Tag: 4 stars

Friday Barnes #2: Under Suspicion – R.A. Spratt

‘She’s good at this type of thing.’

‘What, irritating people?’ asked Mrs Knox.

‘Yes, but also solving mysteries,’ explained Uncle Bernie.

When we last saw Friday Barnes she was being arrested, rudely interrupted while she was indulging in a second slice of chocolate cake, having just solved the case of Highcrest Academy’s swamp yeti. We pick up Friday’s story with her arrest.

‘Will you do “good cop, bad cop”, or are you doing it already and that’s why you’re being nice to me?’

Rather than becoming the central plot of this book, the story of Friday’s arrest is cleared up very quickly. Then we turn our attention to the problems of other Highcrest Academy students, who all now know that Friday is the girl detective that will solve them.

‘I assume you need help. Like the vast majority of students at this school, you have never spoken to me voluntarily.’

In this book, Friday applies her photographic memory to competitive baking and competitive rocket launching. She also solves a kidnapping and ponders the mystery of the man she met in the police station. Then we navigate our way around all of the holes that staff and students keep falling into all over the school grounds. We even discover why Friday is banned from the school library.

Melanie, Friday’s best (and possibly only) friend, is really growing on me. Her ability to go from vague to astute in an instant has endeared her to me and I find her fondness of naps very relatable.

We are introduced to a new Year 10 student, Christopher. The addition of a second handsome boy to the series immediately caused speculation of a ‘love triangle’, despite Friday and Ian denying they are in love with one another. Given Friday is only eleven I could do without so much of Melanie’s conversation revolving around her best friend’s potential love life.

Two books in and I’m already beginning to wonder if every book is going to end with the core mystery being solved and a sudden cliffhanger that comes out of nowhere. The mysteries are still fun though and I’m enjoying the creative laziness of many of Highcrest Academy’s teachers. I’m hoping Uncle Bernie finds a way to drop in during the next book for more than a few pages.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Who knew boarding school could be this perilous! 

When Friday Barnes cracked the case of Highcrest Academy’s mysterious swamp-yeti, the last thing she expected was to be placed under arrest. Now with the law on her back and Ian Wainscott in her face, Friday is not so sure boarding school was the smartest choice. From a missing or not-so-missing calculator to the appearance of strange holes in the school field, she is up to her pork-pie hat in crimes – and she swears not all of them are hers. There’s also new boy Christopher, who has taken quite a shine to Friday, to contend with.

Can Friday navigate the dangerous grounds of Highcrest Academy and decipher a decades-old mystery without getting caught in an unexpected love triangle?

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Find Fergus – Mike Boldt

Fergus the brown bear is learning how to hide, only he’s not very good at it. Yet.

When we first meet Fergus, his attempts at hiding are pretty much equivalent to a child putting their hands over their eyes and assuming that means you can’t see them anymore. Or hiding behind the curtains but forgetting that their feet are still visible. Actually, maybe Fergus hasn’t quite reached that level yet.

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You’ve got to give him credit though. Fergus listens to instructions and applies what he’s learned to his next attempt. With perseverance, he gradually gets better at hiding until he finally masters it.

This book would not be nearly as entertaining if the animals weren’t so expressive. Fergus is absolutely adorable but you’ll also meet a duck and a fox, and a whole bunch of rabbits, squirrels, elephants, moose and bears (of course).

My favourite finds included a polar bear who’s just heard a joke, a bear hug and “an elephant with a squirrel problem”.

After you finish reading you can go back to the fold-out pages to search for the things (other than Fergus) that there are to find.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

The hilarious mind behind I Don’t Want to Be a Frog and Bad Dog brings picture book fans the super-funny, interactive story of Fergus the bear, who loves to play hide-and-seek with the reader … but can’t really seem to get the hang of it. 

Children will giggle from start to finish as they follow huge, loveable Fergus and see all the silly ways in which he is TERRIBLE at playing hide-and-seek such as hiding behind a VERY tiny tree (“Found you, Fergus! That was too easy!”) or hiding in a giant crowd of bunnies and squirrels (“Try bears, Fergus. Bears!”). 

