For times I can't get to the library.
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Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
The Wilde Trials (YA chiller)
In the real world no school with even the most basic grasp of ethics and/or legal liability would sanction the competition so convincingly portrayed in Mckenzie Reed's The Wilde Trials. In the world of YA chillers anything goes. So if well crafted terror is not your thing don't bother reading it. But if you're a real chiller affecianado it's the literary equivalent of sea salt caramel ice cream.
Although Wilde Academy is housed in relatively modern buildings, the decrepit, dangerously falling to pieces mansion of the founder of the property is close by and is the setting of a bizarre yearly competition, the Wilde Trials. Twelve seniors are chosen to spend the last two weeks of the school year there undergoing a number of dangerous mystery challenges. Sort of Lord of the Flies meets Survivor.
Why would any student sign up for this? Well all contestants totally get out of finals and still graduate. And the winner gets an obscene amount of money and legendary status.
A few years ago a student fell to his death in a tragic accident. So the location of the trials was temporarily shifted for awhile. But this year it's back where it all started.
Chloe, Reed's narrator, is in it for the money. Her beloved sister, Cece, has cancer. The treatments that are keeping her alive and hopefully curing her are prohibitively expensive. It doesn't help that her ex boyfriend turned nemesis is one of the other competitors. Hayes is the brother of the boy who fell to his death. Only he is convinced that Hunter was a victim of homicide, not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's in it to find evidence to prove his theory and catch Hunter's killer.
When one of the other contestants starts blackmailing Chloe with evidence that she'd done something that could get her kicked out of not only the competition, but the school, she reluctantly teams up Hayes. She'll help him find the evidence he needs if he helps her win...
...Providing they both survive.
If you like The Wilde Trials be sure to read Reed's debut chiller, The Rosewood Hunt.
On a purrrsonal note, it was a weird weekend. Saturday, after our traditional scrumptious breakfast at Governors, Eugene and I headed to camp. Of course we had fun checking out yard sales and flea markets on the way. When we got to Machias the Subway was closed. That's where we usually get lunch and supper. Eugene got us each a frozen pizza 🍕 which he cooked on the gas stove at camp. After lunch I went to read on the porch. Later we went to the boat launch and I went swimming. It was just about dinner time when Eugene announced we had to go home. Downpours were expected and we hadn't shut the windows. We made it back before the storm.
A great big shout out goes out to my wonderful life partner, Eugene.
Jules Hathaway
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Monday, August 24, 2026
Yard sale finds
Of course I found some books for my emergency stash. Being without books, more specifically lacking library access, is for me most definitely an emergency. A contingency I never imagined before the pandemic. But the early months of the pandemic, a summer without inter library loans a few years later and unexpected hospitalizations for a kidney stone and a stroke made and reinforced the need for an emergency stash. I'm trying for enough for three months.
Wednesday I'll share a really amazing yard sale find. But for now GTG. Still in pajamas and I have a bus to catch.
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Yard sale finds
The sneakers are gorgeous. The jeans are most definitely fashion backward. But on frigid Maine winter days when I go places by bus I'm willing to sacrifice style for warmth. As you can see they're flannel lined.
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Yard sale finds
Eugene found these darling Squishmallows and pointed them out to me. Of course I let him buy them for me. The little lion with the cotton candy mane is only 2" tall.
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Sunday, August 23, 2026
Something to Be Proud Of (YA romance)
Imogen and Ollie, co narrators of Anna Zoe Quirke's Something to Be Proud Of, are about the oddest odd couple you can imagine. Imogen is queer and autistic. She's also quite outspoken and can't stay silent in the face of injustice. She has two friends who actually are more like frenemies. He's the openly gay football captain. Needless to say he's a super popular big man on campus.
What they do have in common is family problems. Both have fathers who won't accept them as they are. Additionally Ollie's father has just moved out and filed for divorce, leaving his mother heartbroken. Ollie suspects daddy dearest of keeping a guilty secret--perhaps even having a side piece while married.
"I have long been aware that I inhabit a world that was built neither by nor for people like me. What I was not aware of, however, was that sometimes highly necessary wake up calls come in the form of drag queens in lilac wigs brandishing silk handkerchiefs at you." (If that isn't an irresistible first paragraph I don't know what is.)
Imogen leaves her first Pride festival, an event she'd really been looking forward to, feeling heartbroken and angry. The level of the noise and jostling took her out of her comfort zone. Her father's "You know, at some point, you're just going to have to accept that you're not going to be able to do some things like normal people" doesn't help. Not wanting a seriously diminished life, she decides to channel her anger into action.
"The very first Pride was a riot. People got mad at the ways they were being treated and then they did something about it."
