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The Little Books of the Little Brontës–creativity in childhood
The Little Books of the Little Brontës
by Sara O’Leary
illustrated by Briony May Smith
This little book of historical fiction introduces children to the famous Brontë family. The girls, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, and their brother Branwell are raised by their father who is a vicar, their aunt, and a housekeeper. They grow up in relative poverty, but have a fun life with much time to exercise their creativity as they are homeschooled and spend a lot of time exploring the moors. Almost anywhere they go would be by foot.
The Little Books of the Little Brontës tells how they loved to read and as children they made tiny books for each other and for their toy soldiers. As they grew older, their reading passion was turned to writing. The sisters died young, but their books are still eagerly read today.
I enjoyed this fictional view of the Brontës’ childhood. It is easy for children to follow. I particularly liked the illustrations; they are delicate, detailed, and whimsical. After explaining that the sisters had short lives, the author takes the reader back to their happy early years which is a sweet ending and very appropriate to a children’s book.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Children’s Fiction, Historical Fiction
Notes: 1. Includes directions on how to make a little book.
2. There are Author’s Notes containing information about the family for adults.
3. The book ends with an extensive Bibliography.
4. Ages 5-9, Grades K-4
5. Print length: 40 pages.
Publication: October 17, 2023—Tundra (Penguin, Random House Canada)
Memorable Lines: (which is also the first sentence)
Many years before you were born,
sometime in the long ago,
a child named Charlotte Brontë
made a little book for her little sister Anne.
A Dream Called Home–search for happiness
A Dream Called Home
by Reyna Grande
Torn between two countries, immigrant Reyna Grande seeks to find herself. Is she Mexican or American? Will she ever fit into either culture? Is she destined to metaphorically straddle the border for a lifetime? When her first book was published in 2006, one of her dreams had come true and she had begun “a lifelong quest to advocate for the Mexican immigrant community by sharing our stories with the world.” What she found in the aftermath of its publication, however, is that her story resonates with other immigrant communities as well and even with Native Americans who feel the same struggles to maintain a dual identity, language, and culture.
Reyna’s difficult, abusive childhood is discussed at various points in her memoir A Dream Called Home as it plays a strong and recurrent role in her efforts to work through the emotions of her turbulent past through her writing. She makes mistakes along the way as a college student and as a young adult, but she learns from them and decides to experience them as a part of the growth that shaped her into “a unique individual with a unique voice.”
The memoir is filled with stories of her personal relationships. She realizes that she is subconsciously seeking out the love of her father that she never felt under his roof or when he left his family in poverty to earn money in the United States. Reyna and her siblings wrestle with so many decisions in the U.S., and Reyna has to accept that the pathway to healing and success for her is not the right one for them. Fortunately, she has Chicana professors that become lifelong mentors. Even though Reyna is a talented writer, she also has to learn the difficult business end of publication.
Her stint as an untrained middle school teacher in Los Angeles is both sad and predictable for those familiar with teaching in that climate. She experiences unsupportive parents, disrespectful students, and ever changing assignments and curriculum. A bright light for Reyna is her introduction to folklórico. It revives her own interest in her Mexican heritage and renews an enthusiasm in Mexican culture for her students, many of whom, like Reyna, feel displaced and unsettled.
Reyna’s story can not be summarized in a review. My job is to tell you that A Dream Called Home is a book you should read; it should be a part of your mental catalogue. Regardless of your position on the influx of immigrants currently overwhelming the U.S. and its broken political system, you will find Reyna Grande’s perspective both informative and enlightening if you want to understand the struggles of people desperate to emerge from poverty who are clinging to the hope of the American dream.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Memoir
Notes: Includes pictures that personalize Grande and her experiences
Publication: 2018—Atria
Memorable Lines:
My biggest virtue and my biggest flaw was the tenacity with which I clung to my dreams, no matter how futile they might seem to others. The dream of having a true relationship with my parents was the one I had clung to the most because it was the first dream I’d had, and the farthest from my reach.
“Being in a new country, learning a new language, a new culture, takes time. You will learn. It doesn’t feel that way now, but one day you will be just as comfortable speaking English as you are speaking Spanish. But no matter what, don’t ever forget where you came from, and don’t ever be ashamed of who you are.”
I was finally beginning to understand that it takes as much courage to leave as it does to stay, and that being a parent was way more complicated than I had ever imagined.
