Have you looked around lately, looking at everything that is going amuck in the world? Do you think about how you can bring a little bit of happiness back home to your kids or your family? Well Love, by Matt de la Peña and illustrated by Loren Long is the perfect book to bring home and share with the kiddos. Love brings up topics that generate love in every day life. Things that we sometimes forget, things that we overlook in every day life, and so much more. This book will stir in you emotions and feelings that you never knew a picture book could ever pull out of you. I suggest you all get this book and read it with your kids, your parents, and the people you love. When I got this book in the mail for review I had to read it right away I was so excited. I read through it and I had to call my mom and read it to her. Love made me think of what I love in this world and what is important to me and here are 5 things that I love in this world.
Join me next time Between the Reads and let me know what you love in this world!! ** I was given a free copy of this picture book in return for an honest review by Penguin Random House. ** Check out these other stops on the blog tour!
WEEK ONE January 8 – Margie’s Must Reads – Mood Board January 9 – DoodleMom’s Homeschooling Life – Review and Review and Creative (lesson plan/unit study) January 10 – The Keepers of the Books – What Love Means to different age groups January 11 – The Children’s Book Reviews – Creative January 12 – Books4yourkids – Creative WEEK TWO January 15 – Happily Ever Elephants – Review + Kids quotes on what love is to them. January 16 – Crayon Freckles – Creative Learning Activity January 17 – My Book Bloom – Review and Craft January 18 – My Little Poppies – Activity January 19 – All Done Monkey – Lesson plan or activity. WEEK THREE January 22 – Mundie Moms – Ask 7th graders what they think of the definition of “love” January 23 – Wandering Bark Books – Spotlight January 24 – Little Lit Book Series – Arts and Crafts Post January 25 – Between the Reads – Review AND exploring what love means in today’s society and what it means to me January 26 – The Plot Bunny – Old Valentine’s Mood Board WEEK FOUR January 29 – Just Commonly – “Love is” Collage January 30 – Inspiration Laboratories – Artwork demonstrating love
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By Liz Iavorschi-Braun
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. So let’s get started! Undesirable is the first book in the young adult dystopian series Seven Years Gone. It starts out like every other young adult novel that fits into the dystopian genre. At first, I thought that it was a knock off version of Divergent or The Hunger Games, but boy was I wrong. Undesirable follows Ginger, aka E-357, who lives in The Society. Every year The Society has a cleansing and a selection. The selection determines what you will do with your life once you reach the age of 16. If you are marked undesirable, you are sent off and killed by The Society. Ginger goes into her test for the selection and is put under anesthesia with her perception being clouded but she remembers the proctor marking undesirable and sets out to make a plan. She begins by collecting food from her daily meals and steals a map from the library. She has decided to run away from The Society to a little place near a lake called Harrison where she would escape to. She doesn’t know what would lie on the other side of the mountains near the lake but she knows that every risk that she takes is better than the death that she will face in The Society. She escapes The Society and treks on foot when suddenly The Society is flying helicopters overhead trying to find her. Ginger doesn’t know this but she is very important to The Society. Why is The Society trying to find her? What is important about Ginger that makes her vital to The Society and the cleansing process? Is she really undesirable? What made me change my mind about this book was last 75 pages or so. It is a slow start and at times it was hard to push on but all opening books can be like that. So much exposition has to be told but this book had an excessive amount and I wish the author would have cut out about half of it. Once the book gets going and characters are introduced, it had me wanting more and more and then the book ended. Check it out and let me know what you think! Join me next time Between the Reads!! Hey Everyone! Here is a new review of a novella that I am grateful for the chance to review. For those that know me, you know dystopian literature is my ultimate favorite. Down to a Sunless Sea by Maartens Lourens and Deep Thunder is one of the first books to by utilizing an artificial intelligence. The AI developed a vocabulary that was then infused into the novella.
The novella tells the story of Blake who had met a girl named Sia the night before but couldn’t recall much about it. He sets out on a mission to find out more about Lord Raleigh, a man that is well know in the aristocracy. In order to do so he must attend a secret event put on by Lord Raleigh which leads him into a world similar to a play. Down to a Sunless Sea is a difficult book to describe because you start reading when a minor conflict sets the scene and it builds for the rest of the book. For those of you that don’t know, a novella is a short book that is approximately 50,000 words. Also, while the novella begins in the midst of conflict, there isn’t much of a plot to the story. Of course there is action and events that happen but with it occurring in a limited time frame of 48 hours of less, not much can happen without distorting time. Usually I don’t like books that don’t have a plot, but with this novella I wanted to keep reading. The vocabulary that was made by the AI is interesting and seems stifling and the author adds a glossary in the back of the book to help alleviate the unfamiliar; however, once you get into the story, you will begin to forget that these words were foreign thirty pages back. Lastly, kudos to the publisher and the marketing team for the book. The cover has a shine to it that can’t be seen well in the photo but it shows Down to a Sunless Sea imprinted on the cover. All of the symbols and colors are extremely significant to the body of text. I love when authors and publishers utilize covers and branding to reflect the work that they are doing. I highly recommend that you check out this novella and let me know what you think!! Join me next time Between the Reads!!! **I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased and honest review. |