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Jane

@rememberingreadingagain

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I made this profile to document my journey back into pleasure reading. All genres, cozy, YA, literary fiction, English, French. No AI please!

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Fantastic Me Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl is a fun, modern classic (the values and belief of the author aside). I teach elementary school in France and I chose this book as the first book that my kids would read this year because it is short, full of great illustrations, and funny and silly. The vocabulary is sophisticated enough to interest the Anglophones, but basic enough so that the newcomers could understand it (especially if read to them dramatically and theatrically by an amazing teacher during literature class). Overall, it is a fun book. It is goofy and silly and simple. There isn’t a sophisticated overarching moral of good and evil. It is what it says in the tin. The fox is smart. The farmers are stupid. The animals are happy. The end. It’s very difficult to separate the art from the artist (Pretty sure Roald Dahl had some pretty terrible views) but if the artist is dead and you’re buying his books on Vinted, I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world. I’m not making them read Coraline newly purchased from Amazon, or Harry Potter in any context, for example. Fantastic Mr. Fox was a fun, silly little read, full of exciting action, rich vocabulary, and over the top characters that little kids will like. 4 cider jars out of 4. Buy it used. by @rememberingreadingagain

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2 days ago

I’m cheating; I’d already read The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey before, but I reread it again as part of this reading project and I’m so glad I did. This book is perfect for October, as it has genuine horror and gory moments, but it is so much more than just a scary store. The prose is beautifully written. The world-building is vast and rich, and the pacing is pitch perfect (my husband recently finished Seveneves and we have so many opinions about the pacing of that book!!!). The characterization is complex and believable. I don’t want to give any spoilers away, but I am glad I read this book before other similar media came out—I am glad I enjoyed this book with no context and no spoilers. And even *with* context and spoilers, it holds up. This book is beautiful, compelling, horrific, and exciting. Read it for spooky season, and be scared and touched. I would say more, but I want want to spoil anything. Just get this book! Brb, I’m off to find the prequel on vinted. by @rememberingreadingagain

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10 days ago

Frindle by Andrew Clements should by all rights be considered a modern children’s literary classic. I have no memory of ever reading it as a child (I might have been a little too old when it came out) and actually first learned about when I moved to France. It was on the list of English literature books for the fifth grade, and when I became a fifth grade teacher, I kept it on (primarily because I knew that if the school had previously done the book, it would be easy enough for the French parents to acquire it, as English language books can be hard to find in France for a decent price). Frindle is the story of an American boy named Nick who battles wits with his formidabile fifth grade teacher, about the nature of words, their meanings, and their origins. Nick has invented a word, you see, events,and predictably chaos ensues. I expected Frindle to be a bit more slapstick and cartoony (Diary of a Wimpy Kid -esque), but takes a turn that I did not predict regarding tone and emotion and maturity and and heart. The characters are well rounded despite the shortness of the book. All in all, I was remarkably pleased with this book, disappointed that I did not get to read it as a child and further excited that my fifth graders will get to read it. It falls into the literary trope that I secretly love, which is contemporary fiction becomes historic fiction as the book is written and set in the 1990s. It does not explicitly say the year in which it takes place, but at some point there are pop culture references to things that clue you in. I love this sort of accidental piece of historical fiction, and I think it is good for students to encounter and interact with books like this. With 15 short chapters in 100 pages or so, it makes it an easy read for the average English speaking fifth grader. I’m super glad I got a chance to read Frindle and will seek out more of Andrew Clements’ work. Highly recommend, A+, and if you want to take notes when you read it, I recommend you do not forget your frindle! by @rememberingreadingagain

