Fantastic Mr. Fox

I read Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl to Ollie this past week. Ollie wrote a letter to a favorite author/illustrator (Kevin Sherry) and got a letter back that included a recommendation of Roald Dahl books. So Ollie wanted to give one a try--so I figured we'd start with this nice short one. The book description reads, "Someone's been stealing from the three meanest farmers around, and they know the identity of the thief—it's Fantastic Mr. Fox! Working alone they could never catch him; but now fat Boggis, squat Bunce, and skinny Bean have joined forces, and they have Mr. Fox and his family surrounded. What they don't know is that they're not dealing with just any fox—Mr. Fox would rather die than surrender. Only the most fantastic plan can save him now."

This was such a fun read. Ollie loved it from the start and was always happy to keep reading more chapters. The illustrations matched perfectly with the text, and I loved the goofy characters and clever ideas of Mr. Fox. Glad we read this one.

* * * (3/3 = Loved it)

The Reading List

I read The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams for the book club I go to with my mom and her friends. The book description says, "Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in Wembley, in West London after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries. Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home. When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list…hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again."

This book was SO GOOD. I've been needing a book I just loved, and this was it. I was engaged in the story from the beginning and just loved Mukesh as a character. He was just so endearing and likable, and I was rooting for him throughout the story. I loved his relationship with his late wife and with each person he interacted with in the book. I was enjoying the story all along, but then when something tragic happened, I was worried it'd ruin the rest of the book for me--but luckily it didn't. The ending came together beautifully and had me crying as I finished up. I loved the messages in the book about helping each other and about how books can help and teach us. This was easily my favorite read of 2024 so far. It was a great read that I got through in just a few days even though I expected it to take me much longer. As a disclaimer, this book does have some bad language in it.

Rating: * * * (3/3 = Loved it)

The Mona Lisa Vanishes

I got The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, A Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity by Nicholas Day (with art by Brett Helquist) from the library after seeing it won the Sibert Medal for this year (most distinguished informational book for children). The book description says, "On a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the director of the Louvre and shouted, La Joconde, c’est partie! The Mona Lisa, she’s gone! No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting? Travel back to an extraordinary period of revolutionary change: turn-of-the-century Paris. Walk its backstreets. Meet the infamous thieves—and detectives—of the era. And then slip back further in time and follow Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa, through his dazzling, wondrously weird life. Discover the secret at the heart of the Mona Lisa—the most famous painting in the world should never have existed at all."

This was an interesting read. I enjoyed learning the story of the theft of the Mona Lisa and how that is what made the painting so famous. I also liked learning more about Leonardo da Vinci. I wasn't a huge fan of the format of the book (jumping between different interconnected stories) and wasn't always completely engaged, but I do think the author did a great job as a storyteller and trying to make a story like this interesting for kids. I think this was almost a "liked it" rating, but I didn't like it as much as all the other "liked it" books I read this year, so I feel like I had to go one notch lower. (But I do feel terribly guilty doing that for a Sibert award winner. It still was a good one!)

Rating: * (1/3 = It was okay)

Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen

I saw Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids before They Start High School by Michelle Icard recommended somewhere and got it from the library on audiobook. I figured this was a good time to read it since I'm coming up on my daughter starting high school next year. The book description says, "Trying to convince a middle schooler to listen to you can be exasperating. Indeed, it can feel like the best option is not to talk! But keeping kids safe—and prepared for all the times when you can't be the angel on their shoulder—is about having the right conversations at the right time. From a brain growth and emotional readiness perspective, there is no better time for this than their tween years, right up to when they enter high school. Distilling Michelle Icard's decades of experience working with families, Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen focuses on big, thorny topics such as friendship, sexuality, impulsivity, and technology, as well as unexpected conversations about creativity, hygiene, money, privilege, and contributing to the family. Icard outlines a simple, memorable, and family-tested formula for the best approach to these essential talks, the BRIEF Model: Begin peacefully, Relate to your child, Interview to collect information, Echo what you're hearing, and give Feedback. With wit and compassion, she also helps you get over the most common hurdles in talking to tweens."

This was a good read. I thought it gave lots of helpful thoughts and good advice on how to structure conversations in a way that avoids a fight. Sometimes the examples didn't seem like the best way to handle a situation, but I also think the point is that every teenager handles things differently, so you have to kind of adjust the advice to fit your situation. I'm going to check out the physical copy of the book now so I can make note of a few things that were hard to keep track of in the audiobook version. Overall, I think books like this are definitely a helpful thing to read to just expand my mind in terms of parenting and give me more tools and ideas.

