Completely Full Bookshelf

Hi everyone! Wow, do I have a lot of reviews for you today. First off, I have my second batch of reviews from participating in #MGReadathon —I reviewed 7 picture books last week , and I'm reviewing 7 more picture books this week (and leaving another 15 unreviewed, just because it was a lot  of books to read at once!). Interestingly, quite a few of today's books (the first, third, fourth, and sixth) are nonfiction! Also, I had some extra free time and crammed in a delightful graphic novel called Cat's Café , and because its unusual format meant I wouldn't be able to write a crazy-long review of it anyway, I figured I'd just tack it on to this post and talk about ALL THE BOOKS! So let's dive in! Picture Book Pandemonium! What book is it?   Stacey's Extraordinary Words , written by Stacey Abrams and illustrated by Kitt Thomas Add it on Goodreads  or preview the illustrations! Who recommended it?   Cheriee Weichel at Library Matters , Crystal Brunelle at Reading...

I got my COVID booster shot (Pfizer) on Friday, and I had quite the reaction on Saturday—fever, aches and pains, exhaustion, basically everything except a sore throat or runny nose (thank goodness—I hate  sore throats). I will say, the symptoms are obviously  better than getting COVID. Anyway, I'm doing better on Sunday, which is when I'm writing this post—I tried to write it while I wasn't feeling well, but I was having thoughts like, " Pandemonium  is such a long word—do I have  to type it out?" And that seemed like a good indicator that I needed to write this another day! ***Content warning for this section***  Also, I do want to acknowledge the various enraging things that have happened this week in the world. The Kyle Rittenhouse decision is extremely infuriating and disappointing and just adds to the number of atrocities White people can get away with. And yesterday was Transgender Day of Remembrance, and an article I read about it said, horrifyingly, tha...

( Update:  I'm having to make all kinds of edits to this post because I forgot all the things I needed to mention, and besides correcting the giveaway deadline listed at the end of the post, I also wanted to mention that I shared an original poem for Thursday Thoughts last week, "Where I read" —check it out if you're interested! Now, back to the post!)  I never thought this day would come. When I joined #IMWAYR in March 2020, it was expressly for the purpose of having a place to share MG and YA book reviews. But as I have participated in #IMWAYR, I have seen review after review, recommendation after recommendation, of picture books. And some of them didn't seem like my thing, but some of them honestly sounded pretty good. And finally, with blogger after blogger after blogger showing me all of these wonderful stories, I caved. My blog is still going to be largely focused on MG and YA books. But every so often, I plan to take some time and write mini-reviews of some...