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3/29/2020 0 Comments

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

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How I Found:  I encountered Isabel Allende for the first time as a literature major. With my limited world-experience, she opened my eyes to a literary and cultural experience that would forever change me as a reader and person.  When I came across this newest of her works, I was ecstatic to find my mentor still teaching me life-long lessons.  Traveling from the Spanish Civil War to Chile with Neruda, once again brought perspective and insight, connecting histories, people, and places I knew in a way I hadn't yet.  
Why You Might Read: Along the way, the war-beaten Victor and the resilient Roser will teach you that sometimes, the person who carries you through is not the person you expect to be there for eternity. Despite their marriage of convenience Victor discovered that,  "He felt certain that as long as she existed, he wouldn't be alone in this world of misfortune." A resonating lesson that in recognizing those constant in our lives, accepting them and being accepted, is where love that lasts across space and time is how we exist beyond this limited life experience.   
Tell Me:  Have you read this book?  What did you think?
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3/29/2020 0 Comments

The Philosopher's Flight by Tom Miller

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How I Found: I was looking for a book that would bend gender expectations in a unique way, and I found it! Taking place in U.S. History this book utilized some Steampunk tricks to unravel both history and gender. In a world where Philosophers can only be women, we see what it would be like if the gender expectations were turned upside down. This novel allows us to re-imagine the past with a little bit of magic that doesn’t subvert the story. 
Why You Might Read: If you’ve ever questioned societal expectations because they didn’t fit you, you’ll want to join Robert Weeks, as he ventures into a world not built with him in mind. Where you’ll learn along that, if you feel called to be a part of something that wants to exclude you, it’s best to heed the call because “If you don’t answer you’ll lose the better part of yourself.”

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3/29/2020 0 Comments

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

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​How I Found: In the depth of January, looking for something to fit the season, the whole world seemingly covered in snow and stillness, I uncovered this fairy tale. The white cover and pages drew me in and before I knew it I was wrapped in magic. Along with Mabel and Jack I struggled with their loneliness and longing for a child. Watched them beat back the wilderness of Alaska with the help of wholesome friends and saw the miracles that love and nature create.
Why You Might Read: Like true fairy tales, this one has a message for its readers. With it you’ll find, . . . “The joy and sorrow of a lifetime.” For those who get to live to old age, there is nothing but the balance of life: joy, sorrow, fear, peace, life and death. With these come acceptance but also hope for they live on in the next generation and season.
Tell Me:  Have you read this book?  What did you think?
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11/27/2019 0 Comments

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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How I Found: I was pulled in by the idea of magical realism in a slave narrative. With stories from Frederick Douglas and Harriet Jacobs who changed the world through their courageous acts against the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery at the forefront of these invaluable stories, I was curious what impact magical realism would have. Coates’ fiction pulled me more deeply into the darkness of those times than I had yet to go. With so much focus on freedom from other stories we often forget to consider who is left behind, “What did it mean to be free in a city such as this when all whom you loved were tasked?” And how, without them, freedom is just another task to labor under.
Why You Might Read: Rightfully so, slave narratives focus on the brutality, but Coates tells a tale that commingles that pain with deep love. It is this juxtaposition that both breaks and heals not only the characters’ but the readers’ hearts. This is the magic that could be nothing but real and makes this a novel everyone should read.
Tell Me:  Have you read this book?  What did you think?
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11/27/2019 0 Comments

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

How I Found: Well I’ve waited for this one. If you’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale, you’ve no doubt speculated, but this provides both a prequel and a sequel. Left wondering about the details of how Gilead came to be a surprising character provides the background telling us, “You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you.”
Why You Might Read: I can't think of a reason you wouldn’t, but this provides the means and the motive. Given the option, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one most traveled by. And it was littered with corpses.” Read to consider what choices you would make, given the circumstances and find pity and hope for a villain you once despised while those you were left wondering about resurface in the unlikeliest of places.
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9/15/2019 0 Comments

