What Maisy Knew by Henry James (1897) tells the story of a young girl torn between two divorced parents. Maisy learns the “games” the parents play and feels the difficulties of not having a steady life throughout her childhood, and eventually she uses her smarts to get just what she wants from life. So what

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I was so excited to read a novel that took place during the early days of the COVID pandemic, so I eagerly sought out Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine, 2021). I read it last month and even today I’m struggling to eek out thoughts on what I think of it. I don’t

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I did always wonder what the COVID-19 pandemic would have been like from the very beginning, even when no one yet knew what it was in Wuhan, China. I only have my experience, watching the progression of the disease through the world before our own world shut down. Morning Sun in Wuhan by Ying Chang Compestine

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Beatrice Nash is an educated, talented, and pleasant woman. But life in 1914 England does not give much credence to those qualities when she has been left orphaned and impoverished at the old maid age of 22 without any marriage prospects. To make matters worse, she must rely on her unfriendly relatives for assistance in finding

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Harry and Walter by Kathy Stinson is about two unlikely friends, one 4 and three-quarters years old and the other ninety-two and a half. I loved how this was a story about how friendships evolve and change. I love how the two friends, although very different in age, found things they liked to do together.

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A Friend for Mole by Nancy Armo is about a mole who stumbles out of his hole and feels lonely because he’s afraid of the light, as well as a wolf who got lost from his home in the middle of the night and is afraid of the dark. Since they are afraid of the opposite

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The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron (originally published 1987) is a clever early chapter book about a boy and his younger brother, along with the crazy stories Julian makes up to explain the world around him. When seven-year-old Julian does not know the answer to his three-year-old brother Huey’s questions, he makes up stories! For example, he tells his

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Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (1998 Newbery Medal Winner) is a young adult novel in poetry about the difficulties of dust bowl living in the 1930s. A changing industry, magnified by severe drought and the Great Depression, meant that farming in rural Oklahoma was more difficult than ever. But Billie’s difficulties are compounded.

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Sometimes a clever and intriguing storyline makes a novel great. Sometimes, it is the interaction of a number of interesting characters. And other times, a novel is great because of the carefully developed setting that gives life to the situations and characters. In One Came Home (January 2013, Knopf Books for Young Readers), Amy Timberlake

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