I’ve had so much going on of late that I’ve put this post off for far too long. I’m extending this particular weekly wrap up to cover the past two weeks as I was unable to post one for last week and frankly didn’t get a whole lot of reading done for either.

But as a particularly exciting aside, my niece’s birthday party was this weekend and I was able to give her the Scientist, Scientist book! She was admittedly far more interested in her new Beauty and the Beast tea set, however, I got to read it to her once things settled down and party guests began to head home. Either way, it was a wonderful day.

And now! Books!

Readalong updates:

We’re rounding down to the last week for our readalong of The Wendy by Erin Michelle Sky and Steven Brown, but don’t worry, there’s still time to sign up and read with us! It’s entirely up to you guys, of course, but remember that participating gets you an extra three entries in this month’s giveaway which is open right now where you’ll have a chance to win an autographed copy of The Wendy and a copy of Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi which we will be reading in May! You can find all the information for readalongs (and the subsequent end of the month giveaways) on the Monthly Readalong page. Remember, the only rule for participation in the readalong is that you read the book. And, as always, you do not have to finish reading it, especially in the event that you aren’t enjoying the book.

Books I’ve read:

The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak is frankly kind of ridiculous. It’s for children, so I suppose I understand it…but I feel that this book accomplishes so very little in the grand scheme of things other than purporting the idea that books without pictures are fun (which is true, but can easily be learned through the reading of other books). I don’t know, I just didn’t like it. I actually read this one while I was in Barnes and Noble looking for birthday presents for my niece and at the end of the day, I was just rather unimpressed with it. I’m sure there are plenty of children who would like it, of course, as the book markets itself by having whoever is reading it make a lot of weird noises or say silly things under the guise of the child having chosen to require an adult to read it to them. I guess it just wasn’t for me. 🦊🦊

Scientist, Scientist Who Do You See? is a brilliant scientific rendition of an old childhood classic by Chris Ferrie that I am honestly just massively in love with. If you haven’t come across this book yet, please see that you do in the future. It’s brilliant in so many ways and I’m so thrilled to have bought it for my niece. Not only does it have a lot of really cool people from our past who’ve contributed so much to our scientific history, there’s even a guide in the back that tells the reader a little bit about each of the scientists. I definitely would recommend this one. 🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊

Rafferty Lincoln Loves… by Emily Williams is definitely an interesting book and I did enjoy reading it. The story features a young boy with a crush who happens to find an escaped horse with three others and the four of them attempt to keep the horse for themselves secretly in an abandoned field. It’s got good and bad moments and all around was the sort of book that didn’t really demand to be read and took me a while to get through. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it wasn’t amazing or exceptionally engaging. And the story behind the title was kind of silly. The cool thing about this book, however, is that the proceeds went to The British Thoroughbred Retraining Centre, which I thought was pretty amazing. 🦊🦊🦊🦊

I loved the book Time Tracers: The Stolen Summers by Annabeth Bondor-Stone and Connor White. It was clever, it was imaginative, it was creative, it was funny, and it was adorable. Is it something I would read again? Probably not for my own purposes, but I can tell you for sure that I would definitely read it to a kid and will hopefully be reading it to one of mine in the future. This book follows the premise that fun time is stolen from us and follows young Taj Carter as he fights to return the fun of summer vacation that was stolen from everyone in his town. This book is definitely one to pick up for your shelves. I received an ARC of this one, so it isn’t out yet…but definitely look for it in stores on May 1st! 🦊🦊🦊🦊

Clever Jack Takes the Cake by Candace Fleming and illustrated by G. Brian Karas is just a really cute story about how the best presents come from the heart. It’s the princess’ birthday and Jack, though poor, wants to bring her a present so he works hard in order to be able to do so. I read this with my kiddos at work several times in English and so, naturally, it found its way onto my Goodreads shelf. I wasn’t in love with this story or anything, but it was definitely was cute and a good read for my students. 🦊🦊🦊🦊

I reread Passenger by Alexandra Bracken this week! Or rather, I finished my reread which has been going on for the better part of this month. I simply adore this story, the characters, and the sheer creativity that the entire plot has. I generally love time travel stories, but this one is just about hands down my absolute favorite of all time, beaten out only by one other book that I can think of off the top of my head. If you haven’t read this book yet, you definitely should. It is nothing short of amazing and it is literally the only book I have read so far that has an interracial couple where the man isn’t white (which frankly means a lot to me considering my own relationship and the fact that the white man with an exotic woman of another race trope seen so often is kind of racist and sexist). But yes, read this book. You won’t regret it. 🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊

(Reviews from this week:

Samuel: My Life Story [Samuel Kidstar] (Book Review #54)

New Releases in YA:

YA Releases on my TBR [February 2018 Part 3]

Last minute thoughts:

It’s looking like my schedule this upcoming week is only going to increase in how busy I am, so I just thought I’d give everyone a heads up in case I miss a post or two at any point during the week!

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