Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex is wonderful parody of the beloved Goodnight Moon, but of course... with an amazingly spooky twist!

Oh my gosh, this book was too cute! This is definitely one that I will be adding to my list of books to buy for future kiddos and for my friends who have kids already!

Opening up to the first page brought back so many memories of the original Goodnight Moon.

The artwork was so fun and colorful, but also a bit dark! I loved that there were little bits of art everywhere! I also really enjoyed all the little things that were added in that took a second to spot but then made me gasp!

I very highly recommend this one! I had so much fun reading this one and looking at the artwork. This would be a fun read for all ages!

Night Night, Groot is fun and absolutely adorable story that Marvel fans of any age will appreciate!

So first things first, how adorable is that cover?! I love the title text and how the author and artists note is added to the lower right corner in a color that matches the inside of the spaceship. I also love the movement; from the nightcap flying off Groot's head and his planter tipping over, to the two characters running off to the right. And come on, that poker photo of Iron Man, The Hunk, and Thor? Perfect.

However, what is under the dust jacket may just be even more adorable!

The story was wonderful. I loved that there was a main storyline (the bedtime story) that was running through the whole thing, meanwhile Groot and Rocket are off saving the world.

I especially loved when Rocket broke the fourth wall and called out the narration.


And seeing a bunch of Marvel Heroes make their appearance was so fun!

When I reached the last page, I was so sad that it was over! This was such a cute story and the artwork is awesome! Definitely one that would be fun to read out loud over and over again!

The Nightmarchers by J. Lincoln Fenn was a totally nerve-wracking tale. While reading, you won't be able to guess what happens next.

At the start of the book, we see a series of letters from Irene Greer, a botanical researcher that had traveled to a remote island in the Pacific. Things start out fine, but a bit tense. But soon we see Irene begin to act strange. Next we learn that Irene has fallen down a waterfall to her death. In her letters she had been convinced that the spirits of her dead husband and daughter had joined the night marchers, which were the ghosts of ancient warriors that rise from their burial sites on moonless nights and wander the island.

Then we jump to the present and meet Irene's descendant, Julia Greer, who is recovering from a nasty divorce. Her previous life and daughter had been suddenly taken away from her, and now she is barely able to make rent and she has no electricity because she hasn't paid that bill for awhile. When her elderly great-aunt (sister of Irene) offers Julia an outrageously large sum of money to travel to the remote island and collect samples of a flower and bring back Irene's remains, Julia can't turn it down. But while traveling to the island, she learns that there was a lot that her great-aunt had kept from her, and it only gets worse as her trip continues. Soon, Julia doesn't know who to trust and she begins to lose her grip on reality....

While reading, I really felt horrible for Julia when we first met her. Not just because she was going through the divorce and losing everything that she had once had, but because watching her try to keep up the façade of the rich when she met with her great-aunt was so heartbreaking. This was her family, and she felt that she needed to play the meeting like a game. This made me wish we could have gotten to know more about Julia before she met her ex-husband...

After the meeting with her great-aunt, I was so interested to see what was going to happen! While Julia was traveling, I started to feel super anxious and that feeling didn't let up until the last page. I was so intrigued by the overall mystery; I couldn't wait to start getting answers. Especially when things started to get really strange!

I really enjoyed the characters, even though, just like the main character, I could never really decide who to trust. Unfortunately, that's all I can say there without totally spoiling things!

There was one bit of the book that totally gave me The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon vibes! Julia went wandering into the jungle. Though she was warned not to touch many of the plants that she may encounter, one second of frustration put her in quite a scary situation! She had already been having trouble with keeping a grip on reality, and then she kicked a plant that snapped and oozed a sap that smelled funny and made Julia very lightheaded. Things suddenly weren't looking good; she was about to black out, couldn't stand up, her eyes were swollen, and she was having trouble breathing. And to make things worse, she had fallen into a bog that was full of twig-like leeches... I read this scene twice because it was so horrifying! I loved it!

I was SO into this book up until the very last few chapters. Unfortunately, it then took a turn that totally threw me... Perhaps I missed something, but it was so odd that I didn't care enough to go back and reread it...

