Happy Halloween

Library Book Sale

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

4 Stars

Inspiring and superbly illustrated.

Gaiman gave a lovely gift to his daughters with this retelling of Sleeping Beauty. This a fairy tale where the women save the day, the only men that appear and play a role are literally little, dwarves. I like the twist at the end, and while this has violence, it is fairy tale appropriate and therefore suitable for children. I'm considering purchasing the hardcover for my permanent shelf of children's stories because the illustrations are lovely: black and white with highlights of golden and the dust cover is fabulous.

First Eaglet Hatched at Big Bear!

Jackie and Shadow have been taking turns prepping the nest and keeping the eggs warm. The first eaglet started hatching last night and emerged fully this morning, April 14th.

You can WATCH the LIVE CAMERA FEED: https://friendsofbigbearvalley.org/eagle/

Troll Bridge by Neil Gaiman

3.5 Stars

Fun twist.

The artwork for this is very good. It manages to capture the fairytale quality and simultaneously express the modernity of the story. As you can imagine, it involves a troll. But what happens is the twist. There is an undercurrent of sexuality and menace, so I'd suggest reading before giving it to a pre-teen.

Funny but Wrong

I read a lot and I interact on Goodreads, but their algorithm for "Recommendations" is really wonky. This is so wrong, not sure what to say other than I hope the reverse recommendation isn't given to readers of It's a Busy, Busy World.

Red Harvest  by Dashiell Hammett is one of the bloodiest books I've read in a long time, and I recently read Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare which is notorious for it's bloodbath. So no. Wrong GR, just wrong.