*Review* Pedro Loves Saving the Planet by Jess French

 

Genre: Children's 4-7

Published: April 18, 2023

Pages: 48

Pedro Loves the Planet tells the fact-filled story of day in the life of a boy who is passionate about the environment.

Pedro spends the day at his school eco club's forest cabin where he learns about electric cars,plants some vegetable seeds and encourages his friends to think of creative ways to recycle.

Follow Pedro as he shares his love of the environment – learn about renewable energy, discover fun ways to save water and find out what else you can do to help protect our planet.

With an engaging and lively narrative from Jess French and fun, warm illustrations from Duncan Beedie this book will help ignite a love and appreciation for nature, right on our doorsteps.

The Nature Heroes series focuses on a group of friends who are passionate about nature and the great outdoors. Each book features a different child who has a favourite topic that they are fascinated by:  Billy Loves Birds, Bella Loves Bugs, Ava Loves Animals and Pedro Loves the Planet!

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review. 

This is a short story about a woke little kid trying to be eco friendly. He explains small steps  that we can take in our everyday lives that can have a big impact overall on our world. I feel like these were things I learned about in school, although the way some people act now, people I went to school with even, maybe I didn't. Or maybe I learned them in a different timeline and have since moved into the worst timeline. 

The illustrations were bright and colorful with crisp lines showing examples for the steps we can take to help save our planet, or at least make it livable for a little bit longer. Overall I give this book 4.13 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

Amazon

Jess French is a passionate vet, zoologist and naturalist who has been named one of Britain's top 50 conservationists by BBC Wildlife magazine. She presented her own TV series on CBeebies called Minibeast Adventure with Jess and worked on Live 'n' Deadly (CBBC), Deadly Mission Madagascar (CBBC), Springwatch (BBC) and Micro Monsters 3D (Sky). Jess has written several books for children, including the Born Free series for Orion Children's Books.

Duncan Beedie is an illustrator and animator based in Bristol. Aside from drawing copious quirky images, he collects clockwork robots, can identify pretty much any military aircraft and has a dog called Ivor.

*Review* Herman Jiggle Just Be You by Julia Cook

 

Genre: Children's 4-7

Published: February 13, 2023

Pages: 31

How far will Herman Jiggle go to try and fit in?

Herman really wants to be like everyone else. But from his head to his heels, he thinks he stands out for all the wrong reasons.

• His hair is wild and spikey, like a porcupine.

• His shoes are clunky, not trendy. They may be great for climbing, but they’re awful for racing and look nothing like the speedy, super-stylish sneakers worn by his classmates.

• He’s even bummed about his teeth – they don’t wiggle! If he never loses a tooth, how will he get a hole like everyone else or get money from the Tooth Fairy?

Herman is determined to do whatever must be done to fit in, not stand out.
If that means cementing his hair down with glue, he’ll do it.
If that means giving up his favorite climbing shoes, he’ll do it.
He will even take out a tooth the hard way if it leaves him with a hole like the ones his friends have.

What silly sacrifice or strange stunt will Hermie do next on his quest to fit in? Or can his caring mom convince him to stop trying to change himself and learn to love everything that makes him unique?

Herman Jiggle, Just Be YOU! is a heartwarming tale about overcoming insecurities and anxieties while discovering the importance of accepting and loving yourself. A special page written specifically for parents and educators offers insightful and practical tips on helping children celebrate and love all the things that make them unique.

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review. 

This is a story about a kid who just wants to be like everyone else in his class at school, because being different is hard. And all the other kids have flat hair, nitro-flyer shoes, and missing teeth. His mom does her best to convince him that his differences make him Herman and special. Then when he gets to school the other kids want to be more like him, some of them coming to school with their hair spiky and wanting to climb trees instead of run fast at recess. 

The illustrations were colorful and bright with crisp lines, perfectly showing the action of the story without a ton of extraneous background activity. Overall I give this book 3.47 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

Amazon

Julia Cook is an award-winning author and highly sought-after speaker. A former teacher and school counselor, her captivating storybooks help young readers learn to use social skills and develop healthy relationships. She has received the Association for Educational Publishers Distinguished Achievement Award, and her books have been honored by The National Parenting Center and Mom’s Choice Awards. She is the author of multiple storybook series, including The Leader I’ll Be!, Building Relationships, Communicate with Confidence, BEST Me I Can Be!, and Responsible Me!

