The Hungry Bookworm
reading + eating
Welcome to the first Kids Edition post on The Hungry Bookworm! Today we will be talking about a charming little monkey and his culinary adventures in Curious George Makes Pancakes.
George is a good little monkey. He is also very curious. This curiosity makes for a lot of antics that we love reading about with my son Henry.
[Read more...] about Kids Edition: Curious George Makes PancakesOctavia Butler’s Kindred is a book I’ve always wanted to read, and thankfully, finally got around to thanks to my book club. In the 1970s, this was the first science fiction novel written by a black woman. It became Butler’s best-selling novel, and she went on to win multiple Hugo and Nebula awards.
In Kindred, Dana is a 26-year-old black woman living in California with her husband, a white man named Kevin. Inexplicably, on her birthday, she is pulled back in time to the antebellum South, where she rescues a young boy named Rufus. She is only there long enough to save him and just as suddenly as she appeared, disappears back in the present. As the story goes on, Dana continues to be drawn back into Rufus’ life to save him. Until she is pulled back to her time, she must learn to blend in, which means, in that time and place, becoming a slave.
[Read more...] about Kindred + Upside-Down Peach CakeIf you’re looking for a powerful coming-of-age story about a fiercely resilient girl, look no further than Tiffany McDaniel’s Betty. Based on the life of her mother and crafted out of a series of Q&A sessions with her family members, it is a gritty read that doesn’t shy away from abuse or violence. It’s also inspiring and hopeful.
Betty was born in 1954 to a Cherokee father, Landon, and a white mother, Alka. Though many of her siblings favored their mother, Betty had the dark skin of her father. Growing up, she was witness to terrible acts of racism toward her father and experienced the same prejudices herself. Rather than turning inward, Betty continues to be curious about the world and takes pen to paper to record real-life stories alongside her imaginings.
[Read more...] about Betty + Jewel Pudding PieSue Monk Kidd’s latest novel The Book of Longings is one that I was very much looking forward to reading. I loved The Secret Life of Bees and I also enjoyed The Invention of Wings, though not quite as much. In both of them, her writing and storytelling completely drew you in and held you through until the end. I was expecting much the same in this story, which is about Jesus’ wife, Ana. (Yes, that Jesus.)
And, aside from the writing, the subject of the novel intrigued me immensely. I adored The Red Tent, which is also a Biblical retelling, focusing on women in the Bible who are named but otherwise overlooked in the story. Obviously, in the Bible, Jesus doesn’t have a wife, so this was entirely outside of that scope. But, still I was expecting The Red Tent’s essence — a female-focused story set in Biblical times. I was left a little disappointed.
[Read more...] about The Book of Longings + Marinated Goat Cheese Spread with OlivesRita Mae Brown’s novel Rubyfruit Jungle was quite revolutionary when it was first published in the 1970s. I had never heard of it until recently when I was searching for books to include in my office’s book club poll for Pride Month reads, and certainly now, the content isn’t what I would call groundbreaking, but I can see why it was at the time.
Rubyfruit Jungle is a coming-of-age lesbian novel based somewhat on Rita Mae Brown’s own experience growing up and becoming an author. The main character, Molly, is an easygoing, independent thinker — even from a young age (we meet her around 12) — and, in many ways, her narration reminded me of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. She doesn’t want to become a housewife and gets scolded for playing doctor because, after all, men are the doctors. She wants nothing more than to leave her small life and become a filmmaker.
[Read more...] about Rubyfruit Jungle + Baked Strawberry DonutsThe description of The Lightest Object in the Universe had me at “after a global economic collapse and failure of the electrical grid.” There’s no denying that I love a post-apocalyptic story! Today, I’m really excited to be a part of the Algonquin Books blog tour celebrating the paperback release of Kimi Eisele’s novel.
This post-apocalyptic journey starts like so many others — the world has imploded because of a series of horrible events — but then quickly veers off into a surprisingly pleasant direction of its own. Beatrix is a fair trade advocate, who just traveled for several weeks to get back home from an international work trip to California, only to find her roommates have left for greener pastures. Carson, is a former history teacher turned principal living on the east coast, who decides when things get bad he’s going to take a long walk. Specifically, to find Beatrix. They randomly met in the before and made an instant connection, and his hope of seeing her again propels him across the country on foot.
[Read more...] about The Lightest Object in the Universe + Orange Creamsicle Ice Cream with Chocolate Flakes