But wait the game isn’t over yet! The last two pages fold out into a giant panoramic look-and-find scene, where Fergus is well and truly hidden, and young readers can have fun looking for him and lots of other silly details in the the crowd.

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Sheets #2: Delicates – Brenna Thummler

You never know what’s going on inside someone else’s head – how they’re hurting – even if you put the hurt there yourself.

Marjorie, who felt like a ghost in Sheets, has recently started the eighth grade. In order to fit in, she hides who she really is from her new friends. Marjorie and her family are, each in their own ways, grieving the death of her mother.

Eliza is an outcast who is repeating the eighth grade.

“Sometimes I feel like a ghost, but maybe a ghost in the wrong place, you know?”

Eliza spends her time trying to capture ghosts on Lorraine, her camera (named after Lorraine Warren), for her paranormal portfolio. Being herself has resulted in Marjorie’s new friends bullying her, while Marjorie stands by, visibly uncomfortable but not intervening.

Marjorie spending time with her new friends means she doesn’t have as much time to spend with Wendell, her favourite ghost.

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He’s missing his friend and feeling left out. He is trying his best to deal with both his life and life after death.

I loved Eliza. Anyone who dresses up as a Ghostbuster for Halloween and wears different coloured socks is my kind of person. I ached for her as I watched her cross back and forth between being too visible and invisible.

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I always look for fun background details in graphic novels. My favourite find in Delicates was the names of the movies playing at The Rubin – The Ghost Wears Prada and What a Girl Haunts.

As I’ve come to expect from Brenna Thummler, the artwork was absolutely gorgeous. The characters’ expressions often speak louder than their words and, although it’s been a long time since I last read Sheets, the colour palette immediately drew me back into its world.

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“You should never have to hide who you are.”

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Oni Press for the opportunity to read this graphic novel.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Marjorie Glatt’s life hasn’t been the same ever since she discovered a group of ghosts hiding in her family’s laundromat. Wendell, who died young and now must wander Earth as a ghost with nothing more than a sheet for a body, soon became one of Marjorie’s only friends. But when Marjorie finally gets accepted by the popular kids at school, she begins to worry that if anyone learns about her secret ghost friends, she’ll be labeled as a freak who sees dead people. With Marjorie’s insistence on keeping Wendell’s ghost identity a secret from her new friends, Wendell begins to feel even more invisible than he already is.

Eliza Duncan feels invisible too. She’s an avid photographer, and her zealous interest in finding and photographing ghosts gets her labeled as “different” by all the other kids in school. Constantly feeling on the outside, Eliza begins to feel like a ghost herself. Marjorie must soon come to terms with the price she pays to be accepted by the popular kids. Is it worth losing her friend, Wendell? Is she partially to blame for the bullying Eliza endures?

Delicates tells a powerful story about what it means to fit in, and those left on the outside. It shows what it’s like to feel invisible, and the importance of feeling seen. Above all, it is a story of asking for help when all seems dark, and bringing help and light to those who need it most.

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Wayward Children #6: Across the Green Grass Fields – Seanan McGuire

Illustrations – Rovina Cai

“There’s no right way to be a girl.”

It’s Seanan McGuire. It’s Wayward Children. I will always be sure.

At ten, Regan has already seen what can happen to girls when they’re different. She’s determined to fit in; “strange was something to be feared and avoided above all else in the vicious political landscape of the playground”.

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In the Hooflands, Regan comes across all manner of hooved beings including centaurs, unicorns and kelpies. There she is told that it’s her destiny to save this world, even though she doesn’t believe in destiny. She finds acceptance and love with her found family, giving her the freedom to be who she is, rather than having to constrain herself to fit inside the box of other people’s expectations.

This series has the diversity that other series can only dream of and I was absolutely thrilled to learn that Regan is intersex. I trust Seanan to write with the sensitivity her characters deserve and I really felt like I got a sense of what it was like for Regan when she learned her parents had kept this a secret for so long. I wanted to give her parents a bear hug for the way they explained this to her and for their love of their daughter in general.

“There was nothing wrong with you then, and there’s nothing wrong with you now. You are the way nature intended you to be. Horse-crazy and not very interested in math and too fond of cauliflower for any ten-year-old girl.”

