My children are really enjoying this series! We joined our heroes at Lullaby Lake to find another piece of the ember stone. This one had an adorable sloth and water fairies – both of which were a lot of fun!

This is the end of the Little House series. I have to say I was a bit disappointed. This was published posthumously and I don’t think this is the story that LIW would have wanted to tell. She’s now married to Almanzo and living as a farmer’s wife on the prairie. All of the love of the prairie is gone – she’s focused on paying the bills and keeping house. Of course, she’s an adult and a parent now, so it makes sense that her perspective has changed, but I don’t think Laura would have wanted to lose the spark of the prairie. I’m glad I got to read it, but it’s certainly not going down as a favorite in the series.

This is the kind of book I live for. Set at Bletchley Park, it’s full of code breakers, spies, ovaltine, pencils, drafty huts, and beautiful dresses. The atmosphere simply seeped out of every page. It’s about three unlikely friends: Osla, Mab, and Beth. They meet each other after Osla and Mab were recruited to BP for top secret posts. They are billeted together at the home owned by Beth’s parents, and they quickly discover that Beth is a whiz at crossword puzzles – a sure indicator of a top notch code breaker.

Their stories are told in two parallel timelines: the early 40s, just as they begin working at Bletchley, and in the days leading up to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s wedding. In the latter timeline, the women learn that there was a spy at Bletchley and they call in reinforcements in order to crack The Rose Code — a code that was being worked by a precious supervisor who died of cancer before the war ended – to learn the identity of the traitor.

I couldn’t decide whether to give this 4 or 5 stars. I was leaning towards 4 because there was more romance than I typically like, but I decided on 5 because: atmosphere. I’d definitely recommend this to any WWII fiction fan!

“Elwood never ceased to marvel how you could walk around and get used to seeing only a fraction of the world. Not knowing you only saw a sliver of the real thing.”

This novel, mostly set in the 60s, is about a reformatory school in Florida and young boy named Elwood. Elwood, exceptionally bright and passionate, hitches a ride to his first college class. As his ride is pulled over by the police, he quickly realizes that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite his grandmother’s desperate search for help, Elwood is sentenced to The Nickel Academy. Elwood quickly learns how he must act in order to survive his fellow “students” and “teachers.” These young men carried their lessons for survival throughout their entire lives.

I am grateful Whitehead didn’t go into extreme detail when describing the horror these children endured, but he gave us just enough information for us to fill in the blanks. When we discuss systemic racism and debate reparations, this (and The Underground Railroad) should be required reading.

As soon as I finished The Little House series, I began listening to The Birchbark House. I’d been wanting to read it for a long time and was thrilled when this was the Audible Deal of the Day a few months ago. The Birchbark House is a children’s series set in the same time period as the Little House books, but it centers on a Native American family — also in Minnesota, which is where The Little House in the Big Woods was set.

I really enjoyed getting to know this family, who had me laughing and crying. I was hoping to read this with my kiddos soon, but there is one particularly gut-wrenching storyline that makes me think I’ll need to wait a couple of years before I introduce it to them. But on the whole — I really appreciate the balance in perspective this book gave me in relation to the Little House series. And I can’t wait to listen to more of Omakayas’ story!

This is the 10th book in the Dr. Ruth Galloway series and definitely not one of my favorites. Ruth takes a holiday in Italy to help an old colleague uncover the mystery around a recently discovered set of bones and finds herself in a couple of pickles – both in Italy and back at home with DCI Harry Nelson, the father of her child. I was a little irritated with the drama between Ruth and Harry this time and felt the ending was a bit over the top. And of course – I’m going to continue reading the series to find out what happens!!

I really enjoyed the other book I read by Racculia, Bellweather Rhapsody. She works 90s nostalgia into her books really well and writes quirky and fun characters. This book started out perfect – an adult version of The Westing Game (one of my very favorite books of all time) set in Boston. Gothic and dark characters. She clearly has intimate knowledge of Boston and Bostonians, which made it really fun. But I have to say – I completely lost interest about halfway through the book and barely made it through to the end, which makes me sad to admit.

I was interested in this book because her newest novel, The Northern Spy, caught my eye. Under the Harrow is free to download on Audible if you have a membership and it won a few awards, so I decided to give it a try. Once again – this novel started out amazingly. The author basically started with the crime scene and then we were off and running, trying to solve it. But it got super confusing really fast – I found the main character difficult to follow and I had no idea what was going on. I even re-listened to the last hour of the audiobook to see what I had missed, but that didn’t help very much. At first I thought I was just distracted and wasn’t paying enough attention to follow along, but a quick check of Goodreads reviews tells me that I wasn’t alone. I do still want to try Northern Spy, but I’ll make sure to borrow it from the library!

This wasn’t at all what I was expecting from this book. I found it to be quite boring and the most racist of all of Dahl’s books that I’ve read so far. I was ready to quietly set it aside and pick up another book to read aloud but my 7 year old kept asking for it specifically, so maybe he’s in the ideal age range for this ridiculousness? Probably.

“Seasons flow in a cycle.
Life too, passes through difficult winters.
But after any winter, spring will follow.”

This has been on my TBR for quite a while and I snapped it up when it was an Audible Daily Deal. It was a charming and quiet book about a cafe in Japan at which, when you sit in a certain seat and follow a certain set of rules, you can be transported back in time. The biggest catch is that no matter what you do when you travel back, it will not change the future.

The stories that followed were moving and thoughtful. I loved seeing how people who were grief-stricken over the loss of loved ones found the strength to go back and visit with them, knowing that nothing they’d do would change the future. And their transformations, the lessons learned from these visits, reminds us that we’re all so human and full of mistakes. And it’s okay.