Jose Alberto Gutierrez collected garbage around the streets of Bogota, Colombia and collected the books he found in the trash. Each weekend he would allow children all over his barrio to come and take his books home.
In an inspiring, heart-warming story, we meet a young Jose who cannot WAIT for each Saturday to ride his bike to older Jose's home to pick out his next adventure. Based on a true story literally teaching how someone's trash is another person's treasure, this book will renew your hope in the good people in this world.
If you are looking for a beautifully written, captivating story, look no further than this series. Winner of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the adventures of Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty (and Hound) will warm your soul.
This book is the first installment of a lovely story of four sisters going on wonderful adventures in Massachusetts (as well as my favourite children's book series I've read so far).
Oh my word, this book was funny. If you are a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then you will absolutely love this book! With time travel, aliens, pirates, dinosaurs, hot air balloons and, most importantly, milk, this book made this lactose intolerant reader (me) laugh out loud. A dad leaves in the morning to pick up some milk at the corner store for his children's cereal and goes on an epic adventure throughout several eras and meets wild characters.
It has been long since I have willingly lost sleep to finish a book I chose to read out of pleasure instead of necessity. I am absolutely in love with this book. The way the stories are intertwined is so beautifully crafted, I wish I could go back and re-read this book again for the first time and rediscover the plot over again. I loved the short chapters that held my attention and begged me to keep learning about the complex lives of William, George, and Tao. This book is so beautiful and I feel lucky to have discovered it. What an incredible story with a powerful lesson on the importance of bees and our lives connected to them, all with an aura of hope for the future.
This book was fantastic.
Biracial Donte learns firsthand what it is like to grow up in an injust society where he is discriminated against more than his light skinned brother Trey. Amongst jail visits, court cases, and bullies, Donte learns that true power, respect, and honour comes from fighting fairly—whether it be on the fencing piste or in life.
What a lovely little mystery novel!
Six brilliant, science-loving girls are chosen to have a snowy sleepover in Amelia Earhart's childhood home the night before the goggles she wore on her trans-Atlantic flight are sent to the Smithsonian in Washington DC. The girls drink hot chocolate, roam the house, play games, and are sent on a scavenger hunt when the goggles go missing from their case. They become sleuths as they try to find out which person in the house took the goggles and why before the sun rises in the morning.
A perfect read for any girls who have a passion for science, planes, and girl-power, or for anyone who enjoys a lighthearted mystery.
Oh how I adored this sweet book! Eleven-year-old Tilly has the ability to travel into her favourite books, and the adventures she finds herself in reminded me of books I loved reading as a kid and made me wish I was a bookwanderer, too!
A powerful story highlighted with the importance of family, love, and books made this one of my favourites for 2019!
And the sequel is just as fantastic! Tilly and Oskar are thrown back into the world of bookwandering when the creepy, new Head of the Underlibrary decides children should no longer be allowed to go into books on their own... especially fairy tales. They disregard the rules and hop into an old storybook where the fairy tale characters begin to go missing and fall into the inky depths of plot holes.
Can Tilly and Oskar save these characters while escaping themselves and save bookwandering for everyone? Read to find out!
As an introvert, I related hard to this book. The experiences and subsequent reactions to the crazy shenanigans she put herself through made me laugh and blush. I initially went into reading this book because I appreciated the cover and the synopsis Jessica Pan provides, but I came out of this book with such a greater knowledge of what it means to be introverted and extroverted and how saying "yes" really isn't the worst thing in the world.
I would highly recommend this book if you're (a) looking for ideas and ways to expand your comfort zone, (b) wanting to laugh at someone else's various successes and/or failures for putting themselves out of their comfort zone, or (c) just wanting to read a really fun story of what it is like to like to continually grow and do things we never thought we would do in our lives.