*Stacking the Shelves* 25 March 2023

(Titles link to Amazon via Amazon Affiliate links)

Stacking The Shelves is a feature/weekly meme created by Reading Reality in which you share the books you are adding to your shelves, both physical and virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical stores or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Now, I already have a monthly post I do featuring the books I get in the mail (and it's a lot because I have a serious Goodreads First Reads giveaway addiction), and I'm posting my monthly Read-A-Thon posts again too, which covers the books I receive through Netgalley. So my STS post will feature all the books I've been one-clicking on Amazon. 

On that note, here are the books I picked up this week. All Goodreads First Reads ebook wins unless otherwise specified.

A Shot at Justice by Karla M. Jay

Daughters of Sparta by Claire Heywood - I had a $5 Amazon voucher, plus my Kindle credits, so this book cost me the tax. I knew I wanted to read this book because I really enjoyed The Shadow of Perseus also by Ms. Heywood. It will also be interesting for me to see how she portrays Klytemnestra as I just recently finished another ARC all about her. 

From LA to London, With Love by Elizabeth Luly

Under the World by McKayla Miller

A Homecoming Mantra by Sapna Srinivasan

Lost Love's Return by Alfred Nicols

Bliss Road by Martha Engber

Liberty Bound by Nathaniel M. Wrey

And that's all the books I added to my digital shelves this past week. Felt like a slow week for Goodreads wins, but we're coming up on the end of the month here next week, so the next STS post I build should be a little bit beefier than this as the end of the month usually has a lot more giveaways than most days during the month. 

Do any of these books sound appealing to you based on title alone? What new books have you added to your shelves this past week? If you're stopping by from the linkup, please be sure to leave a link to your post below so I can make sure I stop by and see all your new pretties. - Katie 

*Review* An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

 

Genre: YA Romance

Published: August 14, 2008

Pages: 260

Katherine V thought boys were gross
Katherine X just wanted to be friends
Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail
K-19 broke his heart
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book. I listened to it at 1.7 speed while working doing data entry. This may have led to me missing some nuance to the story, but I'm pretty sure I have a pretty good handle on what happened in the story. The narration was clear and I don't remember being annoyed by the opposite gendered voices (which can be an issue for me in audiobooks). 

This is a story about a teenager named Colin who is likely on the autism spectrum. He reminded me a lot of how Sheldon Cooper is portrayed in The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon and I think Sheldon is on the spectrum. It's never stated though, so that's just my conjecture from what I know of the spectrum. The fact that he literally only dates people named Katherine (the correct spelling!) is an interesting idiosyncrasy, but I could've dated him (maybe. The fact that I hate being called by my legal name might have ruled me out as a prospect). 

Because I was listening to the audiobook while working, it was really easy for me to fly through this book in just two days. Had I been reading it myself, it definitely would've taken me longer to read, but only because I have very few hours to spend reading in any given day. I definitely would've wanted to keep reading to see how things were going to pan out for Colin, but also to hear the stories from the factory workers that they spend their days interviewing. 

Overall I give this audiobook 4.28 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

Amazon

John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan), and The Fault in Our Stars. His many accolades include the Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and the Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. With his brother, Hank, John is one half of the Vlogbrothers (youtube.com/vlogbrothers) and co-created the online educational series CrashCourse (youtube.com/crashcourse). You can join the millions who follow him on Twitter @johngreen and Instagram @johngreenwritesbooks or visit him online at johngreenbooks.com.

John lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana.

*Book Blogger Hop* 24 March 2023

We are on to a new week for the Book Blogger Hop hosted by the lovely folks over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. This weeks questions is: 

Are books a must-have in your home? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

137% yes. While others may be a bit less dramatic with their answer, I do believe that most of us will be answering this question in the affirmative. We are book bloggers after all, and I really doubt anyone falls into book blogging without truly loving books. 

Now I also probably take it to more of an extreme than most book bloggers as well, I do have my own personal library that is mostly housed in my home office (but like, the bookshelves lining the outer walls provide added insulation making the office maintain it's temperature better, right?) Add my obsession with entering Goodreads giveaways and my desire to never get rid of a single book, ever, and my husband's willingness to continue buying me more bookshelves is the only reason I don't look like a hoarder yet. This is also why I have to die first, because if he's not around, all bets are off on the state my house will be in afterwards. 

