The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal

The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters is the story of three sisters who go to their ancestral homeland, India, to visit holy sites and perform various rituals in honor of their mother's dying wishes.

The beginning of the book reminded me of the first book I read by Jaswal, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows. Although dying and in agony, the matriarch of the Shergill family is hilarious. She overhears the woman in the bed next to hers dictating a letter and gets the idea of doing something similar. Then, she realizes that if she asks her daughters to do something as a last request, they're much more likely to fulfill her wish because she's dying. So, she asks them to go to India together to do the things she longed to do, herself.

As we're getting to know the Shergill family, secrets are dangled. What's in the jewelry case Mrs. Shergill is afraid the nurses will find? What did Rajni do to cause her mother trouble when they made a trip to India, many years ago? Why did Jezmeen lose her job and what's up with her obsessive need to check for likes on YouTube? What drove Shirina into a marriage on the other side of the globe and what does her husband expect her to do before returning home from India?

Having written all that, I am suddenly realizing that I like this book more upon reflection than I did while reading it and that's absolutely not the author's fault. There were two things interfering with my enjoyment of reading The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters. One was that I was going through a slight reading slump and I probably should have just kept looking till I found something that broke the slump rather than continuing to read a book with the expectation that it would eventually pull me in. I think it was the fact that I so loved Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows and knew how beautifully Jaswal can pull together all the elements of a story that kept me going. And, she did indeed pull everything together to create a very satisfying ending.

The second problem I had was the fact that the mother was dying of cancer and then, after she died, the sisters kept reflecting back to her dying days and how much pain she was in. Since my mother died of cancer and I was there during her last months as caregiver, that hit a little too close to home. I would have had the latter problem regardless of when I read it. I just probably should have saved it for another day because of the not-grabbing-me thing. Having said all that, I enjoyed the elements and there were some wonderful scenes that I keep replaying in my head. Some of the secrets were a little too readily apparent, but I didn't care. Jaswal knows how to tell a story, how to keep you turning the pages and how to wrap things up in an immensely satisfying way. The timing may have been off for me, but I still appreciated The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters. And, I loved the ending.

Recommended - A story of three sisters getting to know each other, the family dynamics that led to the distance between them, and the imperfection of their journey versus the requests their mother made. While the way things went wrong was entertaining, I particularly enjoyed the growing relationship between the sisters as the book progressed and the way things were wrapped up in the end. One of the sisters had a problem that could have gone either way but the author chose the more satisfying ending for her, the one that required summoning a strength of character she didn't realize she had within her. Love Jaswal's writing and now that I've taken the time to look, I realize she has a backlist to delve into, as well. Wahoo for that!

I received an advance reader copy of The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters from HarperCollins. Many thanks! I'm labeling this a "road trip" book, although that's obviously a bit inaccurate since the sisters all have to fly to India and then they get local transport (taxis, the train, etc.) within India. It's about a journey, so . . . close enough. And, now that I've mentioned taxis I'm reminded of my favorite character in the book: Tom Hanks. You should read the book for Tom Hanks alone. He'll make you smile.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals (left to right):

• Listen to the Wind by Susanne Dunlap
• The Size of the Truth by Andrew Smith
• Summer of a Thousand Pies by Margaret Dilloway
• The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis

All were purchased so no arrivals from publishers, this week. The first three are new releases by authors I'm friends with on Facebook, so I admit to thinking of this past week as a week dedicated to buying the books of Facebook friends. The Silver Pigs is the exception, a book bought for F2F discussion in August.


Books finished since last Malarkey:

• The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal
• No Flying in the House by Betty Brock
• Far Flung by Cassandra Kircher

The weather was so amazing, last week, that the vast majority of my reading was done outside. Unfortunately, we're getting into the 80s, now. 78° is about my upper limit for outdoor comfort (I don't like heat) but the moment it begins cooling off, out I go. Hopefully, it will stay dry for a while so the mosquito invasion is delayed.


Currently reading:

• On Democracy by E. B. White

I haven't started a new novel since finishing the children's book, No Flying in the House (which I thought of as filler till I settled on my next fiction read -- apparently, I was wrong), although I have two picked out and I just have to decide which one to read. Honestly, I'm just in a nonfiction mood, so it might be a few days. On Democracy has surprised me. White's writings about democracy are more of a showcase for his sense of humor than serious writings, for the most part, yet there's plenty of wisdom in this selection of essays (and, occasionally, poems). It's a short book and I'm halfway, so I hope to finish it tonight.


Posts since last Malarkey:

• The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves (book review)
• Anything But a Duke by Christy Carlyle (book review)
• Forbidden Area by Pat Frank (book review) 
• Fiona Friday — Izzy on the balance beam (cat photo)

Although it's probably not technically considered a classic, since Forbidden Area is a book that was released in 1956 and it's still in print over 50 years later, I'm calling it my classic selection for the month of April.


In other news:

I think I may have finally figured out the reply comment issue. After perusing a bunch of forum Q/As and reading some articles, I think it may be related to Safari rather than Blogger, although it must be said that Blogger is clearly laissez faire when it comes to problems with their platform. Even at the Blogger forums, a moderator has stepped in to stop people who are having the same issue as the original poster from asking further questions when the solution didn't work for them. I noticed a lot of scolding. It will probably be the weekend before I can switch out to some other browser because I need help from the techies of the family but I'm hopeful that a solution may be coming. The other option, according to Blogger, is to enable cross-site tracking on Safari.

After spending hours trying to figure out how to do that and failing, I told my youngest son that was the recommendation and you should have seen his eyes boggle. "You do NOT want to enable cross-site tracking," he said. Message received. Hence, the decision to switch browsers. I guess I should be happy that this computer is such a pain, since he described cross-site tracking as a Very Bad Thing. Having said that, I am frustrated enough with Blogger to consider giving up the blog and simply moving to Instagram, where I keep my reviews much more succinct because I do them via the cellphone and I'm not so hot with those little cellphone keyboards. I'm @Bookfoolery at Instagram.

In TV and movies, there's little to report, apart from the fact that I discovered that Star Trek: The Original Series is now available for streaming on Amazon Prime. When I found that out, I chose a random episode and it just happened to be one of my two all-time favorites, "Tomorrow is Yesterday". I particularly love the moment when Captain Kirk has been captured by people at the Air Force base and Kirk is told, "I'm going to lock you up for 200 years." Kirk replies, "That oughta be just about right." I'm sure my entire family loves it when I blurt out that line before Kirk does.

