Wordless picture books are so hard to do and do right, and I think this one does it right. This is about two creatures that meet at a party and a line has been drawn. But they’re trying to get each other ‘s attention and communicate when there are no words. This story could be almost anything but it’s to me it’s about playing together and finding common interests. The artwork feels both retro and 70s but a modern take. The times where there’s the speckled background or the plain background maybe that’s meant to mean dirt or sand, I’m not quite sure. What I am sure of is it all came together in a fun story that you get to create yourself. The reader gets to tell the Story Using what they interpret from the pictures. This is something kids will love to do once given chance. 

 

I absolutely loved this. The illustrations are bright, colorful, and sunshiny. The book has an easy to say cadence that rhymes well, and altogether works. The raccoons are the narrator saying you the reader are why they wonder homes.  They come to take out donuts and check out trees and scare cats. The reason they do this is because we destroyed their real homes. We log their forests and paved their grass and now they have no other place to go but our trash cans and our yard. This book is both fun but also a reminder that the animals had a home while we may think they’re a nuisance, they are just trying to live in their new environment. Kids will get and understand this message and help spread it around. This is a fun way to be reminded that the actions we take have consequences. 

 

There are some picture books that are just masterworks of illustration. There is not a single page within this book that I wouldn’t hang up on my wall as art. It has that soft cloud like a happy feeling that makes the reader want to keep turning the page. The story itself is very simple and uses the same words repetitively making it easier to read, but at the same time, more fun in story time. A bee, a bear, a Honey tree, a bear, a tree, a bee, you get the idea. I want to add this to my permanent story time collection as something that would get used over and over again. 

 

This graphic novel, while all over the place, at times really comes together to make an interesting story. There are characters you think you recognize but realize are completely different from what you’re expecting. Red Hood probably does have some reference to Little Red Riding Hood, since Cinderella shows up later in the book. However, these are not the fairytales you grew up with. Werewolf’s are just one of the creatures once they taste human flesh, they must be killed or your entire village is done for. A small village hires a red hood, who happens to be a cursed girl/woman who is not only good at her job but recognizes talent in others. The talent that VELOU has comes from his need to protect his village and a want of revenge. After what happens in the village, he decides to try and join the hunter’s guild. We leave off at the school and find out that one of the village citizens you thought dead is still alive. This book is a quick read and is interesting enough that I think I need book number two. 

 

This is an officially licensed Clue mystery. Yes, as in the game from Hasbro. As the title suggests we know how somebody is going to die: In the hall with a knife, but who will it be. Our game takes place in Tudor house on a peninsula in northern Maine. Tudor house is a girl’s dorm at a budding science academy for only the biggest brains with the biggest pockets. A winter storm has come in, flooded most of campus, and separated the school from the rest of town. The students that didn’t evacuate are now stuck in the house with a killer. But who is the killer and who’s really the prey and why are they dead? Those are the questions you must answer to solve this game of Clue. This book was a lot of fun and very tongue and cheek. There are characters that align with the game like Mustard, Peacock, White, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love the play on the old board game as well as how the action fells like you are in the middle of said game.   Now this book doesn’t end completely. We still don’t know what happened to Orchid, her history or what the hell the Green twins are up to. I need more! I need the next book! This book is a trilogy. All are out and I can’t wait to pick up but number two: In the Study with a Wrench. 

 

This short work of poetry is an interesting but complicated read. I am not a poetry person and find that most of the time to my mind it’s gibberish. I think I understand the overall story is about a character and then their history with their father, his wife, dying, living, who’s, who, etc. I read this to fill a reading challenge prompt and while I can’t say I enjoyed it, I can say it was a different experience that I am happy to have broadened my usual reading habits. 

 

I’m glad to finally read this classic graphic novel. It was somewhat what I was expecting and somewhat completely different. It is a memoir, set in Iran during the many conflicts in the 80s. It’s about the author’s life from childhood through her first divorce. The first half of the story reads like a modern version of the Diary of Anne Frank. It is only in the second half where we see a modern woman learning how to live with the restriction’s society places upon her. The first half of the book is long, but interesting and sometimes hard to understand if you know no history of Iran. The second half of the book was much more about the author herself experimenting and finding who she was in life. And she was not the ideological good girl of the Iranian empire. I know this book comes in both a complete book like I read, as well as two individual volumes.  I could’ve been happy reading just the first volume. The second volume made me hate the main character even though I know she’s not a character but a real person.  I am happy to have read this book and the many things that I’ve learned from it. I can understand why it’s been banned but at the same time do not think it should be. And while I did learn a lot from this book, I cannot overall say that I enjoyed it, but I can see it remaining on waiting lists for years to come. 

 

This graphic novel is an everyday look about a group of international people who live together in Tokyo, Japan. Our main character is coming from America. She was born in Japan but immigrated to the US as a child. While in the US, she purposely forgot her language and culture, so she could assimilate into American society. However, upon graduating high school, she realizes that she lost her heritage and is seeking to find it again with a gap year in Tokyo. Also in the house is a girl who is coming from Korea, one who is coming from Singapore, and two boys. They are all there to learn not only Japanese but English and other things.  They each have different goals such as getting a job or getting into universities, and some don’t know what they want. All they know is they are in this house together and making the best of life. Overall, this book was long and kind of boring. It’s a character study. The art is well done, but it’s not the type of story that I enjoy. It fills a gap in my reading challenges, and it did just win the Kirkus book award for best YA book of 2022.  

 

Turns out this is a kids book on why giving blood is a good thing.  The book uses vampires to help explain how and why blood works and why donating it can be a good thing.  I listened to this as an audiobook but wish I had read the print version.  I think the illustrations would have helped make the point and the importance of the story clearer, but overall, I enjoyed it. 

 

Stein has given a new generation another book to add to their scary stories to tell in the dark.  These stories are different from his Goosebumps, Mostly Ghostly, and other series.  They are one shot stories but are a bit darker and less comedic than most his other tales.  I love how he plays on the fears of childhood, wordplay, and concepts we forget about as adults.  On of my favorite of the new stories is when the kids’ skin will not stay on his body.  As a librarian I love the story where the library books start attacking a student.  It didn’t matter that I am an adult, Stein tells a story for all ages, both scary and spooky.