children's "Ghost Tamer" series. He does not realize that the house comes with an abandoned 11 year-old and the house's original owner, the ghost of an unpublished writer of graphic epistolary novels. Through a series of letters we meet them, attend to some of the goings-on in the town, and watch as they build a relationship, then a family.

This is an entertaining, funny book that took no time at all to read, with all sorts of lighthearted nods to the dead and macabre, particularly with names that are tongue-in-cheek plays on words....the realtor, Anita Sale, the lawyer, E. Gadds; the book publisher, Paige Turner; M. Balm, the chief librarian; Barry A. Lyve, pet store owner.....to name a few.

23. Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Rating: 5
July, 2008
$22.00
274 pages
B&N Sales Rank #53!
Borrowed from D.

Told in letters, primarily to and from writer Juliet Ashton, we are treated to an unforgettable story of the German Occupation of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, for five years during World War II. The war has ended, the allies have arrived, and it's now time to rebuild England. London has been bombed, and Guernsey has been occupied, with no communication, food, or relief from the outside world. Juliet has written a series of magazine articles from the ficticious and often humorous point-of-view of "Izzy Bickerstaff" which were so enjoyed that a book has been made of them.

One day in January of 1946 Juliet receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a resident of Guernsey, who is inquiring about a book tht he owns that used to belong to her. A correspondence ensues that introduces her to a cast of characters that are wonderful, caring, real.....and frequently quite funny, and which eventually draws her to the island. The stsory is part mystery, part love story, part history, and impossible to put down. I really, really loved it.