My First Five Years at SeaSummary: A country boy from Kansas makes an unexpected U-turn into high adventure on the water.
Shanghaied onto a rum runner in the 1930s, MIT-bound James Tyler sails into history and adventure faster than you can say, “Captain Anne Bonny.” He manages to land on his feet, “moving from one unexpected maritime intrigue to another.”
By Gary Paulsen
YA/Fiction
Via: Library
“Dogs know how to love better than people.”
– Paintings From the Cave
Sometimes even the best laid plans go awry. Especially when a monkey wrench gets thrown into the mix. Like when Mom and I plan our blogging calendar. (Well, one of us plans. The other snoozes. I’ll let you figure out who’s who.)
See, we were going to put together a collection of Best Gary Paulsen Books Ever. He’s an old favorite. When it comes to outdoor adventures or coming of age tales, no one does it better than Gary. He’s our bud. He’s also a dog lover. Need I say more?
So here Mom and I were, cruising along with our blogging calendar when Mom stumbled upon a Paulsen book she somehow missed: Paintings from the Cave.
After finishing this extraordinary trio of gripping, poignant novellas, we knew they had to have a stand-alone post. Here’s why:
The Accidental Suffragist: A NovelBy Galia Gichon
Summary: A family tragedy propels a working class wife and mother into the Women’s Suffrage Movement where she finds a part of herself she didn’t know existed.
“Ladies, do you believe in the importance of women voting?”
This is the salient question put forth in The Accidental Tourist. We may take the right to vote for granted now. But that wasn’t the case in the early 1900s, when a few stalwart women worked tirelessly to secure voting rights for themselves, their daughters, and future generations of American women. The Accidental Suffragist is part of that story.
‘No, I am NOT lost, thank you very much. Just takin’ The Scenic Route.’
Ever see a lonely book? You know. A library book perched all on its lonesome on an isolated shelf, looking forlorn and a wee bit lost? Like it’s begging for some intrepid reader to come by and snatch it?
Enter Her Momness. She’s a sucker for lonely books. She found two of ’em in the Juvenile Fiction section of the library the other day. (She hangs out there a lot. Cuz she fits right in. Don’t get me started.)
Anywho, the books are: The Story Web by Megan Frazer Blakemore and After Eli, by Rebecca Rupp. In the first one, hockey… Oh, wait. Mom is elbowing her way into the conversation. As usual. So I’ll let her tell ya about these two “lost” and “lonely” books that deserve discovery:
You know that Good Book Feeling? Where you close the final page of a Really Great Read and sigh? Wish that it’d never end? Or maybe you just go, “aaah”?
We turned Finding Dorothy’s last page and sighed. Because this book, like its protagonists, L. Frank Baum and his remarkable wife, Maud, is sheer genius.
Told through the eyes of L. Frank Baum’s indomitable wife, Maud, Finding Dorothy is the story behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the beloved book that inspired the movie classic.
Finding Dorothy is also a love story. It traces the intertwined lives of Maud, daughter of a suffragette leader and a “force of nature” in her own right, and Maud’s husband, creative genius and author L. (Lyman) Frank Baum. The two were devoted to each other until the end of their days.
By Mary Dodge Allen
Fiction/Christian/Romance/Suspense/Mystery & Detective
“Just a sec Kimmi,” chirped Her Momness as she snatched up Hunt for a Hometown Killer. “I’m just gonna zip through a coupla chapters tonight – quick like a bunny – and get a head start on tomorrow’s reading.”
Uh -oh. Heard that one before, says I, Kimber the Magnificent. (You know. The brains in the family.)
And that’s how we wound up staying up until zero-dark-thirty to finish this “just one more chapter! I can’t put it down” rippin’ good read! Because:
By Anita Diamant
Based on the story of Dinah from Genesis 34, The Red Tent is “historical fiction.” Emphasis on fiction. Indeed, the author takes so many liberties with the original text, “historical” is kind of an afterthought.
The story is also billed as a “retelling of a biblical story from the perspective of the female characters.”
That’s quite an assumption. It’s also a clue. A big one. As in, if you’re looking for a re-telling that’s faithful to the original account, keep looking. Cuz this isn’t it.
“Hey, Kimster!” says She Who (thinks she) Must Be Obeyed. (Insert eye roll here. Do I ever have Mom snowed!) “I’ve got a great idea for summer reading!”
What is it now, Mom?
“Let’s revisit some of our favorites from classic British literature this summer… on film!”
You mean like that Charles D. guy? The 19th century novelist you keep bugging me to read again? As in Pip and Miss Havisham? Lucie Manette and Charles Darnay? Jacob and Ebenezer?
“Exactly!” chirps Her Momness. (She always does that chirpy thing when she’s on a roll. Me? I save that for bacon.)
Anyway, that’s how we got to binge watching all things Charles Dickens-ish. And 18th century Cornwallish. Wait. Did I say “binge watching”? Well, yeah. One of us claims she doesn’t have the time to plow through Martin Chuzzlewit or Bleak House in one summer, let alone Pip and Magwitch or David Copperfield and Peggotty.
So we’re watching (mostly) BBC productions and movies of same. Here’s what we’ve watched so far in the classic English historical fiction mode. These are our favorite film adaptations of select classic books, as noted. How many do you recognize?
Destiny Falls Mystery & Magic Book 3
By Elizabeth Pantley
Fiction/Fantasy/Mystery
Kimber here, ears pricked. Alert. Scanning and sniffing everything that moves. And quite a few things that don’t. Cuz weird noises are coming from the study:
“Aaaarg!” Pause. “Double aaaaarg!”
Wait. Is there a Pirate Convention going on in Mom’s study and no one told me? Shall I dial 9-1-1? Call Peter Pan? Or morph into my usual, every day Kimber the Amazingly Awesome and Super Duper Walks-on-Water Wonder Worker mode?
Hang on, Toots. Deep breaths. There ya go. Okay, Mom. Now. Tell me what all the ruckus is about.
“Kimber, I just finished the most fascinating, fun book! It’s number three in the Destiny Falls Mystery and Magic series. And I’m dying to know what happens next!
Can we kindly avoid the word “dying” in conjunction with a cliffhanger ending? As in, “The end… for now”?
Her Momness is doing that “I can’t decide” thing again. Like when she has a coupla/three books she enjoyed and thinks you will, too. But she can’t decide which one to feature in a blog post.
Mom’s just funny that way.
“Mom,” says I. “Why don’t you just do all three? Like, at the same time?”
You know that deer-in-the-headlights look? AKA: The Her Momness Look? Mom has it down pat. Ditto three books we recently read. One is a murder mystery: Muzzled: An Andy Carpenter Mystery. Super great cover. Best I’ve ever seen, in fact. The other is a non-fiction book, Empire of the Summer Moon. The third is News of the World. By Paulette Jiles.
They’re as different as day and night. Peanut butter and jelly. Intelligence and presidential debates. Wait. Let’s not go there. Anyway, here’s The Official Mom and Kimber Scoop on these two very different but wag-worthy summer reads:
Pages & Paws 