Weekend Reading #11

I will admit that a couple of things have really slowed down my reading this summer.  

First of all, Stranger Things on Netflix completely captivated me.  I binged on that really hard this week.

Secondly, I am playing Pokemon Go.  I adore this game, but my very favorite thing is that my son will ask me to drive him and his friends around to play.  When your 18 year old, about to go to college son wants you to go out and play a game with him, you go out and play that game!

Anyway, I am going to focus on some reading this weekend.  These are the two books I am currently reading.  I am participating in a blog tour for The Secret Sea in August.  I like the alternate reality aspect of this book.  I also received The Gallery in the mail and this cover is so gorgeous I bumped it to the top of my TBR.  I love the feel of this book in my hands.
(I am also going to Star Trek this weekend, can't wait!!)
What are you reading this weekend?

My Thoughts: A Clatter of Jars by Lisa Graff

3 peanut butter cookies.

Cover Love:  YES! I love this cover, it is darling.  It makes me think of summer camps and lakes and fireflies and fun.  Wonderful cover!

Why I Wanted to Read This:
I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this in the mail and after I read A Tangle of Knots I knew I had to read this one.  While it's not quite a sequel, it should definitely be read after A Tangle of Knots. Here is the synopsis from GoodReads:

In this companion to A Tangle of Knots, it's summertime and everyone is heading off to camp. For Talented kids, the place to be is Camp Atropos, where they can sing songs by the campfire, practice for the Talent show, and take some nice long dips in the lake. But what the kids don't know is that they've been gathered for a reason--one that the camp's director wants to keep hidden at all costs.

Meanwhile, a Talent jar that has been dropped to the bottom of the lake has sprung a leak, and strange things have begun to happen. Dozens of seemingly empty jars have been washing up on the shoreline, Talents have been swapped, and memories have been ripped from one camper's head and placed into another. And no one knows why.

Romance?:  Nope.

My Thoughts:
While I enjoyed this read, I didn't like it as much as A Tangle of Knots.  Part of the reason is that in Knots, the Talents that people had were kind of normal things.  Things that a lot of people might be good at, just enhanced for different people.  I enjoyed that idea a lot.  It's not like people were superheroes, they were just enhanced.  The Talents that some of these kids had in Jars were more...powerful.  Not all of them, some of them were normal, but they just seemed more impressive.  I didn't really like that change.

This was also a darker book.   The campers were in real danger in this book and a lot of the campers were desperate about their Talents or lack of Talents.  The camp director was one of the most desperate and the desperation leads her to doing some pretty awful things.  I didn't feel like anyone was in true danger, and I hoped everything would be tied up nicely, but I was antsy while reading a lot of this book.

However, I liked the setting a lot.  I always wanted to go to a summer camp like this one, on a lake.  I always went to sports camp that were hot and dusty, not on a lake.  I liked most of the kids in this book and how they worked together to figure out what was going on and how to fix it.  And I did like being back in the same world as A Tangle of Knots.  It's really fun and there is a lot of possibilities.  Also, I love how easily the author writes other points of view.  She can slip in and out of characters so smoothly the story just flows!

To Sum Up:  Love this world and these are two awesome middle grade books.  I will be book talking them a lot in the fall and recommending them for a lot of my 6th grade readers!

My Thoughts: A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff

4 yummy yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

Cover Love:  I love this cover, it's colorful and whimsical and includes so many elements from the book.  I adore it!

Why I Wanted to Read This:
When this book first came out, I saw a lot of comparisons to Savvy, which was a book I adored.  It went on my TBR list, but I wasn't able to get it read until now.  Wish I had started sooner!  Here is the synopsis from GoodReads:

Told in multiple viewpoints, A Tangle of Knots is a magnificent puzzle. In a slightly magical world where everyone has a Talent, eleven-year-old Cady is an orphan with a phenomenal Talent for cake baking. But little does she know that fate has set her on a journey from the moment she was born. And her destiny leads her to a mysterious address that houses a lost luggage emporium, an old recipe, a family of children searching for their own Talents, and a Talent Thief who will alter her life forever. However, these encounters hold the key to Cady's past and how she became an orphan. If she's lucky, fate may reunite her with her long-lost parent. 

Romance?: No.

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this book.  The style it is written in makes for a quick and easy read:  short chapters told from different points of view.  The author nails all of the characters voices.  I love that the Talents each person can be simple, like accurate spitting, or more advanced, like baking the perfect cake for a person.  I bet the author had a great time deciding how people in this world can be Talented.

I loved little Cady and rooted for her through the whole book.  But while Cady felt like the main character, this was a book with multiple characters whose storylines are woven together so smoothly.  It was easy to keep track of who was who and what each one was doing.  And while I was able to make some educated guesses about where the story was going to end up, I was constantly and pleasantly surprised by the turns in the story.  And I LOVED how everything was woven together so beautifully at the end!

And all the recipes!  I am going to try some of these cakes.  Look for a future "Food From Fiction" post on that!

To Sum Up:  Awesome middle grade read.  This one is easy to get into the hands of the younger readers in my school!

Remember to enter my giveaway for a pack of Lisa Graff paperbacks!  Check out this post to enter.

