December Books

As promised (I know, I know, you, my two readers, have all been sleepless with anticipation), I am continuing to backtrack through my books read. 

Next up?  December!

All American Boys

Oh, goodness, so so so good!  I am trying to stay on top of diverse middle grades and YA books, partially for personal reasons but partially for a unit I'm teaching this spring.  The librarian at my school told me about this book.

All American Boys is told from two perspectives--Rashad, a African American high schooler who is falsely accused and beat up my a police officer, and Quinn, a white classmate who saw the whole thing happen but is also pretty close to the police officer.  This book really delved into current day issues.  I would suggest it for everyone, but especially for high schoolers.

Emily Climbs

&

Emily's Quest

I read these books a year ago, and I wrote about them here.

The only thing I would add is that they were just as delicious, precious, wonderful, and magical as before.  I will never love a heroine more than Anne Shirley, but Emily Starr is a close second.

Everything I Never Told You

I've been hearing good things about Celeste Ng and this book for months now.  When it magically appeared on my kindle (thanks, Mom.  Shared kindle accounts are the best), I decided to give it a try.

This book is about the death of Lydia and how her family deals with it.  Lydia has a Chinese American dad and lives in a small town in the midwest in the 1970's.  Ng not only deals with marriage and family issues, but she covers racism and feminism as well.  I really liked this book.  Something about it reminded me of Lovely Bones--maybe the whole death at the beginning but then backtracking to tell the whole story?  

Eleanor and Park

Oh, Rainbow Rowell!  Listen, if you haven't read anything by her, go do it.  Now.  She is just a delightful YA author.  Eleanor and Park is about, duh, Eleanor and Park.  This is the story of a high school romance during 1986.  But it's not a simple love story.  There's a lot of friend and family issues. I could not put this book down.  It's my third Rowell book to read, and that is always the case. Seriously, get you some Rainbow Rowell!

I'm still going to keep going back and working on past months.  But I do have a final count for the year...

72 books!

Not as much as 2016, but, given the craziness of 2017, still a pretty respectable number!