Top Ten Tuesday: Quotes from Cozy Mysteries
Great Quotes from Cozy Writers
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to participate in. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to The Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
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A Fatal Fiction–editing can be dangerous
A Fatal Fiction
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
Mikki Lincoln is a retired middle school English teacher in Kaitlyn Dunnett’s A Fatal Fiction. In order to remodel her childhood home that has been neglected for many years, she supplements her retirement income using her skills as a copy editor. She lived in Maine for about fifty years, but has returned to her hometown, Lenape Hollow, NY. While stopped at a gas station, seventy year old Mikki is verbally attacked by a very angry businessman who has cheated a lot of people over the years by luring them into failing investments. Video of the encounter goes viral, even though Mikki never understood the cause of his anger. Mikki is the prime suspect when her attacker, CEO Greg Onslow, is found dead on one of the properties his company is developing.
Mikki is determined to discover who killed Onslow, but he was not a very nice man, so there are multiple suspects. Friends and family discourage her investigations as they seem dangerous at times.
The editing aspect of the story revolves around Sunny Feldman, last of the owners of a famous resort in the Catskills. She has hired Mikki to edit her semi tell-all memoirs of the celebrities who frequented the resort when she was a teenager. Onslow has bought the property for a development venture. Could their interests be colliding to cause these problems? Could Onslow’s ex-wife or even his second wife have killed him? There are some interesting locals who may have been involved as well. Most importantly, will the murderer set his or her sights on Mikki to cover up the crime and stop the investigation?
I would like to extend my thanks to Netgalley and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: 1. #3 in the Deadly Edits Mystery Series, but will work as a standalone.
2. At the end of the book, there is a section that will especially appeal to those who love language. It is composed of several pages of language and grammar tips including warnings on split infinitives, dangling modifiers, and usage of the terms swearing and foul language. The tips are interesting and often humorous.
Publication: June 30, 2020—Kensington Books
Memorable Lines:
Warmth crept up my neck and into my face. I was torn between feeling a sense of pride for standing up for myself and enduring acute embarrassment because I’d lost control.
Since I used the “teacher” voice I’d perfected over decades of dealing with junior high students, he caved, but he wasn’t happy about it. I’d have said he was sulking, except that there was a definite look of panic in his eyes.
Unfortunately, to properly put on the airs of a grand dame one really needs to be sipping tea from a delicate china cup. I was drinking my coffee out of a Star Wars mug, a Christmas present from my great-niece.
A Field Guide to Homicide–writing retreat you’d love to attend
A Field Guide to Homicide
by Lynn Cahoon
As a book lover, to hear an author’s thoughts on writing embedded in a cozy mystery is a special experience. Lynn Cahoon provides just such an opportunity through her Cat Latimer Mystery Series, but there is even more sharing of the writing process in the latest installment of the series. Cat Latimer, a former professor, conducts writers’ retreats in her restored Victorian mansion one week per month while she continues her own writing. She appreciates that she has the best of both worlds, authoring her own books while helping other writers develop their unique potential.
In A Field Guide to Homicide, Cat is hosting an unusual group that has two writing couples and a rather awkward college student. She is just beginning to recognize the different dynamics of this group and attempt to mesh them into a working team, when they have to cut an outing short due to a gruesome discovery. Seth is Cat’s boyfriend. He restores old homes and helps out with the retreats. Suddenly he finds himself in the middle of a mystery that seems to revolve around some old army buddies who are gathering for a reunion. Cat’s Uncle Pete plays a role too; as chief of police, he attempts to solve the crime and keep everyone safe. At the same time, he tries to entertain his girlfriend Shirley, a retired Alaskan deputy and aspiring writer, who is in town for the week.
A Field Guide to Homicide is structured so that as you finish one chapter, you absolutely must keep reading into the next. The characters are likable. The relationships are complicated, but not overly so. Although the writing process is a major theme, the all-important mystery takes the lead as it heads in unexpected directions. The setting is a writer’s dream come true with Cat having her special writing space on the third floor with both a view and privacy. Her best friend and business partner, Shauna, cooks for the trio of Cat, Seth, and herself as well as providing breakfast and delicious snacks for the retreat group. This is a bookish mystery you won’t want to miss.
I would like to extend my thanks to Netgalley and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #6 in the Cat Latimer Mystery Series, but holds up well as a standalone. Cahoon has a talent for jumping right into the plot while bringing readers up to speed on the characters.
Publication: January 28, 2020—Kensington Books
Memorable Lines:
…she settled onto a living room couch and got lost in a futuristic world where good did conquer evil, even if it took three hundred pages.