Happy Reading!


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Fiona Friday - Izzy on the balance beam

The "balance beam" is also known as the back of the couch. The cushions tend to get squashed. Fortunately, my fur girls are skilled.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Forbidden Area by Pat Frank

Forbidden Area by Pat Frank is the only book I managed to finish during last week's mini-slump and it's a good one but it took me the entire week to get through it because I was struggling to even talk myself into reading. The story eventually became exciting enough that I had trouble putting it down, thank goodness, thus ending the slump (for good, I hope).

Published in 1956, this Cold War era novel by the author of Alas, Babylon is about the run-up to a nuclear attack and the effort by a team of brainy people to prevent the destruction of the U.S.

The first chapter is dramatic, tense, and nerve-wracking, so I was disappointed when the story shifted from the edge-of-your-seat landing of Russian spies witnessed by two teenagers who were not where they were supposed to be to the perspective of Katy Hume, an extremely smart woman who serves in the Intentions of the Enemy Group within the Atomic Energy Commission. Katy and a handful of men are tasked with determining what the Russians are up to, their objective being to avert potential nuclear war. As the only woman in the group, she has to deal with sexism and the attention of two men who are both in love with her. Yawn. While they eventually figure out the Russian plan of attack, there's a lot of fairly dry description of their discussions and Katy dealing with men, both those in love with her and those who talk down to her.

While the people in the Intentions of the Enemy Group are dickering about what's of concern and what's not, planes are disappearing. Are they suffering from metal fatigue or has something else gone wrong that's causing them to crash? Could it be sabotage?

The knowledge of the teenagers on the beach, the investigation of the blown-up planes, the predictions of the Intentions Group, and the actions of a traitor who runs a bank all eventually intersect and once that happens and you realize that the clock is ticking, the book becomes pretty suspenseful, again. But, parts of Forbidden Area are a bit of a slog. Still, I enjoyed it immensely, once I got over my slump and when I closed the book I was so satisfied that I looked to see what else Pat Frank wrote that's still available.

Highly recommended - Although it could be slow and at least one of the storylines was protracted, Forbidden Area is also occasionally heart-pounding and it has that, "You know enough to want to holler at the characters to just freaking look over there" attribute (fun, but nerve-wracking). So, it's really satisfying when the threads eventually are tied together.

After reading my review of Alas, Babylon, I'm pretty sure Forbidden Area is almost on par with the classic post-apocalyptic novel that is so much better known. You do have to be patient with the slower sections, but it's worth sticking out.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Anything But a Duke by Christy Carlyle - #2 of The Duke's Den series

In Anything But a Duke by Christy Carlyle, Diana is an inventor who hopes to sell her (very practical) inventions to keep her family afloat. She has little interest in marriage but promises her mother that she'll look for a suitor if she fails to sell her latest invention. Her family has fallen on hard times and she's determined to help out. Aidan grew up in poverty but has become wealthy through part ownership in a gambling establishment (which was described in more detail in the first Duke's Den book, A Duke Changes Everything). However, without a title, he is forbidden entry to certain establishments and events. He needs a bride with titled connections in order to obtain access. What will he do when he falls for a stubborn inventor without the title or connections required?

Diana and Aidan meet in the opening scene when he's robbed and she happens across the robbery-in-progress while on her way to a meeting. But, then they don't see each other for over a year. When they do, Diana is searching for a patron to help her fund her latest invention, which is a primitive vacuum cleaner that uses suction created through a manual pump. The opening scene nicely establishes Diana's determination and courage.

I had a little trouble letting go of skepticism about the concept of a female inventor who created the vacuum cleaner, since that's a real invention that is credited to not one but two men on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but I liked the story, anyway. I just didn't fall massively in love with it because of that slight dissonance between fiction and reality. If I were the author, I have no idea how I'd resolve that issue -- an inventor seeking funding during a time period in a past whose inventors are known in the present? Tricky. But, I liked the characters and decided to try to shove my disbelief aside and just enjoy the story.

Recommended but not a favorite - An unremarkable story but it was the likability of the characters that made this book work for me. I cared enough to eagerly await their happy ending. Aidan's upward mobility is a little hard to buy into, and yet it makes him a sympathetic character. Diana's invention is a stretch as well, but again . . . she's an interesting character and her motivation worked for me. Yes, you have to work a little to suspend disbelief but it's worth the effort, in my humble opinion. I particularly liked the ending, which was very satisfying.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves

The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves is about a couple who have reunited after 10 years apart. College sweethearts, Annika and Jonathan are surprised to find each other a decade after they parted. She has some unusual quirks but he's patient and kind. She loves her job as a librarian and he hates his investment banking job but is determined to succeed. Can they work through the complications that caused their breakup, along with the problems of the present and make it last, this time around?

OK, so about those quirks . . . it's pretty obvious from the beginning of the novel that Annika is on the autism spectrum, so her unique mannerisms, mode of speech, and difficulty with social interaction are not minor. In the past timeline, she and Jonathan meet at a chess club where only one person is willing to play with her. Like many high-functioning people on the spectrum, Annika is one sharp cookie. Their romance in both the present and the past unfold at around the same pace. So, while they're getting to know each other all over again and testing the waters, both a little afraid that it won't work out a second time, you're also getting to know them as a couple in college and eagerly waiting to find out how they ended up apart (because, honestly, they seem so perfect for each other).

I finished The Girl He Used to Know a couple weeks ago. I read maybe a chapter on the first night that I opened it and the next day construction on our patio was halted by rain. But, then we had a pleasant, sunny afternoon, so I dragged a towel outside and plopped it over the unfinished steps, sat in the sun, and read, hence the photo on the incomplete steps. I moved from steps to porch chair to couch to bed with that book and could. not. put. it. down. I had to warn my husband that I wasn't going to come up for air until I finished. It's very unusual for a book about a relationship to grip me so intensely but seriously . . . I adored the two main characters and was absolutely riveted. I had to know how their story would turn out.

In the last 30 pages or so, something major happens and I don't think I breathed for the entire last portion of the novel. Yes, it's true, I'm dead. And, oddly, I didn't love the ending. But, it didn't matter one bit. I enjoyed the book so much till that point that an imperfect (abrupt) ending wasn't enough to convince me to take off even half a point. I gave The Girl He Used to Know a 5-star rating at Goodreads and then couldn't stop thinking about it.

