Books Read in October 2023

Picture Books

Simon and the Better Bone
Corey R. Tabor
RFLBG

I’m not one who loves a picture book laid out in a different orientation, but this is the best use of a picture book gutter I’ve ever seen! It’s an amusing story, too.

Papá’s Magical Water-Jug Clock
Jesus Trejo and Eliza Kinkz
RFLBG

This was a delightful day of work with Papá and Jesus. It really captured kid logic, and the illustrations match the playful nature of the text.

Remembering
Xelena González and Adriana M. Garcia
RFLBG

Whew! This was full of a lot of feelings, beautifully illustrated. Goes nicely with The Longest Let’sGoBoy.

Middle Grade

Eb and Flow
Kelly J. Baptist
RFLBG

Two kids are suspended for fighting for what seems to me to be an incredibly long time. During that time, they learn a lot about themselves and how they interact.

The Girl from Earth’s End
Tara Dairman
RFLBG

A perfectly adequate story set in an unidentifiable time and place and populated with a diverse-in-all-ways cast. There is a bit of gardening, a bit of sick dad, and a bit of adventure. Most plot arcs were painfully obvious and a bit long.

Huda F Cares
Huda Fahmy
RFLBG

I like the words on the page. There was great sister stuff, and good everyday life while also being Muslim stuff. The graphic part of it wasn’t as appealing. I didn’t feel like I was visiting Disneyworld, it was hard to keep the sisters straight because they all looked alike, and I felt that all that white background space could be better used.

Young Adult

All the Fighting Parts
Hannah V. Sawyerr
RFLBG

A pastor is the opposite of holy in this novel in verse. Ameria deals with the fallout. The book portrayed several men who supported her, which was a nice change.

Plan A
Deb Caletti

“Maybe it’s because, right then, I am sure that this argument, about women and their bodies, about women and their rights, about abortion in general, won’t move an inch from where it is now. Not when kids this young already burn with righteousness.”

As usual, Caletti captures all the feelings. (I do wonder about sending your minor daughter across state lines with an of-age young man. That courts even more trouble.)

Forget Me Not
Alyson Derrick
RFLBG

It’s the plot of the movie the Vow, but sub in two girls in love (but otherwise closeted). Due to a head injury, Stevie loses a crucial two years. Thinking you are 16 when you are 18 is a pretty big chunk of development lost. An engaging conundrum.

Super Fake Love Song
David Yoon

An amusing exploration of how pretending to be something you are not might just lead to discovering what might be a better you. I enjoyed the details about heavy metal music and the general fussiness of the main character.

If You, Then Me
Yvonne Woon

Kudos to Woon for engineering a mostly believable Silicon Valley incubator for teenagers. The love triangle wandered off the page after a time, which made sense to me. Unfortunately, it made its way back in the final few pages of the book. Other than wandering and unsatisfying love triangles, this was a great (if not entirely realistic) example of too many grownup choices for a not-yet-grownup.

The Blood Years
Elena K. Arnold
RFLBG

The continued magnifying glass centered on the European World War II experience this time focuses on Jews in Romania. We get to see Frederika experience the fate of being Jewish under the Romanians, the Russians, and the Germans. And then the Russians again, for good measure.

This was obviously a story very close to the author’s heart, but important details were sometimes present and sometimes not. And, rare for an Elena K. Arnold book, the narrative didn’t pull me forward.

Grownup Fiction

Forget Me Not
Julie Soto

This was not the National Book Award Longlist book I was aiming for, but it was a very fun Sacramento-set wedding planner story with a cracking first page. It has a terrible cover though.

Happy Place
Emily Henry

I didn’t ever really accept the main secret needed to be kept, so the framework of the story didn’t work for me.

Young Nonfiction

The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity
Nicholas Day and Brett Helquist
RFLBG

A very readable narrative of what the title says. Plus additional information about Leonardo di Vinci and the Lisa that is Mona. It never occurred to me to wonder how the famous painting ended up in France. Day makes a solid case about the general public’s refusal to believe in anything but the art criminal mastermind. I do wonder if the writing was a little too razzle dazzle and if the illustrations skew young.

Search for a Giant Squid: Pick Your Path
Amy Seto Forrester and Andy Chou Musser
RFLBG

It’s a pick-your-path book, but one where you get to learn all about marine biology while on the quest to find the giant squid. The illustrations were both fun and detailed. I enjoyed that both boat pilots looked like they could use any of the pronouns, and I had fun working my way through every iteration.

