The Last Summer of You and Me
by Ann Brashares
I made it to page 13 and had to DNF it because of all the strong profanity. I wasn’t enjoying the story anyway. It is told from three different characters POVs, and that felt like it was too much head-hopping for me. The characters were over-thinking everything to an excruciating degree that just annoyed me. Every little thing in every second had to be scrutinized from three different perspectives. Too much.
Explorer Academy Vela: The Sailor Cipher (Book 1)
by Trudi Trueit (Goodreads Author)
Sailor is entering her second year at the Explorer Academy, and the Explorer students discover that they will be travelling in a new ship, the Vela. Sailor is devastated when her older sister Keel mysteriously disappears, but Sailor’s parents want her to continue with the school year aboard the Vela. She thinks that her sister might be sending her hidden messages with clues about what happened, and Sailor gets involved with a dangerous secret society. Her friends Cruz and Emmett and Lani are always there to get into trouble and out of it at Sailor’s side. But what they don’t know is that Sailor is hiding a remarkable secret of her own.
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A Forthcoming Wizard (Tildi Summerbee, #2)
by Jody Lynn Nye (Goodreads Author)
Tildi and her friends have almost completed their quest to find a dangerous magical book and lock it up where no one can use it for harm. But now Tildi has fallen into the clutches of a radical group called the Scholardom, who believe that only humans are pure. They want to magically change all centaurs, dwarves, werewolves, and other half-human creatures to be completely human. If they gain control of the magical book, it would be disastrous. Tildi is the only one who can touch the book, so she is at the center of all their plans.
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Farmer Boy (Little House, #2)
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Garth Williams (Illustrator)
Almanzo Wilder is growing up on the farm, helping his father with all the chores and planting and harvesting. But he isn’t allowed to go near the young colts, for fear that he would startle them or teach them bad habits. More than anything, Almanzo longs to have his own colt to break and ride, but his father says he is too young. Year after year, Almanzo works in the barn and in the fields, determined to prove to his father that he is ready to have his own colt.
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The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, #1)
by Rick Riordan (Goodreads Author)
Carter and Sadie are brother and sister, but they rarely see each other, since Sadie lives with their grandparents while Carter and his dad travel the globe researching ancient artifacts. On one of their rare visits, their dad takes them to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone. They discover that their dad has connections with Ancient Egypt and he is working to release the Egyptian gods that he believes are trapped in the Rosetta Stone. It turns out that the ancient legends of magic are real, and the Egyptian gods are breaking free. A secret society called the House of Life is determined to incarcerate the gods again, and Carter and Sadie are caught in the middle.
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Little House on the Prairie (Little House, #3)
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Garth Williams (Illustrator)
This is my umpteenth time reading this book, and I enjoyed it just as much as I did when I was a girl! There’s a simple charm to these stories of pioneer life that invites you in.
As always, Laura is my favorite character because she is spunky and brave and hilarious, while her sister Mary is prim and boring.
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Guess How Much I Love You: Deluxe Book and Toy Gift Set
by Sam McBratney, Anita Jeram (Illustrator)
Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare take turns trying to demonstrate how much they love each other. The little hare stretches out his little arms and says I love you this much! But then the big hare stretches out their arms a lot wider and says I love you THIS much! No matter what little hare does, they can’t hop higher, or stretch taller, or say anything to show their love, without the big hare saying something bigger and higher and taller. Finally, they say their love reaches all the way to the moon, and the big hare adds “to the moon and back”.
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An Unexpected Apprentice (Tildi Summerbee, #1)
by Jody Lynn Nye (Goodreads Author)
Tildi lives a simple life on the farm with her brothers in the land of the smallfolk. But when her brothers are all killed by monsters, the council says that a woman cannot manage a farm by herself, and they say they will force Tildi to get married. So she runs away and travels out into the world of the humans, centaurs, and elves. Before her brother died, he had applied to become an apprentice to a famous wizard, so Tildi dresses up like a boy and takes the letter of apprentice as her own. But first, she has to get to the city where the wizard lives.
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Jane and the Waterloo Map (Jane Austen Mysteries, #13)
by Stephanie Barron
Jane is invited to the palace of the Prince Regent to visit his library. She is “delighted” that the Prince Regent has “granted her the honor” of dedicating her next book to him, even though she secretly despises the Prince Regent for his selfishly lavish lifestyle. While Jane is visiting the library, a military man stumbles in, foaming at the mouth and evidently poisoned. Before he dies, he manages to whisper two words to Jane, “Waterloo Map”. Jane begins to investigate what the poor man could have meant, and why he would have been poisoned in the Prince Regent’s own house.
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We the Sea Turtles
by Michelle Kadarusman (Goodreads Author)
This collection of short stories follows different children around the world who encounter sea turtles in some way. Each child is inspired by the turtles to live their life with courage and be true to themselves.
I enjoyed the basic stories, but I got so annoyed with the constant preaching about the environment that I DNF’d the book at page 103. It was even more annoying because some of the things the characters were saying about the environment and pollution and carbon footprints are only theories, not fact. So it was weird that they were talking about climate change, but not giving all the facts.
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