Every Heart a Doorway is my favourite book and I always dread having to wait an entire year to get my next Wayward Children fix. I initially wasn’t quite as excited about this book, though, mostly because I’ve been chomping at the bit to read so many Waywards’ stories since the first book and this one was going to introduce me to someone brand new. Then there’s the fact that I bypassed the young girl horse phase entirely and was worried that may cause me to fail to connect with Regan.

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I loved Regan, though, and Chicory, the friend she always deserved. But it was Gristle and Zephyr who stole my heart and I only wish they had been given more page time because they (particularly Gristle) were brilliant!

Unlike previous books in this series I didn’t really feel the urgency of Regan’s quest and there was a time during the middle of her story it seemed like I was treading water, waiting for the inevitable. However, the writing was still gorgeous and I hope Regan finds her way into a future quest, through the continuation of her story or by finding herself at Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children.

“Feel up to an adventure, human Regan?”

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I am already anxiously waiting for Where the Drowned Girls Go.

Content warnings include bullying and intersexphobia.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

“Welcome to the Hooflands. We’re happy to have you, even if you being here means something’s coming.”

Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late.

When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to “Be Sure” before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines – a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes.

But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem…

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Eggshell Skull – Bri Lee

The term ‘eggshell skull’ refers to the legal principle that a victim must be accepted for who they are individually, regardless of where their strengths and weaknesses place them on a spectrum of human normality. If you strike a person whose skull happens to be as thin as an eggshell, and they break their head open and die, you can’t claim that they were not a ‘regular’ person. Full criminal liability – and responsibility – cannot be avoided because a victim is ‘weak’.

This was a really drawn out read for me – almost three months have passed since I read the first chapter. Part of this snail’s pace can be put down to bad timing; I’d finished reading Louise Milligan’s Witness less than two weeks before I started this book and it had already solidified my feelings about the way the Australian legal system chews up and spits out sexual assault survivors.

‘But what if the legal system is unfair?’

Reading about the cases that came across Bri’s desk while she was working as a judge’s associate became overwhelming at times. Some of the details were vividly described so if sexual assault is a particularly difficult topic for you, please take good care of yourself if you choose to read this book.

Bri’s experience working in the legal system offers her a different perspective than most survivors. Yet even she is not able to prepare herself for the emotional toll that her own case of historic sexual assault will have on her.

Bri is unlike so many survivors for a number of reasons.

She has the full support of her loved ones throughout the process. Many survivors do not have that luxury, having to go it alone.

She is confident that the people she tells about the sexual assault she experienced will believe her. So many survivors have not been believed when they’ve had the courage to speak out.

She reports the sexual assault to the police. “Less than one in three Australian women who are sexually assaulted ever go to the police.”

The police charge the perpetrator in Bri’s case, while “fewer than one in five sex offences reported to the police result in charges being laid and criminal proceedings being instigated.”

While I wished for less details at times when Bri was explaining the cases she worked on as a judge’s associate, I found myself wanting more details about her own court case. With such a build up throughout the book, I felt like I only managed a quick glance around the courtroom for much of the trial.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

EGGSHELL SKULL: A well-established legal doctrine that a defendant must ‘take their victim as they find them’. If a single punch kills someone because of their thin skull, that victim’s weakness cannot mitigate the seriousness of the crime. 

But what if it also works the other way? What if a defendant on trial for sexual crimes has to accept his ‘victim’ as she comes: a strong, determined accuser who knows the legal system, who will not back down until justice is done?

Bri Lee began her first day of work at the Queensland District Court as a bright-eyed judge’s associate. Two years later she was back as the complainant in her own case. 

This is the story of Bri’s journey through the Australian legal system; first as the daughter of a policeman, then as a law student, and finally as a judge’s associate in both metropolitan and regional Queensland – where justice can look very different, especially for women. The injustice Bri witnessed, mourned and raged over every day finally forced her to confront her own personal history, one she’d vowed never to tell. And this is how, after years of struggle, she found herself on the other side of the courtroom, telling her story.

