My March #BookSpinBINGO list is ready! Now I‘m off to check the numbers drawn for this month… 😊

My bookshelf is ready for a new month! February‘s #BookSpin pick is also the #PersephoneClub pick (yay!), and my #DoubleSpin pick is a genre I don‘t usually read. (My alma mater is hosting a book talk on romance novels, and this is one of the titles they‘ll be discussing.) Looking forward to both!

#BookSpinBINGO

A date late but here‘s my #BookSpinBINGO list for February.

January was a slow reading month for me, but I also attended three book club meetings (one brand new) and five book events (three in person, two online)… so it was still a book-filled month! #BookSpinBINGO

My bookshelf is ready for the New Year: filled with my January anticipated titles, and stacked with past & future reads.

I‘m loving my January reading list. Happy New Year!

#BookSpinBINGO

Lots of catching up for me in December. A pretty great month of reading!

#BookSpinBINGO

Finally, here‘s my #BookSpinBINGO list for December. I would love to get to all of these—plus three #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin picks I missed from previous months. Wish me luck!

Here‘s my November #BookSpinBINGO board. More reading this month.

Just noticed I forgot to post my October #BookSpinBINGO board. Busy month!

Happy #BookSpinBINGO day! Here‘s my TBR list for November.

I don‘t think I‘ll ever get tired of Isabel Dalhousie. This 15th book in the series is exactly what I‘ve come to expect—Isabel pondering & philosophizing, Isabel trying to help others she‘s only just met, Isabel‘s daily life with her family and friends in Edinburgh. Always a treat.

Already October! Here‘s my #BookSpinBINGO list for the month.

I read fewer books than usual in September, but it was still a good reading month. (I forgot to include Foster by Claire Keegan here.)

#BookSpinBINGO

I expect The Watsons would have been a lot of fun if Jane Austen had finished it. Emma Watson is a wonderful heroine—kind, curious, and wise—and Tom Musgrave is a hoot! I‘m glad Austen shared her intended ending, but I wish we could have seen all that happened along the way. The image above comes from this post: https://www.janeaustensummer.org/post/the-watsons-an-abandoned-manuscript-by-jan...

This was my July #DoubleSpin pick.

Grace Lin never fails to wow me with her beautiful art and excellent storytelling. In this book, she shares the “real legends, real myths, and real histories” behind a feast of Chinese dishes, as well as many cooking/serving techniques and traditions. From
her author‘s note: “Chinese American cuisine is the flavor or resilience, the flavor of adaptability, the flavor of persistence and triumph. Above anything, this food is the flavor of America.”

Here‘s my September shelf, full of my #BookSpinBINGO reads. My #BookSpin is Raising Demons (for a Shirley Jackson study I‘m doing with a friend) and my #DoubleSpin is The House in the Cerulean Sea (for the #AuthorAMonth challenge). I have a great month of reading ahead!

Happy September! #BookSpinBINGO

August was a pretty good reading month for me. #BookSpinBINGO 📚💖🥳

Looking forward to these great reads this August. ☀️

#BookSpinBINGO

Lots of good reading in July, including both of my #BookSpinBINGO picks— and two from earlier this year. 📚💖🥳

Look at any list of ALA youth media awards, and you‘ll likely see Carole Boston Weatherford‘s name. Her nonfiction picture books for young people are wonderful. I especially love how she uses poetry to tell stories of important people and events in American history. In this book, Weatherford shares her persistent search for the stories of her ancestors, using the poetic form again to great effect.

This was my June #BookSpin pick.

July‘s TBR shelf/#BookSpinBINGO list. I‘m really pleased with my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin picks for this month: Kate DiCamillo‘s Ferris and Jane Austen‘s The Watsons. Thank you, @TheAromaofBooks !

Ready with my reading list for July!

#BookSpinBINGO

June was a great month of reading. (Now I need to get better at posting book reviews!)

#BookSpinBINGO

I loved many things about this book: learning fascinating words from Ivar‘s language which helped me understand the island‘s landscape, following John Ferguson as he fell gently into Ivar‘s life, and cheering Mary on as she continuously surprised and delighted me.