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11 days ago

I had to Google a few times to see if The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore was an original text or reworked fanfiction. The general consensus is that it is an originally created contemporary romance that heavily (heavily) uses both fanfiction tropes and overall writing tone, style, and pacing. I’ll buy it—it is essentially a spicy Hallmark movie in book form, which is fine and fun. It absolutely hits all the Hallmark tropes (big city girl inherits business from relative and must move to small town to run it) and hits the fanfic tropes as well (classic grumpy vs sunshine, classic found family). I’ve never seen Gilmore Girls, so I wouldn’t know Stars Hollow if it hit me, but Dream Harbour is a cute enough setting with enjoyable tertiary characters to give this book an overall fun vibe. The book is autumnal and cute. It has pumpkins and cinnamon pastries and alpacas. It has fall festivals and and Halloween costume contests a little mystery. It also has pretty explicitly sex scenes, which surprised me. They were fine, I guess, but really contributed to the fanfiction feel of the pacing and the writing style. A semi-significant plot / conflict point between the characters was basic miscommunication, which is a Hallmark trope I really dislike, but I think it was resolved well enough. This book is silly autumnal fluff. It’s cute and cozy and overall fine. I read it in a day. I also bought the second one and am waiting for delivery 🫣😇🍂🍁🎃 by @rememberingreadingagain

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13 days ago

I have a guilty pleasure: seasonal themed cozy mysteries. I love the Leslie Meyer books; I love the Joanne Fluke books. I love a Christmas murder. I love a murder at a fall festival. I love murder at the Fourth of July! I love reading cozy mysteries that make me think of autumn in particular because where I live, foliage and autumn vibes are lacking. I have even been watching Hallmark movies to get my dose of orange and red and gold foliage, and I thought now that it’s mid to late September I’ll pick up this unread book with pumpkin spice in the title and get into the vibes… and there are no autumn vibes. There’s no pumpkin spice in this book. If there are any fun popular cozy vibes to this book at all, they’re bakery vibes, which is nice, but not what I wanted or expected. If you want a basically fun cozy bakery mystery, this book is enjoyable enough. It isn’t the worst cozy beach read I’ve ever picked up. If I really wanted a bakery mystery, and couldn’t find a Hannah Swensen book, this would scratch the itch. However, the pumpkin spice in the title is a throwaway reference. It is meaningless, and it’s why I can’t give this book an overall good review. It’s a bait and switch, frankly. It seems to exist to get suckers like me to buy the book. Jokes on you, I got this in a little free library. And it’ll probably end up back in one shortly. Zero pumpkin spice cupcakes out of five. by @rememberingreadingagain

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17 days ago

The Sunday Philosophy Club is my first Alexander McCall Smith book that isn’t from his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. The protagonist is a wealthy Scottish philosopher, and the story is a more singular and direct mystery than the Mma Ramotswe books are, which are more like connected episodic vignettes, perhaps with an over arching theme, but perhaps not. I am happy to report that I am a fan of the writer as a whole, not just the Mma Ramotswe books. The Sunday Philosophy Club, naturally, takes the internal philosophic musings that I loved in the Ladies’ Detective books and dials them up to 11, name dropping Kant and referencing sociobiology and the nature of the Scottish Enlightenment and and Wagner. Isabel Dalhousie is an *intellectual,* but likeable. She is clearly brilliant, but not insufferable. I adore Mma Ramotswe with all my heart, and I think I could get there with Isabel, but for now, it’s a quiet admiration. However, do not misinterpret my appreciate for the book: I had great fun. I found the mystery interesting, the characters nuanced and believable, and I was surprised but satisfied at the ending. I love McCall Smith’s writing style, and will absolutely be continuing this series. (I have already ordered the next book on vinted🫣)#alexandermccallsmith #thesundayphilosophyclub #isabeldalhousie by @rememberingreadingagain

