50. Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

#2 A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

listened on Libby/borrowed from the library

narrated by many, a whole line up

Unabridged audio (10:48)
2020
417 pgs.
YA Mystery
Finished 5/10/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.42 - 21,850 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary Fairview, CT

First line/s: "You'd think you'd know what a killer sounds like."

My comments: This  is a  sequel to A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.  I liked this one much better than the  first.  Great plot line that fit together well, more believable clues and reasons to go after suspects.  The last chapter or two were particularly believable, and it didn't leave you with an HEA...a pretty dark ending which worked quite well.  It will be interesting to see if Ms. Jackson attempts a number three.

Goodreads synopsis:  The highly anticipated sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder! More dark secrets are exposed in this addictive, true-crime fueled mystery.

          Pip is not a detective anymore.
          With the help of Ravi Singh, she released a true-crime podcast about the murder case they solved together last year. The podcast has gone viral, yet Pip insists her investigating days are behind her.
          But she will have to break that promise when someone she knows goes missing. Jamie Reynolds has disappeared, on the very same night the town hosted a memorial for the sixth-year anniversary of the deaths of Andie Bell and Sal Singh.
          The police won't do anything about it. And if they won't look for Jamie then Pip will, uncovering more of her town's dark secrets along the way... and this time everyone is listening. But will she find him before it's too late?

May GoodReads Postcard and Question of the Month

 Question:  Dear Beautiful Readers,

What are your thoughts about Self-Help books? Love them? Hate them? Do you read them? Have any changed your life? Or do you avoid them? Why?

2079.  GR PC May 2021

Wood Ducks

Dear Chris,  Oh, I used to be such a sucker for self-help books!  Creativity and how-to-draw books and how-to-be-happy books ... and habits of productive people and hot-ot-be tidy and how-to-not procrastinate! *laughs*

     My favorite creativity-type self-help book is Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher.  I re-read this many times, and over the years I have managed to smush many of my favorite hobbies into several great projects like this one! (Nature, Photography, Computers, Writing, Reading, Mail, woohoo!)

A few years ago I read some Stephanie Bennett Vogt, and I have also taken her year-long online class for Space Clearing.  I must have done some de-cluttering during that year ... but I am back to making piles of junk, so the clearing def didn't stick!  Ha!

I'm currently reading The Power of Daily Practice.  I don't know why.  I've already got several daily practices in place.  I guess I just want to see how and why other people do it? :)

Ha - I don't think I'll ever cure the procrastination.  But ... maybe the next self help book I read...?! Happy day, Rift

2065.  GR PC May 5, 2021

Oak Park, Illinois

Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Museum

I live around the corner from Hemingway's birthplace.  I don't subscribe to self-help books, or read a lot of nonfiction in general, but when I do it's usually a science book a la Mary Roach.  I really liked Phallacy by Emily Willingham and Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz.  Hope you are well and safe.  Take care - Amanda

2045.  GRPC May 2021

11 May 2021

I loved your Amish postcard!  I am reading my 2nd book by Emma Maas.  Both were Amish based and both were good!  I'm not into self-help books either.  The only nonfiction books I read are autobiographies, books about urban legends & paranormal, and true crime books.  I too love children's books, fairy tales, and cozy mysteries.  Hope your visit with your sister was great.  Happy Reading, Sandye

Time Travel

                        
      Yup, Reading about time travel is always fun.....

Adult  

Armstrong, Kelley

    A Stitch in Time 18th Century England

Bybee, Catherine

    Binding Vows (#1 MacCoinnich TTs)

    Silent Vows (#2 MacCoinnich TTs)

    Redeeming Vows #3 MacCoinnich TTs)

    Highland Shifter ($ MacCoinnich TTs)

Cornick, Nicola

      The Phantom Tree 1557 England

Courtenay, Christine

     The Runes of Destiny 9th century Vikings

Crouch, Blake

    Recursion  different times & places including NYC, Maine, Tucson

Womack, Gwendolyn

     The Time Collector different times & places

Young, Adrienne

     The Unmaking of June Farrow 1950/2023 Western North Carolina

Zugg, Victor

    A Ripple in Time (#1) early17th Century America

YA

Dulci's Legacy Margaret Pinard, 1777 Cape Breton

Into the Dim Janet B. Taylor 1200 LondonTown

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken 1776 different places

Rewinder by Brent Battles

Sapphire Blue (#2 Ruby Red Trilogy) by Kersten Geir 1950, 1782...

