Bloggin 'Bout Books Blog

Hello Lovelies! As usual Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the wonderful people over at The Broke and the Bookish . This week's topic is 10 Authors I would Auto-Buy meaning if these authors were to publish anything, I would be at the bookstore that week, money in hand.  Anne Bishop: I'm currently finishing up the only series of hers I haven't read, and she's one of the few adult authors who I seriously adore. I would (and will) buy anything she writes. Jandy Nelson: Omg, I'm obsessed with   I'll Give You the Sun and I really enjoyed The Sky is Everywhere . I can't wait for her next book release! John Green: I mean, I've read almost everything he's written (still missing a couple short stories, dang it!), and I'll continue to do so. Kate DiCamillo: She won me over completely with The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane , but I've really enjoyed her other titles too. Can't wait to see what she publishes n...

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo and illustrated by K.G. Campbell is a precious novel about parents who don't understand and squirrels who do. If you've been following my reviews, you'll know that I adore Kate DiCamillo. Her works always make me feel delighted, and I usually cry a little bit (or a lot, looking at you Edward Tulane). Flora & Ulysses was no different. Flora is a 10 year old girl who is obsessed with comics. She sees her neighbor vacuum up a squirrel. But when Flora resuscitates the squirrel, she finds out that he is strong enough to lift the vacuum up one hand. She immediately assumes he's a superhero. What follows next is the impossibility of trying to keep a squirrel as a friend when your mother can only see it as a dirty rodent.  I love squirrels. They are definitely one of my favorite animals. So it was thrilling to see a squirrel protagonist. And I know that this is a book, not a documentary, but...

The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo was another wondrous journey through DiCamillo's poignant view of life. The Magician's Elephant tells the tale of a young orphan named Peter and an elephant which is accidentally summoned by a magician. How do the two connect? Through at least seven other characters.  DiCamillo connects each individual flawlessly. She connects every single character to their dreams.  I wasn't as fond of this one as her others, but it was still a delightful read about achieving the impossible and trusting the universe to work even when it seems like it won't.

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo is a heart-wrenching tale of love and mistakes and regret camouflaged as a middle grade novel. I loved DiCamillo's Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and I loved Tale of Despereaux. They're both clearly by the same author but Despereaux is written a bit differently as the whole story is directed to the Reader. I really appreciated this technique as it gave the whole novel a Jane Austenian flare. From the outside the story sounds incredibly silly: a mouse falls in love with a human and is sent to his death but instead escapes to rescue the human? Silly. Appropriate only for those who still believe in miracles and mysterious creatures who bring presents to your house. But DiCamillo's anthropomorphism of animals is incredible. Despereaux becomes real. Even though he's clearly still written as a mouse, it's possible to suspend disbelief and really believe that all mice can talk and think and feel as clearly as humans do. A...

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo  is a phenomenal novel about a little china rabbit by the name of Edward Tulane. It's about his life as he gets lost and stolen and abandoned over and over again. But it's also about life and how even if you feel like everything is lost, it's always worth it to keep on going. I loved this book. I loved it so so much. I'm going to admit something that's maybe a little shameful, but I'd never read anything by Kate DiCamillo before. I've never seen any of the movies based on her books. The most I knew was that the Tale of Despereaux was about a mouse. But I kept seeing this book at my work, and it kept calling to me, so I set it aside for MG March. I bought two more of DiCamillo's books after reading this one. It meant so much to me. Edward is so selfish and uncaring at the beginning of the book that I was actually worried about liking it at first. But I wanted to see where it would go (an...