In 2023 I had the incredible opportunity to work on the Muriel Rukeyser archive at Eastern Michigan University. Working in an archive and combing through Rukeyser’s original papers and letters, discovering a person through the things she left behind, I got to know Rukeyser. At the end of my internship, I was gifted THE ESSENTIAL […]
This year I read two books at very different times, but in some ways inextricably paired: PEOPLE LOVE DEAD JEWS by Dara Horn in January and THE GOLEM OF BROOKLYN by Adam Mansbach in September/October. THE GOLEM OF BROOKLYN was screamingly funny; PEOPLE LOVE DEAD JEWS was bittersweetly nonfiction. Sometimes you walk around a problem […]
I had a lot of trouble Reading for Fun this year because I did too much Reading for School, but one book I really enjoyed was THE ANNUAL MIGRATION OF CLOUDS by Premee Mohamed (also author of the incredible “Beneath the Rising” series). I read this in its entirety on a plane coming back from […]
My First Book of the Year was volume 1 of HEARTSTOPPER and wow, it successfully lived up to the hype of everything Around it! Heartwarming, homosexual, drawn in an endearing style, cozy in a true-to-life way. A lot of Teen Fiction has many elements exaggerated for Narrative Reasons and Style, and I don’t feel like […]
Seven journal-y type posts about my bookish adventures in 2023. The most important and worthwhile bookish thing I did this year is that the Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy by Diana Wynne Jones (Howl’s Moving Castle, Castle In the Air, and House of Many Ways) came out with new covers by Josee Shimazaki (pictured), I instantly […]
This book is incredible, and I find myself wanting to reference it all the time. I loved finding out all about what makes a person tick with regards to music, and these two authors are conversational and include anecdotes as well as serious science and studies. The result is a book that’s approachable, really cool, […]
TRYOUT is great for readers just entering 7th grade, anyone who has ever tried out for a sports team, and those who appreciate the universal language of food even when everything else seems to be falling apart. Readalikes: JUST ROLL WITH IT, the Linda Lindas song RACIST SEXIST BOY, and PRINCE OF TENNIS. Five stars. […]
Lisi Harrison is a really prolific author, and it’s because she writes pop fiction, which is not necessarily Good Fiction. This book is. Fine. I read a lot of REALLY GOOD middle grade fiction, and this is not REALLY GOOD middle grade fiction. It’s perfectly fine middle grade, and one thing about the Graveyard Girls […]
“But what’s the point in doing something if I’m not an expert at it? People will just laugh at me.” “If you’e learning something and growing and doing your best and getting better at it all the time, then what’s there to laugh at?” Aven has to pick something to do for the talent show, and […]
This book is about Cory Tan, local b-boy who is maybe failing out of middle school and also it is about Sunna Ahmed, local Weird Girl who is hired to tutor Cory back into the land of the learning. But it’s also about the unbelievable pressure of growing up, about how sometimes your parents just […]