Kindle Deals of the Day for January 28, 2019
See all of our favorite ebook deals for your homeschool for 1/28/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is $1.99. Also from our high school Native American history reading list: “Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is at the top of our essential reading list for good reason: Brown’s incisive, authoritative account of the systematic 19th century destruction of Native American populations by the United States illuminates the perspective of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes who lived through it. This is not an easy book to read, but it’s an important one.”
Breadcrumbs is $1.99. This middle grades homage to Andersen’s fairy tale “The Snow Queen,” set in the modern-day real world, is peppered with references to other fairy tales but manages to stand as its own story: about a girl who risks everything to save her friend. I’d read this with an Andersen fairy tale collection.
Sounder is $1.99. This is a classic! Amazon’s reviewer says: “William H. Armstrong's Newbery Award-winning novel quickly became a classic as a moving portrayal of resilience and hope in the face of profound human tragedy. Decades later, the bittersweet story still rings true, as strong-spirited individuals continue to battle the evil of prejudice.”
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World is $1.99. If you’re looking for a literature approach for biology, put this fascinating history of London’s 19th century cholera epidemic — and the doctor who figured out what was causing it — on your list.
Still on sale
The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America is $1.20. This makes a great spine for a high school Native American history study.
Dragon Slippers is $0.99. From our review: “This is a delightful, girl-powered story—and one in which the heroine doesn’t have to become a warrior to save the day. Creel is consistently, awesomely herself throughout this book—she changes and grows, of course, but in normal, everyday ways that normal, everyday people change and grow. She’s intelligent and resourceful, good at her job, and willing to stick her neck out when she believes in something, whether it’s dealing with a mean girl at work or coming up with a plan to get the dragons on the right side of the coming war. There’s a little light romance, but Creel isn’t looking for a Prince Charming—she’s much more excited about the prospect of opening up her own shop.”
Serafina and the Black Cloak is $3.99. Suzanne says: “This great middle school series is set in the Biltmore Estate and the surrounding forests and mountains of Asheville. I’ve visited Biltmore several times, and it’s a treat to see the rooms I’ve toured come alive in Beatty’s version of life at Biltmore in 1899. Serafina, daughter of one of the house employees, prowls the house at night and designates herself Chief Rat Catcher, but children both upstairs and downstairs are going missing and Serafina soon realizes that there are evil forces at work, discovering her own magical heritage in the meantime.”
Jacob Have I Loved is $1.99. This odd, lonely book about two sisters isn’t everyone’s cup of tea: Older twin Louise is constantly lost in the shadows around her beautiful. talented sister’s perpetual glow, and she struggles with finding a path for herself. The first time I read this, as a teenager, it broke my heart open in all the best ways.
Chancellorsville is $1.99 — and if you’ve been looking for a hyper-focused account of one Civil War battle for your high school U.S. History class, I can recommend this one. (And not just me — Library Journal called it a “tour de force in military history.”)
Aru Shah and the End of Time is $3.99. It’s not surprising at all that is the first book in the Rick Riordan imprint — and sometimes it does feel like a badly dubbed version of the Percy Jackson series. Prickly, unlikable hero(ine) who discovers she’s actually a descendant of a god? Check. Unleashed evil ready to take over the world? Check. Plucky sidekicks who assist hero(ine) and also illuminate the value of friendship? Check. Secret mythic world hidden in plain sight? Check? Hero(ine) the only one who can put things right? Check. The Indian mythology is gorgeously done, though, and I have high hopes for this series once it finds its footing — and this first installment is definitely worth reading.
The Hidden Oracle is $3.99. Need a new series to sink your teeth into? Here you go: Rick Riordan heads back to Greek mythology with this series, which sets a turned-into-a-human-teen Apollo (he made Zeus mad once too often) in modern-day New York City. To survive — Apollo's made a lot of enemies who are ready to take advantage of his vulnerable human form — he's going to need some help from the Camp Half-Blood gang. This series kickoff is exactly what you'd expect from Riordan: non-stop action, lots of wit and pop culture references, and plenty of mythological mayhem. And who can resist a book for less than a buck?
Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems is $1.99 — and the perfect way to celebrate Mary Oliver’s literary legacy. This eclectic collection of poetry and essays reminds you that Oliver had a knack for saying what you were already thinking — just more beautifully and concretely: “The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building,” write Oliver. No lectures here.
The Sirens of Titan is $2.99. Slaughterhouse-Five is probably Vonnegut’s best book, but The Sirens of Titan is my favorite: Malachi Constant is determined to circumvent the future that’s been predicted for him in this hilariously subversive and deeply resonant novel about free will, the meaning of life, and human happiness.
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Jackaby is $1.20. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.20. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.43 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Monday Meditations: It’s Not Always About You
Sometimes, homeschooling is easier when I get out of my own head and try to see things through my children’s eyes.
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
There is a Taoist fable about a wealthy man who wants to entertain his seabird visitor — he pulls out all the stops, putting together the parties, feasts, and celebrations that he would want someone to throw for him. The bird, of course, is baffled by all this, and basically hides in a corner the whole time, not even venturing out to take a bite of any of the fine food. People don’t all need the same things, is the point, and sometimes the adage that you should treat other people the way you want to be treated doesn’t play out in the real world the way you hope.
This is the lesson I learn over and over in my homeschool life: It’s not about me. I love this book. I love writing essays. I love taking tests. (I really do.) I love reading poetry out loud and watching documentaries and illustrating my notes. And sometimes my children love these things, too. Often, though, they don’t, and I have to take a step back from what I love to recognize what they love, to see them for who they are, and to make their joys our homeschool priority.
I want to open myself to what is, to see my children for who they are and our homeschool for what it is. So how can I do this? Well, for starters, I can step back — I can open up our routine to see how my children fill their days when I’m not there to direct them. (I can be willing to let go of my own anxieties if this means that sometimes that means they play Minecraft all day. I can also let go of my own need to be cool to tell them that they can’t play Minecraft all day every day.) I can close the plans and curricula and to-do lists for a little while and observe how they tackle something on their own. And I can do this not once or once a year but regularly, every season, so that our homeschool changes as they change.
I also need to remind myself of this when we hit a hard patch. Sometimes, yes, there’s something I can change to make things easier or better, but sometimes, the problem is not mine to fix. Sometimes, when my child is struggling with something, my job is not to fix things but to give her the space to find her own solution. Sometimes, my job is to sit on the problem until she recognizes it for herself. My perspective isn’t always what’s necessary to solve a problem.
I can’t do this every day. Some days, there are things to do. There are SATs and commitments to homeschool groups and work I want to see through, and that’s okay. I don’t have to do this every day. But I can do it sometimes. I can do it today. And every time I do it, every time I try to look at our homeschool through their eyes instead of my own, I can see it more clearly.
Food for thought
What parts of our homeschool day are for me? What parts are for them? Does that balance feel right?