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

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How I Found: With a small painting of Albert Camus’, “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer” a friend gave me this book when there were no other words to give, and this book, like life does, left me speechless. Beginning with Salma, this story of family crosses borders and generations, providing not a bleak, but a rich illustration of what being forced to flee home really means. 
Why You Might Read: This book is achingly beautiful. It is a work of art. It is a reminding that when you ask the question, “What is life?” You get, “A series of yeses and noes, photographs you shove in a drawer somewhere, loves you think will save you but cannot. Continuing to move, enduring, not stopping even when there is pain,” as an answer. An answer that means both winter and summer will come, and there will not be words enough to find our way out; only words left to guide those who follow.
Tell Me:  Have you read this book?  What did you think?
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9/1/2019 0 Comments

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

How I Found:  A favorite author is like a shelter, a place one can go when all else seems untethered. Back with Kingsolver, I found more than one voice in that place to speak to me. With one dilapidated setting in two time periods Willa and Mary were like family not to each other but to me. 
Why You Might Read: While Willa is entirely fictional with a nod to the author of My Antonia, Mary Treat was a scientist who corresponded with the likes of Charles Darwin and Asa Gray as she pursued her own scientific inquiries. As Willa learns more about Mary in an effort to save her crumbling home, she too finds a friend whilst taking care of her family: a daughter, a son, his son, her husband, and his father. With so much to hold on to it’s no wonder, “anxiety was Willa’s steady state....a mother can be only as happy as her unhappiest child; Willa believed in worry to keep people from flying out of orbit.” And this, among so many other reasons, is why Kingsolver made me feel right at home.
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Tell Me:  Have you read this book?  What did you think?
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9/1/2019 0 Comments

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

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How I Found: Pinterest is full of recommendations for reads, and I love posts that group by genre like Historical Fiction which is where I uncovered Kidd’s newest novel in which I discovered the Grimke sisters. These women were both abolitionists and a part of the suffrage movement, but I had never heard of them. It was like once again reading Sojourner Truth’s “And Ain’t I a Woman,” and realizing as Eavan Boland wrote, “It’s a Woman’s World.”
Why You Might Read: If you too find yourself flabbergasted that these powerful figures still remain hidden, help share their story. Kidd expertly stitches the story of Sarah and the slave, Handful, who was gifted to her into a vibrant patchwork where both girls remember, “The world had been such a beckoning place once,” yet both are forced to surrender to the horrors of their society. This book serves as a reminder of how far we’ve come and how far we’ve yet to go.
Tell Me:  Have you read this book?  What did you think?
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9/1/2019 0 Comments

Wildwood by Colin Meloy with Illustrations by Carson Ellis

How I Found: In the lovely bookstore Auntie’s in downtown Spokane while waiting for my daughter to choose a new book, I was intrigued by the texture of this book in the adolescent section. Upon further inspection I discovered that twelve-year-old Prue’s adventure takes place in and around Portland, Oregon. Prue finds herself in the Wildwood in the heart of the city around the Pittock Mansion, but it’s not what she or you might expect.
Why You Might Read: If it’s been awhile since you’ve been whisked away with talking animals, it’s time to get back to your roots. In the Wildwood you might just as easily be captured by coyotes as bandits, but fear most the dowager governess or you may be sacrificed for her dark revenge. Regardless, rediscover with child-like awe, “We are the inheritors of a wonderful world, a beautiful world, full of life and mystery, goodness and pain. But likewise are we children of an indifferent universe. We break our own hearts imposing our moral order on what is, by nature, a wide web of chaos.” And, instead of fighting against it, let it come and enjoy the journey.
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7/8/2019 0 Comments

The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millweed Hargrave

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How I Found: I did judge this book by the cover, well, and the title too. I was not deceived. Part fable, part myth, this book is short, sweet, and unique. As the cartographer’s daughter is forced to map the unknown of their island, the stories she has been told throughout her life are intertwined with Isabella’s dangerous adventure.
Why You Might Read: If you enjoy a plucky heroine coming into her own, Isa doesn’t disappoint. Like the cover, she gives you what you want while revealing why she is the girl of ink and stars. After all, “Each of us carries the map of our lives on our skin, in the way we walk, even in the way we grow.”
Tell Me:  Have you read this book?  What did you think?
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    S.M.(M).L

    I am a reader who was brought to the world of books by being read to as a child, a wonderful librarian, scores of dedicated teachers, and the friends who still talk to me about books.  This page is dedicated to all readers as a way to help you find books for you and yours as they were found by me. Let their pages turn your life into a world of magic, reality, and possibility.  

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