Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Recent reads

The Boxcar Children Creatures of Legend #1: The Secret of Bigfoot Valley (middle grade, secular)... I love sasquatch stories and some of my kids do, too. This was semi disappointing for me in some ways as lack of scientific evidence sucked the fun out of the legend but it was still a fine read for the 3rd-ish grade crowd.

Fearless Felines (middle grade, secular)... I actually loved this non-fiction book filled with stories about real cats as well as cat fun facts period. There were funny cats, famous cats, hero cats. All kinds of cats!

Goodbye Lupus (secular, nonfiction, health)... Very short but I really appreciated reading her story, especially as I am moving towards summer and preparing for sun season!

Ivan and the Secret in the Suitcase (Christian, middle grade, TGTB books)... This is book 5 of this series about a Christian family in the USSR. This one has been my favorite so far. This one now lives on our 5th grade shelves.

Left Behind: The Kids, books 1-4 (Christian, YA)... I read the first few Left Behind Kids books when they first came out and liked them but now I am loving them! I have never really had the desire to pause life and plow through a series but a small part of me thinks that sounds delightful with this book. There is more violence than I was expecting but it's all been second-hand accounts so far

The Memory Thief (secular, YA, dystopian)... This was a fascinating story where memories are a drug and a currency, a weapon and a gift. People can trade memories, buy them to learn a new skill... Everything. It was darker and more violent than I like but very fascinating. Probably a hit for fans of Hunger Games and Divergent. Contains teens kissing.

The Puppy Place: Muttley... I didn't like this one as much as I have liked some of the others but it was fine and I added it to our third grade shelves.

Replication by Jill Williamson (Christian, YA, contemporary/sci-fi)... I was hesitant to use the sci-fi label on this because I think when most of us think sci-fi, we think aliens. (That was always my experience anyway). In this case, the sci-fi element is that our protagonist's father works at a lab where cloning has taken place. We are not actually seeing the cloning happen, although we do see some of the action take place in this lab, but overall this is just a contemporary Christian fiction with some very interesting moral / ethical dilemma storylines. It is set in Alaska and was filled with faith content but I will warn you that the teenagers do a good deal of kissing and there are hints of a previous sexual assault without ever going into any detail at all or even truly coming right out and saying it. 

Small Steps (middle grade, nonfiction, TGTB)... This was such a good, fascinating read about polio. I plowed through it and I know my kids will get a lot out of this book.

The Stories We Tell by Joanna Gaines (Nonfiction, secular but by a Christian)... It seems like a lot of reviews felt that this book was kind of vague, kind of focused on writing about writing her story rather than sharing the actual story. I suppose they're right in a way but I thought this book was so lovely.

When the Meadow Blooms by Ann H Gabhart (Christian, historical fiction)... 1925, orphanage drama, starting over with estranged family... Beautiful! I listened to it as an audio book and liked it but I had to speed it way up or my mind would wander. 

2 comments:

Thanks so much for your comments! I always read them, don't always have time to answer quickly. Sorry about that!