Favorite March Reads

Though the list of amazing books I read in March is nowhere the size of February's list, it was still a wonderful month of reading.  

I read a handful of good books that were almost great except for a few nitpicky reasons.  I finally got around to reading both The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg and A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley.  Both were pretty good.  I will recommend them but definitely not rave about them.

Here are the books I will not only recommend and rave about, but also wave my hands excitedly and possibly hop up and down too.

This is My Book by Mark Pett (picture book)



Who wouldn't love a mischievous panda completely taking over a book and turning it into a hilarious adventure? Well...quite possibly the person who is trying to write the book. Can this panda win him over with his charming illustrations and outlandish extras such as pull tabs and flaps? You'll have to read it to find out! Be sure to check out what the panda did to the book blurb author's bio!

The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld  (picture book)

Taylor's amazing block art piece is destroyed and he is incredibly sad. One by one, an assortment of animals barge into his unhappiness without truly listening. And then the rabbit appears, moving closer and closer so Taylor can share its warmth and friendship. The rabbit listens to and acknowledges Taylor's feelings and helps Taylor rebuild not just a new block art piece, but also his composure. In beautiful illustrations and simple lines The Rabbit Listened delivers a beautiful and powerful message about active listening.

Reading Rooms edited by Susan Allen Toth (adult nonfiction)

What a book! Reading Rooms is packed full of essays, songs, poems, snippets of novels and memoirs, all relating to the library. It's broken up into sections - Small-Town Libraries, City Libraries, Love in the Library, and Mystery and Murder in the Library to name a few - and within each section is a handful of writings reflecting the theme.

There are plenty of well-known authors in this collection, including Stephen King, Eudora Welty, and Betty Smith. But there are also a handful of lesser-known authors such as Patricia McGerr, whose story surprised and delighted me. In fact, most of my favorite pieces were written by authors I hadn't heard of or authors I'm uncertain about.

The greatest, most beautiful surprise came from Stephen King's "It," which, surprise surprise, has a snippet about the library in it. Though I haven't read Stephen King for many years because he gives me nightmares, I couldn't help but read this piece because the writing was astonishingly beautiful. I had no idea Stephen King was so poetic. In this snippet of “It” he does one of my favorite writerly things and combines pretty phrases and words with slang. For example, he writes, "He liked the smell of the books - a spicy smell, faintly fabulous. He would sometimes walk through the adult stacks, looking at the thousands of volumes and imagining a world of lives inside each one, the way he sometimes walked along his street in the burning smoke-hazed twilight of a late-October afternoon, the sun only a bitter orange line on the horizon, imagining the lives going on behind all the windows - people laughing or arguing or arranging flowers or feeding kids or pets or their own faces while they watched the boobtube." holy moly that's some beautiful writing.

I also loved Pete Hamill's piece, "D'Artagnan on Ninth Street,” and in particular, these lines, "I can feel now the way my blood quickened as I...saw ahead the wild gloomy garden behind the library. As a gesture of support, I would run a finger along the menacing iron pickets of the garden's fence. I wanted that fence to stand forever, holding back the jungle... I sometimes imagined it spilling into the streets, marching steadily forward to link with Prospect Park. Or it would turn to the nearest target: the library itself. The vengeful blind force of untamed nature would climb those granite walls, seep under the windows and assault the books, those sheaves of murdered trees, sucking them back to the dark earth."

Reading Rooms was everything I hoped for and more. I mean, where else am I going to find such a strange compilation of authors and styles of writing about my favorite place in the world? It falls into that rare and awesome category of books that keep on giving long after they’re read. I not only jotted down a handful of names and books to look up, I also went on a wild and entertaining exploration of the Ellery Magazine thanks to Patricia McGerr. As a person who hasn't read a single adult mystery book, not even Agatha Christie (*gasp*) I'm now intrigued, which is the first step towards reading my first mystery. As for Stephen King, there are just too many scary things circling the island of beautiful writing, so I will continue looking at it from afar.

A Great Big Cuddle written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Chris Riddell (children's poetry)

This is a book of poems for the silly-hearted souls who love nonsensical words and ideas. It's also wonderful for storytime. I chose my three favorites and added a few movements to each poem to make them more interactive. It's a very imaginative, fun book to read aloud and share with others.

Tea Rex by Molly Idle (picture book)

The idea of a tea party with a t rex is outlandish and thrilling. I enjoyed the illustrations (big dinosaur sitting in a little chair for example) and appreciated the clever and sneaky effort to encourage politeness and manners in young readers.

Stitch-illo by Janine Vangool (adult nonfiction)

Is it ok to say I love this book because of how pretty it is? Before reading this, I hadn't heard of most of the textile artists and I was delighted and inspired by their different styles, stories, approaches, and techniques. Though most of their websites are easy to find I am keeping my copy of the book so I can leisurely flip through the pages anytime I'm feeling totally stumped and creatively drained.