January Books of the Month

February 7, 2020 by Christina

Whenever I am in Montana, I tend to go dark across social media, focusing on spending time with family and being outdoors over writing blog posts, responding to emails, or posting to Instagram. (I deleted Facebook in August 2019 followed by Twitter the next month.) I planned to return to blogging once my vacation ended. Then, work threw my team and I through another re-organization, and I was too mentally scrambled to organize my bookish thoughts in coherent ones. I’m really […]

Categories: 2020 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Canada, Cartography, Chunkster, Classics, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Germany, Iceland, Icelandic, Indigenious Peoples, Japanese, Mexico, Mountain West, Nonfiction, North America, Persephone Books, ReadDiverse, Reread, South America, Translated, United Kingdom, United States • Tags: Andrew Cauthery, Anna Funder, Björg Árnadóttir, C.J. Box, Cathy O'Neil, Charles C. Mann, Guðmundur Andri Thorsson, Kaoru Mori, L. M. Montgomery, Monica Dickens, Naomi Klein, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Roger Lea MacBride’s Little House: The Rose Years Series (Books 5 – 8)

February 27, 2019 by Christina

As I mentioned in my post about the first four books in MacBride’s series, I decided to reread the series as I found myself in need of a counterbalance to the heaviness that comes with reading Crime and Punishment and a nonfiction book about human evolution. In my eagerness to share my thoughts on the books, I became a bit longwinded and had to cut the post into two parts. This part, the second, covers the final four books in the series. ‘Little Town […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Fiction, Juvenile, North America, Reread, United States • Tags: Roger Lea MacBride

Roger Lea MacBride’s Little House: The Rose Years Series (Books 1 – 4)

February 25, 2019 by Christina

Growing up, I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series and eagerly read the books over and over again. So much so that the spines of my paperback copies are all cracked, and a couple of pages are marked with the sticky fingers of childhood. Long after I outgrew the series (in terms of reading level), I discovered the continuation of Laura’s series through the eyes of her daughter, Rose, for sale at Half-Price Books. Over time, I bought what […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Fiction, Juvenile, North America, Reread, United States • Tags: Roger Lea MacBride

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince By J.K. Rowling (Reread)

November 20, 2015 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Jim Dale. Listening Library, 2005. 18 hours, 31 minutes. Library copy. Returning to Hogwarts for his sixth year, Harry Potter is horrified to learn that Severus Snape, potions master and a Death Eater that Harry’s beloved headmaster claims to trust with his life, has now taken over the Defense Against the Dark Arts post. Harry is convinced Snape’s true allegiances lie with Voldemort rather than with the Order of the Phoenix and, as such, is  playing Dumbledore […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, Fantasy, Fiction, Juvenile, Reread, United Kingdom • Tags: J.K. Rowling, Jim Dale

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

April 6, 2015 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Jim Dale. Random House Audio, 2001. 20 hours, 30 minutes. Library copy. Beginning like the previous three novels towards the end of summer vacation, this novel finds Harry Potter in slightly better conditions than the previous three summers because the Dursleys are terrified he will report them to his godfather, an escaped mass murderer named Sirius Black. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia aren’t exactly hospitable to Harry forcing the skinny boy into abiding by his […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Audiobook, Chunkster, Europe, Fantasy, Fiction, Juvenile, Reread, United Kingdom • Tags: J.K. Rowling, Jim Dale

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

February 28, 2015 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Jim Dale. Random House Audio, 2000. 11 hours, 48 minutes. Library copy. Third-year students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are allowed to visit Hogsmeade, a town that looks like it came right out of a Christmas card, provided they have permission slips signed by their parents or guardian, of course. Uncle Vernon refuses to sign Harry’s permission slip after a disastrous incident where Harry Potter inflates Aunt Marge, but Harry figures the permission […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Audiobook, Europe, Fantasy, Fiction, Juvenile, Reread, United Kingdom • Tags: J.K. Rowling, Jim Dale

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

December 8, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Jim Dale. Listening Library, 1999. 8 hours, 17 minutes. Library copy. Harry Potter’s name is said reverence and excitement because Harry Potter is ‘The Boy Who Lived’. Yet ten-year-old Harry Potter has no idea how famous he is in the magical world his horrid aunt and uncle, the Dursleys, are determined to keep him ignorant of and no idea why attempts to contact him via a letter have the Dursleys in an uproar. On his […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Audiobook, Europe, Fantasy, Fiction, Juvenile, Reread, United Kingdom • Tags: J.K. Rowling, Jim Dale

The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

June 16, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Scholastic, 1971. 135 pgs. Purchased. Found after Wilder’s death, the final book in the Little House series covers the first four years of Laura’s marriage to Almanzo. Although the Wilders welcome their daughter, Rose, the first four years of their marriage are marked largely by death – the destruction of their farm, the struggle to make it as farmers, and the unexpected and unexplained death of their unnamed infant son. Almanzo promised Laura at the beginning of […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Classics, Fiction, Juvenile, North America, Reread, United States • Tags: Laura Ingalls Wilder

These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

June 15, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Scholastic, 1971. Originally published 1943. 289 pgs. Purchased. Fifteen-year-old Laura manages to earn her teaching certificate even though teachers must be sixteen in the Dakota territories and is sent to teach at a claim shanty twelve miles from the Ingalls family home. Feeling completely out of her element both as a teacher and a border in a local family’s home, Laura desperately wants to go home toughing it out only because her family needs her wages to […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Classics, Fiction, Juvenile, North America, Reread, United States • Tags: Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

June 14, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Scholastic, 1969. First published 1941. 307 pgs. Purchased. After surviving the long winter, the town of De Smet experiences a building boom and Charles’ experience as a carpenter is in great demand. Still not old enough to teach but desperate to help raise money to send Mary to college for the blind, Laura takes a job sewing shirts consigning this former tomboy to sit still for hours on end engaged in an activity she hates. The lightness […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Classics, Fiction, Juvenile, North America, Reread, United States • Tags: Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

June 13, 2014 by Christina

A series of terrible blizzards hit the town of De Smet in the Dakota Territories where the Ingalls family now resides from October until April. Figuring his family will be safer in town than in the roughly built shanty on his claim, Charles moves the family and their provisions of food and coal into town and Caroline decides the proximity means the Laura and her younger sister, Carrie, can attend school all winter-long. Conditions deteriorate as snow pills up blocking […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Classics, Fiction, Juvenile, North America, Reread, United States • Tags: Laura Ingalls Wilder

Riding Freedom by Pam Muñoz Ryan

May 29, 2014 by Christina

Fiction — print. Scholastic, 1998. 138 pgs. Purchased. Charlotte Parkhurst was raised in an orphanage for boys, prevented from being adopted by the cook who wants to exploit her as a kitchen maid. Charlotte’s only escape is to the stables behind the orphanage where the caretaker allows her to ride her beloved horse, Freedom, and she dreams about spending her life training and riding horses on a ranch of her own. In the mid-1800s, however, such options are out of […]

Categories: 2014 Reads, Fiction, Juvenile, New England, North America, Reread, United States • Tags: Pam Muñoz Ryan