Bri Lee has written a fierce and eloquent memoir that addresses both her own reckoning with the past as well as with the stories around her, to speak the truth with wit, empathy and unflinching courage. Eggshell Skull is a haunting appraisal of modern Australia from a new and essential voice.

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Consent – Vanessa Springora

Translator – Natasha Lehrer

Every so often I read a blurb and just know a book’s contents are going to make my blood boil. This is one of those books.

In her memoir, Vanessa (V.) tells us about G.

G. is Gabriel Matzneff, a French author who, in his books, never attempts to hide his sexual assaults (he calls it love) of underage girls and his trips to the Philippines to sexually assault even younger boys. G. is someone who has won awards for detailing his crimes.

After they met at a party, G. quickly turned his attention to Vanessa.

I had just turned fourteen. He was almost fifty.

The fury for me came in waves, each time someone who could have (and should have) protected Vanessa failed to do so.

Her father is physically and emotionally absent; he doesn’t act on the outrage he feels when he learns of Vanessa’s ‘relationship’ with G.

Her mother allows it, even casually having dinner with her daughter and her rapist. Sure, her mother “consulted” her friends about him but none of them were “particularly disturbed”. This is the woman who made a deal with the devil:

Whatever the reason, her only intervention was to make a pact with G. He had to swear that he would never make me suffer.

The police are notified on a number of occasions but their efforts can hardly be accused of being an investigation.

Then there’s Emil Cioran, a philosopher and friend of G., who came up with this gem:

“It is an immense honor to have been chosen by him. Your role is to accompany him on the path of creation, and to bow to his impulses.”

I’m so glad that Vanessa has used writing to tell her truth, the very medium that her abuser used to distort her experiences with him.

This was a quick but difficult read. I spent a significant amount of time wanting to throw the book against a wall, mostly because the people who were infuriating me weren’t conveniently standing in front of me.

The fact that so many people essentially gave this man their blessing to continue being a serial predator astounds me. Because books are such an integral part of my life I feel justified in being personally offended that G. was encouraged to continue writing about his sickening behaviour, both by the French publishers who continued to print them and the people who actually paid to read them.

G. was not like other men. He boasted of only having had sexual relations with girls who were virgins or boys who had barely reached puberty, then recounted these stories in his books. This was precisely what he was doing when he took possession of my youth for his sexual and literary ends.

This is a well written book. Just make sure you have a punching bag handy when you read it.

P.S. This NY Times article has given me a glimmer or hope that G. may get to see the inside of a jail cell. Maybe all of his published books will be good for something after all: evidence.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Already an international literary sensation, an intimate and powerful memoir of a young French teenage girl’s relationship with a famous, much older male writer – a universal #MeToo story of power, manipulation, trauma, recovery, and resiliency that exposes the hypocrisy of a culture that has allowed the sexual abuse of minors to occur unchecked.

Sometimes, all it takes is a single voice to shatter the silence of complicity. 

Thirty years ago, Vanessa Springora was the teenage muse of one of the country’s most celebrated writers, a footnote in the narrative of a very influential man in the French literary world.

At the end of 2019, as women around the world began to speak out, Vanessa, now in her forties and the director of one of France’s leading publishing houses, decided to reclaim her own story, offering her perspective of those events sharply known.

Consent is the story of one precocious young girl’s stolen adolescence. Devastating in its honesty, Vanessa’s painstakingly memoir lays bare the cultural attitudes and circumstances that made it possible for a thirteen-year-old girl to become involved with a fifty-year-old man who happened to be a notable writer. As she recalls the events of her childhood and her seduction by one of her country’s most notable writers, Vanessa reflects on the ways in which this disturbing relationship changed and affected her as she grew older. 

Drawing parallels between children’s fairy tales and French history and her personal life, Vanessa offers an intimate and absorbing look at the meaning of love and consent and the toll of trauma and the power of healing in women’s lives. Ultimately, she offers a forceful indictment of a chauvinistic literary world that has for too long accepted and helped perpetuate gender inequality and the exploitation and sexual abuse of children.

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Women of a Certain Rage – Liz Byrski (editor)

There’s so much for women to be angry about … Discrimination because of your sexuality, race, ability, gender. The treatment of asylum seekers. Climate change. The inaction of politicians on any number of issues. People refusing to hear you or take you seriously because you’re a woman.