What do I love about homeschooling that my kids don’t? What personal outlet can I find for that love?
What do my kids love about homeschooling that I don’t? How can I be more open to that in our everyday homeschool?
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 27, 2019
Great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/27/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Dragon Slippers is $0.99. From our review: “This is a delightful, girl-powered story—and one in which the heroine doesn’t have to become a warrior to save the day. Creel is consistently, awesomely herself throughout this book—she changes and grows, of course, but in normal, everyday ways that normal, everyday people change and grow. She’s intelligent and resourceful, good at her job, and willing to stick her neck out when she believes in something, whether it’s dealing with a mean girl at work or coming up with a plan to get the dragons on the right side of the coming war. There’s a little light romance, but Creel isn’t looking for a Prince Charming—she’s much more excited about the prospect of opening up her own shop.”
The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America is $1.20. This makes a great spine for a high school Native American history study.
Still on sale
Serafina and the Black Cloak is $3.99. Suzanne says: “This great middle school series is set in the Biltmore Estate and the surrounding forests and mountains of Asheville. I’ve visited Biltmore several times, and it’s a treat to see the rooms I’ve toured come alive in Beatty’s version of life at Biltmore in 1899. Serafina, daughter of one of the house employees, prowls the house at night and designates herself Chief Rat Catcher, but children both upstairs and downstairs are going missing and Serafina soon realizes that there are evil forces at work, discovering her own magical heritage in the meantime.”
Jacob Have I Loved is $1.99. This odd, lonely book about two sisters isn’t everyone’s cup of tea: Older twin Louise is constantly lost in the shadows around her beautiful. talented sister’s perpetual glow, and she struggles with finding a path for herself. The first time I read this, as a teenager, it broke my heart open in all the best ways.
Chancellorsville is $1.99 — and if you’ve been looking for a hyper-focused account of one Civil War battle for your high school U.S. History class, I can recommend this one. (And not just me — Library Journal called it a “tour de force in military history.”)
Aru Shah and the End of Time is $3.99. It’s not surprising at all that is the first book in the Rick Riordan imprint — and sometimes it does feel like a badly dubbed version of the Percy Jackson series. Prickly, unlikable hero(ine) who discovers she’s actually a descendant of a god? Check. Unleashed evil ready to take over the world? Check. Plucky sidekicks who assist hero(ine) and also illuminate the value of friendship? Check. Secret mythic world hidden in plain sight? Check? Hero(ine) the only one who can put things right? Check. The Indian mythology is gorgeously done, though, and I have high hopes for this series once it finds its footing — and this first installment is definitely worth reading.
The Hidden Oracle is $3.99. Need a new series to sink your teeth into? Here you go: Rick Riordan heads back to Greek mythology with this series, which sets a turned-into-a-human-teen Apollo (he made Zeus mad once too often) in modern-day New York City. To survive — Apollo's made a lot of enemies who are ready to take advantage of his vulnerable human form — he's going to need some help from the Camp Half-Blood gang. This series kickoff is exactly what you'd expect from Riordan: non-stop action, lots of wit and pop culture references, and plenty of mythological mayhem. And who can resist a book for less than a buck?
Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems is $1.99 — and the perfect way to celebrate Mary Oliver’s literary legacy. This eclectic collection of poetry and essays reminds you that Oliver had a knack for saying what you were already thinking — just more beautifully and concretely: “The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building,” write Oliver. No lectures here.
The Sirens of Titan is $2.99. Slaughterhouse-Five is probably Vonnegut’s best book, but The Sirens of Titan is my favorite: Malachi Constant is determined to circumvent the future that’s been predicted for him in this hilariously subversive and deeply resonant novel about free will, the meaning of life, and human happiness.
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Jackaby is $1.20. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.20. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.43 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 26, 2019
Great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/26/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Still on sale
Serafina and the Black Cloak is $3.99. Suzanne says: “This great middle school series is set in the Biltmore Estate and the surrounding forests and mountains of Asheville, Tenn. I’ve visited Biltmore several times, and it’s a treat to see the rooms I’ve toured come alive in Beatty’s version of life at Biltmore in 1899. Serafina, daughter of one of the house employees, prowls the house at night and designates herself Chief Rat Catcher, but children both upstairs and downstairs are going missing and Serafina soon realizes that there are evil forces at work, discovering her own magical heritage in the meantime.”
Aru Shah and the End of Time is $3.99. It’s not surprising at all that is the first book in the Rick Riordan imprint — and sometimes it does feel like a badly dubbed version of the Percy Jackson series. Prickly, unlikable hero(ine) who discovers she’s actually a descendant of a god? Check. Unleashed evil ready to take over the world? Check. Plucky sidekicks who assist hero(ine) and also illuminate the value of friendship? Check. Secret mythic world hidden in plain sight? Check? Hero(ine) the only one who can put things right? Check. The Indian mythology is gorgeously done, though, and I have high hopes for this series once it finds its footing — and this first installment is definitely worth reading.
The Hidden Oracle is $3.99. Need a new series to sink your teeth into? Here you go: Rick Riordan heads back to Greek mythology with this series, which sets a turned-into-a-human-teen Apollo (he made Zeus mad once too often) in modern-day New York City. To survive — Apollo's made a lot of enemies who are ready to take advantage of his vulnerable human form — he's going to need some help from the Camp Half-Blood gang. This series kickoff is exactly what you'd expect from Riordan: non-stop action, lots of wit and pop culture references, and plenty of mythological mayhem. And who can resist a book for less than a buck?
Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems is $1.99 — and the perfect way to celebrate Mary Oliver’s literary legacy. This eclectic collection of poetry and essays reminds you that Oliver had a knack for saying what you were already thinking — just more beautifully and concretely: “The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building,” write Oliver. No lectures here.
The Sirens of Titan is $2.99. Slaughterhouse-Five is probably Vonnegut’s best book, but The Sirens of Titan is my favorite: Malachi Constant is determined to circumvent the future that’s been predicted for him in this hilariously subversive and deeply resonant novel about free will, the meaning of life, and human happiness.
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Jackaby is $1.20. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.20. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.43 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Stuff We Like :: 1.25.19
Celebrating Edward Gorey, how many books could you read in a year, a Golden Compass adaptation that I can’t wait for, trying the murderer of Edwin Drood, and more stuff we like.
Celebrating Edward Gorey, how many books could you read in a year, a Golden Compass adaptation that I can’t wait for, trying the murderer of Edwin Drood, and more.
It’s been a busy week here!
What’s happening at home/school/life
in the magazine: The winter issue is out!
on the podcast: I’m talking about how we get our homeschool groove back after a break.
on patreon: We’re scheduling our first chat if you have topics you want to add to list!
on the blog: What I’ve been reading lately.
from the archives: A resolution to bring back literature and how to make your winter homeschool movie days feel a little more active
Links I liked
I like this take on why the ending of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” the Netflix series is a little less open-ended than the books.