Added to the List #22

Last week I got a fun pack of middle grade books from HarperCollins.  There were a few in here that had escaped my attention so it was nice to see them in person!

Somebody Stop Ivy Pocket by Caleb Krisp:

I have but haven't read the first Ivy Pocket.  The covers are amazing, a little bit of goth and whimsy mixed.  And they look like such fun reads.  I need to read the first one soon!  I put them both on my last book order of the year.

Backyard Witch: Jess's Story by Christine Hepperman:

This one also is the second book in a series.  The Backyard Witch is such a fun character, can't wait to see what is happening with her in this story!

Eleven and Holding by Mary Penney:
 This is a middle grade book that had escaped my attention before I got it in the mail.  It looks so good and like it would be such a good addition to any library.  I might not be able to read this one yet because of emotions, but I will hopefully sometime this summer.  Ordered it for the fall for my library.


5 Times Revenge by Lindsay Eland
Another one that had escaped my attention until now!  Looks like such a fun middle school romp, can't wait to give it a try!

Added to the List #17: Simon & Schuster Edition

I got some awesome books in the mail from Simon & Schuster in September.  I have ordered most of them for my library (I want to read through more of The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch to see if it's appropriate before for my middle school library).

A Nearer Moon and This Side of Wild are already really popular.  How gorgeous is the cover for A Nearer Moon?!  I have heard awesome things about The Nest--supposedly really creepy.  And Kenneth Oppel is always a favorite of mine.

Thanks so much for the books Simon & Schuster!  Always good to discover something new for mine and my student's enjoyment!

Added to the List #16

I have a lot of added to the list or book haul posting to do.  I need to catch up from September and October. To start, though I am going to work my way back.  Last week I checked out  In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware and Blood and Salt by Kim Liggett from my public library.  Both look like spooky, intriguing reads and both have gotten a lot of positive reviews.  Hopefully I will get time to read them before they are due!

I was sent Uprooted by Lynne Reid Banks from HarperCollins.  This looks like an interesting story about World War 2 from a Canadian's point of view.  Plus, Lynne Reid Banks is an excellent writer.

My Thoughts: Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate

3 frosted maple cookies.

Cover Love:  OH YES!!  I just completely adore this cover.  I want to be on that park bench with Jackson and Crenshaw!

Why I Wanted to Read This:
Because of the cover and the synopsis.   I am not as in tune to childhood hunger and I think I need to be for someone who works at a middle school so I was hoping this would give me some more insight.  Here is the synopsis from GoodReads:

Jackson and his family have fallen on hard times. There's no more money for rent. And not much for food, either. His parents, his little sister, and their dog may have to live in their minivan. Again.

Crenshaw is a cat. He's large, he's outspoken, and he's imaginary. He has come back into Jackson's life to help him. But is an imaginary friend enough to save this family from losing everything?

Beloved author Katherine Applegate proves in unexpected ways that friends matter, whether real or imaginary.

Romance?: Nope.

My Thoughts:
I haven't read The One and Only Ivan, a travesty I know,  nor any of the Animoprhs, so I think this is my first Katherine Applegate story.  The writing is wonderful, fluid and descriptive.  It was easy to stay in this story once I was there.  Jackson is very sympathetic and is his little sister.  His parents, however, are not.

I know there are mixed reviews on this book.  I can totally understand that.  It's a very real situation that Jackson's parents find themselves in, and you just want to shake the pride right out of them.  I mean, how can someone be too proud to ask family members for help or to go to local services for help, yet not too proud to stand out with a cardboard sign.  That just seems super false.  Jackson's dad was diagnosed with MS.  He has a medical issue.  The fact that he is not going to his parents or siblings or that Jackson's mom isn't makes me scratch my head.  I know that the one thing either set of my husband's or my parents would do is make sure that our kids are fed.  Even if they didn't help out with rent, they would  make sure my kids had food.  Jackson's parents seemed so immature and childish.  It was very frustrating to read. 

Not only that, they don't let their kids know what is going on, yet their kids know.  The parents need to open up, Jackson is way more wise than give him credit for!  He is so stressed out by what is happening that his mind conjures up his imaginary friend from his younger childhood.  I loved Crenshaw and his relationship with Jackson was very sweet, there just wasn't that much of it.

In the end things for Jackson and his family seem to get packaged up nicely, however, with the way Jackson's parents act I don't imagine it will be that good for long!

To Sum Up:  I think this would be an important book for some of those kids that you know are in weird transition with their families.  They are in and out of our school every year.  It would be nice for them to see that they are not alone, however, most of them are probably in way worse situations than Jackson.  I also think many kids who are no where close to Jackson's situation would enjoy this because it is a glimpse of a life that hopefully they will never know.  I will be buying a few copies for my library.

Book requested and sent from Macmillan.  Thanks so much!!

Added to the List #14

I got two books in the mail this week--Crenshaw and We'll Never Be Apart.

I am SO excited for Crenshaw.  It sounds amazing and emotional and just perfect.  Plus, cats!!

We'll Never Be Apart is one I won though a Shelf Awareness giveaway.  It looks intense and scary.

I ran to my library to grab The Finest Hours (the young readers edition) after I saw the trailer at the movies because Chris Pine is in the moive.  And also, it looks super interesting.