The twist was one that left me saying "What the heck just happened?! This was SO good until now... what?!" I mean, immaculate conception, suddenly just giving up and being okay with the overall "plan", a very short pregnancy and a boy that grows up rather quickly, and writing very mature letters to a young girl who literally knows nothing about your travels in the first place? Totally weird to me. And then it was just kind of left open ended... I did enjoy that in her last letter, she kept talking about the pen running out, and then how it just ended. But the text chat that was seen next left it off on a rather frustrating note. The worst part is that I think I would have liked the ending and how open-ended it was if it hadn't taken that odd twist.

My favorite passages:
She doesn't notice the letter at first. Buried in the pile of mail threatening to become a paper avalanche, it takes her a good minute to pull all of it out of her mailbox, which resists her mightily, like there's something on the other side trying to pull her in.

Nothing poisons quite so well as rejection.

The thing that hides itself in plain sight, that's always the thing you have to watch out for.

Something inside Julia tears a little. Her soul maybe.

The greatest lie we ever tell our children is that we can protect them. The truth is, the world has teeth, and people are ferocious creates, and yes, half the world is trying to eat the other half. The truth is, there are witches in the woods with houses made of candy, who entice you inside with promises of cake, but have a dark purpose.

Bone Soup is a story about a skeleton named Finnigin who is determined to share a Halloween feast with others. Unfortunately, gossip spreads about his ravenous hunger, and the townspeople hide their food from Finnigin and refuse to help him when he comes knocking. But when Finnigin brings out his magic bone, the townspeople can't help but be curious. But will Finnigin share his soup, or will he act like the others and keep it all to himself?

The storyline is a great one for kids that really shows the importance of sharing and not jumping to conclusions. The artwork in this book is so wonderful. I really loved how interesting each of the character sketches were! Definitely another Halloween/spooky book I would highly recommend! I loved it!

Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol is a story about a young Russian girl who wants nothing more but to go off to summer camp to be like all the other rich girls. But she doesn't want to go to just any camp, she wants to go to a Russian summer camp where she believes she will finally fit in.

The premise sounded great to me when I first heard about it. And, well... At least this was a quick read.

I will say that the author did an absolutely wonderful job capturing the negativity that pre-teens and teens have to deal with. Especially when it comes to the drama of a summer camp! There were many scenes included that definitely nailed the anxiety of trying to fit in.

The artwork was fun. I did enjoy the texture of it and some of the pages were really lovely. Like the night scene with the moon or the moose in the lake.

While reading, there was something that kept me going, even though I wasn't totally loving it. However, a lot of this really didn't work for me.

1. The mean girls
First of all, they were exhausting to read about. We saw one version of mean girl with the rich friends, and then again with the older girls at camp. Vera knew she was the odd one out, but she kept trying to impress them time and time again, never learning. This trope could have worked if the main character had learned something from it, but she didn't seem to.

2. Passing the bullying on
Vera herself was pretty horrible a few of times, whether that was talking down to a younger girl, yelling at her counselor, or cracking a rude joke at the expense of another camper. Realistic, yes. Necessary for the story, no.

3. Phrases like these: ‘‘It felt strangely good to see someone else suffer a little,’’ & ‘‘Geez. He was embarrassing to watch. Crying in front of everyone."
WOW. How horrible?! This coming from the kid that has lived through nothing but bullying. Perhaps I just can't deal with her character because I was always the nice kid no matter how much I was picked on. If I was at camp and saw someone crying, I was the one going over to see if they were okay. I certainly wasn't one staring or cracking crude jokes.

4. The way the main character looked
It was a bit odd to me that the main character looked quite different from all the others; she was much more cartoonish. I'm sure that was done for a reason.. Like the author really wanted to drive home the fact that she didn't fit in.

5. The jumpy narration
This just didn't flow very well. It was so jumpy. It seemed like it just moved from one random camp scene to another.

6. Zero lessons were learned
I so wanted the main character to learn SOMETHING. The summer camp could have been a great way to teach her many things about growing up. But she didn't learn anything. Not one thing.

Overall, worth a read, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend this one. Especially not to the target audience. It just lacked the lessons that could have worked really well here.

Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You by Lin-Manuel Miranda, illustrated by Jonny Sun is an absolutely delightful collection!

This is a book that you could sit and cruise through in a just short time, or pick it up to read one page every now and then spread them out. No matter how you chose to read this one, it will be a lovely experience.

I knew the little pep talks were going to be great. After all, I already follow Lin-Manuel Miranda on Twitter, and I love seeing all of his morning and night affirmations. When I heard he was putting together a book of these tweets, I could not wait to get my hands on a copy. And what an amazing job they did with this!

