Review: Carl and the Meaning of Life

Carl and the Meaning of Life by Deborah Freedman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Adorable illustrations! Carl is an earthworm. When he's asked why he turns hard dirt into fluffy soil, he can't answer the question, and so he wanders around to ask the others animals why he does what he does. Since he's not improving the soil, it hardens, plants die, and the animals go away to greener pastures. So he gets back to work and the whole circle of life thing continues. Easy science lesson with every read.

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Review: Hands Up!

Hands Up! by Breanna J. McDaniel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A positive portrayal of being told to put your "hands up!"--singing in church, getting dressed, fixing hair, 5th position in ballet ("graceful like Ms. Misty"), playing defense in basketball, and high fives. Last page shows everyone with hands up at a rally holding signs that say, "Black Lives Matter," "Water=Life," and "Ningun ser humano es ilegal." Not many words on each page--short and simple. Would be great for reading to a group of children as they could put their hands up for each action. Digital mixed media for the illustrations--looks like boxy, crayon-ish drawings that are bold and simple.

This is perfect for social justice displays for the little ones.

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Review: Meet Miss Fancy

Meet Miss Fancy by Irene Latham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fictional picture based on the real Miss Fancy the Elephant that lived for a bit at the park in Birmingham, Alabama. The main character, Frank, loves elephants, but the "No Colored Allowed" sign means that he can't visit Miss Fancy.

Is it wrong that I hate to see smiling elephants when they are kept in captivity?

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Review: The Mindful Way to a Good Night's Sleep: Discover How to Use Dreamwork, Meditation, and Journaling to Sleep Deeply and Wake Up Well

The Mindful Way to a Good Night's Sleep: Discover How to Use Dreamwork, Meditation, and Journaling to Sleep Deeply and Wake Up Well by Tzivia Gover
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Um, if you're having trouble sleeping, are you even dreaming? Because I sure don't. So that means half this book is worthless, since it's all about journaling your dreams. Not what I was looking for.

This was too feel good and hippie-ish for me and too light on the science. Also, the 3M Cloud Library version of its seems like it's missing things. For example, she discusses yoga poses, but there aren't pictures of what those poses look like. Makes me wonder if they are there in the print version?

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Review: Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak

Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak by Adi Alsaid
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What a frustrating and realistic teen romance! Lu is a high school senior who is paid to write about love, except she is nowhere close to an expert about it. She obsesses with guys and then ends up making mistakes. The typical writer, she observes everything, but she crosses over into gross territory quite a bit by eavesdropping and butting into people's lives while ignoring others. I cringed a lot while reading this--but that may have been the adult in me.

Unfortunately, this is another love story to New York City (you can tell that publishers/editors live there), and setting plays a fairly big part in the novel.

There were some memorable one liners, but I felt myself saying, "Just write the dang column, Lu." Lu is a selfish girl--she takes her friendships for granted, but then when she needs them, she NEEDS them. Her idolizing the relationship of Cal and Iris seems to fit her personality perfectly, as well as the mistakes she makes.

I'm looking forward to seeing what other people think about this one. I think it will be picked up--great title and cover, and readers will want to know what ends up happening to Lu. If anything, this book shows that love is always around--those teen relationships might seem like forever, but there is always someone else who is interesting. :)

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Review: Nodding Off: The Science of Sleep from Cradle to Grave

Nodding Off: The Science of Sleep from Cradle to Grave by Alice Gregory
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not quite what I was looking for, but I was able to skip the chapters about babies and adolescents to get to the adult and advice information. Funny thing is that I read this until 1 am one night this week, trying to make myself go to sleep, and it didn't happen.

Plenty of footnotes and research involved, but her tone was conversational which made it an easy read. She is British, so, you know, everything is spelled wrong. ;)

I did learn about about CBT-I, which I had never heard of, as a treatment for adult insomnia, so that is something I'm going to look into. She also, like my personal doctor, hates sleeping pills and self-medicating to sleep, so I guess my dr knows what he's talking about. I've always thought reading helps me go to sleep, but she mentions that it might not, since my brain spins quite a bit when I'm processing that information. Meditation might be more of what I need.

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Review: The Ensemble

The Ensemble by Aja Gabel
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There is no need for a sentence to ever be 26 lines long. EVER.

Had promise as a coming-of-age tale, but the four main characters (all members of string quartet) grow old quickly, and it's then a tale of marriage and divorce, children, longing, and not fulfilling your dreams.

Too literary for my liking.



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Review: Kings of the Yukon: One Summer Paddling Across the Far North

Kings of the Yukon: One Summer Paddling Across the Far North by Adam Weymouth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Strange mix of nature loving from a Brit and the world of disappearing salmon. Lots of interviews with people along the river.

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Review: The Growing Season

The Growing Season by Helen Sedgwick
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Almost the entire audio production of this is muffled and cloudy, so I was disappointed at the very beginning. After listening to so many clear productions, this was such a downer. The narrator is good, so I wish the production had the same quality. At 016, I had to blast the volume to hear the narration. The odd thing was that at 024, when Daphne speaks, the cloudiness goes away. Why is that? The closet door was opened in the downstairs basement room where the audio was recorded? Grrr. Even my Airpods and Bose headphones couldn't get rid of the muffled sound.

I loved the idea of this book--pouch created to that fathers can carry babies, too, and in order for women to become more equal to men. But I've heard most of the same ideas in better written books. Not new scifi at all.

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Review: All Systems Red

All Systems Red by Martha Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Awesome little scifi novella that is a perfect Alex Award winner. Nonstop action, short, with great characters that you want to know more about! I love the idea of a murderbot gone rogue and suddenly developing FEELINGS. The introverted comments the SecUnit makes throughout cracked me up! Looking forward to reading Book #2 in this series to see what SecUnit does next.

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Review: Clock Dance

Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

If this is what older women's fiction is like when I get really old, I don't want to get old. I felt like I was slogging through it--I wanted to tell Willa to get a backbone. This novel gives us Willa's life story. It is rather boring and that of a typical woman, but she does make (to my eyes) horrible decisions about the men in her life and her other major life choices. When she does finally get some gumption, it didn't feel realistic, because I'm not sure if people change that much later in life? Do they?

And the whole knife/airplane scene was just freaking ridiculous.

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Review: White Nights

White Nights by Ann Cleeves
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It took me forever to read this book, and that is a sign of how well it grabbed me. I loved the TV series and love the setting, but this book was too long. A lot of brooding and choppy transitions. It was difficult to read things from Taylor's POV since he's a jerk--I wish we just heard from Perez, since he's the knight in armor we all want to spend our time with. They mystery seemed far-fetched in this one, too. Things just didn't click. I won't give up though. Judging from other people's ratings, the books get better.

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Review: The Italian Teacher

The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Just not my cup of tea, probably because all of the characters are the kind that the readers don't like. Bear, the famous artist, is the typical jerk who hits on all women and uses them. He fathers tons of kids who fight for his attention but don't get any. The main character, Bear's son Pinch, is a weasel that I wanted to smack.



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Review: The Word is Murder

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not a fan of how the author is included in the fiction novel--it makes it seem very self-serving and he talks himself up a bit by name-dropping. If he weren't in the book, I would have enjoyed it more.

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Review: Archival Quality

Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I appreciate what this book was trying to do with addressing mental illness. I also feel that "book people" tend to publish books about "book people" and that teens and kids aren't going to like this kind of thing. Even as a librarian, I didn't appreciate the archiving details. A tad boring, and the plot was nothing special.

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