In Bookstores Next Week - Witchlings by Caribel A. Ortega

 

I did not expect this package, an advance reader's copy of Witchlings by Claribel A. Ortega. I approached it warily. Would I like it? Would I not? Was it about an elderly or quirky sleuth? NO! Is it about bookstores, booksellers, authors or librarians? Not really.

Welll????? 

The pandemic has made me ultra fussy about trying new things. It takes me so much longer to dive into a book these days. I read a few pages and then, sigh, I put the book down. During the next read I go further, and then further into the plot. On my third attempt, I have to force myself to put the book down - IF the book is good enough.

Witchlings IS good enough!  YAY!

Seven Salazar enters the Black Moon Ceremony to find what coven will be hers. The one thing she does not want - or expect - is to become a Spare, one of three 12-year-old witches who are NOT chosen for a coven.

Right there, you know what is going to happen, right? That Seven's fate is shared by her worst enemy, Valley Pepperhorn and the new girl, Thorn LaRoux, does not make this terrible fate any better. Spares never become witches. If they are lucky, they get jobs that don't require magic. If they are NOT lucky, they are little better than slaves. Oof!

UNLESS!!! There is always an "unless". If I tell you what the "unless" is, I may be telling you too much. The book checks off a lot of boxes; transforming friendships; suspending judgment; accepting differences; learning to trust. Then, there are the adventures, the forays into extreme danger, the endangered family members and the unfair treatment of Spares. Plus a seriously creepy mystery derails the Spare coven's attempts at earning their witchdom. Just when you think you see the light at the end of the tunnel, everything changes.  Make NO assumptions, readers. This is a kaleidoscope ride.

But the story is NOT finished. Seven, Valley, and Thorn may have prevailed but evil is still out there...waiting. 

                                                                (Mwahahahahaha!)

(On sale on February 1, 2022.)

Packages

There might be holiday wreaths and garlands on some houses in your neighborhood but the HOLIDAYS are truly over.  We have turned the corner. 

There are lingering side effects. My desire to buy the "perfect" holiday gifts and my reluctance to go into crowded stores this Fall resulted in a new addiction - online buying and PACKAGES! "Brown paper packages tied up with string"...  except these packages come in padded envelopes with reinforced packing tape.  That doesn't have the same lyricism though. "Packages in envelopes with reinforced packing tape" does not scan.

The ease and allure of online shopping ate a hole in my credit card spending. I have a small self-imposed "cap" on my spending and every month, for the past four months, my credit card company warned me that I exceeded my cap. Don't worry. My credit line is much larger than my cap. Still, what happened to the Old Frugal Me? The Use Cash Whenever Possible Me? The I Don't Need That Me? Where did I go?

Well, the news gives me an answer to that. I turned into an homebody because it's Sickness Season and I hate being sick. I never much liked shopping in stores anyway. Too many choices and never the right one - shopping takes too much time.

Online shopping takes time, too. Why is looking at things on a screen so much better than fingering the same things in a store? Choosing online takes time and effort. But it also offers the joy of anticipation! 

Looking for packages has become the bright part of my day. A day without a package is a day without sunshine to steal a saying from an old ad. I don't even care if the package is for my husband. We open them with an eagerness unrivaled by any of our other activities. Do Not Judge!

Last night - our mail comes very late - I got a BOOK in the mail. The Paris Bookseller is completely outside my usual reading. I lean toward fiction for young readers and cozy mysteries with elderly or quirky sleuths.  It is time for me to BREAK OUT and try a new book about ... books. (You did not expect me to stray too far, did you?)

Back to packages...I like sending them, too.  And here's the best thing. I can send a package from HOME!! I have a postal scale and I can "Click'n'Ship". The postal worker picks the package up from my porch. It is truly awesome. 

OH HO! With packages and and shipping from home, I can complete my transformation into a cave dwelling hermit! Mwahahahaha! 

Next, I will give up showers. 

(not really!) 

I wonder what's in the package I hope to get today.

AnXiety

Anxiety lives with kids these days. Family bumps and rumbles, grief, friendship ups and downs, illnesses, schoolwork difficulties. Most of this stuff has always been with our youngsters. But the news is everywhere. And some of that news is awful.  Parents can't just hide the headlines, or unplug the radio or the TV. Schools run active shooter drills. Most school require masks to fight the spread of a virus.  Children have a lot to worry about.