Highly recommended - The Girl He Used to Know is proof that a book with two immensely likable characters can be compelling to the point of being impossible to put down. Wonderful characters, flawed but kind, and a moving, entrancing tale of rekindled romance for an unusual couple. The last 30 or 40 pages had my heart in my throat.

I loved The Girl He Used to Know so much that I ordered another book by Tracey Garvis Graves, The Island. If I could stop everything and read it right now, I would. But, I have quite a toppling stack of ARCs to conquer in the next couple of months. We'll see what happens. I might not be able to keep my hands off of it.

I received a copy of The Girl He Used to Know from St. Martin's Press via Shelf Awareness and wow, do I feel like a lucky girl for getting to read this book. The release date was April 2.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals (top to bottom):

• Far Flung by Cassandra Kircher - from West Virginia University Press for review
• No Flying in the House by Betty Brock - purchased
• The Desert Sky Before Us by Anne Valente - from HarperCollins for review
• The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri - from Ballantine Books for review
• Inspired by Rachel Held Evans - purchased
• Summer Country by Lauren Willig - from HarperCollins for review 

Nice pile, again. Far Flung (essays) and The Beekeeper of Aleppo were both won via Shelf Awareness drawings and both excited me in a way you'd think books would no longer do. But, yes, I get excited like a kid looking at shiny packages under a Christmas tree, to this day. Kind of wild how the joy of books, especially those that are unanticipated, simply refuses to fade. No Flying in the House was purchased on a whim when someone on Twitter posted her childhood favorites. Since I always liked books with some sort of magical, paranormal, or unusual-gift element -- like The Trouble with Jenny's Ear, which is about a girl who can suddenly hear everyone's thoughts -- I figured the kid in me would like a book about a little girl who can fly (she's part fairy). And, I can always pass it on to my grandkids, when I'm done. 

The Desert Sky Before Us and Summer Country are both "second chance" books. Long ago, I read Lauren Willig's first book and didn't care for it. But, I always figured I'd give her a second chance if any of her titles appealed to me and the synopsis of Summer Country intrigued me. Anne Valente's Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down was a DNF -- last year, I think. But, again, I like to give authors a second chance. I remember just not buying the emotion of the characters in Our Hearts, etc., so we'll see if The Desert Sky Before Us works for me. The Tattooist of Auschwitz was purchased for F2F discussion, a few months from now, and I ordered Inspired after hearing that the author has been placed in a medically-induced coma. It's been on my wish list since it came out but I just kept hesitating. When I heard about her illness, I started thinking about how much I've wanted to read Evans' latest book and that was that. Ordering online is far too easy. I wish there was a bookstore within 20 miles of my home. I was always a little slower to purchase books at full price in person. Not that I regret the purchase; I don't. 

Books finished since last Malarkey:

• Forbidden Area by Pat Frank

After somewhat frantically reading and posting for National Pet Day (or, is it "Pets", plural?), I went instantly into a slump. I blame the Klawde books. I loved them so much that nothing else sang to me. It took about 5 days before I finally began to read, again, and then it was Forbidden Area, by the author of Alas, Babylon, that rescued me from my brief slump. While Alas, Babylon was post-apocalyptic, Forbidden Area is about people who are desperately seeking to prevent an apocalyptic war. It was a little unevenly paced, but once you realize the clock is ticking, it becomes pretty exciting.


Currently reading: 

• The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal 

Just about 50 pages in and I'm finding this story, by the author of Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, somewhat less compelling than her last book but it took about 45 pages for the main characters -- three sisters who are fulfilling their mother's last wishes in India -- to get to the first item on their list. I have a feeling the pace will start picking up, now.


Posts since last Malarkey:

• When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree by Jamie L. B. Deenihan and Lorraine Rocha (book review)
• A Little Chicken by Tammi Sauer and Dan Taylor (book review)
• Just Read by Lori Degman and Victoria Tentler-Krylov (book review)
• Some Days by Karen Kaufman Orloff and Ziyue Chen (book review)
• Holy Squawkamole! by Susan Wood and Laura Gonzalez (book review)
• Growing Season by Maryann Cocca-Leffler (book review)
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin (book review)
• Fiona Friday - Yes or no to cuddles (cat photo)
• My Coney Island Baby by Billy O'Callaghan (book review)

So, it may have been a slumpish reading week but at least it wasn't a bad blogging week, too! The first 6 of those book review links lead to children's books because I made Tuesday a Children's Day. Then, I reviewed my March classic, The Awakening. And, because everyone was headed home for Easter, I convinced myself that Thursday was Friday and posted Fiona Friday on the wrong day. Oops. After I realized what I'd done (and the storm had ended), I figured I might as well do another review on Friday.


In other news:

After the storms finally left, Mother Nature gifted us with some incredible weather so we've spent a lot of time sitting on the patio, sipping beverages and either reading or talking. When it's nice outside, it's very, very difficult not to just spend the entire day outdoors. The railing on our upper patio (it's a double-decker) is about 12-15" in from the edge, which means there's room to sit in front of the fence for almost the entire edge of the upper deck. My husband also discovered it's perfect for walking along and going, "Chugga chugga chugga chugga, choo-choo!" The grandchildren will have fun when they visit.

I watched the usual, last week: NCIS, Chicago Fire, a couple episodes of The Royal, one of The Widow, and Les Miserables. Actually, I missed most of Les Mis because we were out looking for a place to get supper (the cook was fatigued) and most everything was closed. I'm almost glad I did. Poor Fantine. It was hard enough seeing her near the end, much less watching her downfall.

Once again, I need to mention that I'm currently unable to post replies to comments. Blogger's sending me to an error message saying I need to empty my cookies and cache, but since I did that just to get online when I shifted computers, a week ago (Blogger wouldn't let me enter till I cleaned the cookies and cache), that shouldn't be the problem. If it is, I'm going to have to clean them constantly. I've tweeted to Blogger's help-twitter twice, now, because there appears to no longer be a way to contact a human. Has anyone else had this problem?


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

My Coney Island Baby by Billy O'Callaghan

Books, for Caitlin, had never been anything less than a kind of sorcery. As a child she was constantly armed, and even by her late pre-teens she'd become so voracious a reader that the twice-weekly visits to her local library could barely sate her hunger. More than just educating her, books offered release and freedom in every direction. Desert islands and deepest space became as real as the Brooklyn streets; she learned of headless horsemen and river rafting, Victorian-era London and dogs that would trek across continents to find their masters, and she got to know peg-legged pirates, pipe-smoking detectives and cowboys who drank and brawled but who loved their horses more than their women and who prized honor above all else. 

