Song of the Sparrow By Lisa Ann Sandell Very few books have stayed with me since I was a child; that lasting impact is elusive and unquantifiable. The list for me doesn’t even use one hand: The Giver, The Two Princesses of Bamarre, and Shadow Spinner have been books I’ve thought about every now and…
Goodbye Lemon By Adam Davies Okay, gang. Get out your tissues and your dictionaries—as is tradition with a Davies novel. While The Frog King and Mine All Mine are both pretty good in their own right, Goodbye Lemon stands out from this crowd of three. Fair warning though: this book is an emotionally taxing read.…
Mine All Mine By Adam Davies I liked Mine All Mine way more than Davies’ The Frog King. You’ll still need your dictionary! But your narrator will be much more likable this time. Otto, the main character and narrator, feels human. He has issues: some he ignores, some he grumbles at, and some he faces,…
Article written by Rayne Hall in celebration of The Haunted Train: Creepy Tales from the Railways ︶︶︶︶ In real life, we seek to avoid fear, worry, panic, and terror. Yet in book form, they grant delicious thrills, and we choose to spend our time with the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King,…
The Haunted Train: Creepy Tales from the Railways Edited by Rayne Hall First off, I love that the editor left each story it its original American or British English! I really feel that adds to a reader’s impressions, perceptions, and assumptions when consuming literature. I was also very happy to see a decent selection of…
Charlotte’s Web By E.B. White I really thought I’d read this book before, but it turns out I only saw the animated film from 1973. Which is just fine, considering that movie turned out to be incredibly true to the book! A lot of lines and scenes I remembered from the movie—that I watched quite…
Dear America series from American Girl I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly By Joyce Hansen From 1865, Patsy writes her story as a freed slave post-American Civil War. I enjoyed this title a lot. The POV feels more like an adult than the narrator actually is (she’s supposed to be around 12 or…
The Garden of Eve By K.L. Going I will always love this book. I loved it at twelve, and I love it at twenty-eight. The magical realism is subtle and beautifully done. I really loved the concept of gardens as afterlife. It’s a simple concept, and this is a middle grade book. Since The Garden…
The Sweet Far Thing The Gemma Doyle Trilogy By Libba Bray Gemma Doyle drove me up the wall with her indecisiveness in The Sweet Far Thing. This book is over 800 pages. It didn’t need to be. There are a fair few subplots that simply didn’t need to be there, and Gemma spends an ungodly…
Rebel Angels The Gemma Doyle Trilogy By Libba Bray Book two!! I was a little hesitant with how the book started; Kartik’s point of view wasn’t bad, but I immediately missed Gemma and hoped the book wouldn’t continue to swap between the two characters. Thankfully, it didn’t! We get Kartik’s motives right out the gate,…