The Day the River Caught Fire: How the Cuyahoga River Exploded and Ignited the Earth Day Movement
Barry Wittenstein and Jessie Hartland
RFLBG

The setup was the Cuyahoga River catching on fire, but the book pivots to the creation of Earth Day general environmental stuff, and then goes back to the river and tells us the river is cleaner. How did it get cleaner?

Plus, the book itself tells us that that same river had caught fire several times before. Why was this the fire that led to change?

Also, the gist of the author’s note is “You kids need to fix the environment.” What was his part in fixing or not fixing the environment?

Impossible Escape: A True Story of Survival and Heroism in Nazi Europe
Steve Sheinkin
RFLBG

Sheinkin drives the narrative by mostly focusing on a teenager who survived and escaped Auschwitz. But there was also a side narrative about a Slovakian girl who hid out in Hungary. Sheinkin provides many details about daily life in Auschwitz and also details of the escape. While the plight of Slovakian Jews in Hungary was interesting, I think the divided narrative sucked some of the urgency from the story.

Birthday Lunch from Pollo Bravo

I had a gift card for Door Dash and used to to order delicious lunch from Pollo Bravo including chicken, salad, three sauces, the most delicious potatos bravas, and some Basque cheesecake.

When I ordered, I added that I was very excited to be celebrating my birthday with their food and they decorated my delivery bag and threw in a free cookie! Above and beyond, Pollo Bravo, above and beyond!

I also opened my cards from Matt, which came with chocolate.

SKS: Oregon Lighthouse

This was a speedy delivery postcard having been written on 10/22/23. Two days? The postmark isn’t helpful; it must have evaded Eureka’s system because it has a smudgy Portland postmark. Oh wait! She sent this from Newport, where she and Shawn were visiting family. Mystery solved.

Sara reports that they had both fog and drizzle and also a sunny day and that both were appreciated.

SKS from Four Places

These may have arrived over two days, but I got them all on the same day when I got home from Boise.

Here’s another great blood bank postcard; it seems to have been mauled in the mail. Sara was about to have her first teaching event in three weeks due to her autumn trip to Europe.

Speaking of her autumn Europe trip, this very French postcard came from Paris and was posted on 10/11/23. Sara reports that Paris has been great, although very warm, which she was not expecting given that it was October.

This postcard was written in Munich on 10/1/23. The German international postal system seems to be slower than the French. Sara enjoyed Octoberfest being in full swing. She said that dirndls and lederhosen were on full display.

This postcard was written on 10/4/23 (and so perhaps the rural French postal system is not as speedy as Paris?). Sara reports that the fam, minus she and her dad, went to the market pictured in the upper right. It is apparently 15 minutes away from the family house.

Band Comp (for the First Time in 30 Years!)

My visit to Boise coincided with an event I had not participated in or viewed since October 1993: Band Competition.

I was surprised to see that the 5A schools had been divided into small and large divisions, but was glad they had, or the large divisions would have trampled the small-division schools. I was a little disappointed to see Borah was in the small-schools division. Bigger marching bands are more fun.

It was also nice that Boise High School (my dad and Barb’s alma mater, was also competing near the time of my alma mater (Borah High School.)

We headed down to whatever Bronco Stadium is called now, and were able to sit on the first level, which was reserved for the students, not the families.

The Big Thunder Marching Band (or some contingent of them) started us off with the national anthem.

We watched Boise (still a tiny program, just like when I was in high school) and Owyhee (huge band—for the small division—and really great) and then it was time for Borah to take the field. You can see the people in the pit already in place.

Back in my day, most marching band programs had a theme that tended to be tied to some popular piece of music. My sophomore and junior years we did Fiddler on the Roof and the Beatles, respectively. Based on the three schools I saw, this has changed to a preference for music that is not as readily identifiable. Which, fine, but what has been lost is the crowd reaction as they recognized the what song we were playing. The Borah band looks to be about the same size as it was my senior year, when we got a new band director and he had to rebuild the program. It was surprising to see how few drill team/flag corps there were. I counted four. Even when we were a small band, drill team could field about 30 people.

The full press forward, always an enjoyable part.

We left after Borah’s performance. Based on the three we saw, I would have placed Owyhee over Borah, but when I checked the results the next day, Borah was the division winner! Cheers to the Borah High Band!