Ruby Red by Kersten Geir 18th century

Middle Grades

When You Reach Me Rebecca Stead

TV SHOW

Dark

Timeless

MOVIES

About Time

Time Traveler's Wife

49. Live and Let Grow by Penny Reid

listened on Audible/AudOriginal

narrated by Joe Arden and Fiona Fischer

Unabridged audio (1:33)
2021
75 pgs. - Novella
Adult CRF Novella
Finished 5/8/2021
Goodreads rating: 3.96 - 193 ratings
My rating: 2.5
Setting: Contemporary America

My comments: If this protagonist doesn't have Aspberger's I'll eat my hat.  Gorgeous girl doesn't dare tell her gorgeous hunk of a best friend that she loves him, while for years he's felt the same way and didn't tell her for fear of how she'd react.   So one evening, after FIFTEEN years, they fall into each other's arms immediately getting it on with him asking her to marry him, then and there.  Oh, ad of course there's the selfish sister that keeps talking easily-impressionable Alice to questions herself.  Okey-dokey.  Cut and stupd and either too much for not enough, I'm not sure.

Goodreads synopsis: 

          ‘Live And Let Grow’ is a 14k word (short) contemporary romance of long-suffering unrequited love and can be read as a standalone.

 Alice is in love with her best friend. Now all she needs to do is tell him.

          Best buds Milo Manganiello and Alice Hooper have been the one constant in each other’s lives for over fifteen years. The charismatic and compassionate physics professor was there when Alice got married, and he was there ten years later when she got divorced. Likewise, the candid and kind computer science professor has always been there for Milo. She babysits his apartment and plethora of houseplants when he’s traveling and they share breakfast together every day he’s in town. Alice wasn’t always in love with Milo, but the feeling has grown, and when Milo returns from his latest globe-trotting adventure, Alice decides it’s time to spill the seeds.     

          Does Alice have the grit to confess? And will feelings take root? Or is hers a love destined never to bloom?

48. A Cry in the Dark by Denise Grover Swank

#1 Carly Moore

listened on Audible

narrated by Shannon McManus very well

Unabridged audio (10:48)
2019
376 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 5/8/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.45 - 1976 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary small Smoky Mountain town, Tennessee

First line/s: " 'No, no, no, no, NO!' I shouted, banging the heel of my hand on the steering wheel of my Honda."

My comments: This is a mediocre mystery that dragged in many places much longer than it needed to.  Much, or even most, of it was either eye-rolling or difficult to believe.  Repetitive and slow quite a bit.  Very decent narrator was one of the details that kept me listening.  There are two or three or maybe even four more to come in the series, 50 -50 on whether I will continue.

Goodreads synopsis:  A woman fleeing her past finds more than she bargains for in a new suspense series by New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author Denise Grover Swank.

          A woman on the run with no one to trust.
          With the ink barely dry on her new identity, Cary Moore just wants to disappear…but fate has other plans.
          Broken down car, next to nothing in her bank account, Carly is stuck in a Smoky Mountain town that time has forgotten. Drum is riddled with secrets and outsiders are eyed with distrust. Still, it isn’t until she witnesses a cold-blooded murder in a darkened parking lot, that she realizes she’s escaped one nightmare, only to land in another.
          As the clock ticks down and more bodies pile up, Carly doesn’t know who to trust. If she doesn’t stop the killers, they just might stop her…permanently.

47. Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca

read the BOOK

2021
209 pgs.
MidGrade CRF  in Verse
Finished 5/6/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.59 - 1231 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: 1983 America

First line/s:  TWO

I have two lives.

One that is Indian,

one that is not.

I have two best friends.

One who is Indian,

one who is not.

My comments: Reha is in the eighth grade at a private school, where she has lots of friends.  She spends the weekends with her parents and all sorts of local Indian families that are not the people she knows during the week.  She has a best friend in each "camp."  And I guess the biggest theme of the book is:  where does she belong?  I very much enjoyed learning about the foods and culture of an Indian American family.  Another sad story, though.... There was a lot of talk about music, the music of 1983 to be precise, which is when the story is set.  Ah, such memories!

Goodreads synopsis:  An #ownvoices novel in verse about an Indian American girl whose life is turned upside down when her mother is diagnosed with leukemia.

