Completely Full Bookshelf

I must say, this semester of college is keeping me in a perpetual state of chaos. I haven't let that stop my blog before, and I won't let it do so now...but if I post comments on your blog that are completely incoherent, blame it on my exhaustion. It's very strange, because some seriously wonderful things are happening—it's just that so much  is happening that I don't have time for much else! Also, please visit this post from last week so you can see a very important article by Nikole Hannah-Jones that will change the way you think about racism (and as I've since learned, it's immensely controversial among certain individuals who I don't agree with, which means you really  need to read it!). Moving along, I'd like to discuss an absolutely gorgeous  MG novel by an author I think we all know and love (I've adored so many of her books , most recently The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane ). Today I am reviewing The Beatryce Prophecy  by Kate DiC...

Update (10/5/2021): So, I did write a pretty-solid review of this book below, in my opinion, but honestly, nothing might be more convincing about how good this book is than the fact that it is a 2021 National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature ( proof here! )!!! I'm seriously so excited—it's been a month on the dot since I posted this review, and I'm still very much a giant fan of this spectacu-fabulous story (yes, I made up a word there). Update (11/25/2021): And now Last Night at the Telegraph Club  is officially the WINNER  of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature! I must say, it is so  vindicating when the book you love literally wins one of the biggest awards in existence—it feels like all of my tastes have been validated! Also, yes, I'm updating this post on Thanksgiving—I suppose you could say I'm thankful  that this book won an award! Happy Labor Day! I am so, SO excited to be here today to talk about a ...

I hope everyone is doing well today! As back-to-school season begins, I just want to take a moment and thank all the wonderful educators I've met in the blogging world, as well as all the wonderful educators I haven't  met at all, for their tireless work in shaping the kids of today and tomorrow into better, smarter people, in spite of being under-paid, under-appreciated, and under-protected from the pandemic. I wish you all good luck!!! I also want to mention that I did some spiffing-up on the blog this past week, so the menu and sidebar have a different layout that is hopefully a little more intuitive—I realized that things I wanted people to see were buried in sidebar widgets or other pages, while things I didn't care much about were taking up space in the main menu. Let me know if the new layout works for you or is totally confusing and awful! (Update [8/15/2021]: I just discovered that the sidebar looks weird on a larger screen, because Blogger, in their...

For MMGM and #IMWAYR, I am wholeheartedly recommending the graphic novel Displacement  by Kiku Hughes. Although protagonist Kiku is a high schooler in this story, I believe this book is appropriate for MG readers and seems to be aimed at them (although YA readers will enjoy the book as well).           I discovered this book on a post by fellow #IMWAYRer Sierra Dertinger at Books. Iced Lattes. Blessed in which she rounds up books with wonderful covers (and indeed, this book's cover is just one of countless gorgeous illustrations throughout the pages). Displacement  is based on the family history of author/illustrator Kiku Hughes, and Kiku herself is the protagonist of the story. In Displacement , Kiku, a girl of half-Japanese ancestry, is on a trip with her mother to San Francisco, grasping for small details about the life of her grandmother, Ernestina, who was one of about 120,000 people sent to incarceration camps during World War II. (I should men...

*Rant begins here*  You might have noticed that I usually talk about books on this blog, but I do occasionally take moments to talk about TV, and I  have  to do so right now. If you've been paying attention to the animated TV landscape, you might have noticed that, between the influx of animated TV shows for adults and the launching of various "children's" animated TV shows that appeal to teens and adults, animation is no longer strictly for kids. And nowhere is that more apparent than  Infinity Train , a show that just came out last August that I absolutely love.  Infinity Train  has 3 seasons, each of 10 11-minute episodes, that chronicle different kids finding themselves aboard a train of infinite cars filled with their own bizarre universes, all traveling to who-knows-where, as they try to figure out what the glowing numbers on their hands mean and how to avoid the various  terrifying  creatures trying to murder them. There's some substantial ...

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! For MMGM, I am recommending the graphic novel  Queen of the Sea  by Dylan Meconis.           Queen of the Sea  is a historically inspired graphic novel set in the 1500s on an island off the country of Albion (loosely based on the U.K.). The book's protagonist and narrator, Margaret, is a child who lives on this island, a remote convent populated only by six nuns, a priest, and three staff. Margaret does not know who her parents were or why she has come to live on the island; she only knows that she was brought to the nuns aboard the Regina Maris (a ship that visits the island twice a year) and has lived with them ever since. Margaret has not left the island since arriving, but she has grown accustomed to the island's unaltered beauty and her life at the convent, ultimately preparing to become a nun as an adult. When a boy her age named William and his noblewoman mother arrive on the island, she becomes even...

For MMGM, I am recommending the Wells & Wong Mystery series ( Murder Is Bad Manners , Poison Is Not Polite , and First Class Murder ) by Robin Stevens. (Note: The cover shown is for Murder Is Bad Manners .) Here's the publisher's description for the first book in the series, Murder Is Bad Manners : Two friends form a detective agency—and must solve their first murder case—in this “sharp-witted debut” ( Publishers Weekly , starred review) that is the first adventure in a brand-new middle grade mystery series set at a 1930s boarding school. Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are best friends at Deepdean School for Girls, and they both have a penchant for solving mysteries. In fact, outspoken Daisy is a self-described Sherlock Holmes, and she appoints wallflower Hazel as her own personal Watson when they form their own (secret!) detective agency. The only problem? They have nothing to investigate. But that changes once Hazel discovers the body of their science teacher, Mis...