Reviews

My family and I lived for five years in the North American rainforest of Southeast Alaska.  In those days, it rained over three hundred days a year. To this day my children prefer a rainy day to one filled with sun. That’s one reason why this book called out to me.

It’s a compendium of archaeological, historical, and scientific facts about our most common precipitation. Also, included in it are a series of mini-biographies of people who are renowned for some connection to rain.

One of these includes Princess Anne of Denmark who tried vainly several time to sail to Scotland to marry her fiancé, King James VI.  Violent storms blew her back to the Nordic regions twice. This was in August, 1589 during the time known as The Little Ice Age. King James VI eventually enlisted his navy to take him north to marry her.

You might recall Elizabeth Alexander—she read the poem at President Obama’s first inauguration. This memoir by the prize-winning poet covers a much more private, interior space. It tells the story of her love, marriage and family, and especially the jagged rent in her life caused by her husband’s death.

The first chapter queries where the actual story begins. Is it the beautiful April morning in Hamden, Connecticut when Ficre Ghebreyesus returns to his younger son Simon’s trundle bed, saying, “This is the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in.”? Is it when Ficre ran out of the house to buy three dozen lottery tickets on a hunch, wanting the win the lottery for Elizabeth? Or is it way back in ’61 when two women on opposite sides of the earth become pregnant, one carrying a first-born girl, another carrying a later-born son?

The couple met in a New Haven coffee shop; Ficre came over and introduced himself.  He was a chef who had escaped from war-torn Eritrea, Africa at age sixteen.  He became a refugee in Sudan, Germany, Italy and finally, the States. Torn from his family for many years, he ended up in New Haven and in the 90s began painting.

He later said he would never marry a woman who did not honor and love her parents. Luckily, Elizabeth more than fit that bill.

Halloween is on the way, so you're probably in the mood for some scary stories. These books are guaranteed to make your heart beat faster and have you checking for ghouls around every dark corner.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake is about Cas Lowood, a seventeen year old who travels the country fighting ghosts and the undead in an effort to avenge his father. Cas meets his match in Anna, a powerful spirit capable of great evil.

The Diviners by Libba Bray takes place in the roaring twenties. Evie O'Neill gets the best punishment ever when her parents send her away from her small town to live with her uncle in New York City! But Evie has certain abilities that draw both of them into investigating a series of occult murders that might have been committed by a serial killer...who is already dead. 

Scowler by Daniel Kraus proves that the scariest monsters are sometimes the most human.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is soon to be a Tim Burton movie (March 2016). Before it hits theaters make sure to read this incredibly original and spooky tale of an abandoned orphanage and the unlikely children who lived there.

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey is the journal of Will Henry, apprentice to Dr. Warthrop, the Monstrumologist, who studies monsters in an attempt to fight them. This book is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach.

This week (Sept 27th - Oct 3rd) is Banned Books Week. A banned or challenged book is one that has come under fire for various reasons. Sometimes libraries are asked to move a book to a different section (out of a teen section for example), to place a warning sticker on books considered "inappropriate," or they might be asked to remove a book from the library completely. The American Library Association keeps track of these attempts to ban/challenge books, here is a list of the top most challenged titles from 2014.