All the mentions of Edward Gorey in The New York Times!
This is one of those things that makes you happy to be a reader: Who killed Edwin Drood? Some Dickens fans decide to bring the case to trial.
A medieval scribe — who also happens to be a woman — gets a little long overdue credit.
Classic literature is complicated by racism, sexism, xenophobia, and all kinds of othering. And yet, many of these classics have stood the test of time for good reasons. I believe completely in building a new canon that incorporates meaningful diversity, but this piece about reading as time traveling captures a lot of my ambivalence about letting go of the classics completely.
Things I didn't know but now I do
I could read more books a year if I spent less time re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
There won’t be any Sweethearts candies this Valentine’s Day. (I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this.)
BOOKS ADDED TO MY TBR LIST THIS WEEK
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen (How had I not heard of this?)
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (I had no idea James Tiptree was a woman, and apparently I am missing out on some great short stories)
You Know You Want This (She had me at “Cat People”)
WHAT’S MAKING ME HAPPY
The third season of The Magicians (I’m always behind!)
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 25, 2019
Great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/25/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Serafina and the Black Cloak is $3.99. Suzanne says: “This great middle school series is set in the Biltmore Estate and the surrounding forests and mountains of Asheville, Tenn. I’ve visited Biltmore several times, and it’s a treat to see the rooms I’ve toured come alive in Beatty’s version of life at Biltmore in 1899. Serafina, daughter of one of the house employees, prowls the house at night and designates herself Chief Rat Catcher, but children both upstairs and downstairs are going missing and Serafina soon realizes that there are evil forces at work, discovering her own magical heritage in the meantime.”
Jacob Have I Loved is $1.99. This odd, lonely book about two sisters isn’t everyone’s cup of tea: Older twin Louise is constantly lost in the shadows around her beautiful. talented sister’s perpetual glow, and she struggles with finding a path for herself. The first time I read this, as a teenager, it broke my heart open in all the best ways.
Chancellorsville is $1.99 — and if you’ve been looking for a hyper-focused account of one Civil War battle for your high school U.S. History class, I can recommend this one. (And not just me — Library Journal called it a “tour de force in military history.”)
Still on sale
Aru Shah and the End of Time is $3.99. It’s not surprising at all that is the first book in the Rick Riordan imprint — and sometimes it does feel like a badly dubbed version of the Percy Jackson series. Prickly, unlikable hero(ine) who discovers she’s actually a descendant of a god? Check. Unleashed evil ready to take over the world? Check. Plucky sidekicks who assist hero(ine) and also illuminate the value of friendship? Check. Secret mythic world hidden in plain sight? Check? Hero(ine) the only one who can put things right? Check. The Indian mythology is gorgeously done, though, and I have high hopes for this series once it finds its footing — and this first installment is definitely worth reading.
The Hidden Oracle is $3.99. Need a new series to sink your teeth into? Here you go: Rick Riordan heads back to Greek mythology with this series, which sets a turned-into-a-human-teen Apollo (he made Zeus mad once too often) in modern-day New York City. To survive — Apollo's made a lot of enemies who are ready to take advantage of his vulnerable human form — he's going to need some help from the Camp Half-Blood gang. This series kickoff is exactly what you'd expect from Riordan: non-stop action, lots of wit and pop culture references, and plenty of mythological mayhem. And who can resist a book for less than a buck?
Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems is $1.99 — and the perfect way to celebrate Mary Oliver’s literary legacy. This eclectic collection of poetry and essays reminds you that Oliver had a knack for saying what you were already thinking — just more beautifully and concretely: “The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building,” write Oliver. No lectures here.
The Sirens of Titan is $2.99. Slaughterhouse-Five is probably Vonnegut’s best book, but The Sirens of Titan is my favorite: Malachi Constant is determined to circumvent the future that’s been predicted for him in this hilariously subversive and deeply resonant novel about free will, the meaning of life, and human happiness.
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Jackaby is $1.20. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.20. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.43 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 24, 2019
Great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/24/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Hidden Oracle is $3.99. Need a new series to sink your teeth into? Here you go: Rick Riordan heads back to Greek mythology with this series, which sets a turned-into-a-human-teen Apollo (he made Zeus mad once too often) in modern-day New York City. To survive — Apollo's made a lot of enemies who are ready to take advantage of his vulnerable human form — he's going to need some help from the Camp Half-Blood gang. This series kickoff is exactly what you'd expect from Riordan: non-stop action, lots of wit and pop culture references, and plenty of mythological mayhem. And who can resist a book for less than a buck?
Aru Shah and the End of Time is $3.99. It’s not surprising at all that is the first book in the Rick Riordan imprint — and sometimes it does feel like a badly dubbed version of the Percy Jackson series. Prickly, unlikable hero(ine) who discovers she’s actually a descendant of a god? Check. Unleashed evil ready to take over the world? Check. Plucky sidekicks who assist hero(ine) and also illuminate the value of friendship? Check. Secret mythic world hidden in plain sight? Check? Hero(ine) the only one who can put things right? Check. The Indian mythology is gorgeously done, though, and I have high hopes for this series once it finds its footing — and this first installment is definitely worth reading.
Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems is $1.99 — and the perfect way to celebrate Mary Oliver’s literary legacy. This eclectic collection of poetry and essays reminds you that Oliver had a knack for saying what you were already thinking — just more beautifully and concretely: “The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building,” write Oliver. No lectures here.
Still on sale
The Sirens of Titan is $2.99. Slaughterhouse-Five is probably Vonnegut’s best book, but The Sirens of Titan is my favorite: Malachi Constant is determined to circumvent the future that’s been predicted for him in this hilariously subversive and deeply resonant novel about free will, the meaning of life, and human happiness.
Bob is $2.99. In this charming collaboration between two middle grades authors, Livy feels like she’s forgotten something—and she’s right. She’s forgotten Bob, a strange creature who’s been hiding in a chicken suit in her grandmother’s closet for five years, waiting for Livy to help him find his way home.
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Jurassic Park is $2.99. This cautionary tale about pushing the limits of science is a thrilling read that answers the question every young dinosaur lover asks: “What if dinosaurs were still around?” For high schoolers.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
What I’m Reading: 1.23.19
Steampunk, Scoobies, spooky hotels, and more books crossed off my TBR list recently.
The classes I teach started back this week, so my reading habits definitely reflect that!
Larklight by Philip Reeve
My son and I are reading this together, and it’s kind of a case study in how different the same book can be with different kids — my daughter, when we read it together, was skeptical: “It’s like Charles Dickens but with space pirates?” My son, this time around, was delighted, “It’s like Charles Dickens but with space pirates!” Note to self: Find more steampunk graphic novels.