~p. 91 of Advance Reader Copy, My Coney Island Baby (some changes may have been made to the final print version)

You can guess why I chose that particular passage to share with other booklovers. In My Coney Island Baby by Billy O'Callaghan, Michael and Caitlin have been meeting once a month at Coney Island for decades, sharing their deepest thoughts and intimacy in a way neither can with their respective spouses. But, now things are changing. Will this afternoon in Coney Island be their last or will they finally decide to run away together?

Of course, My Coney Island Baby is not just about that specific afternoon. Instead, as the couple walk to their hotel in the biting winter cold, warm up over coffee, and then climb into bed, their story unfolds. You get to know not only how they met and became lovers but how they met their spouses and the crushing pain that shattered Michael's and his wife's joy, the slow deterioration of warmth in Caitlin's marriage.

I'm not normally a fan of books about marriage or infidelity (or both) and tend to prefer a plot-driven book over one that's character-driven, but Billy O'Callaghan is the friend of a friend and I've wanted to read something by him for a while. I just hadn't gotten around to hunting down anything when My Coney Island Baby became available for review. I didn't enjoy the details of the sex scenes, where they're waxing on about how love makes a freckle on the shoulder special or whatever (not my thing, in general) but I found O'Callaghan's writing poetic and I thought he did an excellent job of balancing the past and present so that by the end of the book I cared about the two people enough to be invested in the decision they had to make about whether or not they'd end up together.

Recommended but not a favorite - Particularly recommended to readers who enjoy a character-driven novel and don't mind a slightly melancholy tone. A story of love and longing, marriage and infidelity, joy and grief, My Coney Island Baby was never going to be a favorite because it has elements I dislike. So, I was surprised at how gripping I found it. It ended up being a 4-star book (out of 5) because of the beauty of the prose, the magnetic pull of the central question, the depth of emotion, the moments of wisdom or acute observation:

In your forties your sense of longing shifts, and pleases itself in comfort rather than thrills. 

I'll definitely be looking for more by Billy O'Callaghan. My thanks to HarperCollins for the review copy.

Oops, forgot to mention the reason Fiona Friday ended up on Thursday! Well, obviously I mixed up the days of the week but I also had to hurriedly post because I knew storms were coming and that line of storms was a doozy. You may have seen an image of two flipped cars on the news (I watched the CBS evening news and saw it), last night. That was from our local Walmart. Because the storms lasted quite a while, once I unplugged the computer I just left it that way and spent my evening reading. Today, it's raining but I can see a wedge of blue sky and I'm very much looking forward to it pushing the latest clouds away. My yard is a lake. Ready to dry out, here. Happy Good Friday to those who celebrate Easter!


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Fiona Friday - Yes or no to cuddles?

This happens a lot. Isabel flops down next to Fiona because she's a cuddler. Fiona gives her a couple of licks on the head and then jumps up and walks away. If you can click to enlarge, get a load of Fi's expression. She was on the verge of leaving, while Isabel was all blissed out. She always looks stunned when her sister vamooses.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

There were strange, rare odors abroad -- a tangle of the sea smell and of weeds and damp, new-plowed earth, mingled with the heavy perfume of a field of white blossoms somewhere near. But the night sat lightly upon the sea and the land. There was no weight of darkness; there were no shadows. The white light of the moon had fallen upon the world like the mystery and the softness of sleep. 

~p. 35 of The Awakening

Edna Pontellier is spending a lazy summer in her family's cottage near the beach at Grand Isle in Louisiana. Her children are mostly watched by an unreliable servant (the term used to describe this woman is archaic and, according to the site where I looked it up, now considered offensive) while Edna spends the bulk of her time hanging out with Robert, a single man who is around her age, talking, taking walks or listening to music, wading into the ocean. She is learning how to swim but is not quite comfortable going far out into the water and has a frightening experience, at one point.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pontellier spends most of his time either at his club or ignoring everyone, especially his wife. He's disinterested in her until and unless she steps out of line.

"Sometimes I am tempted to think that Mrs. Pontellier is capricious," said Madame Lebrun, who was amusing herself immensely and feared that Edna's abrupt departure might put an end to the pleasure. 

"I know she is," assented Mr. Pontellier; "sometimes, not often."

~p. 37

Nobody is bothered by the fact that a married woman is publicly spending her time with a single man. The neighbors all know each other, both through the proximity of their vacation homes and socially, when they're back home in New Orleans. Edna's clearly a daydreamer and Robert is willing to listen to her flights of fancy. She's lightened by his presence.

When she and Robert stepped into Tonie's boat, with the red lateen sail, mostly spirit forms were prowling in the shadows and among the reeds, and upon the water were phantom ships, speeding to cover. 

~p. 51


But, then Robert abruptly decides to go and seek his fortune with some friends when a business opportunity in Mexico arises. After he leaves, Edna is lost. She is in love with Robert, feels penned in by her husband's demands for a certain type of behavior, restless, and probably depressed. When they return to New Orleans, Edna's longing grows more pronounced. A friend is receiving letters from Robert, but he isn't writing to Edna.

When Mr. Pontellier leaves town for an extended business trip, Edna purchases a small house next to her home and moves in. There, Robert eventually comes to visit her. But, when he makes it clear that he's not going to indulge in an affair or attempt to break up her marriage, Edna makes a fatal decision.

Recommended - I am utterly fascinated that, upon finally reading this classic I've heard was considered so scandalous upon its publication, I discovered it to be so mild. It seemed to me less a book about a woman who desired to have an affair and more a novel about a women whose husband was completely immune to her charms to the point of torturous indifference. She was clearly not just capricious and whimsical, although Edna certainly was a woman who danced to her own tune. I think The Awakening is really a story about a woman who is so choked by convention that it leaves her chronically depressed. Would Robert have been able to save her from herself, had he been willing? Hard to say. The ending both shocked me and was expected, though. I felt Edna's pain throughout the reading. Loved Chopin's prose. There were several of Kate Chopin's short stories included with the copy I read. At least one of those had a shocking twist ending, as well, and I closed the book wishing I'd read The Awakening with a buddy or a discussion group.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Growing Season by Maryann Cocca-Leffler - Children's Day #6

In Growing Season by Maryann Cocca-Leffler, El and Jo are the best of friends. They're the two smallest children in their class and their names are short, too. They sit together at perfectly-sized desks, help each other reach things that they couldn't reach alone, and pose together for class photos. They play elves together in the Holiday Show and are small enough to share the special reading chair (I assume this chair is in their classroom, as the beginning of the book takes place at school).

