Beartown by Fredrik Backman (Titled The Scandal in Sweden) 5/5 Stars

Best selling author Fredrick Backman's best book yet. His debut book in 2015, A Man Called Ove, met with rave reviews and quickly became a best seller all over the world. Beartown is his fifth, with a sequel marked for June of 2018. It is his extraordinary writing that captures me, heart and soul. I feel like I am there living among his characters and their imperfect lives, but knowing each one's flaws, desires, and secrets. At its core is obsession, family, love, and scandal. Don't miss his books, each and every one is remarkable! 

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

A parent is telling the story to its child about the witch who wants children. They don't know why she takes them. But the town is so fearful, so sorrowful, that each year the Elders take the youngest baby and leaves it at the edge of the forest so the witch will leave their town at peace. No one in the town ever refuses. It is just how it is, how it has always been. 

Unbeknowst to this town, the witch, Xan, is actually most kindhearted, living in the forest with her friends: a giant green bog beast, Glerk, and a tiny dragon, Fryian, whom she loves more than anything else in the world. As like every year, she knows not why, (she is not one to judge) a baby is left in the woods. And again. like every other year, she makes sure to find the baby, and takes it through the forest, across the road, to the Free Cities, to make sure it gets to a loving familly. But on the way she accidentally feeds her moonlight, instead of just starlight. Xan realizes she will have to raise her, not a family in the Free Cities. Because moonlight equals MAGIC. 

I am still verklempt, and my eyes are still red, but my heart is full. First of all, isn't the title just delicious? Oh, and the cover, created by Yuta Onoda...so entrancing. And the words, the sentences...so playful...so gorgeous. Even the chapter titles are divine. 

Another one of those books where I gasped, and cried, and laughed as I discovered the real truth, which of course involes evil, deceit, magic, and the unwavering love of family and friends. 5 stars and I predict many, many awards. I wouldn't be surprised if it is nominated for a Newbery. 

THE SMELLS OF OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES by Bonnie-Sue Hicthcock.

I don't buy books...I'm a library rat. But if I love a book, I want a copy...and I usually buy copies for friends and family, too. So I lied...I DO buy books. I also buy books if I KNOW that I love the author and/or it's a series I love & have to have ALL of them! This author and her books will be THAT kind of buying I will be doing!!! 

I did the ugly but good cry SO many times in this book. (I tweeted Bonnie-Sue that I was crying so much I had to finally go take my eye make-up off.) I read it in a little over a day. I started it one night and finished it the next day.

I love a writer that makes me think, "how does she do this...how does she have this life experience that makes her so wise?"

Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock shows us what it is like to live in 1970 Alaska through the eyes of many characters, four in particular. It's a small fishing town where everyone is poor, just trying to survive. We weep and cheer for these people because Bonnie-Sue makes us feel like we know them, inside and out. And, boy, are we glad we do!

I judge a book on how quickly I start reading it aloud to my husband. "George...listen to this". Here's what I read to him, p. 13 & 14.

It was the tutu daddy had bought me Outside. You couldn't get a tutu like this in Fairbanks and I don't think Gran knew that it was special, or she never would've let me have something the other girls didn't. I was so excited, and as I came up to the studio, I remember another girl and her mom going inside, too. Alyce was wearing a black leotard and pink tights. I could tell she was jealous, eyeing my tutu as she held open the door let me in, and her mother said, "You have the prettiest long hair I've ever seen."
"I know. I'm pretty all over," I said to her without a second thought.
Alyce's mother smiled at me, but then her face changed quickly as Gran's fingers gripped me by the arm and yanked me inside. I didn't even have time to wonder what I'd said that was wrong. Gran marched me into the bathroom, and said through gritted teeth, "Oh, you think you're something special, do you?"
She pulled a huge pair of orange-handled scissors out of her bag, as if she carried them around waiting for moment just like this. They looked like a bird with a silver metal beak. And they were loud. I can still hear the sound of my hair being chopped off with just a few mad snaps of the bird's jaws.