🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Softly washed with the richness of indigo, dusky blues, royal purple, and a dazzling golden sandstone, this gorgeous picture book has the feel of an old-time fairy tale, dusted all the way through with the splendor of starlight, myth and magic. As our hero, a little girl named Max,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 1/2 An absolutely riveting ride, from start to finish. With its ominous pacing, vivid characterization, and alarmingly-charged plot, the author achieves an intensity of menace and foreboding that never lets up. Dealing with infamous events that took place, for the most part, in the year 1965, situated on and…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A nail-biter of a read, this story’s emotional wallop, sparked from the very first (of many) explosive twists, is destined to keep the reader entirely on edge, right up to the intense and ultimately satisfying finale. Written in a taut, spare and vivid style, the author captures a sense…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Haunting and unsettling, this chapbook of profoundly beautiful poems captured my heart. With many written in a mesmerizing stream-of-consciousness style, the author (poet) blends vivid imagery plucked from the natural world, (almost hallucinogenic in the brightness of its metaphorical flow), with the poignant and evocative musings of a soul…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟➕ This may very well be my favorite children’s picture-book ever! A composite of absolutely adorable watercolor pictures, (each edged in ink and portraying a different child with their cuddly pet), this story is so sweetly evocative that you’ll find yourself reluctant to leave this author (who is also the…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 A masterpiece of emotional artistry, as spectacularly tender as it is disquieting, this book will stay with you long after you finish it. Heather and Harriet, six and nine years old respectively, are two little girls who have a special bond. As sisters, the love they share is pure…
Book Two in the Hedgehog Hollow series, this warm and wonderful story is as magical and uplifting as each of Book One and Four (both of which this reader devoured, on the path to delightedly working a way through the entire series). A warmhearted and tenderly-crafted character, our main protagonist,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟+ Myths and Fairy Tales. Consciousness. Escape. Redemption. Pathos. Eccentricity. Assimilation. A wildly beautiful book, this literary masterpiece - reminiscent in spirit and some thematic elements of the also-magnificent Kazuo Ishiguro- is both heartbreakingly tender and intensely thoughtful. While the reader can’t stop thinking about the momentousness of the themes…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 1/2 Richly immersive and entirely disturbing, this beautifully written book is destined to fascinate as much as it will horrify readers as unfamiliar up-close with this subject matter and historical time-period, as was this reader. Set in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, in the year AD 74, this…
Food That Tastes Like Home 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2 In this beautifully illustrated homage to his Korean-American roots, food writer and columnist Eric Kim leads us through a delightful tour of Korean cooking covering all the bases - from quick and easy TV Dinners, to Pantry Meals, Stews, Rice (the bedrock of Korean…