#read this month

b-bookclub read
c-challenge
r-reread

*-top 3 recommendations

* rChrissa/Mary Casanova (Chrissa #1) (middle grade realistic fiction)-Chrissa has just moved to a new state, which is hard enough, but the girls in her cluster at school seem to really dislike her.

rCity of Stars/Mary Hoffman (Stravaganza #2)(young adult time travel alternate universe fantasy)-Georgia’s step-brother is making her home life miserable and her only solace is horses, so when she wakes up in a stables 16th century not-Italy she’s ecstatic, and even more so when she sees the winged foal. But political plots are always being woven in Talia…

bThe City We Became/N.K. Jemisin (adult urban fantasy)-Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She’s got five. But there’s an enemy come to destroy them.

* Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice/Phillip Hoose (young adult biomemoir and historical non-fiction)-On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

cEarthquake in the Early Morning/Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House #24) (early chapter book fantasy historical fiction)-Jack and Annie discover a magic tree house in the woods that can take them to any time and place if they point at a book and wish to go there… Now Camelot is in trouble and to save it Annie and Jack need to find four special writings. The fourth is in San Francisco…

* c Ellen Tebbits/Beverly Cleary (Ellen and Otis #1) (middle grade realistic fiction)-Ellen has been lonely ever since her best friend moved away. But then she discovers that the new girl at school shares a secret with her. Soon they are hanging out and having adventures, but Ellen might ruin everything with one mistake.

cA Girl Named Misty: The True Story of Misty Copeland/Kelly Starling Lyons and Melissa Manwill (American Girl: A Girl Named) (early chapter book illustrated biography)-Misty Copeland became the first African American Female Principal Dancer for the American Ballet Theatre, but how did she get there?

Novelets of Science Fiction/ed. Ivan Howard (science fiction anthology)-A collection of science fiction stories from the 1950s and 60s, ranging from 6-30 pages.

On the Far Side of the Mountain/Jean Craighead George (Mountain #2) (mg realistic historical? adventure)-Two years after leaving NYC to live in the Catskill Mountains Sam Gribley is still living in his hemlock with his peregrine, Frightful, and his sister, Alice, now lives across the clearing. When Frightful is taken and Alice disappears Sam sets out on a trek through the mountains to find his sister.

cOne Crazy Summer/Rita Moreno-Garcia (Gaither Sisters #1) (mg historical fiction first-person)-In the 1968 summer vacation Delphine’s father has decided that it is time for her and her sisters to meet the mother who abandoned them. When they get to Oakland she doesn’t act like a mother at all-doesn’t hug or feed them, or let them into the kitchen. Delphine shoulders up and-to get out of their mother’s way-takes her sisters to a Black Panther summer school.

cTristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky/Kwame Mbalia (Tristan Strong #1) (mg African and African American folktale based portal fantasy)-Seventh-grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. When a talking, sticky doll steals the journal he chases her into a Bottle Tree forest and accidentally punches them-and an evil spirit-into the magical world of Alke.

cTwister on Tuesday/Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House #23) (early chapter book fantasy historical fiction)-Jack and Annie discover a magic tree house in the woods that can take them to any time and place if they point at a book and wish to go there… Now Camelot is in trouble and to save it Annie and Jack need to find four special writings. The third is in a dugout schoolhouse in the Kansas prairie as a tornado begins to whirl…

Series finished: 0 
Series continued: 3
Series started: 4

The Empire of Gold/S.A. Chakraborty (Daevabad #3) (new adult myth-based historical portal fantasy)-Nahri never really believed in magic…until she accidentally summoned a djinn warrior, who swept her off to a magical city of djinn and deadly politics. Six years later, everything has turned on it’s head-Nahri is back in Cairo, Daevabad is splintered, and there is an old magic which’s memory has long been repressed back.

r cRogue Protocol/Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #3) (adult ai sci fi action novella)-Murderbot is a SecUnti-an artificial intelligence built to act as  a security guard-who hacked its governor module. It still continues protecting clients, however, using its freedom to watch serials. Then, on a regular planet survey something goes very, very wrong. Now there are people who know that it hacked its governor module. People it can trust-to an extent-but it still needs to get away. So, three books later, its looking for evidence against the baddest bad guys when everything goes wrong again. Of course.

Meet Kirsten/Janet Beeler Shaw and Renée Graf (Kirsten Larson #1) (early chapter book American historical fiction)-Kirsten cannot wait to finally reach land-America! When they get there she, her family, and her best friend Marta will all travel to Minnesota, and she’ll get to meet her Uncle Olav who moved to America before she was born.

r cA Study in Scarlet/Arthur Conan Doyle (adult murder mystery & historical fiction adventure)-John Watson’s roommate is really weird. It turns out that he’s a consulting detective. When two policemen ask for help Watson goes along with Holmes to solve the mystery of the uninjured dead man in a room filled with blood.

cEliza and Her Monsters/Francesca Zappia (realistic young adult contemporary)-Eliza has on real life friends and she’s fine with that. She has online friends and as the creator of one of the most popular webcomics she’s kept busy with her fans-none of whom know her real identity. But her parents dislike how much she’s online, and she has a crush on an rl fan of her webcomic.

cRevolutionary War on Wednesday/Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House #22) (early chapter book fantasy historical fiction)-Jack and Annie discover a magic tree house in the woods that can take them to any time and place if they point at a book and wish to go there… Now Camelot is in trouble and to save it Annie and Jack need to find four special writings. The second is somewhere near George Washington, during the Crossing of the Delaware…

r cManiac Magee/Jerry Spinelli (middle grade realistic fiction)-A homeless kid who is also a legend (He runs on the tracks, hit twenty home runs in a row, and kissed a buffalo) looks for a family in a racially divided town.

