Monday Reading - All Kinds of Holiday Gift Ideas!

         

    Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow!

     However you celebrate, I wish everyone a Happy Holiday with family and friends. This is going to be a busy week, but at the end, my son and family will be here. It will be great to see them, and then celebrate Christmas together, along with my daughter and family who live here. Have a great week everyone!

          It's a debut young adult speculative fiction novel, which is terrific! Rachel Byrne happens to be a parent of a former student of mine, and I am grateful that she gave me a copy! Because she is a mom, I imagine she knows some of what it's like for kids to feel somewhat outside the group, never fitting in. Not that her own children experienced this. I don't know that. But as a mom, she does understand kids growing up with all kinds of feelings about self, which she shows so beautifully in this book! 

          In Predestined, the story that is told to us by Catalina, called Lina, sixteen, about her days filled with conflict, some with her parents or at school, though it's clear she loves her parents and her younger sister, Emma Claire. Although the outcome means a lot of trouble, being grounded at home or suspended at school, often the acts Lina does are for good reasons. She's alone in a sea of upset!

         And that is how Rachel Byrne lets us readers begin to know this new young woman, and the final conflict she loses is a surprising and intriguing invitation to spend her summer at an exclusive academy nestled in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, Haverford Pines. Lina was counting on a summer job at the local rec center, doing a lot at the climbing wall, but she finally gives in, and off she goes to a summer she doesn't want, yet one that gives her more than we readers will ever imagine! Just wait until you see!

         This school has a history of educating many famous people, both the good and the bad, and its prime purpose is to help those just starting to find their own, special, purpose and train in all ways to perfect it! Lina bonds surprisingly with her roommate, Brittany, an aspiring model, and as the days' extraordinary, often not so fair, challenges increase, Lina finds other friends who help, encourage, and as teens say, "have her back"! Along with Gabi, Charles, Hayden, and Eric, mysterious information about the school's history is discovered. The activities seems to find Lina especially singled out in harmful ways by others who have hopes she will leave or be kicked out. She fights back, but some of those who are in charge appear to support those who've become her enemies. The mysteries and challenging rules continue; Lina and her friends keep questioning and helping each other!

           The action becomes one for breath-holding as I watch Lina and the other strong characters add to both hope for some and disgust for others. As I did, I'm sure other readers will continue to ask, "What in the world is going on?" 

         I enjoyed the story very much, and cannot help but wonder, maybe hope, that we'll see these kids a little older and wiser, but ready to tackle still another challenge. The story may not be quite over yet!

         Thanks for an amazing book, Rachel!

      Note: I shared for Poetry Friday last week, too! It's not a book of poetry, yet the story is so poetic, I wanted to make each of you aware of it if you haven't seen it yet. James Norbury offers a story of sacrifice and friendship. It's an adventure with young dog Amaya who is searching for her parents and is nearly destroyed by a wolf pack until its leader saves her. They go on a journey to find her family, and along the way, the words they, really James Norbury, show us life lessons of friendship, taking a path that may only seem to be the way, and not giving up caring for the feelings of each other, whether it's worry or grief. That moon is their touchstone, and Norbury's illustrations are stunning as the wolf and Amaya travel together. I say it's a love song for humans in such disarray this year. 

      And, I can never resist a book about the moon!

     As part of being a U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón wrote this poem that will travel into space on NASA's Europa Clipper, heading to Jupiter. The poem will be engraved on the ship. Her words show what it might be like to go outside our world, to explore and ponder. Peter Sis has illustrated with extraordinary imaginative art, showing and imagining human connections with other animals, the sky, water. It's Limón's debut picture book, which will make a marvelous gift for those you know who love poetry and the pictures from the words that have been created by a wonderful artist! 

         Thanks to Candlewick Press for the following books, except at the older ones at the end!

      For the littlest child, a lover of trucks, what could be more fun than to learn about twenty of them. All in rhyme and in bright, bright colors, kids will see a variety of trucks who help. And what do they help? They're part of the story of finally getting the wonderful town Christmas tree displayed! All the expected players are there, including a snowman, a holiday band, kids playing in the snow, and Santa! There's a funny ending, too, to solve a problem! 

These two ahead are great ideas for gifts! 

          Remember the stories about Dasher by Matt Tavares? Here is a gorgeous boxed set, just perfect for a child on your gift list! 

           Ruffles loves those kittens and so many more things, like scratching and eating, digging and sleeping, BUT! In this story, David Melling shows us in fun illustrations of Ruffles' life with kittens that there are problems, this time with "snow"! What he does outside and inside makes a lovely animal story to read with a group or with one child "inside"! It was first published by Nosy Crow Ltd. in the UK! 

          Aaron Becker creates with new ideas for looking on every page. This time, in a brief poem with soft color-washed illustrations, he brings us to look more closely at what IS 'Winter Light'. There are crystals and sunlight through trees, candles and glowing embers in a fireplace! Sit with a young one and enjoy, perhaps finding other kinds seen, too!

     A shout-out to two favorite, older holiday books, one for Hanukkah and one for Chrismas! I just wanted to share. If they are unfamiliar, find them and enjoy!

Now Reading: Nearly finished with Pete Hautman's Answers to Dog. It's really great!