What about you? Are books a must-have in your home? If you're stopping by from the linkup, please be sure to drop a link to your post below so I can stop by and pay you a visit as well. - Katie 

*Top Ten Tuesday* Topic Rewind-Books I Was So Excited to Get, but Still Haven't Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Joood - Hooligan of Platypire reviews bossed me into doing this, so I guess this is a thing I do now. 

This week’s theme is a topic rewind, where I get to pick a past prompt that I either missed or want to redo. Since I wasn't blogging for a couple years, it was fairly easy to find several topics that spoke to me, and I decided to go with books that I was so excited to get, but are still languishing on my shelves, unread. To that end, I will be scouring my records of books I won through Goodreads that I got super excited about when I saw I'd won. Here we go. 

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

Won in 2016

The Book of Esther by Emily Barton

Won in 2016

The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry

Won in 2017

My Fairy Godmother is a Drag Queen by David Clawson

Won in 2017

How to Walk Away by Katherine Center

Won in 2017

The Sky is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith

Won in 2017

Bookish Boyfriends by Tiffany Schmidt

Won in 2018

Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd

Won in 2018

One Day in December by Josie Silver

Won in 2018

The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning

Won in 2019

There you have it. Ten books that I won through Goodreads giveaways that I was super excited about winning, and have yet to read. It is worth mentioning that I didn't even consider sharing any of the Kindle books that I've won through Goodreads, and in the time that I've been meticulously tracking my wins via screenshots shared to albums on Facebook I've won 4,504 books (I won 1,202 books in 2018 alone, but that was when they opened up ebook giveaways as an option for all authors, and for like three months didn't charge authors to host them, so a lot of those wins are ebooks and therefore not taking up any space in my house). 

Do any of these books look like I should move them to the top of the line sooner rather than later (assuming I can track them down again since most of my books are currently in boxes waiting to be unpacked and up on my shelves)? 

What theme did you pick for this week's post? If you're stopping by from the linkup, please be sure to share a link to your post in the comments below. I like to return all visits, but can't typically do so until the weekend, so those links help me out a ton. - Katie 

*Review* Dissonance by Barbara Burt

 

Genre: Mystery

Published: January 31, 2023

Pages: 348

What deadly conflict lurks under the posh genteel facade of a summer classical music festival in a small town on the Maine Coast? Allegra Brewster, cellist and newly minted arts administrator, finds herself torn between keeping her job with the SummerFest Symphony and her loyalty to its musicians. The tension rises to a higher level when she discovers the death of a central person in the conflict. Many people with ill feelings toward the victim are potential murder suspects, but it is her father upon whom the police focus their attention.

Set at a fictional summer music festival in coastal Maine, Dissonance explores the struggle between a nonprofit arts board and its musicians, wealthy summer people and locals, a besotted suitor and the former girlfriend he betrayed, and a young woman’s faith in her own detective skills and the obvious fact that someone close to her committed murder.

Filled with music references (and accompanied by a Spotify playlist), Dissonance brings the reader into the world of a summer orchestra, its musicians and supporters, and the small town they occupy.

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review. 

This book lured me in with its cover, and for me, proved the saying that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Sadly it was a pretty big let-down for me, and not nearly as engaging as I was hoping it would be. There was a lot of focus on picking songs, for basically every activity described in the book, and they were almost always classical, which didn't feel very realistic to me, even with the main character being a cello player. I'm really supposed to believe that she never listens to the actual radio and jams out to Taylor Swift? 

Allie's relationships with the locals also felt very juvenile, which may have contributed to my disbelief about her music choices because I view classical music listeners as more sophisticated. Meanwhile Allie is breaking up with her boyfriend because her friend/surrogate mom tragically lost one of her children in a boating accident a couple years before, and it's hinted that he had some sort of involvement with that, but we never really find out what. 

It also felt like the book was almost over before the main crime even happened that led to the mystery Allie needed to solve. Which means solving the mystery felt rushed as well, and we were still focusing on picking just the right song for our thinking about whodunit. 

I really wanted to like this book, because I really want to like every book I read, but I just couldn't make it happen here unfortunately. Overall I give Dissonance 2.13 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

Amazon

A musician, writer, sailor, editor, educator, nonprofit executive and board member, and long-time New Englander, Barbara Burt now lives in Georgia with her husband, two daughters, one granddaughter, and two dogs. You can reach her at barbwriter@proton.me.