The layout of the book is so much fun. I love that each page spread has a good morning and good night, many of which are in direct relation to the other. Where these little chunks of text are located on the pages varies, which adds to the overall feel and excitement of the book. It would be quite boring if they were all in the same spot on the page time and time again.

The illustrations were also lovely! I really enjoyed how simple most of them were, and how they each related to the little pep talk on that specific page. I'm definitely going to have to check out more of Jonny Sun's work after this!

As with any collection of things like this, there were a few pep talks that I enjoyed more than others.

I really loved this collection and I highly recommend snagging a copy for yourself or to give as a gift! I can definitely see myself picking it up time and time again to read a random page.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green is an enjoyable read that really hits the nail on the head with a number of very timely and important topics.

When I saw this was an option for the October Book of the Month, I was ecstatic! I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy to see what it would be like. I just love Hank's vlogs, so I could only imagine how wonderful a book would be!

While I absolutely enjoyed the read, it felt like it was lacking just a little oomph for me.

This is such a tricky one to review! There is so much that I want to touch on, but I don't want to spoil it! So I'll keep it pretty short.

This book hits on a lot of really important and timely elements and Hank did an absolutely wonderful job with the topics.

Of course, how people treat one another both online and in the real world was one of the biggest elements. Things like this really gets my blood boiling. I just want everyone to be capable of keeping an open mind and to just be kind to one another. When I see people that are totally close-minded and think that only their opinion is correct, it just makes me sad.

The writing style was easy to read, and it all flowed pretty well. While I was reading, I was easily sucked right in! But when I put the book down, I wasn't itching to pick it back up, exactly. I have to admit, I just didn't love the characters which was a major bummer. I found April quite frustrating and irritating most of the time. And then with the writing itself, some of the random capitalization and punctuation threw me... though I will say that it did work for this novel, I just found myself wanting to edit it more than I appreciated it. There was also some repetition that I definitely could have done without.

In my opinion, the best part of the book was a few chapters toward the end. I loved how scary things got there for a bit! Because of the way the narrator tells the story, she also warns readers when it's about to get dark. So if slight gore bothers you, no worries! The narrator will literally warn you and you can skip ahead! How neat?!


My favorite passages:
He was skinny and awkward with printer-paper-pale skin. I assumed he began his haircuts by asking the stylist to make it look like he had never received a haircut.

The power that each of us has over complete strangers to make them feel terrible and frightened and weak is amazing.

It’s like a warehouse crashed into the lobby of a three-star hotel and then they just left the mess there.

Marketing is a lot more thinking than doing.

Humans are terrible at believing reality.


My final thoughts:
Overall, definitely one I would recommend! I had a lot of fun while reading, but I'm not sure this would be one that I'd reread. We'll see though!

When I found out that this has been marked as book number one, I am definitely interested to see where the story goes next! The audiobook sample that I just listened to sounds really great, so perhaps I will snag that and give it a listen before book two comes out! :)

The Creeps by Fran Krause was another wonderful collection of illustrated fears that range from silly, to horribly sad, to absolutely terrifying!

The first few fears that were included weren't super interesting to me, but then I was suddenly loving them all!

I found it really interesting that there were a couple of fears that covered more than just a couple of pages, and that the artwork filled the full page and that the text was mixed in with the items in the story.

Another awesome collection that I would definitely recommend checking out!

Don't Push The Button written and illustrated by Bill Cotter is an adorable story about a monster named Larry that just can't decide if pushing the button is a bad idea or not.

When we first meet Larry, he tells us that the only rule is: Don't Push The Button!

But of course, Larry's curiosity gets the best of him, and he tells you to push the button because no one is looking...

The result is quite interesting, but Larry doesn't like it, so he asks you to push the button again! And again... and again! Very quickly, things get a little out of control...

The illustrations are so cute! Larry's facial expressions are perfect. I also love that the button stays put on the left hand side throughout the story; always just sitting there, tempting the reader.

While a super quick read, this would be such a fun book to read out loud! I highly recommend it!

In The Haunted House is such a fun and spooky story with absolutely wonderful illustrations!

I just love the texture of the illustrations in this book! You can certainly tell that Susan Meddaugh put a lot of time and work into these pages!

And then of course there is the story! It flows so well. I love that we are following two kids as they walk through the house, never knowing what... or who... they are going to come across next!