Thanks to #CampLitsy24 for the great discussions, and to @BarbaraBB @Megabooks and @squirrelbrain for being awesome camp counselors!

This title won a Batchelder Award Honor which put it on my radar. It‘s a uniquely told story: using both comics and prose pieces, it almost feels like a journal. I was slowly charmed by it, and the ending was exactly right.

So happy this one finally came in for me at the library! Halfway through, and looking forward to reading the #CampLitsy24 posts about it.

And here‘s my June #BookSpinBINGO bookshelf. It was fun to put together this variety of reads!

Here‘s my May #BookSpinBINGO reading. Busy month, but I got to some wonderful reads!

Great pairing this month for my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin picks.

My June #BookSpinBINGO list is ready!

Here‘s my #BookSpinBINGO bookshelf for May, plus a few I have on deck for the rest of 2024.

I‘m back to making a list of specific titles for #BookSpinBINGO. Happy May Day!

April was a busy month. I didn‘t read as much as I would have liked, and I didn‘t get to my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin picks yet. But I am in the middle of several great books right now. Plus, I finally got a bingo!

#BookSpinBINGO

This is the story of Bug, who, when looking in the mirror, thinks, “It looks like someone‘s idea of what I look like, without me behind it.”
This is a ghost story, a grief story, a growing up story. This is a story about finding yourself.
This is a beautiful middle grade novel.
I loved it.

I mostly listened to the audio version which was well done.

I adored this graphic novel—both the print version and the audiobook. How is it possible to make an audiobook from a graphic novel? Listen to it and you‘ll find out! Mexikid was a big winner this year: Newbery Honor, Pura Belpré Award for both author and illustrator, and an Odyssey Honor for the audio version. All well deserved. Hurra for Pedro Martín! (These great photos of his family are from the book‘s backmatter.)

The Last Pick trilogy is a great graphic novel series for middle schoolers. Author Jason Walz, a special education teacher, understands the importance of representation; in a note he explains the main theme: “Whatever the world sees as ‘different‘ is exactly what the world needs.” I don‘t think it‘s a spoiler to say that kids turn out to be the heroes. 💖

It was no surprise to me that young Shannon‘s favorite game was making up and acting out stories with her friends. Her middle grade graphic memoir, the first in a series, was both a joyful and painful exploration of real friendships and family relationships. I loved it. 💖

I just learned it‘s the #AwesomeApril Readathon! I‘m in the middle of a few books and hope to finish them over the next nine days. And I‘m adding another goal: posting at least one book review each day on Litsy. I am way behind but inspired to catch up and share what I‘ve read. 📚🥰

I put together my April #BookSpinBINGO TBR shelf last night, and realized I‘d skipped number 7 when writing out my list. Oops! Corrected now, so I‘m ready to go. 😊

Here‘s my March #BookSpinBINGO board. I read some great books! However, I still need to read my #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin picks.

I‘m happy with my #MarvellousMarch readathon results: four books completed (1 mystery/thriller, 1 YA novel, 2 audiobooks that won Odyssey honors last year) and two more begun. Thank you, @Andrew65 !

It‘s April already!Although I‘m feeling behind, I‘m looking forward to a fresh #BookSpinBINGO start. Off to check the numbers. 😀

I‘m working on this book stack for the #MarvellousMarch readathon. I‘d also like to get back to posting reviews here; I am very behind!

Here‘s my TBR bookshelf for March, arranged in order of my #BookSpinBINGO list.

Here‘s my March #BookSpinBINGO list. Now I can check @TheAromaofBooks ‘s picks for this month. 🥳

I read some great books in February!

#BookSpinBINGO

At the start of every month, I put together my To Read bookshelf based on my #BookSpinBINGO list, but I missed posting it in February! Here‘s what was on my shelf at the start of last month.

Just finished for #AuthorAMonth, and I loved it. Took me awhile to warm up to it, but once I understood the rhythm of the storytelling, I was captivated by Marie and her sisters.