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
I’m glad I don’t try to give star ratings for books because I would have a really hard time figuring out a rating for this book. On the one hand, sign me up, I am all in for a Scooby Doo-Lovecraft mashup, and this book absolutely delivers on that front. There are tons of wink-wink, nudge-nudge references to classic Scooby mysteries and other plucky detectives (“Nancy Hardy, girl reporter”), and while they’re maybe a little overdone by the time you get to the last quarter of the book, mostly they are delightful. And the story is great: A gang of kids famous for their summer detective work are still — more than a decade later — dealing with the repercussions of their last case, which is much darker than they like to remember. Tough-as-nails former tomboy Andy and former kid genius-turned-bartender Kerri team up to break former comic relief sidekick Nate out of an asylum (where he’s committed himself because he sees the ghost of the late team leader) and head back to finally solve the mystery that still haunts them.
I loved the structure of the book, which hops around between perspectives and literary styles, occasionally breaking the fourth wall, anthropomorphizing random objects, and shaking things up with metafictional transitions. I know this can get annoying, and your tolerance may be lower than mine, but I found it perfectly suited to the wacky storyline.
I did run into some bumps: Like a lot of people, I didn’t love the treatment of LGBTQ people in this book, which seems superficially fine but gets more problematic the more you look at it. And there were places where the tongue-in-cheek charm felt like it was just trying a little too hard — it felt more forced than funny. Overall, it was more hit than miss for me, but there were definite caveats.
Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia
This one, I loved. I picked it up because it won the Alex award (almost always a sign of a book I will like) and because of a review that called it a mashup of Glee and The Westing Game. Who could resist that? Of course, no book could live up to that comparison, and this one doesn’t, but that’s okay because I found it pretty delightful anyway.
The Hatmaker twins, Rabbit and Alice, have been selected for the annual Statewide high school music festival. Among the throngs of musical teenagers, a young woman is returning to the Bellweather for the first time since she witnessed a murder-suicide there 15 years ago. Minnie wants to face her demons, Alice wants to be a star, and Rabbit wants to finally tell his sister that he’s gay, but none of them is prepared for what happens when Alice’s roommate disappears under mysterious circumstances. That’s an oversimplification of a complicated plot that also includes a conductor with a damaged hand, an evil music director, a teacher recovering from a deadly home invasion, and a concierge who has never gotten over that murder fifteen years ago. There’s a lot going on, but as you would expect in a novel about an orchestra, all the different themes weave together in a satisfying harmony. I kind of loved it.
Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley
I told you not to read this one right after Beauty, and then I went and did it anyway! I think the recommendation stands, but Rose Daughter is a lovely, dreamy story. I do love that McKinley subverts many of the fairy tale conventions in this story: Beauty’s sisters are brave, kind, and intelligent; there’s almost no mention of Beauty’s physical appearance at all; and the spell on the Beast is weirdly metaphysical. I like Beauty better, still, but this one’s lovely.
Sherlock Holmes: The Major Stories with Contemporary Critical Essays edited by John A. Hodgson
I’m gearing up for my Sherlock class, so rereading these was essential. I’m teaching “A Case of Identity,” which I enjoy teaching because I get so angry with Holmes denying the solution to his client; “The Speckled Band,” which is a great opening to talk about Victorian Orientalism; and “A Scandal in Bohemia,” which is just great fun. I’ve obviously got a loose women-in-the-Holmes-canon thing going on, but to me, that’s one of the most interesting pieces of the Sherlock Holmes narratives.
The Storm Keeper’s Island by Catherine Doyle
Cogheart by Peter Bunzl
If I have a literary pet peeve — who am I kidding? I have a list of literary pet peeves! But one of them is books that end without a satisfying resolution. I don’t love cliffhangers, but I understand the point of them, and I’m never going to complain if a book doesn’t wrap every single thing up in a neat bow. (In fact, books that do that are often unsatisfying in a different way.) As Melville wrote, truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges. I can appreciate a ragged edge. What I don’t like is investing my time, energy, and interest in reading a book that just ends.
The Storm Keeper’s Island was kind of that book. I loved the set up: An island off the coast of Ireland is home to an ancient magic and a group of families who protect the world from the evil forces buried within it, and Fionn Boyle — still traumatized by the death of his father — is the top candidate to take over for his grandfather as Storm Keeper. There’s a lot of mystery and adventure, a little time traveling, and a lovely relationship that develops between Fionn and his grandfather. But then the book just ends — almost none of the threads that you’ve been following resolve. And that’s when you realize: Nothing has really happened. All this set-up has been for the sequel, not for this book. It feels like reading half a book. There were a lot of things I liked about this book, but I’m not sure I’ll pick up the sequel because the end was so disappointing. It just stopped.
On the other hand, there’s a sequel to Cogheart, and I plan to scoop it up, stat — not because it left me hanging but because I’d love to revisit Lily and Robert’s world. There are loose ends in Cogheart, but the story feels finished: Lily’s inventor father has vanished after an attack on his ship, and Lily, her mechanical fox, and their new ally Robert, a clockmaker’s son, set out to rescue him. Middle grades steampunk always seems to hit the sweet spot for me — it glides over the technological marvels with just enough detail to make them seem wonderful but focuses most of its energy on storytelling and character building. I liked this so much I flipped back to the first page to read it over again immediately after I finished — it’s just a delight. (And I do want to know what plucky airship captain/investigative reporter Anna is up to at the end of the book!)
The Deceivers by Kristen Simmons
It’s about a fancy boarding school for grifter teens, you guys. If that is up your alley, you will dig this book. If not, steer clear. I found it fun and funny — not a great book but a totally enjoyable read. (Apparently the author intended it as a riff on Norse mythology, but I did not get that at all.)
The Dead Queen’s Club by Hannah Capin
I did get the riff in this one, which plays with the Henry VIII story, but you’d have to have completely skipped British history not to get it. In this take, Henry is a small-town football hero with a chip on his shoulder, who dates his way through a succession of girls who echo the Tudor queens, some of whom end up suspiciously dead. The story is narrated by Cleves (so-nicknamed because she hails from Cleveland), Henry’s BFF and — for 15 days — his fourth girlfriend. Gradually, Cleves starts to suspect that Henry’s bad luck with the ladies may be his own fault, and she teams up with his other surviving girlfriends to discover the truth about what really happened to Anne and Katie. It’s a fun idea, though it lags a bit in the telling and it has plenty of plot holes.
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 22, 2019
Great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/22/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Sirens of Titan is $2.99. Slaughterhouse-Five is probably Vonnegut’s best book, but The Sirens of Titan is my favorite: Malachi Constant is determined to circumvent the future that’s been predicted for him in this hilariously subversive and deeply resonant novel about free will, the meaning of life, and human happiness.
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah is $1.99. This quirky hodgepodge of modern pop philosophy may not be a great book, but I love that it inspires teens to think about their own philosophy of life — and, often, to write it down.