Just Right Jillian by Nicole D. Collier  , (due out in February 2022), follows Jillian, a ten-year-old, who lives in her classmate, Rashida's, shadow. In class competitions, Jillian is always neck in neck with Rashida but even if she knows the answer, Jillian bows her head and keeps still. Jillian blames Rashida for her own self-doubt and crippling shyness. 

An energetic teacher, a year-end scholastic contest, the comforting memory of her grandmother, and Rashida, herself, all help Jillian deal with her worries.

Best things about this book?

• Jillian, herself. She is smart, creative, and trying to handle the loss of her grandmother, and her jealousy of a classmate. She KNOWS what she CAN do. She just has trouble doing it. BUT she is creative and - big SEL* word here - proactive. She takes small steps to rebuild her confidence and energy.
  
• Chicks!!! This is the best description of the egg-hatching activity that I have ever read. The teacher's comments have as much to do with life as they do with science. (Science and Life - so much better together!)
  
• Barely visible parents, for the most part. Jillian's parents are there and supportive but you don't get any lectures from them.  BUT when they are needed for a dramatic plot device, WHOA! - they are awesome.
  
• Enemies to friends - and I am not talking about Jillian and Rashida here - or at least not that much. A small perception changes everything between a classmate and Jillian and her new friends - for the better.
  

When kids hit the double digits, their worlds grow. Their older eyes see more - sometimes more than is actually there. Seeing more means there is more to wonder about, learn about, question, worry about.  Just Right Jillian is a perfect book for this age group. 

(My advice though. Make Jillian look a tiny bit older on the cover. The chick is great. Keep the chick.)

* Social Emotional Learning

On Saturday, I came home to a surprise! The copy of Stuntboy, In the Meantime by Jason Reynolds (cheer! cheer!), illustrated by Raul the Third, that I ordered two months ago finally arrived.

First, let me list all the things I liked about this book.

1. Best character name: Portico Reeves. Let that roll off your tongue. If you know the meaning of the words, forget them. LISTEN to the sound. It's lovely.

2. Best setting: In a castle! Actually in a highrise - although 10 floors may not be very high. But Portico tells us he lives in a castle and isn't that the best way to think about a big building with so many doors and windows and walls? It is.

3. Best best friend: Zola Brawner, who lives next door and who helped Portico discover his superhero identity - Stuntboy, the hero who takes all the risks.

4. Best segues between the story and a TV show:  I can't remember if the show is called Super Space Wars or Super Space Heroes - or something else!  But the two main characters - and heroes - Mater and Pater, seem to mirror some of Portico's problems. Also all the chapter openings, public service announcements and other TV inspired stuff is just plain fun!

5.The stunts! 'Nuff said. 

5 1/2. The graphics. Duh!

Portico loves his building and his neighbors - except for one - but his life is full of anxiety. His parents keep shooing him out of the way "in the meantime". He hears "Mean Time" because of the shouting. It's up to Stuntboy to save the day!

A laugh out loud book, like Stuntboy, in the Meantime, shows different methods of calming oneself down - meditation, yoga, breathing exercises -  and lets readers know that their feelings are THEIRS and those feelings can be bearable.

The kids will be all right.

Not READY for Jingle bells

Tomorrow is December 1st. Sunday was the FIRST SUNDAY of Advent. My house is still full of pumpkins and silk fall leaves. I am not ready.

Prep work happens, though, ready or not. Here is something to consider before the fracas of present presentation begins. I wrote some of the following tips for our local Peace and Justice group's (LEPOCO) newsletter in the Young Peacemaker's column.

Get off the gift wrap carousel. 

Many families celebrate winter with gift-giving. Every thing that comes into our houses during the holidays can change the environment. Look at where gifts come from, (travel costs and exhaust), how each gift is made, (chemicals and waste), and how it is packaged,  (plastic and styrofoam). Even if we make all of our gifts (homemade gifts are the BEST!), we can go nuts worrying about the wear that each gift has on our climate. Let’s pick ONE part of all this merriment and see how that effects our climate - gift-wrapping.

In a British study done in 2011, the UK used about 227,000 MILES of wrapping paper over the winter holidays - enough paper to wrap around the world NINE times. In the US, we average 4 million pounds of wrapping paper a year. All that paper, all those bags, all that ribbon goes straight into the landfill, creating greenhouse gases as it decomposes. Here are some ideas on how to reduce that stress on our earth.

Make your own wrappings. 