Then, suddenly Jo has a tremendous growth spurt in the spring and El is left behind. Jo doesn't need El's help reaching things anymore. She can move to a bigger desk and she's able to reach over El when everyone is told to go get a flower to take home and grow over the summer break. El's the last to get a plant and her little aster is completely devoid of blooms. She feels sad and small but her teacher, Mr. Diaz, assures her that her plant will bloom.

Mr. Diaz leaned in. "El, that's an aster plant. Aster means 'star'."
"It's no star. It's just a little, plain green plant," said El.
"Just you wait! In time, it will grow and have beautiful purple blooms," said Mr. Diaz.
El was not so sure. 

Jo notices El's envious glance between her plant and Jo's and Jo hands El her zinnia, which is covered in blooms, saying she's going to be at her grandma's all summer, anyway. El puts the two plants in her garden, waters them, talks to them, and waits all summer (with her adorable kitty, Maddy -- another book with a cat, yay!) and the girls write to each other while they're apart.

At the end of the summer, both flowers are blooming, Jo comes home, and El realizes something big has happened. She's grown, too!

Aster had finally bloomed . . . and so had EL!

Highly recommended - I absolutely love this sweet story about growing plants, growing bodies, and friendship. At the end of the book, there's a page entitled "Plant life cycles" that describes annual, perennial, and biennial flowers, as well as tender perennials, which I'd never heard of (they may or may not return, depending upon the climate) but have experienced because we're in a climate zone where certain plants I knew as annuals when living farther north come back year after year, here. I'm always especially fond of children's books in which there's some factual information to round out a story. I already enjoyed the tale of the two little girls who grow at different speeds in the same way their plants bloom at a different rate but the extra info just added to what was already a 5-star read.

This is the final review for today's special Children's Day event and not a dud in the bunch. Awesome. Many thanks to Sterling Children's Books for another wonderful pile to read and share with the world!


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Holy Squawkamole! by Susan Wood and Laura Gonzalez - Children's Day #5

Holy Squawkamole! Little Red Hen Makes Guacamole by Susan Wood and Laura Gonzalez is an updated version of the old "Little Red Hen" story in which nobody will help the Little Red Hen gather ingredients and cook. In Holy Squawkamole! she's making guacamole instead of baking bread. She asks Coati, who is up in the trees when she goes to the avocado grove, to help her pick the avocados she needs for her guacamole. Coati says no.

"I'm hanging out. But I'll help eat it when it's done, gallinita roja. Nothing beats a tasty guacamole."

"Then I'll gather the avocados myself," said Little Red Hen. And she did. 

Similarly, she asks the snake to help her pick tomatoes, the armadillo to help her pull onions, and the iguana to help her snip cilantro from the garden. All turn her down and none will help her do the cooking, either. So she does all the work of harvesting and cooking, and at the end she adds a special ingredient. When the guacamole is done, everyone is happy to help her eat it and they all choose a different way to eat it -- in a taco or a burrito, rolled into a tortilla, or straight. But, they get a surprise. The special ingredient she added was a hot pepper and the guacamole is super spicy. 

Suddenly they stopped chewing. 

They huffed and puffed.

They winced and wheezed. 

They sweated and slobbered. 

The Little Red Hen confesses to having added a surprise ingredient, but agrees that nothing beats a tasty guacamole and they all finish it up. 

The story is followed by a two-page spread entitled, "The Story of Guacamole" that tells how guacamole (then known as ahuacamolli, or "avocado sauce") was created in Mexico, in the 1300s, and brought back to Europe by Spaniards in the 1500s. It talks about the fact that guacamole recipes have a regional flair, depending on the country in which the guacamole is made, and about National Guacamole Day in America. I didn't realize there was a National Guacamole Day. I must plan for this. 

There's also a guacamole recipe with helpful hints (how to choose a perfect avocado, how to keep your guacamole from turning brown, ideas for extra ingredients to add). The following three pages contain an illustrated glossary of terms used in the book. "Gallinita" is Spanish for "little hen", for example, and "roja" means red, so when Coati calls the hen "gallinita roja", he's calling her "Little Red Hen". 

Recommended - I didn't give this my highest recommendation because I thought making the guacamole hot but still sharing was a little weaker than the lesson in the original "Little Red Hen" story, in which the other animals are taught that if you're not willing to help out with the work involved in harvesting and cooking, you don't get to share when it's time to eat. But, I love Holy Squawkamole! anyway. I love it for all the extra bits of information. And, I'm crazy about the illustrations. They're both vibrant in color and give the illusion of action. And, it's true that nothing beats a tasty guacamole.

I received a copy of Holy Squawkamole! from Sterling Children's Books for review and it's definitely one of my favorite books of this lot to look at. I adore the illustrations. Many thanks to Sterling!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Some Days by Karen Kaufman Orloff and Ziyue Chen - Children's Day #4

Some days 

are chocolate pie days.

Kites up in the sky days.

Jumping super high days. [...]

Some days are hurt myself somehow days.

Icky . . . sticky . . . OW! . . . days.

Need my mommy now days. 

Some Days by Karen Kaufman Orloff and Ziyue Chen is a rhyming book that would make an excellent prompt for classroom or home discussion with little ones. Some days, the book shows, you have fun swimming, jumping, getting a puppy, playing dress-up, etc. But, other days are not so good. You can feel lonely, scrape a knee, get in trouble, have to run to catch the bus, or do chores you may or may not like.

I kind of wish I could copy the entire text of this book in this post because it does such a nice job of covering a lot of the types of fun activities and big disappointments that a child may have. The illustration that shows children stuck indoors on a rainy day when they'd rather be playing kickball reminded me that I used to keep a small pile of books on a high shelf in my eldest son's closet when he was little, just for rainy or sad days. That's what one of the things I think this book would be especially good for -- keeping up high to pull out on a grumpy day or a day the little one's stuck indoors and not happy about it.

Highly recommended - Each of the rhyming paragraphs above comprises a two-page spread, so the text is on the light side. Also great for thinking about the fact that there will be bad days, I think Some Days is especially useful for pulling out on a moody day, a sick day, or a stuck-indoors day to remind children that both good and bad things happen and even if you're having a bad day, good days will come.