Imogen is determined to have her town's first Pride event accessible to all. With no funds and no real friends she's going to need a lot of help. When the headteacher (in my opinion, a stone cold bitch) informs her that to form an activist society she'll need five members and a faculty advisor she starts recruiting. Ollie is the first person she approaches. He doesn't commit. But when he mentions Imogen's idea to a teammate whose girlfriend loves the idea he's roped in.
Pretty soon there's a small but determined group, some of whom have their own ideas for needed inclusion. They're raising awareness, holding events, and bringing in money...
...until they run afoul of the headteacher who bans the group, takes the money, and suspends Imogen...
...could this be the end of Imogen's crusade?
This deeply insightful and highly relevant narrative will captivate preteens and teens who see injustice and are determined to do something.
On a personal note, I am the mother of an autistic writer. I didn't know that she was autistic for the longest time. Amber was born in 1990. In the 90s, at least in central Maine, we were bombarded with frightening PSAs about the growing number of autistic kids. Basically the worst case scenario was presented as all encompassing. So I didn't see it in my intelligent, creative, very verbal child. Amber herself told me when she was an adult. She made sense. I am very proud that she's an activist, a feminist, a published author who is helping expand a more nuanced awareness by including autistic characters in her books and being open about her life, and the best daughter a mother could hope for.
A great big shout out goes out to Quirke and Amber and the other autistic authors who are doing so much to enlighten neurotypicals.
Jules Hathaway
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Saturday, August 22, 2026
Darling little Johnny jump ups
Popping up in places they weren't planted. I just adore them and their ability to self propagate. Well Eugene and I are in Governors eating breakfast. We're en route to camp. So I have to post this before we leave civilization. Hope you have a good weekend!
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Friday, August 21, 2026
Two On Book Banning
If you've read this blog awhile you know how royally pissed off book banning gets me. In my childhood books were so nondiverse and timid I knew it wasn't right. I rejoiced as things got better, especially when I had children of my own. All the current censorship nastiness has me worried about the children of today and tomorrow and the teachers and librarians valiantly trying to keep the books they need access to on the shelves...
...and royally pissed at the people who are working overtime to bring America back to the period they consider the pinnacle of its existence...
...the 1950s and, more specifically, the McCarthy era. So when I found not one, but two books addressing the harm inflicted by book banning I snapped them up as fast as precious Tobago devours a tuna or ocean fish Fancy Feast entree. They both lived up to my expectations.
Banned Together, edited by Ashley Hope Perez, is like a who's who of kiddy lit. It's an anthology of pieces by juvenile and YA authors who have two things in common. They've won all kinds of prestigious awards. They've had their books frequently banned for bogus reasons, mostly by people who haven't even read said books.
Imagining the Unimaginable is by Ellen Hopkins, one of my favorite authors. She keeps the banners in a constant state of frenzied agitation by creating teen characters who do things like getting addicted to street drugs and having sex. As if reading about their activities will entice young readers to copy them. In her piece she imagines how much more bleak and restricted her youth would have been if she'd been adopted by Moms for Liberty type parents.
Perez herself, another of my favorites, contributed two pieces. Both Dancing With Haters and Getting to Know Your Hate Mail concern the plethora of hate mail she receives. Rather than let them erode her confidence, she turns them into creative pieces. In Dancing With Haters this takes the form of a poem. Getting To Know Your Hate Mail is hate mail quotes and her responses.
"What is wrong with you? You are truly helping to further the satanic agenda in our world.
Wow, who knew I was so powerful?"
"I don't think I will be able to eat for the rest of the day after seeing the filth being allowed in our schools because of the likes of you. Our poor children.
Look! It's the Moms for Liberty diet plan!"
Marinaomi uses a graphic format to share how a school library discarded book given to her by a teacher when she was eleven helped her get unstuck from overwhelming emotions and cope with the world.
"This experience instilled in me a lifelong love of literature, and a desire to help people in the same way that Mr. Vonnegut had helped me.
If Mr. P-C hadn't given me this book, I wonder if I'd be an author today. Would I even be alive? I'm grateful I don't have to find out."
These are just a few of the diverse and insightful pieces.
Perez closes with a direct letter to readers with these uplifting and inspiring words.
"Book banners want to get between readers and the powerful work of these authors. This collection says NO WAY. Our goal with Banned Together is to talk about what is happening to books in libraries, why these vanishing stories matter, and how you can empower yourselves and others to resist.
We hope this collection is just one step in your brave and bold reading journey. Look us up! We'd love to hear from you."
While Banned Together is targeted for the YA set, Danny Caine's How To Defend Books and Why: Book Bans and How We Fight Them is most definitely for adults. There's a wealth of complex information and inspiration crammed into this deceptively small volume. My advice to readers who aren't reviewers like me is to read it slowly, giving yourself time to fully engage with the material.