          Reha feels torn between two worlds: school, where she’s the only Indian American student, and home, with her family’s traditions and holidays. But Reha’s parents don’t understand why she’s conflicted—they only notice when Reha doesn’t meet their strict expectations. Reha feels disconnected from her mother, or Amma, although their names are linked—Reha means “star” and Punam means “moon”—but they are a universe apart.
          Then Reha finds out that her Amma is sick. Really sick.
          Reha, who dreams of becoming a doctor even though she can’t stomach the sight of blood, is determined to make her Amma well again. She’ll be the perfect daughter, if it means saving her Amma’s life.

46. Starfish by Lisa Fipps

read the BOOK

2021

244 pgs.
Middle Grade CRF in Verse
Finished 5/5/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.56 - 1954 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: contemporary Texas

First line/s:  "I step down into the pool.

The water is bathwater warm

but feels cool

compared to the blistering hot air.

Kick.  Gliiiiiiide.

Stroke.  Gliiiiiiide.

Side to side

and back again.

Dive under the surface.

Soar to the top.

Arch my back.

Flip. Flop.

As soon as I slip into the pool,

I am weightless.

Limitless.

For just a while."

My comments: The book is written in verse, beautiful verse, so it reads fast.  It tugs on the heart.  Ellie is an extremely large young girl, and has been bullied for being fat for as long as she can remember.  She is bullied horribly at school, but she is bullied even more horrendously at home by her mother and older brother.  Her father does the best he can to make her feel better, but it's not until he takes her for weekly visits to a therapist that she stops blaming herself and figures out how to stand up for herself.  She's a swimmer, and, luckily, has a pool and lives in Texas so she can swim every day.  I got so mad in places while reading this book ... do people really say super insulting things to peers, to strangers, to people that they see on the bus or in a restaurant?  Definitely a book to be read by middle schoolers and even better, to be used as a whole class book or read aloud.

Goodreads synopsis:  Ellie is tired of being fat-shamed and does something about it in this poignant debut novel-in-verse.

          Ever since Ellie wore a whale swimsuit and made a big splash at her fifth birthday party, she’s been bullied about her weight. To cope, she tries to live by the Fat Girl Rules–like “no making waves,” “avoid eating in public,” and “don’t move so fast that your body jiggles.” And she’s found her safe space–her swimming pool–where she feels weightless in a fat-obsessed world. In the water, she can stretch herself out like a starfish and take up all the room she wants. It’s also where she can get away from her pushy mom, who thinks criticizing Ellie’s weight will motivate her to diet. Fortunately, Ellie has allies in her dad, her therapist, and her new neighbor, Catalina, who loves Ellie for who she is. With this support buoying her, Ellie might finally be able to cast aside the Fat Girl Rules and starfish in real life–by unapologetically being her own fabulous self.

2022 Newbery Possibilities

   purchased for school have read but not purchased  other info

AND = Anderson BkShp Mock Newbery (25)

HM = Heavy Medal Mock Newbery List/SLJ (15)

HrnBk = HornBook Fanfare/Best of the Year 

*Have Read Some or ALL

Albus, Kate - A Place to Hang the Moon (9 - 12 yrs.) [10.50 Aud]

*Alston, B. B. - Amari & the Night Brothers AND      own on Aud  

Appelt, Kathi - Once Upon a Camel AND (gr. 3-6)

Arnold, Alana K. - The House That Wasn't There [11.98 Aud]

Arnold, Marie - The Year I Flew Away [10.50 Aud]

Bauer, Marion Dane - Sunshine

Braden, Anne  - Flight of the Puffin  

Bruchac, Joseph - Peacemaker (9 - 12 yrs.) (SLJ gr. 5up)

Bruchac, Joseph - Rez Dogs  

Caprara, Rebecca - Worst-Case Collin

*Carr, Cathy - 365 Days to Alaska [no Aud]

Cuevas, Adriana - Cuba in My Pocket AND 

*Day, Christine - The Sea in Winter AND  (8 - 12 yrs) (SLJ gr. 4-6) started

*de la Pena, Matt - Milo Imagines the World HM 

diCamillo, Kate - Beatryce Prophecy AND HM HrnBk

Dobbs, Alda P. - Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna AND (Gr.5-8)

Ewing, Eve L. - Maya and the Robot AND  (gr. 3-(gr. 6)

*Faruqi, Reem - Unsettled AND 

Faruqi, Saadia - Yusuf Azeem is Not a Hero AND 

*Fipps, Lisa, Starfish AND  HM  (ages 10 - 13/SLJ gr. 5 up)  

Freeman - Alone

*Gratz, Alan - Ground Zero (9 - 12 yrs.) SLJ gr. 4-7  

Grimes, Nikki - Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance (10 - 14 yrs) SLJ gr. 7up

Guerro, Tanya - All You Knead is Love   

Haydu, Corey Ann - One Jar of Magic (8 - 12 yrs.) (SLJ gr. 4-7) [Aud. 13.68]

Higuera, Donna Barbra - The Last Cuentista AND HM 

*Holm, Jennifer L. - The Lion of Mars (8 - 12 yrs.) 