Yet another wonderful book sent to me by Sterling Children's Books for review! My thanks to Sterling!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Just Read by Lori Degman and Victoria Tentler-Krylov - Children's Day #3

Just Read by Lori Degman and Victoria Tentler-Krylov is a tale of people of all ages reading anywhere and everywhere. Wildly imaginative illustrations show people reading from paper books and electronic devices (audio books are also mentioned). One child reads braille while another tells a story to a smaller child using sign language. Two children read dots and dashes drawn in the fog on a window (Morse Code, I presume). The places people are shown or described reading are as broad as the types of reading material: in a car or on a train, in a pile of raked leaves, while grocery shopping, on a playground, beneath a tree, in a treehouse (my favorite illustration, by far) -- even in a music store.

Some of the illustrations show places to read, some show what the reader is imagining. In one illustration, a child is reading a book with a person holding an umbrella on the cover. She glances outside, through an airplane window, and "sees" (read: imagines) people floating in the rain with air in their umbrellas like latter-day Mary Poppinses.

Recommended - A great book to encourage future readers or beginning readers. I love the diversity of places shown, types of reading matter, and even the cast of characters created to encourage children of all stripes to read anywhere. A note on the illustrations: I found that the busy-ness of the illustrations overwhelmed me a tiny bit, but once I became accustomed to them, I liked the fact that there was so much to look at. Just Read is a good book, then, for children who enjoy looking at illustrations that have a lot going on, especially before they're old enough to actually read. My children spent a lot of time flopped on their bellies, looking at illustrations and often reciting memorized text before they were old enough to read. They would have loved Just Read.

I received a copy of Just Read from Sterling Children's Books for review. Thank you! More reviews forthcoming!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

A Little Chicken by Tammi Sauer and Dan Taylor - Children's Day #2

Dot is a chicken with anxiety issues. A lot of things scare her: wolves, bears, the occasional lawn ornament. One day, Dot is adding safety features to her chicken coop when she accidentally bumps an egg ("a soon-to-be sibling"). The egg rolls out of the coop and down the hill.

Dot gulped. She knew this wouldn't be over easy. 

This is the moment you realize A Little Chicken is going to be very punny. I like puns. A friend of mine calls them cheap humor but since I'm not as clever as he is, I can enjoy lesser wordplay. And, there's plenty of it in A Little Chicken. Dot is determined to save her little brother or sister, so she chases the egg down the hill (and trips). The egg keeps rolling onward in a way no egg truly can: across a pond where it bounces on a lily pad, flies up into a tree, the limb breaks and the egg rolls onward, deep into the woods.

At the edge of the woods, Dot's tail feathers shake because, of course, there are things she's afraid of in the woods. But, she must save that egg. It's one of her siblings.

Dot fluttered past one stunned wolf, two startled bears, and three very questionable lawn ornaments. 

This made me laugh. The lawn ornaments are gnomes, which I love (I have one hidden in the bushes outside my library window, where I can see it but nobody else can).

Dot eventually saves the egg and a baby sister immediately hatches from it. By this point, she's made it back to the farmyard and she's a hero. The book ends with the thought that it's okay that Dot is still afraid of a lot of things:

Sometimes a big hero . . . is just a little chicken. 

Highly recommended - This is an especially good book for a very wiggly child who is still getting used to being read to, because it has few words, and for the child who loves word play. And, trust me, really young children can understand puns. I've been surprised by both my children and eldest grandchild, in that regard. A great theme -- you may have fears, and that's okay, but there are times even someone who is afraid of things can be courageous. Love it. I adore the illustrations, especially the fact that the lawn ornaments are gnomes and the chicken is more than a little awkward. Note that he looks terrified of a butterfly on the cover! Also, I may be a tiny, tiny bit biased in my love for this book by the fact that I pretty much adore everything Tammi Sauer writes. She's been a favorite children's book author since Chicken Dance, which I reviewed way back in 2009 (it's still an all-time favorite with a special place on the shelves).

I received a copy of A Little Chicken from Sterling Children's Books in return for my review. Many thanks! This is my second review for Children's Day. More to come!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree by Jamie L. B. Deenihan and Lorraine Rocha - Children's Day #1

When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree by Jamie Deenihan and Lorraine Rocha is the story of a little girl who gets an unexpected gift for her birthday. She has a list of 6 items she wants (mostly electronic, like a drone and a pair of headphones) but when the unnamed little girl is given a lemon tree by her grandmother, the narrator gives her some advice. She should act excited and thank her grandma.

Keep smiling until Grandma leaves (or falls asleep),

and do not harm your lemon tree. 

Don't:

Drop it off a bridge.

Tie it to your birthday balloons.

Play ding dong ditch the lemon tree. 

The narrator tells the little girl to keep her lemon tree warm, wait for it to grow (she is shown repotting it and putting it under a light), and take it back outside when the snow melts. When the tree finally grows lemons and they can be harvested, the little girl makes lemon juice and turns it into lemonade to sell so that she can buy some of the things on her wish list. But, instead of getting something electronic with the money she makes from her lemonade stand, she buys flowers and plants a garden.

Highly recommended - A lovely book about being polite when receiving an unwanted gift, following instructions, exercising patience, and sharing with one's community, all wrapped up in a sweet, colorful story. The book even includes a recipe for lemonade -- perfect! I love the illustrations. Almost every page has a little gray cat (not all, but most), which warms my cat-loving heart. And, there are a lot of smiles on the faces of the characters. When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree is a happy, uplifting, positive book that will encourage little ones to learn how to grown things -- not necessarily just lemon trees.

I received a copy of When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree from Sterling Children's Books for review and it's the first of 6 posts I'm going to publish for today's Children's Day. I'm going to try to schedule all the posts about 2 hours apart.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals (left to right):

• Flubby Is Not a Good Pet by J. E. Morris and
• Flubby Will Not Play With That by J. E. Morris - both from Penguin Random House for review
• On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves - purchased 
• Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - from HarperCollins for review
• Klawde - Evil Alien Warlord Cat #1 and #2: Enemies by Marciano, Chenoweth, and Mommaerts - from Penguin Random House for review

Not pictured: 

• Molly Mischief: My Perfect Pet by Adam Hargreaves - from Penguin Random House for review

If you were hanging around, last week, you know I already reviewed 5 of the arrivals for a National Pet Day book promotion, which was a blast. That leaves On the Island, which I bought after reading The Girl He Used to Know by the same author. I wanted to see what else Tracey Garvis Graves has written and the vast majority of readers seemed to prefer On the Island to any other Graves title, so I ordered a copy. For various reasons, I'm not sure if I'll get to go anywhere at all (vacation-wise), this year, but it sounds like a good vacation read so I'm going to save it either for road or plane, just in case. If it's needed for a mental break I won't hesitate to break into it, though. Good Omens was one of the most exciting books I've received in a while because I'm planning to watch the series and it's not always possible to get a Neil Gaiman book for review. They tend to be in hot demand.


