New to the TBR Pile (31)

Borrowed from the library:

A Handful of Stars
by Cynthia Lord

When Lily's blind dog, Lucky, slips his collar and runs away across the wide-open blueberry barrens of eastern Maine, it's Salma Santiago who manages to catch him. Salma, the daughter of migrant workers, is in the small town with her family for the blueberry-picking season.

After their initial chance meeting, Salma and Lily bond over painting bee boxes for Lily's grandfather, and Salma's friendship transforms Lily's summer. But when Salma decides to run in the upcoming Blueberry Queen pageant, they'll have to face some tough truths about friendship and belonging. Should an outsider like Salma really participate in the pageant-and possibly win?

Set amongst the blueberry barrens and by the sea, this is a gorgeous new novel by Newbery Honor author Cynthia Lord that tackles themes of prejudice and friendship, loss and love.

Shadow and Bone (The Grisha #1)
by Leigh Bardugo

Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life--a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha... and the secrets of her heart.

What's new to your TBR pile this week?  Let me know in the comments!

Review - A Handful of Stars

A Handful of Stars
by Cynthia Lord
Date: 2015
Publisher: Scholastic
Reading level: MG
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 192
Format: e-book
Source: library

When Lily's blind dog, Lucky, slips his collar and runs away across the wide-open blueberry barrens of eastern Maine, it's Salma Santiago who manages to catch him. Salma, the daughter of migrant workers, is in the small town with her family for the blueberry-picking season.

After their initial chance meeting, Salma and Lily bond over painting bee boxes for Lily's grandfather, and Salma's friendship transforms Lily's summer. But when Salma decides to run in the upcoming Blueberry Queen pageant, they'll have to face some tough truths about friendship and belonging. Should an outsider like Salma really participate in the pageant-and possibly win?

Set amongst the blueberry barrens and by the sea, this is a gorgeous new novel by Newbery Honor author Cynthia Lord that tackles themes of prejudice and friendship, loss and love.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This cute middle-grade book is a quick read.  Although it's short, it manages to pack quite a bit of story and character development into its pages.

Please, dear author, I want some more...

My favourite thing about this little book was that it taught me about places and things I didn't know much about.  The story is set in coastal Maine, near the wild blueberry barrens.  I learned a little about wild blueberry harvesting, migrant farm labour, and all the things you can do with wild blueberries.  The parts about mason bees were interesting, too; I'd never heard of these little blue bees, so having them figure prominently in the landscape of the story was kind of cool.

I thought Lily, Salma, and Hannah (all twelve years old) were pretty realistic.  In some middle-grade novels, characters in this age group are portrayed as either kind of stupid or unbelievably precocious.  I was relieved to find that that wasn't the case here.  Sure, they might not be as knowledgeable or as emotionally mature as adults, but they're learning as they go.  The author shows respect for this age group when she writes them as complex human beings.

It's all a matter of taste...

The only thing I didn't really like about this book was the whole issue of Lily's mother.  I didn't think there needed to be the secrecy surrounding the issue of what happened to her; it reminded me of other books that I've read that used the same sort of plot device, and I always felt kind of cheated when I found out the actual truth.  And, in this case, there wasn't really any reason for it.

Let's get technical...

The writing is pretty solid here.  Aside from a few typos in the last three or so chapters, there's not much to complain about.  The book is easy to read and flows nicely.

The verdict...

This turned out to be another one of my pleasant library surprises.  I'd never heard of it, and I wasn't sure it was my kind of book, but I enjoyed it anyway.  It might seem a little young for older readers, but it's a great story for middle graders; I wish it had been around when I was twelve!

Quotable moment:

"I think art can take ordinary things and show them to you like it's the first time you've ever seen them," she continued. "And you realize that even ordinary things aren't really ordinary at all."

Maybe that's true, I thought. Maybe when we see things all the time, we stop really looking at them. And it takes an artist, someone who can look past the ordinariness, to remind us how special they really are.

Premise: 4/5
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Pace: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Editing: 3/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall Rating: 3.75 out of 5 ladybugs