Ireland, Justina - Ophie's Ghosts  (HF) AND   [Aud.HM  13.68] (gr. 3-6)

Jenkins, Emily - Harry vs. the First 100 Days of School HM 

Johnson, Varian - Playing the Cards You're Dealt AND (gr. 3-6)

Kelly, Erin Entrada - Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey HrnBk(short book)

Khor, Shing Yin - The Legend of Auntie Po AND HM HrnBk (GN)

*Korman, Gordon - Linked AND 

*Korman, Gordon - Unplugged (8 - 12 yrs.) (SLJ gr 3-5)  

Lane - Pity Party HM 

*LaRocca, Rajani, Red, White, and Whole HM  (ages 8 - 12/SLJ gr. 5 up) 

*Levithan, David - The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. (as told to his brother) (8 - 12 yrs.) SLJ gr.5up) 

Li, Christine - Clues to the Universe   

Lucido, Aimee - Recipe for Disaster

*Lukoff, Kyle - Too Bright to See AND HM 

Mercado, Yehudi -  Chunky AND 

Milford, Kate - The Raconteur's Commonplace Book (8 - 12 yrs.-))

Murdock, Catherine Gilbert - DaVinci's Cat AND 

Oh, Ellen - Finding Junie Kim [Aud 15.40]

Oshiro, Mark - The Insiders AND 

Park Linda Sue - The One Thing You'd Save   HrnBk 

Paulsen, Gary - Gone to the Woods (SLJ gr. 7up)

Rivera, Kaela - Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls AND 

Royce, Eden - Root Magic [Aud 15.40]

Schlitz, Laura Amy - Amber & Clay HM HrnBk (10 - 14 yrs,)

Schmidt, Gary D. - Just Like That HM  (SLJ gr. 5-8) (Aud. 14.00)

Sheinkein,  Steve - Fallout HM 

Sloan, Holly Goldberg - The Elephant in the Room [Aud 12.60]

Smith, Cynthia Leitich - Ancestor Approved (8 - 12 yrs.) (SLJ gr. 3-6) 

Smith, Cynthia Leitich - Sisters of the Neversea AND 

Sonnenblick, Jordan - The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell  own on Aud

Stroker, Ali & Davidowitz - The Chance to Fly

Valenti, Karla Arenas - Loteria AND 

Venkatraman, Padma - Born Behind Bars AND 

*Wang, Andrea - Watercress HM 

Warga, Jasmine - The Shape of Thunder AND 

Weatherford, Carole Bolton - Unspeakable (SLJ gr 3-6)

Yelchin, Eugene - The Genius Under the Table HM 

Young, Brian - Healer of the Water Monster AND 

GoodReads Newbery Group:

What Book Should We Read in August?

    48/36.1%  Shape of Thunder - Warga

    26/19.5%  Finding Junie Kim - Oh

    26/19.5%  Alone - Freeman

    11/8.3%  Sisters of the Neversea - Smith

    10/7.5%  Amber & Clay - Schlitz

    8/6.0%  Pity Party - Lane

    2/1.2%  The Road to Wherever - Bradley

    2/1.2% Tune It Out (published 2020?)

Poem: I Opened a Book by Julia Donaldson

 

I Opened a Book

I opened a book and in I strode.

Now nobody can find me.

I've left my chair, my house, my road,

My town and my world behind me.

I'm wearing the cloak, I've slipped on the ring.

I've swallowed the magic potion.

I've fought with a dragon, dined with a king,

And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.

I shared their tears and laughter

And followed their road with its bumps and bends

To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.

The cloak can no longer hide me.

My chair and my house are just the same,

But I have a book inside me.

Julia Donaldson

Posted by Cumberland County Library System 

4/25/2021

45. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

listened on Libby/borrowed from library

narrated by the author, Elizabeth Acevedo and Melania-Luisa Marte

Unabridged audio (5:32)
2020
432 pgs.
YA CRF in Verse
Finished 5/5/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.32 - 52,442 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary NYC and Dominican Republic

First line/s: "I know too much of mud.