Yet, as women, it’s likely we grew up internalising our anger, swallowing it down, because to be visibly angry is not considered feminine. When we did speak up, our voices were silenced, our experiences minimised, our reality dismissed. Is it any wonder we’re angry?

Even though I’ve been an adult for longer than I was a child, I’ve yet to become comfortable with anger. Anger, when I was growing up, equalled violence and that’s not the manifestation I’m looking for. I want anger to spur me on to action, to propel me to right wrongs, not cause destruction.

In this collection, twenty women write about rage. Among them are writers, teachers, activists and medical professionals, and they range in age from 20’s to 80’s. They have diverse backgrounds but they’re all Australian.

Like other anthologies, some contributions spoke to me more than others. Reneé Pettitt-Schipp’s description of a young asylum seeker’s hope brought tears to my eyes. Goldie Goldbloom’s recollections of Max made me wish I knew him personally. Carly Findlay’s words hurt, as I imagined each scenario she described, but they also left me with hope because there are women like Carly who speak truth into the lives of others.

Rather than tell you what I thought of each contribution I’m going to instead share quotes with you.

Introduction by Liz Byrski

Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world. – Grace Paley

A Door, Opening by Victoria Midwinter Pitt

Anger is a state of opposition.

It is not merely intellectual, or philosophical. It’s personal.

It is the direct, visceral, spiritual experience of being at odds with something.

Quarantine by Reneé Pettitt-Schipp

Time and time again, it has been proven to me that we either honour the depth of each human emotion, maintaining the fullness of our capacity to feel, or we cut ourselves off and, in walking away from anger and heartbreak, turn our backs on the possibility of our most expansive expression of being a human in this world.

Waiting on the Saviour by Nadine Browne

I wouldn’t be the person I am, nor would I have had the resilience I have, without these women. But nothing we thought or did was ever any good unless it was certified by a man. The path to God itself was through a man. I’m still shocked by how these women can negate their own power, simply by the fact of their gender.

My Father’s Daughter by Jay Martin

I’m still sad, though, that the world that shaped my dad – and still shapes so many men – to believe that their value is in being providers, teachers, knowers of things. It meant I never got to know all of the vulnerabilities, dreams, passions and fears he must have harboured that made him who he was.

Regardless of Decorum: A Response to Seneca’s ‘Of Anger’ by Julienne van Loon

One of the things that makes me angry about Seneca’s ‘Of Anger’ is how bloody reasonable he is throughout.

The Girl Who Never Smiled by Anne Aly

Rage creeps up on you. It’s stealthy like that. Rage has to beat you down first and then, when you’re exhausted and you think you can’t possibly rage any more, it lingers beneath the surface, ready to pounce again. You can see it simmering behind the eyes of the downtrodden, the oppressed and the frustrated – but only if you look hard enough. Rage shadows you.

The Club by Sarah Drummond

The white road markers are plastic and so, instead of a row of smashed wooden posts where he ploughed them down, they flipped back into upright position after the accident like nothing had happened. For some reason, I found this inanimate insouciance disturbing. How dare those posts stand up again. Didn’t they know what had happened here?

Stuck in the Middle by Carrie Cox

Mark Twain, a man who apparently spent his whole life tossing pithy sayings at a sea of scribes, has been credited with comparing anger to an acid, one that can do far more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. This is how I feel about anger today.

To Scream or Not to Scream by Olivia Muscat

What makes me most upset is that I know where most people’s ignorance is coming from. It’s fear.

Fear of the unknown.

Fear that they may end up like me.

To the Max by Goldie Goldbloom

Goldie remembers how Max would introduce her to them as ‘the love of my life’. Whenever she sold a story, he would grip her forearms and say, ‘The cream always rises to the top.’

The Thief by Nandi Chinna

I found it impossible to articulate the magnitude and intensity of my inner experience and carried it around in my body like a ball of barbed wire that scratched and tore at my insides.

Write-ful Fury by Claire G. Coleman

Fury. It can flow hot and fast like fire dancing along a trail of petrol; it can flow cold, slow and relentless like a glacier; or as cold and breathtakingly fast as an avalanche, leaving me breathless and dying. Either way, when fury passes it’s hard to imagine anything in its path surviving.

