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Posts by Molly W
The American Library Association (ALA) announced the top books, video and audio books for children and young adults, including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newbery and Printz awards at its Midwinter Meeting and Exhibits in Denver today.
Books that involve gangs of problem solving kids, hijinks and hilarity are perennially popular at my house. I checked this new book out because it looked like it fit that bill, and boy did it ever. Wherever this series goes I will follow. Madison, Dylan, Emma, Aidan and Ava are twelve years old, classmates, and members of the Not-So-Secret Society.
A famous chef and restaurateur in failing health decides to pit his children against one another in order for one of them to achieve the rights to his successful empire. All of the children (12 boys!) and one daughter, Brianna Jakobsson, must start a new restaurant. The child with the most successful restaurant wins the inheritance. Each restaurant must be in a different town and all of the children must open their restaurant without any assistance from their father. Brianna is at a major disadvantage because she is the youngest in the family and has only recently graduated from culinar
Retired United States Navy Admiral William H. McRaven offers the most practical advice. Take it. Follow it. Make it your own. The Navy SEAL says so.
Brunonia Barry is back with another novel set in Salem with some crossover characters from The Lace Reader and The Map of True Places.
Wendy Davies is driving along a lake road with her two younger brothers Michael and John when their car skids off a bridge and into the water. One of Wendy's brothers is missing after the accident - he's just plain vanished. \Did Michael survive the crash and wander away? Has he drowned in the lake? Wendy blames herself for the accident. Her family is in crisis. It's all confusing and impossible to come to terms with. What follows is the torturous response to the accident: the journal that Wendy keeps for her therapist.
Going back over time, I calculate that I've read and written about at least six different cat comics or children's graphic novel series on MADreads. This does not include a childhood spent reading Garfield. This does not include my recent (personal) purchasing and reading of the new "Grumpy Cat/Garfield" comic series. Who knew that Grumpy Cat and Garfield knew each other?!?!? It's an amazing world!! I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's a wealth of this kind of material out there and I celebrate it. All of it.
All I can say is, wow. Somehow we make it through elementary and middle school friendships. It's not easy. It's not nice. It's not quickly forgotten. And it doesn't seem to get any easier for subsequent generations. Why is that?
Ruth Ware does it again! If you've read In a Dark, Dark Wood and/or The Woman in Cabin 10 and felt pulled in by the masterful skills of the author in constructing a psychological thriller that is tortuous and creepy as all get out, you will undoubtedly find The Lying Game to be of equal or higher chill factor.
Newsprints by Ru Xu features girls as newsboys, strained race relations and a serious look at robot civil rights in what I would describe as a steampunk variation on Annie! The story is beautifully drawn with complicated gender roles and a somewhat mysterious locale and setting.