I know that when a street doesn't have sidewalks

& water rises to flood the tile floors of your home,

learning mud is learning the language of survival."

My comments: Incredible, lovely writing.  Many times when you hear a book read aloud that has been written in verse you cannot tell that it WAS written inverse.  This, read by two readers (one being the author), the poetry just flowed.  Absolutely gorgeous words.  Very sad, depresssing, but the beauty of the writing ... and of the story ... made up for it.  Learning about the "DR" community both in New York City and the Dominican Republic and hearing the story told with a large amount of Spanish verbiage included added to the experience.  And it was read with lovely, lilting accents of two SpanishAmerican narrators.  The story was tough.  But I would consider this a masterpiece.

Goodreads synopsis:   In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.

          Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…
          In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.
          Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.
          And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.

44. The Bromance Book Club by Lissa Kay Adams

listened on Libby/Borrowed from the Library

narrated by Andrew Eiden - nice job; small deeper voiced parts by Maxwell Caulfield didn't work for me, he sounded too old for 29...

Unabridged audio (9:09)
2019
352 pgs.
Adult romance
Finished 5/3/2021
Goodreads rating: 3.92 - 44,157 ratings
My rating: 3.5+
Setting: contemporary Nashville

First line/s: "There was a reason Gavin Scott rarely drank.  He was bad at it."

My comments: A totally fun, eye-rolling romp through a contemporary marriage falling apart and the young, handsome, stuttering major league ball player who doesn't want to lose his wife.  Five of Gavin's teammates - all hot, famous Nashville MLB players, have formed a secret book club where they read regency romance novels to help understand their wives' feelings and needs.  Yes, a totally ridiculous premise, but it sure makes for some hilarious -- as well as ridiculous -- escapades.  Great, predictable fun.

Goodreads synopsis:  The first rule of book club: You don't talk about book club.

          Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott's marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.
          Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.
          Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville's top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it'll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.

43. Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare

#1 The Last Hours - Shadowhunters

listened on Libby/borrowed from library

narrated by Finty Williams

Unabridged audio (21:22)
2020
592 pgs.
YA Fantasy
Finished 4/27/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.47 - 53,658 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: turn-of-the century London

First line/s: "Lucie Herondale was then years old when she first met the boy in the forest."

My comments: Twenty hours listening to the mesmerizing happenings in the Shadowhunters' world, where a new group of 16 to 18 year olds use their newly honed Shadowhunter skills to fight demons and learn more about downworlders.  Cordelia Carstairs and her brother, Alastair, arrive in London to join their Shadowhunter family of cousins, aunts, and uncles who live there.  James and Lucie Herondale, children of Tessa a Will, along with Cordelia, are the protagonists in this story.  Because Tessa is half demon, James and Lucie are adapting to living with the quarter demon blood they have, untried and untested because no other half demons have ever had children.  Matthew Fairchild is James's best friend and parabati, brother to Charles, who is now engaged to Grace, James's long time love - although it is a magical attachment that he is unaware of.  Christopher and Thomas Lightwood, cousins, round out the group of friends.  Characters are really well done and memorable, and the only questions you have about them are questions that have been left intentionally unanswered by the author.  So much will happen in book two!  I really, really liked this.

Goodreads synopsis:  Chain of Gold, a Shadowhunters novel, is the first novel in a brand-new trilogy where evil hides in plain sight and love cuts deeper than any blade. .

          Cordelia Carstairs is a Shadowhunter, a warrior trained since childhood to battle demons. When her father is accused of a terrible crime, she and her brother travel to London in hopes of preventing the family’s ruin. Cordelia’s mother wants to marry her off, but Cordelia is determined to be a hero rather than a bride. Soon Cordelia encounters childhood friends James and Lucie Herondale and is drawn into their world of glittering ballrooms, secret assignations, and supernatural salons, where vampires and warlocks mingle with mermaids and magicians. All the while, she must hide her secret love for James, who is sworn to marry someone else.
          But Cordelia’s new life is blown apart when a shocking series of demon attacks devastate London. These monsters are nothing like those Shadowhunters have fought before—these demons walk in daylight, strike down the unwary with incurable poison, and seem impossible to kill. London is immediately quarantined. Trapped in the city, Cordelia and her friends discover that their own connection to a dark legacy has gifted them with incredible powers—and forced a brutal choice that will reveal the true cruel price of being a hero