Love More by Jane Underwood

Rage sits, like a bulky body part, ready to detonate, able to cause maximum damage. It’s not like the white-hot adrenal flash we call fury, that’s here and gone: you can relieve fury with an upraised middle finger. It’s not like anger – curl up the corner of anger – only sadness and fear there. If you can shift the bulk of a rage – find some squashed high-grade injustice there.

#AustraliaBurns: Rage, a Climate for Change by Margo Kingston

Rage begets action.

The Body Remembers: The Architecture of Pain by Rafeif Ismail

We cannot negotiate with our oppressors without relinquishing part of our own existence.

Everything is Awesome! by Mihaela Nicolescu

The notion of a ‘fair go’ disguises the reality of an unfair system and places the blame on the individual when that system fails them. A genuine ‘mate’ does not judge you for going through a hard time. And an evolved society places more value on the rights of all citizens to have their basic needs met than on the rights of a few citizens to accumulate ridiculous wealth (while one in six children live in poverty).

Uluru Statement from the Heart by Fiona Stanley

I think that in today’s world of corporate, political, bureaucratic and individual corruption and lack of care, we need to convert our anger to action more than ever.

Vicarious trauma: I Was You and You Will Be Me by Carly Findlay

Ableism starts with you.

And it can stop with you, too.

Seen and Not Heard by Meg McKinlay

And what is buried, of course, doesn’t always remain so; when conditions are right – or wrong? – it will vent, even erupt.

Women of a Certain Rage? by Eva Cox

Angry. Cranky. Mad. Can you think of any context when applying these words to a woman would be positive?

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

This book is the result of what happened when Liz Byrski asked twenty Australian women from widely different backgrounds, races, beliefs and identities to take up the challenge of writing about rage.

The honesty, passion, courage and humour of their very personal stories is engergising and inspiring. If you have ever felt the full force of anger and wondered at its power, then this book is for you. 

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The Nesting – C.J. Cooke

‘Nature always protects itself by whatever means possible.’

Sophie has a new job as a nanny, caring for two adorable girls, Gaia and Coco. Their father, Tom, is an architect who’s currently working hard on an innovative new project in Norway. Sophie is also working hard, trying to make sure no one figures out that she’s not really Sophie, but Lexi, and that she’s not actually a nanny.

Although it appears to be the ideal escape from her real life, this new job isn’t as straightforward as Lexi had hoped. Tom’s wife died recently, supposedly by suicide, although Lexi suspects there’s more to the story. She’s also been told that the locked basement is off limits.

Even if you hear something down there, please stay out.

Hear something?

What the hell was in that basement?

Then there’s the Sad Lady, who Gaia keeps mentioning, who has holes where her eyes should be.

I’d only planned on reading a couple of pages to get a feel for the book but before I knew it I’d binged the entire thing. I enjoyed it much more than I expected I would but I am left with some question marks.

I adored the children but didn’t connect with any of the adults. The mental health components of Lexi and Aurelia’s stories intrigued me but I’m not a huge fan of unreliable narrators so I found myself questioning their realities more than I would have liked.

After such a build up, the ending felt rushed to me and some of the ways the story came together seemed a bit too convenient. Lexi’s backstory answered some questions I’d had but read more like an info dump, glossing over some pretty monumental events in her life.

With trees and a fjord, minimal sunlight and the tantalising possibility of spotting an aurora, the setting felt like its own character and made this an atmospheric read. This was helped along by the environmental message and the Norse folklore. The folklore included in this story were written by the author.

I’m interested in reading more books by this author and devouring some Norse folklore.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

It was like something out of a fairytale …
The grieving widower.
The motherless daughters.
A beautiful house in the woods.

Deep in a remote Norwegian forest, Lexi has found a new home with architect Tom and his two young daughters. With snow underfoot and the sound of the nearby fjord in her ears, it’s as if Lexi has stepped into a fairy tale

But this family has a history – and this place has a past. Something was destroyed to build their beautiful new house. And those ancient, whispering woods have a long memory.

