Biblio Reviews

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library (2013) by Chris Grabenstein is one of the very few children's books I've read this year. For me, it is a mix of Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)   and Raskin's The Westing Game (1978). Mr. Lemoncello is a modern day Willy Wonka who loves puzzles and books, and the story Grabenstein spins is a captivating one. The book is a page turner, an overall good update to Willy Wonka, with a very likable narrator in Kyle Keeley. The English teacher in me appreciates the author's goal to encourage kids to read by understanding and experiencing libraries as magical places. (Rating: 3.5/5). Waiting for Clark  (2015) by Annabeth Albert was another read based on a CBR review. It's also another of those m/m romances that I absolutely loved. At ninety-five pages, the story was wholly satisfying and just about the right length. Five years ago, as college roomies, Bryce Weyland and Clark Kenmore shared a kiss, one that

Sarina Bowen's   The Understatement of the Year  (2014) was the first m/m romance I ever read. It wasn't a genre of romance that I ever really thought about, especially because I'm more into historical romances. Nonetheless, I read it after reading a CBR review of it. Reading this story of Michael Graham and John Rikker made me think of some of my former male students who came out after high school. I remember thinking how wonderful it would have been for them to have had stories like this to read because the featured characters were close to their own age and had relatable fears and experiences. Well-written with likable characters and a reasonable plot, I loved  The Understatement of the Year  and highly recommend it as a romance and not just as porn on the page, which I've found to be the case with many m/m "romances."  (Rating: 4/5) Looking at my orders history on Amazon, I followed up my purchase of  The Understatement of the Year  with  Him  (2015)

What would China's population be today if the government had not stepped in to control the population's growth? In 1979, China faced a problem: With one billion people, the country made up 25% of the world's population. In 1980, to combat this problem, China instituted its population-control program: the one child per family policy, an unprecedented, radical take on population control. Mei Fong's  One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment  (2016)   details the unintended consequences of that policy. Part memoir and more investigative journalism, Fong does a serviceable job of providing context for understanding the why and how of the policy before examining its short and long-term consequences: An estimated 13 million people live as undocumented children because they were born out of "plan." China is a bachelor society creating an imbalance of young men who feel aimless, hopeless, sad, and lonely. China has more than 40% of the world

Reading  The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland  (2016) by Rebekah Crane, I found myself thinking about history and what the books of today, the ones that resonate years from now, will reflect about the preoccupations and struggles of this historical period in which they've been published. I also thought about John Green's  The Fault in Our Stars  (2012), if only because the characters of these two books seem to deal with snarky teens who are dealing with some serious health issues. Whereas  The Fault in Our Stars  deals with cancer,  The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland  deals with teen mental health. Sixteen-year old Zander Osborne is spending her summer at Camp Padua, a camp for at-risk teens who seem to suffer from some form of a social-emotional-psychological issue. There's Cassie, a self-described manic-depressive-bipolar-anorexic; Alex Trebek, better-known as Bek, a pathological liar; and the titular Grover Cleveland who anticipates becoming a schizophrenic. These four