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19 days ago

The Cat Who Went Into the Closet may be my favorite of the series. It’s that good. It has all the elements of The Cat Who Books that I love in one fun package and the only reason it took too long to read was that I read it in French :) but honestly, this book has some all time Pickax moments that I had remembered and enjoyed without realizing they were all in one book! No spoilers (the book is 30 years old, lol) but it’s an ideal fall-winter read, and it features my favorite tropes from the series: the colorful Pickax characters, new and interesting characters deftly woven into the story, evocative and beautiful architectural descriptions (LJB loved a pretty house!), cat hijinks, Arch and Qwill friendship; and local events that require the whole town to plan something together. Also, with no context: Santa Claus. This shouldn’t be the first Cat Who book you read if you really want to enjoy the series, and I’d argue that, unlike some cozies where you can just drop in and enjoy, these books benefit from being read in order. Pickax does occasionally suffer from the Cabot Cove problem—it surely has a murder rate similar to that of DC in the 90s—so reading books out of order may result in mild spoilers. I also think I benefit from knowing the Pickax Cinematic Universe so well that when the events in this book unfolded, I was able to more enjoy them because I had a deep background knowledge of the characters and their history (hashtag wedding bells). However, if you find it for cheap in a second hand shop, grab it up, especially if you like (as I do) reading cozies that vibe with the current season. This one is 60 whiskers out of 48 for me. (Also I cannot get enough of the French covers!!!) #thecatwho #thecatwhobooks #thecatwhowentintothecloset #lilianjacksonbraun by @rememberingreadingagain

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a month ago

It took me less time than I thought it would to read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. There were several dated vocabulary words that I needed to look up but overall it is an easy read. I think I read it in high school—or at least I was supposed to. Overall, I liked it. For some reason, its simple and at times obvious philosophy didn’t bother me as much as, say, the philosophy of The Alchemist. It might be a case of something that seems cliche actually NOT being cliche because it is the source of that idea that became cliche in the first place. This book was published during World War II. I liked the interactions of the Prince with his difficult and complicated rose, and I loved the idea of what it is to be tame and to be tamed in his interactions with the fox. Most of the prince’s interactions on the other planets and on Earth are a bit heavy-handed, but again, the book is 80 years old and for children, so it’s fine. There is a lot of criticism that it’s overrated, and I get it. I think that many things contributed it to being a cultural phenomenon, including the tragic and heroic death of the writer, as well as the fact that he created the images himself, and the overall accessibility of the text. It was a bit of a lightening in a bottle situation. Some of the philosophical points being made are comically obvious—the planet with the king, the planet with the businessman, the people on trains on Earth—but I found the rose and the fox and the aviator’s own emotions to be much more nuanced and rich. If you look at this as an artifact of French culture and literature, and as a way to discuss philosophical topics with children, and to discuss the nature of childhood itself, I do not think this book is overrated. I am glad I read it, and would recommend it to anyone with at least a B1 level in French. 1/2 by @rememberingreadingagain

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2 months ago

The Last Firefox by Lee Newbury is a fun middle grade fantasy adventure novel about a boy who comes into possession of a magical creature called a Firefox. Charlie feels like he is a coward, but when he is forced to care for the Firefox, he is also forced to reckon with his own sense of self and responsibility and courage. (Also it’s funny because the fox poops and pees sometimes.) I had never heard of this book before and first saw it when one of my third graders was reading it in the library during silent reading. I enjoyed the cover art (the book is tastefully and beautifully illustrated by Laura Catalan—no crude wimpy kid sketches here) and yoinked it to read it for myself and I really enjoyed it! Yes, it can be a bit heavy handed and predictable, but the target audience is 8 year old, so its fine. I do not think a kid would clock the plot points the way I did, which is what matters. I liked this more than Baby Aliens, and I appreciated the underlying message about self esteem and effort, and appreciated some plot events regarding The Big Secret and Do We Tell The Grow Ups, because I don’t love the trope in YA fiction when children have a huge problem and keep it to themselves. I feel like we should promote the idea of honesty and transparency when there are Serious Problems. This isn’t Stranger Things, if there’s a problem, tell your mom. Or; if you’re Charlie, your two dads. I love queer representation in kids books!! Overall I really enjoyed this book and will definitely keep it in my classroom library next year. Apparently it’s the first in a series, so I am definitely going to keep my eyes open for the next books. They look like a lot of fun!! #thelastfirefox #leenewbery #lauracatalan by @rememberingreadingagain