Books finished since last Malarkey:

• Flubby is Not a Good Pet! by J. E. Morris
• Flubby Will Not Play with That by J. E. Morris
• Anything But a Duke by Christy Carlyle
• Molly Mischief: My Perfect Pet by Adam Hargreaves
• Klawde - Evil Alien Warlord Cat #1 by Marciano, Chenoweth, and Mommaerts
• Klawde - Evil Alien Warlord Cat #2: Enemies by Marciano, Chenoweth, and Mommaerts

I had so much fun reading all the children's books for the National Pet Day promotion and I'm hoping to review the other children's books waiting to be reviewed, this week. They really brighten one's day. I highly recommend buying a few children's books you love for when you need a mental break or are feeling blue, even if there are no children in your world and you just like kids' books.


Currently reading:

• The Free Speech Century by Stone and Bollinger

I have bookmarks in 2 or 3 other books but after gobbling up the Klawde books (which I absolutely loved), I didn't want to leave that crazy alien cat and his boy Human, so the only thing I could focus on was nonfiction. I hadn't picked up The Free Speech Century in a while and it's been a nice in-between book, this weekend. I'm about halfway through it and ready to get closer to finishing it, so this may not be a big fiction reading week. We shall see.

I'm not sure which of the other books I've started will stick so I'll just skip mentioning them, for now.


Posts since last Malarkey:

• What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton (book review)
• Flubby is Not a Good Pet and Flubby Will Not Play with That by J. E. Morris (book reviews)
• Molly Mischief: My Perfect Pet by Adam Hargreaves (book review)
• Klawde - Evil Alien Warlord Cat #1 and #2: Enemies by Mariano, Chenoweth, and Mommaerts (book reviews)
• Fiona Friday - Thinking about it (cat photo)

In other news:

There's not much other news. We started watching Les Miserables on PBS, last night, and loved the first episode. Otherwise, it's same old, same old. I had a busy week and really only watched one or two episodes of The Royal, plus the aired episodes of NCIS, and Chicago Fire.

The patio work is going well. We now have paving stones on the patio and they'd almost finished paving the stairs when a storm rolled in on Friday. The paving stones are so pretty. Our old town, Vicksburg, was hit by a tornado on Saturday but it looks to have been a mild one -- no deaths, only minor injuries. Vicksburg was still a mess, yesterday, with trees and power lines down all over town but I'm happy that everyone I know is fine. We had some strange circular winds -- we literally stood outside, looked to the left, and the wind was blowing east while to our right it was blowing west -- but nothing dangerous hit, here. It was enough to cancel Paint Night but they're planning to reschedule. Wahoo for that. I love Paint Night.

Oh, and the comment glitch is ongoing. I've attempted to reply to some of your comments 3 or 4 times. I hit post and they disappear. Hopefully, that will resolve, soon. If not, I'll tweet at Blogger, later this week.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Fiona Friday - Thinking about it

This may be one of the funniest things I've ever done for the blog. Since my laptop is on the fritz (completely unusable, at the moment), I have no photo editor. I tried to remove a messy spot from the background of this shot using a free online photo editor and instead ended up with a patch of weirdness. Not sure how to fix it and the photo was kind of bland so I'm leaving it, as is. Oddly, I was unable to figure out how to do the same to the opposite side of Fi. Clearly, it's going to take some time to figure out this online photo editor!!! Fi was thinking about jumping up onto the arm of the couch, here.

Quick note: I am currently unable to post replies to comments and assuming this is a Blogger glitch that will be repaired. I'll reply to comments as soon as I'm able! I appreciate your comments!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat and Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat, Book 2: Enemies by J. Marciano, E. Chenoweth, and R. Mommaerts

Klawde, Evil Alien Warlord Cat, Books 1 and 2 were sent to me together and they're such fun reading that I am toying with pre-ordering the third in the series (which is scheduled for release in October).

The first in the series, Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat #1 tells the story of a vicious warlord cat from another planet. Former High Commander of the planet Lyttyrbox, Wyss-Kuzz is banished from his home planet and sent to a place where carnivorous ogres live: the planet Earth.

Wyss-Kuzz arrives in Oregon in the driving rain and attempts to enter Raj Banerjee's home by pressing a button, which turns out to be a doorbell rather than an electronic portal opener (disappointing -- so primitive, these humans). The brilliant warlord is stuck pretending he's an ordinary cat and is instantly adopted. He's named Klawde by the family. Klawde is not a nice cat at all, which leads to a bit of hilarity, but Raj is excited to have a kitty.

Raj has just moved from Brooklyn, New York, and the last thing he wants to deal with is nature but his mother insists that he must go to a 2-week nature day camp that culminates in Survival Night. In alternating chapters, the story of Raj's time at camp (with evenings at home) and Klawde's hours spent building a transporter to return to his home planet unfolds.

I can't remember the last time a book literally made me laugh out loud like Klawde did. It's been a while. As I was reading this delightful immensely fun outer-space-cat-meets-normal-Earthlings story, I kept thinking about my youngest son (a cat lover, like myself) and how much he would have adored this book as a youngster. Full of dark humor and ridiculous situations, it seems right up his alley. In fact, I mentioned the book to him on the phone and Kiddo admitted that even now, at 27, he would probably enjoy it. Klawde is a mean cat who scratches frequently and, let's face it, he must have been pretty evil to have been banished from his planet. But, in the end he becomes friends with Raj.

In the second book, Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat #2: Enemies, both Raj and Klawde are faced with new challenges. Raj is doing fine at his new middle school since he shared the fact that his best friend from Brooklyn is the son of the artist who created the popular Americaman comic books. The only problem with this story is that Raj and Cameron are no longer friends. When Cameron shows up in the same small town in Oregon where Raj has moved, his status as a newly popular kid is in jeopardy. And, when Cameron helps his team perfect their project in robotics class and it appears that he may have sabotaged Raj's team's robot, Raj falls sway to Klawde's advice to take revenge.