Rating: * * (2/3 = Liked it)

The Midnight Library

I've had The Midnight Library by Matt Haig on my to-read list for awhile but finally had the push to read it when some friends formed a new book club with this as the first book. The book description says, "Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place."

This was a great read that kept me interested throughout. I loved the premise of the book and loved following Nora as she discovered things about herself and about life. Throughout the book, I was enjoying it and was like, yeah, I like this book, but I particularly loved the ending and how the author brought things together and just taught a beautiful lesson about what makes life worth living and about the difference we make to others in the small and simple things we do. The big downside for me in this book was that there was quite a bit of bad language throughout. But I really enjoyed the characters and the story and the message.

Rating: * * (2/3 = Liked it)

Simon Sort Of Says

Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow has been on my to-read list for several months now (and I even started it once but didn't get the chance to finish). But I found out last week that it won the Newbery Honor AND a Schneider Honor (for middle grade), so that was the push I needed to actually get it read! The book description says, "Simon O’Keeffe’s biggest claim to fame should be the time his dad accidentally gave a squirrel a holy sacrament. Or maybe the alpaca disaster that went viral on YouTube. But the story the whole world wants to tell about Simon is the one he’d do anything to forget: the one starring Simon as a famous survivor of gun violence at school. Two years after the infamous event, twelve-year-old Simon and his family move to the National Quiet Zone—the only place in America where the internet is banned. Instead of talking about Simon, the astronomers who flock to the area are busy listening for signs of life in space. And when Simon makes a friend who’s determined to give the scientists what they’re looking for, he’ll finally have the chance to spin a new story for the world to tell."

This was a great read. It kept me interested, and there were parts that made me laugh out loud (particularly the part where you first meet Agate's dog). I really liked the main characters (Simon, Agate, Simon's parents), and I thought it was a nice storyline with lots of fun extra things on the side to keep things interesting and entertaining (like the super incapable assistant of Simon's mom, who is an undertaker, and the peacock in their yard). I thought this was a great read and a good introduction for kids to PTSD and how it might affect someone. I found Agate to be a wonderful, supportive friend, and I loved watching that friendship help Simon find some healing. The book is technically middle grade (ages 8-12), but I would definitely consider it more of an upper middle grade read or young young adult due to both the school shooting content but also some little side things throughout.

Rating: * * (2/3 = Liked it)

A Gentleman in Moscow

I read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles for my book club. The book description reads, "In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery."

So much to say about this book! First of all, it was very slow for me at the beginning. Not bad slow necessarily--like I was enjoying what I was reading and following it ok, but it just never made me want to keep reading. So I would read a few pages and then move onto something else. Because of this, it was taking me forever to get through it. Around halfway through, I made myself sit for like an hour to read and made great progress--and then got super into the book. And for the rest of the book, I was excited to read it. The slow start made it so this was one of those books I would have 100% given up on if it weren't a book club book, but now that I'm finished, I'm so glad I read it (and am so proud of myself for finishing it). There were parts of the book that I just loved (Nina's funny personality as a child, the 3 men making a secret soup, the loose geese, the scene with the bishop at the end, etc.). The author brought things around from earlier in the book to later in such fun ways, and the characters were so fun and well-developed. (I especially loved Nina and Sofia, and I also enjoyed Rostov and his 2 friends at the restaurant that he meets with. And Marina.) The book had so many great descriptions or lines or scenes that I made a note of on my phone to discuss at book club. I almost would have said I loved the book rather than liked since I was so enjoying the book the last half, but the ending was a little too inconclusive for my liking since I like things getting wrapped up a little better. But it will make for more fun things to discuss at book club.

Rating: * * (2/3 = Liked it)

A few quotes to remember:

"For when life makes it impossible for a man to pursue his dreams, he will connive to pursue them anyway." (p. 336)

"For it is the role of the parent to express his concerns and then take three steps back. Not one, ind you, not two, but three. Or maybe four. (But by no means five.) Yes, a parent should share his hesitations and then take three or four steps back so that the child can make a decision by herself--even when that decision may lead to disappointment." (p. 358)

"To what end, he wondered, had the Divine created the stars in heaven to fill a man with feelings of inspiration one day and insignificance the next." (p. 125)

"For if a room that exists under the governance, authority, and intent of others seems smaller than it is, then a room that exists in secret can, regardless of its dimensions, seem as vast as one cares to imagine." (p. 64)