Year 4: week 41: Four Hundred Souls

This week's book:
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019
Edited by Ibram X. Kendi, Keisha N. Blain

I was going to read this book originally, but then I found out each chapter/section for the audiobook was narrated by different African American actors. I am so glad that I opted for that option. All the different voices telling all these stories really gives the book a quilt collage feeling. Each "chapter" was written by different authors and covers a few years of the four hundred years of the treatment of black people in America. 

The book is very well written and very well put together. As always, it is heart-breaking and hard to read about how horrible people can treat each other just because of the color of someone's skin. Since I started trying to be better educated about race (and let's be honest, about everything they didn't teach us at school), I have tried to read as much as I could. I know reading some books isn't enough, but it's a start, and maybe I can teach my kids and the people around me to be better than the people that have come before me. 

I would highly recommend this book.

Year 4, week 40: The Nickel Boys

The Nickel Boys
By Colson Whitehead

This week’s book won 2020’s Pulitzers Prize for fiction. This book was my book group's book for May. I read it early so other people could read my copy of the book, so I’m writing this blog a little later than I should have. Our group read one of Whitehead’s other books, The Underground Railroad, last year and both are so insanely well written, while being quite depressing. 

The book is about a young black man in the 1960's that is wrongly charged with stealing a car and sent to a boys school in Florida. The school is sold as a reform school that will help shape up these boys; it was actually a place that forced the boys to do hard manual labor and where sexual and physical abuse ran rampant. The book is told from two time periods, the 1960’s and then 2010 when one of the main character’s is telling his story.

Between each chapter there are history lessons and real stories about the actual place.  Sadly the school was a real place and a lot of horrible things happened there. The real school was called the Dozier School, a reform school in Florida that was open and ran for 111 years. There was a secret graveyard of all the kids killed at the school, and because many of the victims at the school were black, no one did anything about it.  It’s strange to say but the history parts were the most, I don't want to say interesting, but more informative than the rest of the book. 

I would recommend this book to anyone that needs a very well written book, but full disclosure it's super depressing. 

P.S. my baby daughter fell asleep on me during our Zoom book group meeting like this:

Year 4, week 39: I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

This week's book:
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
By Erika Sánchez

I kept seeing this book and I kept wondering about it. Well, this month's challenge for my book reading thingamajig I have been doing for a few months had "read a book with a Mexican theme or written by an author from Mexico", this one was perfect. 

Alright, so I don't normally read YA books that often, so I may have struggled more then I really needed for this book. The book is about a teenaged girl coming to terms with the loss of her older sister (she got hit by a bus) and trying to relate to her parents. When she starts to uncover that her perfect older sister may have been not so perfect and that the main character has some major depression issues, the book gets even darker. 

I am so glad that YA books show that it's okay to go to therapy and that it's okay to struggle, but I'm a thirty-five year old mother of three so I'm definitely not the right demographic for this book. I would recommend the book for young women who are coming of age and might be trying to find their way in the world.

Year 4, week 38: Dragons in a Bag / The Dragon Thief

Two books from the Dragons in a Bag series by Zetta Elliott.

Dragons in a Bag
By Zetta Elliott

This book was recommended for young readers who loved magic, plus it is written by a woman of color, whoop whoop! 

The book is about a boy named Jax and how he is learning about the realm of magic where there are dragons and witches. When Jax helps to take care of three baby dragons and one gets lost, craziness ensues. I read the book to my two oldest and they both liked it very much. When I learned there was a sequel, I picked it up fast. 

"I liked it. I don't know what my favorite part was but I liked it. I like every part of it!"-- Lily

"I liked it. I liked the dragons."----Mikey

The Dragon Thief
By Zeta Elliott

This was the sequel to Dragons in a Bag. The picks up from where the first book leaves off. This novel is told from Jax and the dragon thief's perspective. (I don't want to give anything away so I won't say too much)! 

This book ups the magic but falls a bit short on plot compared with the first book. I'm still glad we read it, but it's definitely not as good. It took the kids a while to read this one because they kept wanting to read other things instead.

"I like the mouse that talked. I liked the magic in the fairy named Jeff. Ma's mind was wide awake but she was in sleep mode." ---Mikey

"Jeff is a fairy. Jeff got turned into a guy named Blue's tattoo. And also Trub helped Jax. Ma was in the sleep world, Jax thought she was just asleep but she wasn't but no she wasn't." --Lily

Year 4, week 37: Fairy tales with the kids

Two books this week: some fairy tale themed stories with the kids!

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
By Robin McKinley

This book is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I needed to read a retelling/reimagining of a classic fairytale for a reading challenge I am doing. I went onto my library's audiobook app and let my two eldest children pick whichever book they wanted to listen to while we were in the car or eating breakfast. This is what the kids picked. 

I'm going to be honest, it's not great. It's the classic tale with Beauty having sisters and a father willing to let his daughter take his place at the enchanted castle. I probably wouldn't recommend this book. 

Mikey--"I didn't like it."

Lily--- "I love it. She likes to read."

Ella Enchanted
By Gail Carson Levine

So everyone else doing the same reading challenge I am read this book as their retelling of a fairy tale. We were trying to read this book together as a family a while ago, but the family couldn't get into it, and then I couldn't find the book! I decided to see if the kids and I listened to as an audiobook if it would work better. Well it worked because the kids loved listening to it. We watched the film adaptation of the book and it's so different then the book, but the kids seemed to like it. 

Mikey-- "I liked the movie better then the book."

Lily--- "I liked it but I didn't like that they made her do bad things. The book and movie were way different. I like the ending of them both. They fell in love!"