Meanwhile, Klawde has returned to Earth after being betrayed by his former lackey, Flooffee-Fyr, who closed the wormholes to his home planet. Klawde has trained his humans and one could say he is learning how to behave like a normal pussycat. He no longer scratches the way he used to. But, he's bored waiting for Flooffee-Fyr to fail as the new emperor. Then, he gets a brilliant idea. He'll set up a new school for warriors. After his first attempt (training the neighborhood cats) fails, Klawde decides he must start from the beginning and he brings home three kittens to train. It's going well but then disaster strikes. Klawde's mortal enemy Ffangg has also been banished to Earth. And, he's determined to make sure Klawde is humiliated in every way. Revenge is definitely on the menu for Klawde, as well as Raj.

Oh, my gosh, I love these books. Enemies is every bit as good as the first in the series, clever and funny with such distinctive voices. The contrast between Klawde, an uppity former high emperor cat, and Raj, who is really just a nerdy but nice kid, gives the book a raucous spice:

All day, I stewed in the bilious juices of my fury. I must have my revenge! But how? By what means?

As my massive feline brain analyzed all the possible stratagems, the boy-Human arrived home. I hissed at him to leave me alone, as I needed privacy for my scheming. His pestering, however, was relentless. 

"But Klawde, don't you understand? Our robot won! On Monday I get to show it off to the whole school!" He was practically jumping up and down with excitement. It was most unseemly. 

So much fun.

Both highly recommended - A little sci-fi, some clever plotting, distinctive voices, and loads of humor make this a winning series. And, Raj learns his lesson about revenge being a bad thing (after that last post, you know how important that is to me in a children's book). Really, the only question is whether or not my youngest son will be able to pry these books away from me because I know he'll want to keep them, once he's read the two books.

This is the final post for National Pet Day. My thanks to Penguin Random House for the Klawde books and the other books I had the privilege of reviewing, today.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Mollly Mischief: My Perfect Pet by Adam Hargreaves

Molly is often called Molly Mischief, and for good reason. She's a troublemaker. In Molly Mischief: My Perfect Pet by Adam Hargreaves, Molly and her brother go to the zoo with their dad. Her brother likes the warthogs best. Meanwhile, Molly gets in trouble for tickling a penguin, chasing a parrot, waking up a flamingo, and feeding the crocodile. Then, she discovers the hippopotamus and decides she wants a bigger pet than the one at home. She has a mouse named Polka but mice are small. Molly wants a big pet.

Molly starts bringing home zoo animals. First she brings home a hippo, but her mom and dad aren't happy about that. The hippo is muddy. Molly brings home a polar bear but her room is too hot and polar bears don't fit in the refrigerator. So, she tries bringing home a giraffe. He is way too tall. So tall she has to cut a hole in the roof for his head.

You can see where this is headed. Molly keeps bringing home animals, eventually settling on an elephant, but the elephant causes enough chaos (squishing the family car, tearing up the neighbor's garden) that eventually Molly decides maybe a little mouse isn't so bad after all.

Although there are some things that are better when they are bigger . . . 

The story ends with Molly dropping a very large water balloon on her brother's head.

Not a favorite - I noticed the illustrations in Molly Mischief look very much like the British Mr. Men characters and discovered that Adam Hargreaves inherited the Mr. Men franchise from the original artist. Interesting! I always liked Mr. Men books. But, I confess that the detail in some of the animals, with loose lines, didn't feel quite consistent with the tidiness of the human characters, so I'm not massively in love with the illustrations, although I don't actively dislike them. They just seem a little off. My problem with this book was that naughty characters usually learn their lesson in children's books and Molly is really not nice, not just naughty. On the page with the warthog, Molly says:

My brother liked the warthogs best of all. They are nearly as ugly as he is. 

OK, sorry, I just don't like nastiness in children's books and that's mean. So is dropping a very large water balloon on someone's head. I also think it's a bad lesson to show a child teasing animals at the zoo without repercussion. So, Molly Mischief: My Perfect Pet didn't work for me, although it had its moments. The high point was definitely the hole in the roof Molly cut for the giraffe. That actually made me laugh. Since it's not a favorite of mine, I recommend that you flip through Molly Mischief before making a decision about purchasing. Fortunately, it's the only one of the 5 books Penguin Random House sent me for National Pet Day that I disliked. The next two are totally fabulous. Stay tuned!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Flubby is Not a Good Pet and Flubby Will Not Play with That by J. E. Morris

It's National Pet Day and I've partnered with Penguin Random House to talk about 5 children's books (I'll be doing this in three posts) with pets in them. The two Flubby books shown with my Isabel are about a lazy cat. Both are great for beginning readers, with simple, easy-to-read words that are somewhat repetitive for the sake of ease. Flubby looks a little like Isabel, doesn't he? There is a real-life Flubby, whose photo is inside the cover of the second book, Flubby Will Not Play with That.

Flubby is Not a Good Pet by J. E. Morris tells the story of Kami's pet cat. Flubby is a chunky cat who doesn't do the things his person, Kami, wants him to do. He doesn't sing like her friend's bird, catch like another friend's dog, jump like a frog, or even run inside when it rains.

But, when it thunders and both Flubby and human are frightened, they need each other.

Cat and other pet owners will totally get the theme that what really matters is the affection between pet and human. The simple words for early readers make Flubby is Not a Good Pet a great book either to read to a small child or for new readers to practice beginning reading skills, especially little animal lovers.

In Flubby Will Not Play with That by J. E. Morris, Flubby's human, Kami, brings him a bag full of toys that she's bought for him but Flubby is not the most energetic cat. He doesn't want to play with the bird or chase the wind-up mouse. He's not interested in the dangling fish and the big mechanical toy terrifies him.

Kami apologizes to Flubby when the bag is empty. There are no more toys for Flubby to try. But when Kami runs out of options and leaves the room, Flubby discovers the empty toy bag is very fun, diving into it head-first.

Another easy-to-read and adorable Flubby book, perfect for little cat lovers. The simple illustrations and Flubby's expressive face are cute without distracting from the text.

I loved both books and I confess I'm probably biased because I'm a cat lover. I've met cats like Flubby. Mine are both energetic and enjoy their toys but some cats are seriously picky and even the two I'm owned by aren't interested in the same things. Bags, of course, are always tempting (like boxes).

My thanks to Penguin Random House for the two Flubby books, which I hope to share with my grandchildren. My eldest granddaughter is definitely a pet lover (she and Fiona kitty became friends during a recent visit) and is already beginning to read at 4 years of age. I wish she was closer so we could read these books together, right away!!!


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