The first Wednesday of each month, Carolyn Astfalk hosts #OpenBook, where bloggers link posts about books they’ve read recently. Here’s a taste of what I’ve been reading. (Note: I read a few duds this month, so I’ve limited my list to the good stuff.)
Fiction
Pennies from Burger Heaven by Marcy McKay. A beautifully-written novel about a homeless child of a drug-addicted mother, and the child’s attempts at survival in threatening situations when her mother unexpectedly disappears. This novel will stay with you for a long time.
Blue-Eyed Doll by Deanna Klingel. This fascinating historical novel, appropriate for middle-school students and up, transports the reader to 1920s California, where students collected dolls to exchange for dolls from students in Japan, and follows the collectible dolls into World War II and its aftermath. Don’t miss the gutsy main character–she’s terrific.
Behave by Andromeda Romano-Lax. Behave is a disturbing novel centering on one of the pioneers of behavioral research, John Watson, and his second wife. It’s easy to consider this a novel, rather than a novelized biography.
I found the “inside baseball” on what went on in those psychology behavior labs scary, and would have liked to have seen more on the outcome of the lives of any child who spent part of his infancy in the labs.
Nonfiction
My Badass Book of Saints by Maria Morera Johnson. Packed full of stories of saints and saints-to-be whose courage belies the typical holy-card image, this book inspires women who don’t shy away from a challenge. Maria Johnson has collected a wonderful assortment of examples of contemporary women and saints from a wide variety of time periods and organized them according to qualities they had in common, such as challenging the status quo, showing perseverance, or living and dying to uphold human dignity. Highly recommended–this would be a great Confirmation gift!
Spring Meditations by John Bartunek, LC. I reviewed this book here.
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Follow my Goodreads reviews for the full list of what I’ve read recently.
Visit today’s #OpenBook post to join the linkup or just get some great ideas about what to read!
Behave sounds fascinating! I’m going to look that one up. My Badass Book of Saints is on my list, too. The title alone put it there! Thanks for linking up!
“Behave” was only a 3-star book. My full Goodreads review explains why. Honestly, as a mom, you are going to find the experimentation on babies seriously disturbing.
Babies. Oh my.
It’s even more disturbing since this is a novelized biography. These people were doing experiments creating fear responses in babies. And they believed that parents should not interact with their babies at all.
That IS disturbing.
I’ve read through My Badass Book of Saints – and loved it!
The Starving Inspired
Pennies & Behave totally have my number. My apparently dark number.
Yes, they are both dark. But only one left some room for redemption. Don’t miss “Pennies.” It’s really good.