books! yeeah!

You have to imagine me pumping my fist and saying the post title ala Howard Dean.

Recently I've been powering through some re-reads, like Kit Williams' 1970's puzzle picture book Masquerade. I remember studying this one with a focus that probably disturbed the adults around me. I was maybe 8 and we were really poor and I was very convinced that if I could crack the riddles I could get the treasure. My mom's friend had to explain that it was in England and had already been found. I was pretty crushed. As an adult I look at this book, and it just strikes me as soooooooo seventies.

I also started a new one called The Underneath by Kathi Appelt. Animal cruelty is a major plot point in this one which is hard to read but the writing is so great that I think I'll keep trying. I'm pretty sure I started down my road to vegetarianism when Bambi's mom got shot and I was not only sad and upset but also furious with the stupid hunters who would just go around willy nilly shooting people's moms. This book is taking me back to that terrible, traumatizing day that I saw Bambi for the first time.

The most disappointing book I've read lately was The Sterkarm Kiss, the sequel to The Sterkarm Handshake. I adored the first book. This one was meh, and I skimmed through it and basically jumped to the ending. Sometimes it's okay to stop with book 1, people. I'm also really not sure why these keep getting cataloged as teen when the main characters are in their 20s and they read like adult romance fiction at times.