Still on sale
Bob is $2.99. In this charming collaboration between two middle grades authors, Livy feels like she’s forgotten something—and she’s right. She’s forgotten Bob, a strange creature who’s been hiding in a chicken suit in her grandmother’s closet for five years, waiting for Livy to help him find his way home.
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Jurassic Park is $2.99. This cautionary tale about pushing the limits of science is a thrilling read that answers the question every young dinosaur lover asks: “What if dinosaurs were still around?” For high schoolers.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 21, 2019
Great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/21/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century is $2.99. I always love Barbara Tuchman, and the history of the medieval world is such a crazily wonderful and contradictory mix of chivalry and chaos, religion and excess, power and poverty — this book captures it all. Highly recommended for high school (or even middle school, depending on your student) medieval studies.
The Doomsday Book is $2.99. From our review: “But the best part of the book is the time travel bit, when we’re with Kivrin in Skendgate. Willis does a great job paining a medieval village as seen through Kivrin’s eyes, first as she grows to understand and know the people who have taken her in and then as she watches, heartbroken, as the plague kills villager after villager, leaving Kivrin alone and far, far from home… I think it would be a terrific accompaniment to a medieval history class or just an engaging read for teens who appreciate apocalyptic fiction (what’s more apocalyptic than a good plague?).”
Still on sale
Bob is $2.99. In this charming collaboration between two middle grades authors, Livy feels like she’s forgotten something—and she’s right. She’s forgotten Bob, a strange creature who’s been hiding in a chicken suit in her grandmother’s closet for five years, waiting for Livy to help him find his way home.
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Jurassic Park is $2.99. This cautionary tale about pushing the limits of science is a thrilling read that answers the question every young dinosaur lover asks: “What if dinosaurs were still around?” For high schoolers.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 20, 2019
Great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/20/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Bob is $2.99. In this charming collaboration between two middle grades authors, Livy feels like she’s forgotten something—and she’s right. She’s forgotten Bob, a strange creature who’s been hiding in a chicken suit in her grandmother’s closet for five years, waiting for Livy to help him find his way home.
Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History is $2.99. This group biography of early women aviators is a great addition to your women’s history month book list. Time magazine said: “Let’s call it the Hidden Figures rule: If there’s a part of the past you thought was exclusively male, you’re probably wrong. Case in point are these stories of Amelia Earhart and other female pilots who fought to fly.”
Still on sale
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Jurassic Park is $2.99. This cautionary tale about pushing the limits of science is a thrilling read that answers the question every young dinosaur lover asks: “What if dinosaurs were still around?” For high schoolers.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 19, 2019
The Fifth Season, Binti, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/19/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Fifth Season is $2.99. I have to confess that I read this book to be polite because Suzanne kept talking about how great Jemisin is, and I was BLOWN AWAY. The three interconnected narratives tell the story of a world where the earth’s power can be harnessed by a much-feared and heavily controlled group of people, but the gorgeous language, complex plotting, and subtle characters make this an extraordinary piece of literature.
Binti is $1.99. I grabbed a copy of this YA sci-fi-with-magic fantasy from Akata Witch author Nnedi Okorafor, and I have high hopes! Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu said, “Binti is a supreme read about a sexy, edgy Afropolitan in space! It's a wondrous combination of extra-terrestrial adventure and age-old African diplomacy.” Yes, please!
Still on sale
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Jurassic Park is $2.99. This cautionary tale about pushing the limits of science is a thrilling read that answers the question every young dinosaur lover asks: “What if dinosaurs were still around?” For high schoolers.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 18, 2019
Archer’s Goon and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/18/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Archer’s Goon is $2.99. This is classic Diana Wynne Jones: A band of sorcerer siblings will go to any lengths to beat each other to the 2,000 words Harold’s author father was supposed to deliver — words that they believe will be the key to breaking them out of the individual jails they rule. Harold, of course, finds himself caught up in the competition, and trying to tell the good guys from the bad guys isn’t always easy.
Still on sale
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Jurassic Park is $2.99. This cautionary tale about pushing the limits of science is a thrilling read that answers the question every young dinosaur lover asks: “What if dinosaurs were still around?” For high schoolers.
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Stuff We Like :: 1.18.19
Existential therapy, quitting email, fortune cookie literature, the best way to take notes, and more stuff we like.
Existential therapy, quitting email, fortune cookie literature, the best way to take notes, and more.
It’s our last lazy week before our routine picks back up, so we’ve been enjoying every minute of it.
WHAT’S HAPPENING AT HOME/SCHOOL/LIFE
in the magazine: The winter issue is out next week! I am particularly excited about our Gigantic Homeschool Book List, which was incredibly fun to put together.
on the blog: How to start a family book club
on instagram: The hat I keep knitting over and over again (When I wrote this post, Mary Oliver was alive; when it actually posted, she was not. I feel a little weird about that, especially since the reference I made is such a casual one.)
on patreon: A new episode of the Podcast with Suzanne and Amy! (It will be up everywhere next week)
from the archives: Suzanne’s original instructions for playing Library Chicken and why we’re always second-guessing ourselves when it comes to homeschooling
LINKS I LIKED
I, too, started my publishing life in the days when magazines were arbiters of taste, so this mini memoir by a former newspaper film critic (who hated The English Patient) really resonated with me.
I am now obsessed with finding an existential therapist.
Even though I will probably never actually quit email, I love the idea of quitting email so much.
Sometimes the best dinners are the ones you don’t see on Instagram.
THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW BUT NOW I DO
There is an official point where I will stop reading J.K. Rowling’s further notes on the wizarding world she created, and this is it.
City traffic was a little crazy even before there were cars.
Doodling is the best way to take notes.
BOOKS ADDED TO MY TBR LIST THIS WEEK
Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom (I’m so skeptical, but I have to)
A Tale for the Time Being (because Suzanne recommends it)
WHAT’S MAKING ME HAPPY
These hilarious Virgo pencils (My best friend jokes that my biography should be titled Meticulously Planned Spontaneity, which honestly seems fair.)
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 17, 2019
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, The Cyberiad, Jurassic Park, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/17/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Cyberiad is $1.99. From our winter 2015 issue: “In this collection of stories, two robot inventors (they are robots and they invent robots) who travel the galaxy as creators for hire. Their projects range from a machine that writes poetry — “Have it compose a poem – a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter S!” — to capitalizing on the mathematical probability of dragon manifestation, these witty stories read like smarter, more philosophical Douglas Adams.”
Jurassic Park is $2.99. This cautionary tale about pushing the limits of science is a thrilling read that answers the question every young dinosaur lover asks: “What if dinosaurs were still around?” For high schoolers.
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is $2.99. Auxier’s weird Gothic-fantasy mash-ups aren’t for everyone, but they’re definitely for me, and this story about a blind orphan who steals a box of magical eyes and ends up on a fantastic quest is delightful.
