If you are in ANY way helping to connect kids with books, you are doing amazing things. Immeasurable things. World-changing things! I know it’s easy to believe, in an HDTV, 3-D, virtual reality world, that books are becoming passe. I promise that’s not even remotely so. Kids can connect with books now every bit as …
Lance Hendricks is a perfect kid—plays trumpet, 4.0 GPA, has earnest heart palpitations for a girl, knows his way around cars. When his trusty steed—er, car—breaks down in the middle of the Washington wilderness, things—wait for it—go awry. It’s like David Lynch’s Lost Highway meets The Wizard of Oz, but without all the monkeys. [And we’ll gloss over …
Finn Murphy dropped out of college and has been driving a long haul moving truck for over 30 years, and wrote this great book about it all. I just could not put it down. He brings to life the seemingly mundane job of a mover in this rollicking story, sharing his intelligence and insights on …
We always look forward to summer reading challenges. Have you done Book Bingo? The Seattle Public Library’s Summer Book Bingo includes a “recommended by an independent bookseller” square. We highly recommend you visit your local indie to get a personalized recommendation, but if your schedule isn’t meshing with your neighborhood bookstores’, don’t give up! Browse our …
Glancing at this book initially I thought it looked interesting but nothing could have prepared me for the workout my imagination would get as it traversed the clouds with Aza Ray on her breathtaking adventure. Headley has created a world I could have only dreamed of as a child and breathed life into it and …
I adored this debut middle grade novel. Narrated by young Arturo, it tells the story of how he tried to save his family’s restaurant and his neighborhood from alluring yet ultimately devastating gentrification at the hands of a smarmy real estate developer. There’s some light romance, a touch of bittersweet sadness, a ton of hilarious …
Trouble in Rooster Paradise is a fun mystery set in 1950 Seattle and in 2003 in a Seattle area injury rehab center. 83 year old retired shamus (private detective) Gunnar Nilson is laid up in 2003 in a nursing home with a busted gam (leg). Josephine Tey used a similar gambit in The Daughter of Time, which …
Any child psychologist will tell you it’s a bad idea to compare siblings to each other. Ask big sis why her room isn’t as neat as her younger brother’s and she won’t clean it up, she’ll drop out of school and ride off on a motorcycle to the tattoo shop. It’s probably not a good …
This book touched my soul. No one could have perfectly blended music into a book as Colleen Hoover did. This story was absolutely nothing I was expecting (as most Hoover books are to me) it to be and I love this story so very much. Ridge was mysterious and fiercely loyal. Sydney was unique and fun. The instant chemistry …
Where has all the funny gone? If reading is escapism, then I have to confess that, in the last few months, what I’m really looking for in my literature is something a little offbeat, a little surreal, and definitely funny. I don’t need more tragedy or pathos or–no, seriously–yet another novel about missing kids or …