bShe Who Became the Sun/Shelley Parker-Chan (The Radiant Emperor #1) (adult magical realism war-driven historical fiction)-Two siblings in 1345 China, a boy and a girl. The boy is given the fate of greatness, the girl nothingness. But when the boy dies the girl decides to become him and take his fate. From there the story follows someone who is neither a girl nor a boy through monkhood to general-hood.

c Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes/Roshani Chokshi (Pandava #1) (middle grade religious myths based fast-paced fantasy)-When Aru tries to show off to her classmates who look down on her she accidentally awakens the Sleeper, who will destroy the world-unless she and the other reincarnations of the Pandava brother stop him. Two years later, all of the Pandava sisters are together but the war against the Sleeper is growing more dire and a prophecy makes it all the more urgent. Aru and her crew must find the Tree of Wishes, Kalpavrishka.

r cThe Tale of Desperaux/Kate DiCamillo (fairy tale-like adventure didactic tale)-Despereaux is a mouse who is different from the other mice. This gets him in trouble enough that he is sent to the dungeon. He knows he must be brave, but does not know if there will be a “happily ever after”.

r cHenry Huggins/Beverly Cleary (Henry Huggins #1) (1950s middle grade realistic anthologic fiction)-Henry wishes for some excitement. When he finds a skinny dog plenty of excitement comes into his life, starting with trying to take the dog-Ribsy-home on the bus.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes #9) (adult mystery short story collection)-Sherlock Holmes has retired, but the passage of time means that Dr. Watson can publish sensitive events that couldn’t be published before. Plus, one story by Sherlock Holmes himself.

L.M. Montgomery Short Stories 1904 (adult short story collection)-A collection of-mostly romance-stories of happy endings in early 19th century country and small town Canada.

Series finished: 2
Series continued: 5
Series started: 1

b-bookclub read 
c-challenge 
r-reread

*-top 3 recommendations

c The A.I. Who Loved Me/Alyssa Cole (adult dystopian sci fi mystery romance)-Trinity Jordan leads a quiet, normal life: working from home for the Hive, a multifunctional government research center, and recovering from the incident that sent her into a tailspin. But the life she’s trying to rebuild is plagued by mishaps when Li Wei, her neighbor’s super sexy and super strange nephew, moves in and turns things upside down.

* Beyond/Mercedes Lackey (The Founding of Valdemar #1) (adult high fantasy)-Within the Eastern Empire, Duke Kordas Valdemar rules a tiny, bucolic Duchy that focuses mostly on horse breeding. Anticipating the day when the Empire’s exploitative and militant leaders would not be content to leave them alone, Korda’s father set out to gather magicians in the hopes of one day finding a way to escape and protect the people of the Duchy from tyranny. But time is running out, and Kordas has been summoned to the Emperor’s Court.

*cGood Morning, Gorillas/Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House #26) (early chapter book fantasy)-Jack and Annie discover a magic tree house in the woods that can take them to any time and place if they point at a book and wish to go there…They’ve saved Camelot and are now training to become magicians. The second of the special magics they need to find is in a cloud forest in Eastern Africa…

r cGuards! Guards!/Terry Pratchett (Discworld #8) (adult humorous fantasy satire)-In a city ruled by criminals no one needs the Guard anymore and so they fall into squalor until a dragon comes to Ankh-Morpork, at which point they less climb out of squalor and more use it as a weapon to set things back to the way they were but with better pay.

c rHenry and Beezus/Beverly Cleary (Henry Huggins #2) (middle grade 1950s realistic fiction)-All Henry Huggins wants is his very own bicycle, a shiny red one to ride up and down Klickitat Street. But no matter how Henry tries to raise money for the bike of his dreams–from selling bubble gum to delivering newspapers–he always ends up with too much trouble and not enough money.

cThe Hidden Palace/Helene Wecker (The Golem and the Jinni #2) (adult Jewish and Arab folktale-based historical fantasy)-Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, who can hear the thoughts and longings of those around her and feels compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a restless creature of fire, once free to roam the desert but now imprisoned in the shape of a man. Fearing they’ll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and try to pass as human–just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. Brought together under calamitous circumstances, their lives are now entwined–but they’re not yet certain of what they mean to each other.

*rShazam!: The Seven Magic Lands (#1) (ya superhero comic)-Billy Batson and his foster siblings have been successfully superheroing after recieving their magical powers from the Rock of Eternity. Now Eugene has found a mysterious new room in the Rock-the Station.

r cStage Fright on a Summer Night/Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House #25) (early chapter book fantasy historical fiction)-Jack and Annie discover a magic tree house in the woods that can take them to any time and place if they point at a book and wish to go there…They’ve saved Camelot and are now training to become magicians. The first of the special magics they need to find is in Olde England…

cSun Flower Lion/Kevin Henkes (chapter picture book)-The sun looks like a flower looks like a lion who dreams of eating cookies.

cThanksgiving on Thursday/Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House #25) (early chapter book fantasy historical fiction)-Jack and Annie discover a magic tree house in the woods that can take them to any time and place if they point at a book and wish to go there…They’ve saved Camelot and are now training to become magicians. The third of the special magics they need to find is in colonial Plymouth…

Series finished: 1 
Series continued: 3 
Series started: 2

April reads