Reading and Listening to ...

Hypatia has been enjoying many good picture books from the library. A few stand outs:

Swamp Angel is a fun tall tale, with a giant girl heroine and lovely lilting language that made us think of Kentucky relatives' accents.

Saint Francis and the Wolf tells the fairy-tale like story of the gentle Saint taming a dangerous (and huge!) wolf. The illustrations are vibrant and evocative.

The True Meaning of Crumbfest gives a new twist to the holidays. From a mouse's point of view, this is a time of year when the crumbs rain down like manna from heaven ... but why does it come once a year? One young mouse sets out to discover why, and his epiphany is very interesting ...

The Rabbit and the Bear, A Christmas Tale follows the traditional story line of the predator and the prey declaring peace for this one special day of the year, but the illustrations are fun and fresh and the story is enjoyable.

Carbon is listening to and enjoying:

The Name of this Book is Secret has some quirky kid heroes and a story so dangerous and scary that the author really shouldn't have written it down ... as he keeps telling the reader in little asides and warnings. Why are children with synesthesia being kidnapped by a mysterious woman?

The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones is the beginning of an exciting series of books, which sends siblings Dan and Amy off on a life-threatening scavenger hunt to follow 39 clues to the final prize, following the life of Benjamin Franklin to France, and then finding the second of the clues, setting them off to research Mozart and head to Vienna ... this series is exciting for the kids and promises to be rich in geography and history details.

I've been reading:

Mockingjay, the final book of the Hunger Games trilogy. I know many were disappointed in how the book ended, but I liked the ending (and the resolution to the love triangle) and I found this one to be just as much of a page-turner as the first two ... good entertainment!

The Illustrated Wee Free Men - how could it go wrong? I am a Huge fan of Terry Pratchett, and have enjoyed his books for decades. I like this illustrated edition, although it's too large a book to carry around with me or read in the bathtub, and that is slowing me down as a reader ...

I'm setting myself a challenge, however, to read something a bit more important, so I've checked out The Great Gatsby from the library. I've never read it before, so this will be my on-going education book for this month.