Book Haul #60: Birthday Haul!!… kinda

I got books! 😀 I’ve also ran out of space, so I have no idea where I will place the overflow. I hate stacking them on the floor. For the rest of the year, I’m going to try my hardest to stop buying new books and instead read the ones I already have and get rid of any I absolutely hate and will never read to free up some space.

There.

I said it.

I MUST do it.

(hopefully)

Purchases

Physical

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Book Haul #59: We’re in 2020 Now For Sure

Big books, tiny books, cute books, and audio books.

Oh yeah, and comics too. 🙂

Purchases

Book Haul #58: From Old Year to New

Umm…so it’s been a while since I’ve done a book haul and I hadn’t even noticed. Of course that doesn’t mean that I stopped buying books (if only). I’ve just been busy the past couple months and didn’t have time to post my book hauls (or anything else) on Instagram, which is what I use to alert myself to do a book haul on here. Smh, I’m behind on so many things.

So this might seem like a large haul (kinda), but it’s only because I hadn’t posted one of these since October.

Purchases

U.S. cover

Book Haul #57: Two or Three Goodies for this Fangirl

Time for another bookhaul… exactly one month later. And for me, this is a great one because there are two books in here that I’m beyond excited to have, and one I got at an outing that I was beyond excite to attend.

Purchases

Physical

These are the three I’m most grateful for:

Book Haul #55: No Library Books This Time

I haven’t posted a book haul since July. I’d sworn off acquiring more books because of the huge pile of them I got at the ALA conference that surpassed the available space on my shelves, so they’re still in bags on the floor waiting for a home. That made me feel bad, so I told myself “No More Books!” But, of course, I didn’t listen to myself. So here’s what I got:

Hold up.

Before I show the books, I just need to say that for someone who ran out of shelf space, I’m surprised that I acquired no library books and just one e-book. Not even lack of space is a deterrent for me buying more books. Smh. I will get a handle on this soon though.

Purchases

Illustrated children’s books

Two Illustrated Books: “The Journey” and “Where Are You Going, Manyoni”

A fairly recent visit to the library led me to pick up two illustrated children’s books, one that focuses on the refugee crisis and another that shows us the geography of the Limpopo River Valley in Zimbabwe.

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The Journey by Francesca Sanna

Quick summary and My thoughts:

I’ve wanted to read this book since I first heard of it. Sanna’s The Journey was published last year and is about a family seeking refuge in a new land because their country is ravaged by war, which has taken the father, leaving the mother to care for the two children and seek safety for them.

When I first heard of this book, I was reminded of The Arrival, a silent graphic novel by Shaun Tan about a man seeking a safe place for his family to live. Both The Journey and The Arrival are powerful, timely books that relay their stories in little or no words.

Two Illustrated Books: “The River” and “Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone”

It’s been a while since I’ve read an illustrated book, I realized on a recent visit to the library. I decided to rectify that by picking up two books that were on display, one about a river and another, a familiar story, about the boy who lived. Both were good reads and quite an experience, though one wasn’t as I expected it to be. However in both, I found that I paid more attention to the artwork rather than the story.

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The River by Alessandro Sanna (illus.), trans. by Michael Reynolds

Quick summary:

The River is an illustrated book by Italian painter and illustrator Alessandro Sanna about a town situated by a river. The story is told almost entirely without words, and the book is separated into four parts, one for each season, that all begin with a short paragraph about how the season affects the river or the town and what is included in that section (I realized this last part after completing the book).

My thoughts and the Art style:

The River is a sweet story. To tell the story of the town and the river, Sanna has us focus on a character, a man, to see how the seasons and the river affect his life.

Two Illustrated Books: “Armstrong” and “The Only Child”

I picked up these two illustrated children’s books the same day I grabbed J.K. Rowling’s Very Good Lives from the library. They were on display and since it’s been a while since I’ve read I picture book, I decided to give them a try. Armstrong looked familiar, but I couldn’t recall where I’d first seen it; and I’ve often seen the cover of The Only Child so I wanted to know why a stag was hanging out with a kid.

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Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moon by Torben Kuhlmann (illus.)

Goodreads summary:

A long time ago a mouse learned to fly . . . and crossed the Atlantic. But what happened next? Torben Kuhlmann’s stunning new book transports readers to the moon and beyond! On the heels of Lindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse comes Armstrong: A Mouse on the Moon where dreams are determined only by the size of your imagination and the biggest innovators are the smallest of all. The book ends with a brief non-fiction history of human space travel from Galileo s observations concerning the nature of the universe to man’s first steps on the moon. (Goodreads)

Picture This: Reflecting Diversity in Children’s Book Publishing

While on Facebook, I found a link to this great blog post that features an updated illustration of diversity in children’s books. It uses recent statistics from 2015.

박사라 Sarah Park Dahlen, Ph.D.

At the 2016 ALA Annual Conference, author Tameka Fryer Brown presented the Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s (CCBC) multicultural publishing statistics during the panel “Celebrating Diversity: The Brown Bookshelf Salutes Great Books for Kids.” She displayed Tina Kügler’s oft-cited 2012 infographic, with the comment that even though the numbers are now 4 years old, the image communicated inequity in publishing so well that she would use it at every opportunity.

Just before ALA Annual, St. Catherine University MLIS Program assistant professor Sarah Park Dahlen had posted to Facebook asking if anyone knew of an updated illustration, but Kügler’s was the only one anyone knew about. Friends said they would be happy to support an illustrator to create an update. Author/teacher Molly Beth Griffin saw Sarah’s post and queried her Twin Cities Picture Book Salon to see if anyone would be interested; David Huyck (pronounced “hike”) responded, and a…

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Book Haul #15: Last of the Year. For Real.

We’re almost at the end of the year, so here I am, again, with a book haul. I’ve tried many times to stop myself buying books but it’s something that can’t be helped, I’ve learned this year. All I can do is slow down my book-buying pace a bit, which I hope I will be successful in doing next year. This year goes down in my life’s record as the year I bought the most books….unless I surpass the amount later in life. Anyways, the books.

Book Outlet