Believe me it will engage you emotionally as well as cognitively if you're attracted to this eminently important book. The machinations of those determined to block access to really essential books and legislate what children (and sometimes adults) can read will anger you. Some of the people taking great risks to fight this unrelenting censorship will gladden and inspire you. Some of the material, especially when we leave the United States is truly heartbreaking.
Caine starts by introducing the Orwellian language being used by the banners and challengers. Only they aren't banning. They are merely concerned community members keeping inappropriate material out of the hands of innocent children. This is supposedly a matter of parents' rights. But only white Christian nationalist parents have rights that need to be respected. Moms "grassroots" groups are funded by conservative political groups with deep pockets and agendas rather than T shirt sales. It's all supposedly for the children but children and teens who speak up for their rights are treated brutally by their "protectors".
"Book bans are not the hoax. Rather, the hoax is the right-wing narrative that all this is happening to enshrine so-called 'parents' rights.' Another hoax: that this is only about books. Indeed, what we'll call the book ban crisis is actually about the dismantling of secular education and the targeted elimination of identities that fall outside the Christian nationalist worldview. Any attempts to deny this? That's the actual hoax."
Going back to the McCarthy era in the 1950s and continuing on into the pandemic and beyond, Caine gives a truly comprehensive battle being waged. You meet the actors on both sides and the people and institutions that are deeply impacted. You follow the complex and often convoluted legal wars. You see how teachers and librarians are relentlessly bullied. There's all you need to get a handle on the issues involved.
And Caine introduces two groups often left out of the discourse. One is prison inmates where groups outside the institution and its employees have unrestricted power to control what (if any) reading materials they have access to. Often permissible materials have a Christian nationalist slant. Indoctrination, anyone? And relevant materials are too often taboo.
"Commonly censored categories of books include Black history and fiction; Indigenous and Latinx publications; LGBTQ fiction and self-help; and publications written by and about incarcerated people."
The other is the besieged Palestinians whose right to exist and share their stories is constantly under attack. Authors are slain. Libraries are burned and bombed.
Caine also serves up a wealth of ways readers can become involved in the fight against book bans and the evils they can lead to. Remember it's not only the books but the readers of disfavored identities and public schools and libraries the banners have beef with...
...It's how Hitler got his start.
I highly recommend How To Defend Books and Why to all who really care about this all too relevant issue. Teachers, librarians, book sellers, authors, and readers need all the allies we can get.
On a purrrsonal note, I have been an avid reader almost all my life. Having a college librarian father and and a college professor mother I could access materials carefully kept out of my classmates' hands. I did a 3rd grade book report on Dante's Divine Comedy. I realized how restricted the books in the children's wing were. I was an activist from an early age also. As an adult I protested and volunteered, often accompanied by my children. Then the pandemic hit, isolating me from opportunities to make a difference. I couldn't get into signing online petitions. I'd had a book review blog since 2011. One day I did a thematic analysis and realized an increasing percent of my reviews were centered on diversity, inclusion, and inconvenient truths. So this became my focus--making people aware of the books banners are trying to keep out of our libraries and our hands. Unlike those online petitions, it's a form that suits my interests, talents, and personality.
A great big shout out goes out to everyone engaged in the fight for diverse, inclusive, and truth telling books.
Jules Hathaway
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Thursday, August 20, 2026
Got this in the mail
Don't you love stickers that express your heartfelt emotions? This does that for me. I'm so against data centers. They use up resources people need like water--resources that are dwindling even without them. And who will have access to all this data? A dictator could use it for truly nefarious ends.
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More Goodwill finds
Gorgeous cat shirts--one of which is new with original tags.
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Goodwill finds
Two gorgeous Squishmallows and a Squishmallow notebook which will make a fine journal. I didn't remember Squishmallow notebooks were a thing even though Eugene got me one years ago. And they sell them on Ebay!!! OH JOY!!!
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Wednesday, August 19, 2026
A House of Vipers (YA chiller)
"Guilt seized Lawson's chest in an iron vise, and for a second--just a second--he considered throwing everything away, lifting his brother off the ground and saying he was sorry, that he'd never hurt him again. He wanted to tell Sutter everything--about the Vipers, the treasure, all the horrible things he'd discovered because of them.
But he knew he couldn't. He was in too deep now. He had to do this alone."
This was the last time Sutter saw his brother--in the older boy's dorm room at Meddlehart Academy on the stormy night that was supposed to have been Lawson's senior prom. When searches were fruitless people started giving up, achieving closure, moving on, putting up a memorial statue on campus...
...But not Sutter. He's convinced that Lawson is alive somewhere. He'll find him--whatever it takes. And he has his besties by his side.
When Sutter finds a mysterious package addressed to him it holds Lawson's missing cell phone. It contains a cryptic message: if anyone asks him how Franklin Thatcher died he should tell them by the fangs of greed. The video leads them to unearth a time capsule containing pictures, a map of the school, and a viper pendant. Sutter is now convinced that Lawson is giving him a clue to the location of the treasure...