Lexi begins to hear things, see things that don’t make sense. She used to think this place heavenly, but in the dark, dark woods, a menacing presence lurks.

With darkness creeping in from the outside, Lexi knows she needs to protect the children in her care.

But protect them from what?

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Oliver the Curious Owl – Chad Otis

Oliver’s family are quite happy staying very close to the big tree they call their home. They’re also only concerned with “Who?” questions. But Oliver is different. Not satisfied with knowing “Who?”, he also wants to know “What?”, “When?”, “Where?” and “Why?”. His quest for answers leads him to wonder about “life outside the big tree”.

Fortunately, Oliver meets a bug called Bug, who shares his curiosity. Although he’s worried about getting lost if they were to go on an adventure, something unforeseen happens and soon Oliver and Bug are exploring a whole new world. Along the way they meet new friends and enjoy new experiences.

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Oliver’s family are a lot more cautious than he is and I expect parents reading this book to their own owlets will probably want to make it clear that it’s not okay to wander off without their family knowing where they are. Having said that, this is an adorable book that encourages kids to be open to new who’s, what’s, when’s, where’s and why’s.

I’m not sure how well this book would go down with family members who already hear “But why?” several hundred times each day but I love Oliver and Bug and their boundless curiosity about the world around them. The illustrations are full of personality and Bug, in particular, is really cute.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Oliver the owl questions anything and everything!

The only question Oliver’s family ever asks is “Who? Who? Who?” But he wants to know more:

WHO lives in those faraway woods?
WHERE does the river go?
WHY can’t I leave our tree?

When his curiosity gets the better of him, Oliver – and his best buddy, Bug — travel far from the safety of home to get answers about the wonderful world they live in. But after a day of exploration, how will the friends find their way back?

In this charming story of discovery, an inquisitive owl inspires those around him to let their curiosity take flight! 

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The Baby-Sitters Club Graphic Novels #5: Dawn and the Impossible Three – Gale Galligan

Text – Ann M. Martin

Colour – Braden Lamb

It’s the BSC adventure where Dawn gets away with being super judgy about how a BSC client lives her life. Single parent, Mrs Barrett, is desperately trying to keep her family afloat – caring for three kids under 10, job hunting, managing a messy divorce. So what if the house is kinda messy? Okay, so it’s very messy but the poor woman is dealing with a lot. Let’s cut her some slack.

Usually I try to read the graphic novel as soon as I’ve finished the book. I was unable to jump the library queue so the people who actually reserved this graphic novel before me got to read it first (shock horror!) so it’s been several weeks since I read the book. I still remember the basics fairly well but the differences I would usually point out between book and graphic novel have faded from my mind. So I’ll just focus on the two big ones.

Book: Mallory is more than capable of helping out but she’s still counted as one of the kids the BSC babysit.
Graphic Novel: The beginning of the graphic novel marks the first day that Mallory is a BSC Junior Member. The BSC meeting that afternoon is when the great interrogation of Mallory’s knowledge of anything even remotely related to babysitting takes place.

My currently unresolved question: How is book #14, Hello, Mallory, going to be adapted to a graphic novel if the main plot point has already happened?

Book: Mimi is all good.
Graphic Novel: Janine is helping Mimi with her flash cards.

I’m guessing this is different because book #7, Claudia and Mean Janine, was graphic novel #4. Why has this series been adapted out of order?

I’ve actually been avoiding reading #7 because I’m not ready to face the rest of Mimi’s story yet. I’ll try to summon some brave in the near future.

On a happier note, I finally got to see the bizzer sign, which the Pike kids invented, in action. It was worth the wait, although (just between you and I) it doesn’t look quite as trauma inducing as I’d hoped.

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Dawn Schafer is the newest member of The Baby-Sitters Club. While she’s still adjusting to life in Stoneybrook after moving from sunny California, she’s eager to accept her first big job. But taking care of the three Barrett kids would be too much for any babysitter. The house is always a mess, the kids are out of control, and Mrs. Barrett never does any of the things she promises. On top of all that, Dawn wants to fit in with the other members of the BSC, but she can’t figure out how to get along with Kristy. Was joining The Baby-Sitters Club a mistake?

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