Still on sale
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 16, 2019
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Breaking Stalin’s Nose, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/16/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is $2.99. This is a favorite from our 3rd grade reading list: As 11-year-old budding naturalist Calpurnia discovers the world around her, she also discovers the challenges of becoming a young woman at the turn of the 20th century.
Breaking Stalin’s Nose is $2.99. This was one of our Readaloud of the Week picks: “Eugene Yelchin wanted to illuminate a piece of history that we don’t often get to read about in U.S. classrooms: the fear and horror that people in Stalin’s Soviet Union had to live with every day. Because Sasha’s only 10 years old, his understanding of what’s actually happening in his country develops along with the reader’s, and it’s a great book to launch discussions of propaganda, politics, and fake news.”
Still on sale
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
How to Start a Family Book Club
Our family book club has been a great part of our homeschool life for the past seven years. Here’s how you can start a book club for your family.
For homeschoolers, reading is a way of life. So the idea of a family book club— a regular reading discussion group around your family’s kitchen table—can either sound like the most brilliant idea ever or like literary overkill. In fact, it’s just logical. We’ve been running our family book club since 2012 — our first book was Lloyd Alexander’s Time Cat; right now, we’re reading Hilda and the Troll, my son’s pick for January — and it’s become a much-loved part of our homeschool life.
A family book club helps you navigate that magical middle ground between the books you read to learn something and the books you read for fun — the place where real literary criticism and analysis happens. “Book clubs don’t just encourage us to read—they encourage us to form opinions about what we read and to express and support those opinions,” explains Jan LaBonty, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Montana. Kids who’ve spent evenings arguing about whether it matters why the Pigeon wants to drive the bus or how the Sisters Grimm series changes traditional fairy tale characters and what those changes might mean, won’t be fazed when someone asks them to talk about symbolism in Hemingway’s short stories or to discuss narrative reliability in The Catcher in the Rye.
We tend to save that kind of literary analysis for high school, but starting early can have big benefits. For one thing, it makes reading a much more interactive and exciting experience. For another, this kind of critical thinking naturally lends itself to conversations about big ideas — those things you really want to talk about with your kids but that can feel kind of awkward when you bring them up without context. Reading a book like Catherine, Called Birdy — about a 14-year-old girl trying to resist an arranged marriage in medieval Europe — lets you talk about the challenges of growing up and the importance of balancing what your parents want with what you think you need. When you talk about a book like Holes, you have the opportunity to really think about bullies and adults who abuse their authority. Because you’re talking about fictional characters and situations, sensitive topics aren’t as emotionally charged.
“Parents who participate in a book club with their kids send the message that they think their children’s opinions and ideas are worth the time it takes them to read, listen, and respond,” says Eric Meadows, a reading specialist for the New York City public school system. “Book clubs build trust and communication skills between children and their parents.”
Starting a family book club is as easy as choosing your first book — which, for some of us, isn’t all that easy. Balancing a range of ages, interests, and time commitments can be a challenge. If you have non-readers, you may need to track down an audiobook or make time for readalouds in order for everyone to participate. Finding books that appeal to a teenager and a preschooler may be a challenge. Like any homeschool project, you’ll want to tweak and adjust your book club to make it work for your particular family.
If you’re new to literary analysis, downloading a reading guide for the book you’re reading can help you steer the conversation — though after a book or two, you’ll probably be good at coming up with your own questions and talking points. Set a different family member as moderator for each meeting — you may want to go first to model moderator behavior, but everyone should get a turn. Some kids may want a list of questions ready to go for their turn as moderator; for other kids, part of the fun will be coming up with their own discussion points. Chat with your moderator in advance so you can come up with a plan together. The moderator may have ideas about what food and drink to serve (veggie dogs for The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! pancakes for Pippi Longstocking) or an activity to go with the book, or it may work better in your family to have the moderator focus on the discussion and someone else take over the food and activities. (An activity may seem silly, but having something to do with your hands while you’re talking can actually make it easier to keep the conversation going. We had a particularly great conversation building Lego Roman villas while discussing The Thieves of Ostia.) There’s really no wrong way to do it, so experiment until you find a plan that works for you.
The key to a successful family book club is to keep pushing each other. “Did you like the book?” is an interesting question, but “What did you like about this book?” is a much more interesting one. Read passages you like aloud to each other. Say, “This part just didn’t make sense to me. What did you think about it?” Talk about the plot: What happens in the book? Is it logical? Where it’s not logical, are you willing to cut the author some slack? Talk about the characters. Do any of them change over the course of the story? Does your perception of them change? Which characters are the most interesting? Which characters are likable? Which aren’t? Does their likability correspond with whether the characters are good or bad? Talk about the language the author uses. Why does she use one word to describe something and not another word? What does she include that you think is unnecessary? What does she leave out that you really want to know? Read the first paragraph together out loud. Did the book end up where you thought it would after reading that first paragraph? Sometimes, the moderator might ask everyone to bring in a song or a poem that reminds them of the reading. Sometimes, you might want to watch a movie adaptation of a book you’re reading.
Books with historical settings can make great book club reads, but don’t treat them like an additional history class. Focus on the merits of the book itself, and consider the role that history plays in the book. Treat books about different cultures or different countries the same way — if you have information to share, that’s great, but the goal is to talk about the book itself, not to research the history/culture in the book. (There’s nothing wrong with doing research if you get excited about something, but it shouldn’t be a requirement for participating in book club.)
It’s also important to acknowledge that there will be times when kids just plain don’t like a book or can’t get into it, and it’s important to be respectful of that. (Come on, do you really always finish the book for your own grown-up book club? If you’ve never skimmed the last hundred pages of a book club read, you’re a better person than I am.) Kids can stop halfway through a book — but they have to do it in a meaningful way that respects the spirit of book club. Kids should be prepared to discuss why a book ended up in their DNF file: If the book was “boring,” what specifically made it boring? Were the plot or the characters too predictable? Were there lots of long descriptions that got in the way of the plot? Talking about why a book isn’t appealing, why you didn’t care about what happens next, can be as meaningful as analyzing what you liked about a book.
Finally, be wary of making book club an extension of structured school time. You don’t want it to feel like homework. At its best, book club is a fun family project — like movie night or Lego Friday, it’s something you should look forward to having on your to-do list. That means that instead of nagging — “Shouldn’t you be reading your book club book?” — you show the rest of the family that book club is worth doing by reading the book yourself. Invite the kids to snuggle up with you and read, too; post your questions about the book on the fridge; mention what you’re curious about from your reading as you’re running errands. If you’re interested, you’ll spark their interest, too.
5 Tips for a Great Family Book Club
After seven years of family book clubs, I can attest that these strategies will help keep things running smoothly.