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3 months ago

I bought Baby Aliens Got My Teacher! by Pamela Butchart because for some reason, the fourth grade students at my school were reading a later book in the series (There’s a Werewolf in my Tent!) and it annoyed me that they weren’t starting with the first book. I decided to read this book for myself to see if I wanted my kids to read it, and my verdict is—sure, on their own time, but not as a literature book for the whole class. Baby Aliens (and Werewolf) are in that specific genre of kids’ media characterized by bumbling, foolish, idiotic adults, and a wacky group of ragtag kids who are often pretty rude and disrespectful, with simple miscommunications and misunderstandings being major plot points. I remember being a babysitter ages ago and watching Miley Cyrus/Selena Gomez era shows where the adults in the series were pretty stupid and the kids were pretty rude…and that was the whole vibe. This book doesn’t have child characters AS rude as I remember Miley Cyrus being, but it’s absolutely in the same vein. Baby Aliens would absolutely be hilarious to an 8 or 9 year old. The story is funny, the problem is interesting, the kid characters are cool and good friends to each other. It’s a fun read! Ultimately, however, I can’t take my teacher hat off. It may sound silly, but I don’t know if I want to encourage secretive, sneaky, mischievous behavior in a whole class literature context. There isn’t any meaningful conversation or conclusion to the silliness between the adults and the kids in this book—there’s no Full House heartfelt convo on the couch, or a Ramona Quimby talk with her mom. This book really captures the spirit of those essentially brainless kids’ TV shows in a book. If you desperately want a child who hates reading to read, this book is harmless (it does mention adults being tipsy but there’s no expansion on what that means). It’s even fun! Sometimes kids need a silly, brainless book, and hey, as long as they’re reading, I’m happy. But maybe make sure they understand that the behavior of the kids in the book (and, frankly, the adults) is for entertainment, and not emulation. by @rememberingreadingagain

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3 months ago

The Shadowed Sun is the second and final book in the Dreamblood Duology by N.K. Jemisin and I found it equally as compelling and engaging as #thekillingmoon, the first book. I almost don’t feel as if this is a separate book—the story and characters conține effortlessly from where The Killing Moon ended, so a lot of my commentary for TKM applies to TSS. The world building is rich and immense and detailed, the characters are well written and yoù can understand their behaviors, thoughts, and motives, especially in this context that she has created, and the story is gripping and fast paced. This time around, we are more familiar with the world Jemisin has built, and this familiarity allows us to go farther and deeper in it in exciting and interesting ways. I like how Jemisin built a world for us in the first book, and then immediately had a character breaking the rules of that world in the second. I read #theshadowedsun relatively quickly, as the plot was so engrossing that I simply *had* to keep going. I cared immediately about the characters who were introduced in this book, and felt that their development and characterization was authentic to the first book, while still being new and interesting. I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically recommend both these books for anyone sick of British Isles Knights nonsense and wants high fantasy from a totally different and still totally beautiful perspective. Also, I still think that these books would make an amazing prestige TV show, I’m not even kidding. I want to see this world on my screen and I want it now!! by @rememberingreadingagain

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3 months ago

I’d read The Dreamblood Duology books by N.K. Jemisin over a decade ago and remembered loving them, so when I found both books for a great price on Vinted, I snapped them up. I am so glad I did. The Killing Moon is brilliant high fantasy, loosely based on Ancient Egyptian and Nubian culture and mythology. I am so tired of what Jemisin calls « Simplistic British Isles Fantasy Full of Lots of Guys with Swords and Not Much Else » and so I devoured #thekillingmoon in less than a few days. It is not a read that starts easy—you have zero context for a lot of what’s going on. The world building is detailed and immense and you are shoved in the deep end. There’s a glossary at the end of the book, but you won’t need it by then. I was gripped by the story and the characters; I cried and gasped and grinned. I have immediately picked up the sequel (#theshadowedsun) and am excited to revisit Gujaareh and the magic within it. I feel like it almost cheapens this book as a piece of literature to say this, but it would make a BRILLIANT prestige TV show. Forget Game of Thrones, forget any other fantasy pieces, I want Dreamblood. I want Gujaareh. I want Gatherers and Sharers and Kisua and Hananja. This world is so carefully created and full of rich, thoughtful detail that the work is half done! Don’t read it in isolation, it is a duology. If you’ve never started Game of Thrones… DON’T. Pick this up instead. #nkjemisin #thedreambloodduology #dreambloodduology by @rememberingreadingagain

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3 months ago