...it's a long held legend at Meddlehart. Many people believe it's just a story. But others search for it, a few of them paying the ultimate price. Sutter is convinced that when he finds the treasure he'll have located Sutter.
It turns out that there's a secret society at Meddlehart--the Order of the Vipers--dedicated to finding the treasure. When Sutter and his friends get the chance to try to join they go for it. Sutter is sure membership will bring him closer to his goal...
...if they can survive the incredibly dangerous tests.
If you're in the market for a narrative featuring a secret society, lies and deceit, constant darkness and peril, and a twisty roller coaster of a plot you can't do better than A House of Vipers.
On a purrrsonal note, yesterday at 4:00 a.m., instead of quietly getting ready for work, Eugene was doing something noisy inside and outside. It turned out we'd lost water. He was going to cut work and fix it. He had no clue how long it would take. I was all OMG! NO TOILET!!! I spent the day in the library and the evening in the community garden. Realizing the strong possibility of a whole night without access I didn't eat or drink anything all the very hot and humid day. When I got home about 8:00 I was so happy to learn that Eugene had fixed the problem and I could have a nice late supper. Today I ran a bunch of errands. I registered Eugene's motorcycle. And I did a Goodwill/Hannaford run. At Goodwill I found 2 Squishmallows, a Squishmallow journal, and 2 cat shirts. At Hannaford I got ingredients for Katie's favorite cookies, strawberries and raspberries for me, and a brownie mix to make Eugene a yummy dessert 🍨 🥧 🍦 tonight to go with his yummy supper of BBQ chicken, beans from the community garden, and tater tots.
A great big shout out goes out to Eugene, a man of many talents.
Jules Hathaway
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Tuesday, August 18, 2026
Monday, August 17, 2026
Turtle in Paradise (juvenile historical fiction)
If you're like me when you're trying to wrap your mind around issues like let's say drug addiction in Appalachia statistics and generalizations sorta numb your brain after awhile. But the individual stories of lives destroyed by big pharmaceutical companies stick with you. Likewise the content of most children's history books is, for purposes other than test passing, so much blah blah blah. Stories vivid enough to convey a sense of what it was like to be a kid back then are more engaging. Jennifer L. Holmes' Turtle in Paradise is a prime example. The year is 1935. The setting is Florida.
When we meet Turtle she's en route to Key West to live with an aunt she's never met, riding with a friend of her mother's latest boyfriend. Her mom's new job is a live in. A kid is not part of the deal. Mom tells her she'll love her new home.
"I blame Hollywood. Mama's watched so many pictures that she believes in happy endings. She's been waiting her whole life to find someone who'll sweep her off her feet and take care of her.
Me? I think life's more like that cartoon by Mr. Disney--The Three Little Pigs. Some big bad wolf's always trying to blow down your house."
It turns out Turtle's Aunt Minnie has no idea she and her cat, Smokey, are coming to live indefinitely. But she reshuffles the sleeping arrangements to give her a place to stay.
It's summer. The neighborhood kids are left to their own devices. In fact the children are paid (in candy) to take care of the babies. Sadie learns the secrets of a very close knit community and some of her own family history.
At the home of a newly discovered grandmother Turtle finds an antique gold coin and a treasure map. She and her friends borrow a rum runner's boat and head out for the island the map shows. They make one big mistake--forgetting to secure the boat. So they're stranded with no way to call for help and a major hurricane on the way.
Holmes was inspired by the life of her great-grandmother. She takes readers back to a time when people often had to travel to find work, sometimes leaving their children with relatives for extended periods of time; movies, radio, and the funny pages were state of the art entertainment; and Shirley Temple sang and danced her way to stardom.
And, yes, in 1935 there was a major hurricane.
On a purrrsonal note, yesterday the barbeque was a great success and so much fun!!! You would not believe how fast the kids snapped up the backpacks! Twenty-four! The kids and their parents and grandparents were so happy and appreciative! The weather was purrrfect. Not too hot or cold; not one drop of rain. The food was delicious. It was fun getting together socially with so many of my neighbors. Toward the end Steffi from my church delivered a box to my trailer. I invited her to drop in on the BBQ. She was really impressed. When I told everyone how she collects supplies at the church every year they were so grateful for her kindness. She was very happy. Afterwards it was time to inventory and store the leftover backpacks and supplies. The mystery box was really awesome. It contained 16 packages of supplies for individual backpacks. So I was able to fill 16 empty backpacks in a New York minute. I spent last night quite contentedly reading and eating blueberries near my lovely flowers.
A great big shout out goes out to everyone who participated in the Backpack Project and the BBQ.
Jules Hathaway
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