“If you have let pride get the better of you, then you have already lost, but if you grab pride by the scruff of the neck and ride it like a stallion, then you may have already won.”

Kindergartener isn’t very excited about these. Light on pictures and basically the exact plot of an episode - so while we enjoyed reading together this isn’t his favorite series.

Review by Maxwell, Age 5: “It had some scary parts like the wolves and the frost giant. My favorite part was the cookie part. The wolves were the wizards. The wolves were humans.”

“There were plotters, there was no doubt about it. Some had been ordinary people who'd had enough. Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact that the world was run by old people who were rich. Some were in it to get girls. And some had been idiots as mad as Swing, with a view of the world just as rigid and unreal, who were on the side of what they called 'the people'. Vimes had spent his life on the streets, and had met decent men and fools and people who'd steal a penny from a blind beggar and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he'd never met The People...
People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people..
As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up. What would run through the streets soon enough wouldn't be a revolution or a riot. It'd be people who were frightened and panicking. It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning and all the little rules broke down. And when that happened, humans were worse than sheep. Sheep just ran; they didn't try to bite the sheep next to them.”

I don’t know that the final resolution of the novel was quite as bleak or mildly depressing as the above but this particular portion of the book really impacted me in a way that many novels haven’t recently - it did something books always should. It challenged some of my ideology and spoke to me. It’s not as if I’m so revolutionary and as an attorney I tend to prefer order, logic, and even thinking. As such Vimes deeply appeals to me, so his thoughts on “revolutions” spoke to me in I’m not used to.

We all know Pratchett was good, but novel after novel I find I’m self saying “god damnit he was SO good.”

Randolph is a Nebraska author. I’m passionate about where I come from and (apart from my scifi and fantasy bend) I love stories of everyday life and characters from every age/walk of life. As such, I really wanted to like this collection. Generally speaking it left me “meh.” The stories were usually mildly depressing without ever going full fledged traumatic - leaving me waiting for a shoe to drop that never came. It felt reflective of real life (yay!) but in tone the stories were bleak at worst and often a bit too slow bordering on boring. She tackled small town life to the unique “city life” in Nebraska’s only cities. I think this book is an accurate portrayal of many Nebraskans and our homes, but I also believe it failed to explain why living here is remarkable. The subtle beauty of the plains. The sturdy, reliable people. She touched on everything that makes us hard to love while failing to show our strength.

Review by Max, Age 5 “there was some parts that I didn’t care for, like the beginning. “

These books are just too fun to read to my kindergartener. He laughs out loud and is so engaged!

I found this book in the romance section, but was immediately certain that it was not in fact, a romance novel. My suspicion was correct - this is pure mystery and fantasy. This is a great and pretty tightly crafted character driven story. I really cared about both Satrine and Minox and appreciated how flawed and damaged the characters were while still remaining likable.

There is a reason Gaiman is as regarded as he is. I listened to the audio book read by the author. Richard Mayhew is every person who is accidentally on purpose a hero and a warrior. London Below is terrifying and alluring simultaneously.

My son is OBSESSED. As an adult reading these aloud I find the chapters a bit disjointed and almost as if they're individual short stories, but it usually loops around. Either way, my 5 year old loves the pictures and the characters. He tells me he would like to give this book 101 stars.