She was sitting in the living room, in what she liked to call a good book coma or hangover. Where her mind didn’t want to leave the magic of the world she’d just created as she read the story.
Some people never found their true voice because they want to write what they think will sell or worse, what they think they should write. People needed to realize that writing is all about telling the story. And if you don’t like the story you’re writing, write something different.
Top Ten Tuesday, May 26, 2020
Blogging friend, retired teacher/librarian, and book reviewer Carla has chosen out some of her favorite quotes from children’s books to share. I love them all. There is such wisdom in children’s literature. I challenge all education administrators to apply the quote from The Phantom Tollbooth in all of their dealings teachers and students. We do, in fact, learn from our mistakes!
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to participate in. This week’s prompt is Top Ten Opening Lines. I do not have any idea or memory of opening lines except for Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Instead, after reading Carol’s list at The Reading Ladies, I went with Favourite Book Quotes, specifically Favourite Children’s Book Quotes. I had a real hard time limiting this to ten, but here is what I ended up with.
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Eats MORE, Shoots & Leaves: Why, ALL Punctuation Marks Matter!
Eats MORE, Shoots & Leaves: Why, ALL Punctuation Marks Matter!
by Lynne Truss
illustrated by Bonnie Timmons
Having enjoyed the adult book Eats, Shoots and Leaves years ago, I knew I would love Lynne Truss’ book Eats MORE, Shoots & Leaves: Why, ALL Punctuation Marks Matter! It is written and illustrated appropriately for children but could also be helpful for teenagers and adults who just don’t understand that a few tiny punctuation marks can change the whole meaning of a sentence. Bonnie Timmons’ drawings are hysterically funny and illustrate so well the concepts.
The pages are set up so the differences in meaning are clear. On one page, for example, the words are “Eat here, and get gas.” The illustration shows cars getting gas at a place that also sells food. On the facing page, the reader is admonished: “Eat here and get gas.” with the illustration depicting a restaurant where a patron flies through the air with a tremendous burp. (Now what grade school boy is not going to laugh at that?) Under each picture, upside down, is an adult explanation of the effect of punctuation or lack of it. The inserted punctuation is always clearly indicated in red. This book is a winner. It achieves its purpose of explaining why punctuation is so important. Who knew grammar could be so funny?
I would like to extend my thanks to Edelweiss and to G.P. Putnam for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Children’s Nonfiction
Notes: Ages 6-9
Grades 1-4
Publication: October 22, 2019—G.P. Putnam
Slay in Character–mystery at a writers’ retreat
Slay in Character
There are a few cozy mystery writers that just get it right every time, and Lynn Cahoon is one of them. The Cat Latimer Mystery Series features Cat Latimer, an author and former professor, who has a large Victorian home in Warm Springs, Colorado. There she monthly holds weeklong writers’ retreats. In Slay in Character, the guests are historical romance authors from a writing group in Connecticut, joined by Jessi, a student from the local college. On their visit to a neighboring ghost town, a murder is uncovered and it is just the first of many misadventures that appear to focus on Jessi. The older women take Jessi under their wing and they, along with Cat, her uncle Pete who is the local police chief, her boyfriend Seth, and Shauna, her friend and chef, try to discover who is targeting Jessi.
These women know how to eat! I think I gained ten pounds just reading about all the sweet treats provided at the retreat in addition to lunches and dinners at restaurants. It was interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look at a writers’ retreat. Cat has established a schedule involving speakers, outings, and lots of time for writing, which is, of course, the central part of their efforts. Cat is always looking for new ideas to improve her program and encourage return visits. The notion that main characters who are editors or writers are difficult to make interesting is put to rest in this cozy mystery where there is plenty of action. The plot twists in this book will keep you glued to the pages and wanting more. I did not guess the identity of the murderer, but his motivation ties it all together in the end. Lynn Cahoon has three series going. I can’t wait to read her next book, regardless of which series inspires her imagination.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: 1. #4 in the Cat Latimer Mystery Series, but works well as a standalone.
2. Recipe for Blueberry Coffee Cake included.
Publication: November 27, 2018—Kensington Books
Memorable Lines:
Joseph John smiled, and Cat realized the guy could sell ice water to people in a snowstorm.
The act had been foolhardy and dangerous. something she wouldn’t have even let her fictional character perform because of fear of being labeled Too Stupid to Live.
“Writing is less about inspiration and more about perspiration. You have to work to get the words down, they just don’t magically appear on the page.”