Give everyone a voice. Everyone should take a turn choosing the book and leading the conversation. It’s not going to kill you to read Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants any more than it’s going to kill your 12-year-old to tackle Emma. And if you want your kids to read your books seriously and give them a fair shot, you have to be willing to do the same thing with their picks.
Don’t only pick books you like. Talking about books you don’t like—and why you don’t like them—can lead your conversation to some pretty interesting places. Along those same lines, don’t choose a book that you absolutely love. Hearing the rest of your family grumble about something you adore can be surprisingly difficult.
Make it a party. Making a whole production out of book club — even if this means doing it quarterly rather than monthly — gives this project sticking power. Serve book-themed snacks and encourage the kids to decorate your discussion area. We kept an excitement chart on our dining room wall for years where we plotted every book we read in comparison to previous reads.
Invite special guests. Grandparents, neighbors, and friends can be a great addition to your family book club now and again. We mostly keep book club for the four of us, but my philosopher friend Skyped in when we read The Book of Chuang-Tzu and my daughter’s friend, who recommended The Red Pyramid to us, was excited to join us for our discussion of it.
Use a talking stick. One of the challenges of any book club is making sure that everyone gets a chance to talk. To prevent your club from talking over each other or to keep one excited speaker from monopolizing the conversation, use a talking stick (or, if you’re us, a talking Perry the Platypus plushie). Whoever’s holding the stick should be the only one talking.
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 15, 2019
Everything, Everything, All Creatures Great and Small, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/15/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Everything, Everything is $2.99. I read this based on a recommendation from one of my students — she loved it, and I can see why. Maddy is allergic to the world, and she’s spent her life living alone in a protective bubble created by her mom. When Olly moves in next door, for the first time, Maddy’s tempted to risk life outside the bubble.
All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, and All Things Wise and Wonderful are available in a three-book volume for $3.99 — which is such a deal! These books were beloved middle school reads for Suzanne’s family; she says, “These are comfort books for me and one of the few series that has been given the universal thumbs-up by everyone who I’ve forced to read them. As a bonus, once the household has had a read-through you can enjoy the 70s-80s BBC series, which stars Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge as Siegfried Farnon and Doctor Who (number five) as Tristan.”
Still on sale
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Kindle Deals of the Day for January 14, 2019
Purple Hibiscus, Meddling Kids, Archivist Wasp, and other great books on sale for your digital devices — we rounded up the best ebook deals for homeschoolers for 1/14/19.
Today's Best Book Deals for Your Homeschool
(Prices are correct as of the time of writing, but y'all know sales move fast — check before you click the buy button! These are Amazon links — read more about how we use affiliate links to help support some of the costs of the HSL blog here.)
Archivist Wasp is $2.51. I think this post-apocalyptic fable suffered from bad timing because bookshelves were pretty much already glutted with post-apocalyptic futures when it came out, but this one is too interesting to miss. Wasp is an archivist, who hunts ghosts in the wasteland of the world, so she seizes a desperate opportunity when it arises and agrees to help the ghost of a soldier find his former partner in the land of the dead. It’s a crazy mash-up of the Underworld scene in the Odyssey, Mad Max, and Shirley Jackson, but it works.
Meddling Kids is $2.99. Suzanne says: “The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.”
Purple Hibiscus is $2.99. From our best books in 2017 list: “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's debut novel focuses on 15-year-old Kambili and her life in her father’s harsh, abusive Nigerian home. As Kambili realizes — with the help of her free-spirited aunt — that her father’s authority is not absolute, she also realizes, for the first time, the possibility of her own life.”
Still on sale
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is $1.20. I love this book. If you haven’t read it, you should snap it up right now and put it at the top of your readaloud list. From my review: “I thought this little middle grades fantasy was just lovely—a worthy precursor to authors like Gaiman and LeGuin. Barnhill has a knack for telling a complex story in deceptively simple, lyrical fairy tale language, and the way she teases the individual threads of this story together—the brave boy, the magical girl, the witch’s forgotten history, the mad mother—is brilliant. The characters—minor and major—live and breathe; the world of the story feels sturdy enough to stand on its own.”
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is $2.99. From Booklist: "Tommy and his friends think that Dwight is a weirdo who’s 'always talking about robots or spiders or something.' In true Dwight fashion, he shows up at school one day brandishing a little origami Yoda finger puppet. The really weird thing is that it doles out very un-Dwight-like bits of wisdom, and the mystery is whether the Yoda is just Dwight talking in a funny voice or if it actually has mystical powers." Hand this to your 4th to 6th grader who loves the Wimpy Kid series.
Gaudy Night is $1.99. My Top 25 Books of All Time list is always changing, but this book always shows up somewhere on it. It’s a mystery set in a women’s college at Oxford, but it’s also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be an intellectual, a creative person, a woman, a partner, and a friend. (It’s the third — and best book — in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane quartet within the Peter Wimsey mystery series, and while you can get some additional nuance from reading all four in order, you won’t miss anything important picking this one up on its own.)
Rose Daughter is $1.99. I was just talking about this book, and now it’s on sale! (Maybe I have magical powers… ) This is McKinley’s second retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story — a darker, twistier, thornier version of the story set in a decidedly magical fantasy world.
Rebecca is $3.99. I love this dark and twisty Gothic thriller about a very young second wife who finds the presence of his first, beautiful, dead wife very much alive when she goes to live on his English estate.
Ship Breaker is $1.99. This YA dystopian novel, a teenage scavenger discovers the find of a lifetime — but it comes with an impossible decision. Booklist says, “Bacigalupi skillfully integrates his world building into the compelling narrative, threading the backstory into the pulsing action. The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is $2.99. We named the series this book starts one our YA series to obsess over in the summer 2016 issue — it’s a Gothic fantasy about a girl who discovers herself trapped in the middle of an ages-old conflict between darkness and light.
My Plain Jane is $1.99. I haven’t had a chance yet to read this genre-busting take on Jane Eyre (She sees dead people! And Charlotte Bronte is in on the action because Jane is her BFF.), but I think we all know what I will be doing this evening. Booklist called it “a delightfully deadpan deconstruction of a Gothic novel, with a ghost almost no one can see providing the commentary. Marvelously self-aware and almost too clever for its own good.” (Updated: I DID read this last night, and it is BANANAS in all the most delightful ways.)
Jackaby is $1.99. This first in the series (of which I am a fan) introduces the supernatural Sherlock Holmes and his new assistant, runaway young lady (who’d rather be a paleontologist) Abigail Rook. Amy says, “Abigail, who’s very much a Watson in the Martin Freeman vein — smart, stout-hearted, and adventurous — needs a job, and R.F. Jackaby, supernatural consulting detective, needs an assistant. Abigail is not put off by the fact that Jackaby’s former assistant is now a duck living on the mysterious third floor of his haunted mansion, and she determinedly follows her new boss on his investigation of a mysterious serial killer, matching her keen observation and logic skills to Jackaby’s otherworldly knowledge. The serial killer plot is fine, but the real charm in this book — and trust me, there’s lots of charm — is the world Ritter has created.”
