BOOKS I FINISHED: FEBRUARY 2015 - APRIL 2015

I read six books for myself in January and then everything slowed down. Way down! These are the books I read over the last three months - four that I read on my own, one for school, and a few other kid books we really liked. We've obviously hit the lazy stretch of the school year and the kids have listened to some books on CD, plus we've been outside more, watching movies as a family, and so on, but I'm hoping to get back in the swing of more personal reading this month.

The Matchbox Diary, written by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline
For the kids. I checked this picture book out to read to the kids, but I loved everything about it - a granddaughter hearing her grandpa tell of his childhood, including his move to America from Italy, the creativity of using matchboxes to save mementos as a journal for a child who can't read or write, and the illustrations.

Homeless Bird, written by Gloria Whelan
Fiction. This chapter book falls into the juvenile literature category, but it was in a box of free books, so I curled up in bed one evening and read it. I enjoyed the story of a thirteen year old Indian bride whose future seems hopeless, thanks to cultural norms and adult decisions she has no control over, but who doesn't give up on making a better life for herself.

Magic Trash: A Story of Tyree Guyton and His Art, written by J.H. Shapiro and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton
For the kids. None of us had every heard of Guyton, so we enjoyed reading about him in this book. While his style of art doesn't particularly move me, I admire his passion to reclaim decaying parts of Detroit and turn them into bright, colorful areas, his perseverance in turning trash into treasure, and his ability to foster a sense of community among citizens.

Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family, written by Miep Gies with Allison Leslie Gold
Non-fiction. The title is pretty self-explanatory, as this book describes how Gies ended up in Holland as a child, away from her own family, hid the Franks and other Jewish people from the Nazis for over two years, and how she was able to put Anne Frank's diary in the hands of Anne's father. I've read The Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl before, but it was interesting to read another side of the story.

White Stallions of Lipizza, written by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Wesley Dennis
School for Naomi. We've enjoyed this book of historical fiction three times now, though I thought the beginning was pretty slow the first time I read it. It's the story of a Hans, a baker's son, who loves horses and dreams of one day riding the famous Lipizzaner stallions. This time around we discovered a movie called Miracle of the White Stallions, which tells the true story of how the Lipizzaners, a major part of Vienna's art and history, were saved from the bombing raids of WWII, and watched it after we finished the book.

Postcards from Cookie: A Memoir of Motherhood, Miracles, and a Whole Lot of Mail, written by Caroline Clarke
Clarke is a grown woman, adopted as an infant during a time when adoption was almost always a secret and records were almost always sealed, who visits the adoption agency of her childhood to see if she can get some medical records because of some health issues she's currently dealing with. Expecting nothing but a medical history, she ends up finding out enough other details that she figures out on her own that one of her closest friends is related to her birth family and that her biological grandfather is none other than Nat King Cole. This book is the story of how she and her birth mother navigate their discovery of each other.

A Cold and Lonely Place, written by Sara J. Henry
I read another book this author, Learning to Swim, a few years ago and loved it, so I wanted to give this one a try. I really like Henry's style of writing and though this book didn't pull me in as much as the first one, I still enjoyed it. A mysterious death, a reporter with ties to the deceased, a co-worker who creates a scandal, broken-hearted family and loved ones, family secrets. This book, although fiction, was yet another reminder that life is messy and we never know someone's whole story.

p. 228, This, I realized suddenly, was friendship. You didn't always agree, and you both might do things the other person wished you didn't, but it didn't mean things came to a grinding halt. It didn't mean you stopped being friends. You got over it, and you moved on.

I Ain't Gonna Paint No More, written by Karen Beaumont and illustrated by David Catrow
Teebs got this book from the library and had us read it to him countless times. Rhymes, colors, body parts, art ... if you want educational points, then it has all those things. Really, though, Teebs just thought it was funny.

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