Favorite ADULT Poems

Before You Can by Naomi Shi

Conjuring Nana by Barbara Quick

Everything in Our World Did Not Seem to Fit by Naomi Shihab Nye

For C. W. B. by Elizabeth Bishop

How To Be A Poet by Wendell Berry

I Opened a Book by Julia Donaldson

Neighbor by Jack Merrill (about Ashley Bryan)

Overload by The Only Cin

Prayer in My Boot by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Traveling Onion by Naomi Shihab Nye

Yellow Glove by Naomi Shihab Nye

Poem: Conjuring Nana by Barbara Quick

My wonderful Oz/Maine/Tucson friend, Sheila, sent me a lovely card and a wonderful poem for my upcoming birthday.  I'm sharing them both so they're firmly set in my memory.

                   Conjuring Nana

I learned how to make Nana's chicken soup

by shadowing her steps in the kitchen,

taking notes on a white paper napkin.

A cauldron of sorts is required, as well as a

once-animate chicken submerged above

the stove's blue flame.

"You put in the onions," Nana said,

her Russian accent as fresh as the breeze

must have felt on her face when she debarked

at Ellis Island in 1916 or so.

"How much salt?" I wanted to know --

and when she shrugged I could see

a palimpsest of the girl she was at my age.

The water boiled and the air filled with steam.

Not offering an answer in words,

she poured salt into her upturned palm

and tipped it out into the pot.

No measuring cups for my Nana.

"A little this, a little that" she'd say,

cocking her head, adding a pinch of black pepper

and copious piles of carrots and celery.

I thought about the chestnut-colored braid

my other showed me, wrapped in a piece of sea-green silk.

Nana was beautiful when she was young.  

Everyone said so.

Cleaning a leek, she told me, "I don't know

what it's called, but it makes the soup good."

Sixty-four now and all my elders dead,

I add a parsnip as well, just as I watched Nana do,

and I feel the velvet touch of her hands on my forehead.

All the old people I knew 

spoke English with sounds borrowed

from Russian and Polish, Yiddish and Romanian.

I assumed, as a girl, that I would speak like that, too,

when my hair turned gray and the pads of my thumbs

grew soft and pillowy.

Gathering parsley for the soup from my garden,

I seem to hear Nana saying my name

made rich with her guttural R's and broad A's.

"Bahbra, dahlink!" the birds are singing today.

I boil Manischewitz noodles, only adding them

to the bowl when I ladle out Nana's love.

Golden and gleaming with fat,

as bejeweled as the star-filled sky must have looked

when, shipboard, she tipped her kerchiefed head back

and filled her eyes

with all the dazzling possibilities,

and all the dangers, of a new place,

a new language, a new land.  Her favorite brother

waiting for her with his Romanian wife.

The brother-in-law she'd marry. 

Twenty-seven years following the end

of Nana's life, her love fills me up

and restores me.

Picture Book - The Forest Man: The True Story of Jadav Payeng by Anne Matheson

Illustrated by Kay Widdowson 

found at Amelia Givin Library

2020 FlowerPot Press

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.80 - 60 ratings

My rating:  4
Endpapers:  Simple.  White with one-inch yellow grid lines.

1^st line/s:  "Jadev Payeng loves trees."

My comments:  Someone called this "a treat for the eyes" and I agree.  How one person took two hours traveling back and forth for forty years to replant and recreate a decimated forest island in India.  The last six pages told of animals, easy-to-follow further facts, and a great glossary.  Perfect for younger classes learning about biomes, or for any age that cares about making the world a better place, and growing trees.

Jadav Payeng

Goodreads:  After years of harsh monsoon seasons, a forest on the river island of Majuli is in danger of being slowly washed away. Jadav, a boy living on the island, is determined to save the forest he loves.

          This is the true story of how one young boy dedicated his life to creating and cultivating an expansive forest that continues to grow to this day. In a world impacted by climate change, Jadav Payeng's inspirational story shows how one person's contributions can make a difference in helping to save our environment.
          Featuring a beautiful arlin paper cover with foil text enhancements and educational back matter including a glossary, fun facts, and resources for further reading, this book introduces a new understanding of our planet and encourages mindfulness and action when it comes to caring for the environment.
          In partnership with Trees for the Future (TREES), each book sold plants a tree.