Crime and Punctuation–super senior
Crime and Punctuation
by Kaitlyn Dunnett
Crime and Punctuation features a retired Language Arts (English) teacher who decides to take up editing to fund the remodeling of the 110 year old home she lived in until she was seventeen. At age sixty-eight, newly widowed, Mikki returns from Maine to Lenape Hollow in New York’s Catskills and purchases the three story home of her childhood which has not been maintained properly.
Although Mikki intends for her business to mainly come through online sources, she is approached shortly after opening her enterprise by Tiffany, a young, enthusiastic, and well-funded new author. Mikki accepts her as a client and three days later there is a murder.
Lenape Hollow is a small town where news travels fast. Mikki finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation that involves old friends and enemies and brings up long forgotten memories. Tiffany’s book is fiction, but it is based on Mafia activity in the 1930’s. Her husband and his associates have been involved in some shady deals in the past and may be the models for some of the book’s unsavory characters. Crime and Punctuation is a good mystery with lots of suspects. It is not difficult to figure out who the murderer is, but it is fascinating to watch it play out. The book is well-paced and the main character Mikki is an interesting and likable character. Her honesty in her introspection is refreshing and not belabored. Mikki’s age is certainly older than the typical cozy mystery heroine, but that fact provides a different perspective that is interesting.
I have always enjoyed language, word study, and even grammar. Fresh out of college, I taught middle and high school English for a year while waiting for an elementary teaching position to open up. I was excited to teach, enjoyed the subject matter, and particularly related to the twelfth graders ready to embark on their next adventure in life. So in Mikki I find a kindred spirit with her references to the Oxford comma. Its use in Tiffany’s manuscript actually helped solve the case. On the other hand, I don’t think a reader needs to be obsessive about grammar to appreciate this latest mystery by Kaitlyn Dunnett.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #1 in the Deadly Edits Mystery Series
Publication: May 29, 2018—Kensington Books
Memorable Lines:
I can dress in my best, freshly pressed and pristine, and within five minutes, I look as if I’ve slept in my clothes. Don’t even talk to me about scarves! No matter how I tie them, they just hang there, limp and unflattering, feedbag instead of fashionable.
Thunderclouds scudded into Van Heusen’s face so fast that I expected it to start raining at any moment. My uneasiness about being alone with him returned just as quickly.
“Excuse me. Is Mr. Onslow available?” The redhead looked up, mouth opening in a startled, lipstick-circled O and heavily mascaraed eyes widening. I wondered if my question had been too complicated for her.
Fatality by Firelight–writers’ retreat, readers’ delight
Fatality by Firelight
by Lynn Cahoon
Fatality by Firelight, the second book in the Cat Latimer Mystery Series, is appealing in so many ways, but primarily because it is an all round good mystery with twists and turns and abundant surprises. I had many interruptions during my reading of this book, but I was always anxious to return to the story and I always remembered where I had left off. Both signs of a good book.
The main character is Catherine (Cat) Latimer, a young, widowed, former professor. Her ex-husband’s apparent betrayal and death form an underlying mystery that ties in with strange current occurrences. Other important folks you’ll meet are Shauna, Cat’s longtime friend turned business partner and chef for the retreat, and Seth, Cat’s high school sweetheart who has entered her life again and also has a major role in the writers’ retreat.
The book deviates from a typical cozy in two ways. Although Cat does want to solve the mysteries that present themselves to her, that is not her main mission in life. She is a writer and tries to pay for upkeep on a Victorian mansion she inherited by hosting a weeklong writers’ retreat once a month. The other deviation is the male romantic interest in the book. Usually that role is filled by some type of legal professional–a sheriff, detective, private investigator, etc. No so in Fatality by Fire. There are attractive men in her life, but her legal connection comes in the form of her Uncle Pete, a likable and supportive college town police chief.
I recommend this book for its plot with mysteries on two levels, its snowy Colorado setting, some quirky characters who attend the retreat, and its writer’s theme which is appealing to readers. Fatality by Firelight delivers an interesting story, a strong female lead, and a dose of humor as a bonus.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: Second book in series, but worked well as a standalone
Publication: February 28, 2017–Kensington Books
Memorable Lines:
No matter what kind of turmoil Cat was experiencing in her real life, typically writing made her forget everything and concentrate of the story.
[talking about a writer’s retreat] …the magic is in the process, not the accommodations or the distance you travel from home.
Okay, so this was all conjecture, but that was her job. As a fiction writer, she filled in holes, and this story had more holes than a pasta strainer.
“Well, you know what they say: if it doesn’t kill you, and you’re an author, you use it in a book.”
education pathways 