It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet up and share what you have been, and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organise yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment and er… add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn here at The Book Date.

Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels or anything in those genres – join them.

And another week has rolled by. On the whole it was good to me. I had a couple of times with others, which was enjoyable. The funny thing Friday when a group of us gathered it was roaring hot weather and very muggy. And then Sunday with a friend – very cold. Or relatively so! Cardigans and jerseys out for a day! Oh well, that’s summer!

I finished finally Go Tell the Bees I Am Gone and liked it, sure there is a bit of a cliff hanger but was quite comfortable with that!

What I read last week:

What I am reading now:

Another book off my shelf. A YA, I enjoy Julie Buxbaum and this book deals with that topic of scandal of the privileged paying for their offspring getting into college. So far, good reading.

Starting to listen to a book I think I bought in an Audible sale awhile back.  Never read the author or listened to the narrator but sometimes its good to branch out.

Up next:

 

Last Week’s Posts

January 22 Reading Round Up

Five Quotes that took my Fancy.

 

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Meet Daunis the Fire Keeper’s Daughter.

This month I read a book that is a little unusual for me, but still within the bounds of what I like to read. So today I have five things to share about Daunis, the main character.

1. Daunis is an eighteen year old of mixed heritage. Her mother is white and her Dad belonged to the Ojibwe people. Her parents didn’t marry and her mother raised her. Her Dad – the fire keeper died when she was about seven. Daunis means daughter. A fire keeper is someone who lights and cares for ceremonial fires, maybe other things but that’s what I remember.
2. Daunis lives in Sault Ste. Marie right on the border of Michigan and Canada. Some of her story takes place on Sugar Island. That had me looking at maps and imagining what it might be like.
3. While not quite accepted at the beginning of the book by the Ojibwe people she has strong ties to them. I loved how she honoured and kept their spirituality and respect for plants and the earth. She really cares about the elders of the tribe but also her white grandmother. Her Ojibwe aunt (sister of her father) is a very strong woman who keeps an eye out for Daunis and they have a strong relationship.
4. Someone put in a review on Goodreads that they considered that Daunis does not grow as a character during the book. I disagree. She is faced with a huge amount of challenges and she meets them face on with integrity and in the best way she can. By the end she has made choices that are best for her. I love her end choice for what she decides to do with her future.
5. The FBI rope her into going undercover among her community to help them find out who is at the source of some very lethal meth making operations. A little far-fetched -maybe- but it makes for page turning reading as Daunis takes a very scientific approach. Along the way her life is in danger and her heart is broken. But… she is strong!

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My Year in Books 2019

Cover Love

I think I like those blues and summer feel!

 

Most Surprising

Why? It’s a male author and I rarely read them. The cover is uninviting. The book is such fun and the heroine, a seventy something, is amazing. The writing is wonderful and while the story moves reasonably slowly it is still totally engaging.

New to me Author to Love and Read More

Australian author Fiona Lowe.

Her next one comes out soon and I intend buying it. Eyes on you bookshop in February!

Some Favourite Reads of 2019

There are a few more but I can’t go on and on.

First book in a Series I want to read more

Best Book From A Series

To be honest all the books from my loved series were great, however I have a special love for the pay/changeling series so I will choose this one that came out in 2019.

Top Audiobooks

 

Diverse Book I Loved

Middle Grade Love

I just have to do a reread of Okay for Now by the same author. I left that book in my classroom when I retired from teaching. Now I need it again!

 

YA I Need to Read More From

Not For Me

 

The Thing With Feathers by McCall Hoyle

Published: Blink
Date: 5th September 2017
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 288
Genre: YA
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Emilie Day believes in playing it safe: she’s homeschooled, her best friend is her seizure dog, and she’s probably the only girl on the Outer Banks of North Carolina who can’t swim. Then Emilie’s mom enrolls her in public school, and Emilie goes from studying at home in her pj’s to halls full of strangers. To make matters worse, Emilie is paired with starting point guard Chatham York for a major research project on Emily Dickinson. She should be ecstatic when Chatham shows interest, but she has a problem. She hasn’t told anyone about her epilepsy.

As soon as I started reading The Thing With Feathers by McCall Hoyle I was captivated and it held me all the way through.

Written in the first person, Emilie’s story, her struggles, her challenges, her gifts really appealed to me. She is a bright, intelligent girl, up until the story opens she has been home-schooled, but now she faces into the jungle of high school and her counsellor’s and mother’s bidding. Up until now she has been safe at home, now she must face the scary new faces and situations.

Emilie has epileptic seizures and is terrified that she will have one while at school. She endeavours to keep herself distanced from people there, but soon finds herself drawn into a couple of really important relationships. But hanging over her head is the fact that she has not shared that she suffers from epilepsy.

It seems that some of the girls envy her new budding relationship with Chatham, a golden haired sports hero who benefits from a little tutoring from Emilie, who has a real feel for books and poetry. I loved the references to Emily Dickinson, even though I am not familiar with her poetry – although now I feel myself drawn to read some of her poems and that of Walt Whitman as well. Anyone I suspect who knows the poetry of Dickinson will recognise the title of this book.

I liked watching the relationship unfold between Emilie and her mother, and their struggle with the loss of Emilie’s Dad three years before and the way that things are beginning to change.

Emilie has a service dog called Hitch – so loveable, his awareness of Emilie was just adorable.

The book moved along at a great pace, it was one of those books that was so easy to read and left me a little bereft when I had to leave all the characters behind.  A refreshing read.