1. Decorate newspaper with drawings or stamps. Use paper grocery bags for gift bags. If you get a package stuffed with paper, reuse it!
2. Save shiny packaging materials (the foil paper in boxes of teabags, ie. ) to decorate your gifts.
3. Wrap a gift inside another gift. Use a scarf or a bandanna or a cloth napkin as wrapping.
4. Make cloth gift bags that can be used over and over again. This article shows you how. https://www.greenchildmagazine.com/diy-fabric-gift-bags/
    (Hint: Decorate old pillow cases for those bulky gifts!)
5. Decorate packages with nature, -pinecones, dried leaves, pine needles- instead of ribbon. Tie them on with cotton twine or raffia.                                                                                                                           

Reuse what you already have.

1. Save as much gift wrap as you can from presents you receive. You can reuse it next year, even if all you do is save scraps to decorate newspaper or paper bags.                                                                                 2. Save pretty shopping bags and gift bags. If your name is stuck on with super glue, cover it with another name tag.                                                                                                                                                         3. Don't throw away ribbons or bows, or pretty yarn or string.                                                                      4. Cut up holiday cards from last year for gift tags, and for decorating packages.

For more info on how our actions can change the world, check out these books:

31 Ways to Change the World. 2010, Candlewick Press.


Everything Is Connected, Reimagining the World One Postcard at a Time. Keri Smith, 2013.  Penguin Group.


Climate Action: What Happened and What We Can Do. Seymour Simon, 2021. HarperCollins. (PS. I adore Seymour Simon!)

Now, what else can I do with all the pretty cards I save from year to year? I would love to hear YOUR gift wrapping ideas - and your holiday card ideas.

Two Tasty Books

 Just in time for Halloween, I read a book about a monster AND a book about a ghost.  

But first let's discuss reading as a kind of nutrition. The books that teach you a LOT but are hard going are like, um, that soup that you get when someone wants to build up your strength. Good for you but not the easiest thing to swallow.  Sad to say, I avoid those books unless I need to learn something for a project.

The books we read for fun - romances, mysteries, graphic novels - they count as snack food, chips and dip, pretzels, chocolate. You could survive on these books but you won't be very healthy. NOW, some of the snack books are more like pretzel sticks and hummus or celery and cream cheese. Still you don't want these fun books to be all you read.

Some fiction is tasty AND good for you, too. Think Thanksgiving dinner (go light on the stuffing and potatoes, though). They are delicious and sooo nutritious. Here are two books to  savor.

Willodeen by Katherine Applegate  This book is so yummy! Willodeen is an orphan brought up by two ancient women. She loves creatures of all kinds and sizes but she is especially interested in the animals that others abhor - the monsters.  The "screechers", large, ugly, loud and very smelly, have a special place in Willodeen's heart - along with her wounded hummingbear.

Hummingbears are crucial to Willodeen's hometown's survival. When the hummingbears return each spring to the blue willow trees, tourists come from all over.  But the screechers and their horrific odor scare people away. So the town puts a price on the screechers' heads.

What happens is disastrous to everyone. Willodeen makes friends with a boy who fashions hummingbears from branches and vines. Can the two friends save the screechers, the hummingbears and their town?

Let this book sit on your palate. There are more flavors to this book than a four course meal. It is food for thought, tastefully served.

 

Dead Wednesday by Jerry Spinelli .  Everybody calls him Worm. He's in eighth grade, shy, pimply, not so very tall and his best friends is a popular, athletic, Boss of the School. They are off to the best day in an eight grader's year, Dead Wednesday. It's a half day and once the 8th graders are assigned their "Wrapper", they become INVISIBLE to the teachers and adults in their school. Because they are "dead".

"Wrappers" are teenagers who lost their lives in the past year in car accidents caused by drinking, texting, willfully ignoring traffic precautions, reckless driving. The School Administration goes through Dead Wednesday in hopes that the "dead" will learn enough from this experience to avoid reckless driving. HAH! What eighth graders get from this is a half day to go INSANE!

Except it doesn't work out that way at all. Worm is haunted for the whole day. Seriously weird.

  This book will feed your soul for a long time. And the ending is sweeter than pie.

 

I Read Books for Young People

I love Miss Silver, a "personal inquiry" agent of old. She features in books that were written before I was born. She is genteel, old-fashioned even for her time, and very clever. People tell her things. But, her books were not written for young people.  (Kids could read these books. The author hints so broadly at certain characters' misdeeds that even I wrinkle my brow. Kids would probably be bored, though. Just saying.)

I do read books for young people and here are three that I read in the past month.

Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price. Jane Austen's character, Elizabeth Bennett, appears here as a feisty 17-year-old, who desperately wants to work in her father's law office. When a young gentleman acquaintance is accused of murdering his scoundrel of a brother-in-law, Lizzie "takes" the case. Being a young woman of the early 19th century, (please read the author's notes at the back of the book if historical accuracy is important to you), Lizzie is discouraged from investigating the murder by every single male in her sphere and even some of her female friends. Does that stop her? Indubitably not!

Her would-be client is represented at the bar by none other than the arrogant and irritating Darcy. Yep.

So we have all kinds of evil-doers here and a lot of social practices are flaunted. There is a bit of melodrama when the culprit is exposed. But it's the 19th century when footpads and villains of every stripe traveled the byways and alleys of London. 

 

Three Keys  by Kelly Yang. If you read Yang's triumphant debut Front Desk, then you will be all ready for this sequel. Mia and her parents are now the proud owners of the Calivista Motel - along with their many investors. BUT the year is 1995, and immigrants are not particularly welcome in California. A bill to severely restrict immigration into the state is up for a vote. Mia's sixth grade teacher is not impressed with Mia's writing at all and appears to approve of Proposition 187. And even though the Calivista Motel was on TV, a sign saying Immigrants Welcome causes business to drop. 

Mia and her best friend, Lupe, have to find ways to help the motel thrive, protect fellow students whose families are not here legally, and convince their teacher that Mia has talent. 

The book addresses an issue that still raise hackles here in the USA. A country of immigrants still fights over whether or not to keep our doors open.  Mia's family is stalwart in their support of other immigrants. When problems arise, it is Mia's friends who find the answers.

The book is an inspirational read. For us hardened adults, it may be too optimistic. But kids love it when kids save the day and the kids save the day in Three Keys.

 

Linked by Gordon Korman. Korman addresses vandalism, anti-semitism and racism in his latest book. This is a lot less fun that Korman's usual fare. When Michael runs back to school to fetch his forgotten phone, he discovers a huge swastika painted in the hallway. Michael is the president of the Art Club and his locker is full of paint so, guess who comes under suspicion.

This book concentrates on Michael, his circle of friends, Link, one of those friends who is a popular athlete and prankster, and Dana, the only Jewish student in the whole school. As more swastikas appear all over the school, Link discovers his family's connection to anti-semitism, the community revisits its shameful racist past and Dana finds herself the center of unwanted attention.

Then a social media vlogger moves into town to cover the frenetic attempts to "solve" this by making a paper chain to represent the Jews killed during the Holocaust. Michael spearheads this attempt. But the swastikas keep coming.

The ending stretched my credulity a bit. Then, I saw how Korman laid the framework for his climax. This is not my favorite Korman book, (The Unteachables is awesome), but it is a worthy effort.

Avoidance Part 3 - TIME LIE!

 NOTICE: Chances are HUGE that most of the personal remarks - about me -- in this post will be lies.

Friends, I am completely honest and I NEVER EVER lie to myself. BUT, I have been given to understand (isn't that an awesome phrase, "given to understand"?) that some people DO lie to themselves.

In doing that, those people - not me, of course, - find themselves suddenly short of time. Here are some examples of this that I have been made aware. (Should I add "of" there?)

1. Telling yourself that this will be the LAST game of solitaires that you will play. HAH! I have personally seen someone make that last game stretch into four or five 'last' games.

2. Watching videos of crafters because they will give the watcher cool ideas - that will never be made.

3. Looking outside and deciding that it is too hot or cold or muggy or windy to do whatever it is  without even stepping outside.

But the biggest worst lie of all is this. I WILL DO IT LATER WHEN I HAVE MORE TIME.

Look at that statement. With every second that passes, we have LESS time. We will never have MORE time than we do RIGHT NOW. So sitting back on the sofa with one's feet up and thinking, "I'll do it later when I have more time." doesn't work. It is physically impossible to have more time than now.

That said, we all have obligations and neglecting those obligations does not make us good people. There may be future periods where we will have uninterrupted time. 

Even saying that "I will do it when I have a stretch of uninterrupted time," easily turns into a lie. Uninterrupted time gets snipped apart if we allow ourselves to become distracted (a future avoidance topic.)

Successful "task completers" do not wait until they have more time. They get stuff done in the time they are given.

Don't lie to yourself. You WILL probably play another game of solitaire especially if that last game ends after one deal of the cards. Watching other people make crafts is satisfying in itself.  Go outside! 

But most importantly:  You will NEVER have more time. Do it - whatever it is - NOW.