El Deafo is $2.99. Being different isn't always easy. When Cece Bell loses her hearing, she has to learn how to navigate the world in all new ways, including wearing a cutting-edge 1970s hearing aid and figuring out how to make friends when she can't always hear what people are saying—or when she hears too much. Cece is a likable, friendly character, and her story—part memoir, part graphic novel—is one that almost every middle schooler can relate to. This is one of the graphic novels designed specifically for the Kindle, so you don't have to worry about weird formatting issues.
The Clockwork Scarab is $0.60. Bram Stoker’s sis teams up with Sherlock Holmes’s niece to solve mysteries in a steampunky Victorian London. In this first book in the series, the duo suspects a secret society based on Egyptology may be behind the disappearance of two society girls. I think this is one of the most fun middle grades mystery series I’ve discovered in recent years.
Beauty is $1.20. This retelling of Beauty and the Beast is the book that got me hooked on Robin McKinley — I’m pretty sure I got it through a Scholastic book order form — and a recent rereading with my high schooler reminded me how much I love it. McKinley keeps the old-fashioned fairy tale setting with this story of a not-so-beautiful youngest daughter who volunteers to live in an enchanted castle to save her father. This would be great to read with a bunch of other Beauty and the Beast adaptations as a comparative literature project.
Brave Companions is $3.99. From our 9th grade reading list: “We really enjoyed this collection of short biographies of people who don't always make it into traditional history textbooks.”
The Wee Free Men is $1.99. It’s one of our all-time favorite readalouds — it dissolves us into giggles every time, and not just because I am really bad at the accents — and it’s also one of the books that we recommend as a worthy follow-up to Harry Potter: “Another destination worth visiting is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where you can follow the adventures of young witch-in-training Tiffany Aching. Start with the hilarious The Wee Free Men, in which Tiffany discovers her powers and attracts the loyalty of the Nac Mac Feegle, an army of rowdy blue pixies.”
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is $1.99. This is one of the books I hand teen writers when they are struggling with bringing the interest and engagement they have for writing fiction into their academic writing — by focusing on a specific subject and using the same storytelling techniques you’d use to write a novel, Kurlansky is able to make this history of a fish un-put-down-able.
One Crazy Summer is $1.99 — and it was one of Suzanne’s top books read in 2017: “In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)”
In This House of Brede is $1.20. From Amy: “Continuing my ‘women writers I’d never heard of’ run, I read Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, about a successful career woman who retires from the world to join a community of Benedictine nuns just in time to help solve the financial crisis caused by the death of the order’s charismatic Abbess. It's one of those books that you want to go back and read again right away just so that you don’t have to leave the world and people it’s created.”
The Power of Myth is $2.99. This is required reading for classics year at Jason’s school, where we appreciate the universality of the themes of mythology and religion across the globe (even if we get a little grumpy at how patriarchal it gets in some places). This book is in the form of a conversation between author Joseph Campbell and his interviewer Bill Moyers. (You may also be interested in: The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List)
The Tail of Emily Windsnap is $2.99. My daughter loved this book about an ordinary 12-year-old who discovers she’s actually a mermaid when she was about 10. Booklist said this book is “light, imagination-tickling fare ideal for middle-grade girls, with charming ink-wash illustrations scattered throughout,” and that seems about right.
Cheaper by the Dozen is $1.99. From the publisher: “No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First, there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. And there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank, Jr., in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches. You can be sure they're not only cheaper, they're funnier by the dozen.” This one’s a classic!
Iron Cast is $2.99. Suzanne says: “This YA fantasy novel (which, honestly, I would have picked up just for the cover) is set in Jazz Age 1919 Boston, and tells the story of teenage best friends and nightclub performers, Ada and Corinne. They are hemopaths, meaning that they’re allergic to iron and have special powers: Ada can affect people’s emotions through her music, while Corinne can cast illusions by quoting poetry. Together they have to deal with anti-hemopath sentiment and escape the evil doctor who’s running hemopath experiments in the asylum just outside town.”
Raymie Nightingale is $2.66 — which is a weird price but a total steal on this middle grades novel about a Little Miss pageant that forges a bond between three lonely girls. The New York Times Book Review said it better than I can: “With its short, vibrant chapters and clear, gentle prose, this triumphant and necessary book conjures the enchantments of childhood without shying away from the fraught realities of abandonment, abuse and neglect.”
The Farwalker’s Quest is $3.99. Why isn’t this middle grades fantasy more popular? Set in a futuristic, post-technology world, the story sends friends Ariel and Zeke on a quest to find the source of an ancient telling-dart, which, of course, also becomes a quest to discover who they really are.
Strange Practice is $2.99. My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
Monday Meditations: Make Room for Silence
Silence feels like a rare commodity in my life right now, and I miss it.
“One of the greatest sounds of them all—and to me it is a sound—is utter, complete silence.”
Our homeschool life is full of wonderful sounds. There’s the sound of our daily readalouds. The sounds of music practice — that have gotten a little louder since my son got his first electric guitar. The sounds of non-stop conversation. The background noise of podcasts and video games and YouTube videos. I love all of these sounds, but there is a part of me that sometimes just craves silence.
Silence feels like a rare commodity in my life right now, and I miss it. In the world of words and noise, we’re pulled from ourselves — pulled to our to-do list or some idea of what we should be doing or someone else’s idea of what we should be thinking. And while those things can all be valuable, they all exist outside of us. In silence, we move beyond words and into a different kind of awareness, into a space of being rather than a space of doing. At first, your mind may race, filling the silence with thoughts and projects and plans. But slowly, our minds unknot, our thoughts loosen. We relax into the silence.
I have spent many years making space for the noises of our homeschool life, and I love them all. But this year, I want to make space for silence, too — and not just for myself. I want my children to learn silence, to learn how to sit comfortably with themselves in silence, to wander free and easy in the space that silence creates. Our morning routine has changed so many times over the years, but the noise has been a constant. Bringing in a little silence now feels right. As we sit together watching the morning candle’s flame twisting and shivering in the cold air, our silence feels like a kind of communion.
It’s not easy to find silence — and there are times where stopping the noise means stopping something good and productive that I don’t want to put a stop to. But I am looking for ways to bring more quiet moments into our routine. I also find that when I am seeking silence, I find it in odd places — on the drive home from Japanese lessons or in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil — and I am learning to embrace those kernels of silence when they appear, for as long as they appear. I am not sure I would have recognized the value of those little moments if I were not actively seeking silence in my day.
Food for Thought
When was the last time you were in a truly silent place? How did you feel?
What are the noises of your everyday life?
How can you make room for silence?
You can't do everything, be everything, buy everything — nobody can. So why do homeschool moms feel so guilty about it?