I hadn’t listened to the whole speech previously - it was a good reminder to hold tight to my pack

I am glad my life is not even a sliver of the intrigue of ancient Egypt. It was engaging as an audiobook, I am not sure how much is fiction but I guess that is true with most stories from this time period since they are trying to recreate from what art remains

This was a little hard to get into at the beginning I thought (with a lot of characters without identifying them by name), but once it gathered speed in DC it kept my son and I interested. And we learned a lot about art along the way. We will be excited to visit the National Gallery of Art on a future trip

I listened to this as an audiobook - and spread out over two months. It was good, but I wonder if I lost some of it because I was listening and not reading. Magical realism is not my favorite, but it was interesting to think about how this family’s experiences intertwined

This took me a little to get started on - but once I got about 1/4 of the way through it picked up speed for me. I liked the format, and the audiobook narrator was very good. It was interesting to think about the decisions we make and the corresponding consequences

This was a good read, and it really explained to me clearly how I have privilege, even though I consider myself an open-minded liberal person. Many parts of this book hit awfully close to home for me (the good / bad binary and the discussion of white guilt towards the end in particular). All of that is good even if it made me uncomfortable - I am better educated now about things I was unaware of before. What I was hoping there would be a little more of is "so what can I do?" --- tactical suggestions --- but I understand this is a complex issue, and there are no silver-bullets and I need to do additional research and make my own intentional decisions to help interrupt racism

This was my second time reading this - I read it years ago with my older son, and now it is my younger son’s turn. I remember liking more before - this time it didn’t as much. Maybe all the “dinguses”? Maybe just because I thought it took a while to get to the “minor concussion”, and then seemed to race to the ‘now he is back to competition’? Not sure, but it didn’t wow me this time around.

However - both my kids really liked it when they were 4/5th grade - and since that is probably the target audience more than me :)

I should have loved this... novel based on a knitting shop?! Yes please! I did not love it as much as I thought I would :)... maybe because there were a lot of characters that were interesting but since there were so many I didn’t get attached enough to any of them?

Oh boy did I dislike Dillon. I guess that indicates this was well written.

I appreciated the glossary at the end and the pronunciation indications in the book.

I have loved this story since we got this book as a gift years and years ago. I thought of this book today for the first time in a long time and dug it out. My 10 year old let me read it to him at bedtime since I told him it reminded me of him and how well he uses words to describe things. Upon my word! How lucky I am, indeed!