Swing by Kwame Alexander

This was one of the first week’s offerings from the 2019 Sync Audiobooks for teens. (There are two new free audiobooks offered each week.) I love Kwame Alexander and wanted to listen to his latest, especially since he was reading it himself.

Published: 2018

Genre: YA book in verse fiction

Length: 448 pages of text, 4:12 hours of audio

Setting: an American city, present day

Summary: Short version: The life of two teenage black boys in the city

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Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare fits in the medieval time period we’re covering this year in homeschooling. This was the play Mr. Curiosity chose to read. I read it along with him. I think this is my first time experiencing Hamlet.

Published: 1600

Genre: classic play

Length: I have a book that contains all of Shakespeare’s works. This took up 41 pages of double-columned text in that book

Setting: Denmark, late 1500s

Summary: Short version: Death, betrayal, and madness in the high courts of Denmark

Page by Tamora Pierce

This is the second book in the Protector of the Small series. Miss Adventure has been bugging me to read more in the series. I was reading a collection of stories and fit this book in between some chapters.

Published: 2000

Genre: middle grade fantasy

Length: 245 pages of story, 257 pages total

Setting: Corus, the capital of Tortall, 453-6, months after First Test

Summary: Short version: Kel’s second-fourth years as a page

STET by Sarah Gailey

A nimble spray crab seen on San Salvador

This is my next review of a nominee for the 2019 Short Story Locus Award.

Published: October, 2018 in Fireside Magazine (you can read it for free at that link)

Genre: science fiction short story

Setting: near future

Summary: An abstract on autonomous vehicles reveals the death of the author’s child in the footnotes

Greenglass House by Kate Milford

I think I saw this book in a list of good read alouds. I picked it up from a new bookstore in town to read to the kids.

Published: 2014

Genre: middle grade mystery

Length: 376 pages

Setting: Greenglass House in Nagspeake (which felt like a New England town), present day-ish

Summary: Short version: We find out why everyone came to Greenglass House

Queen of Darkness by Anne Bishop

This is the third and final book in the Black Jewels trilogy.

Published: 2000

Genre: fantasy

Length: 430 pages

Setting: mostly Kaeleer, after the events of Heir to the Shadows

Summary: Short version: The final confrontation between Jaenelle and Dorothea

War of the Cards by Colleen Oakes

This is the third and final book in the Queen of Hearts trilogy. I happened to see it on the library shelf and picked it up to finish the series.

Published: 2017

Genre: YA fantasy

Length: 342 pages

Setting: the capital of Wonderland, soon after the events of Blood of Wonderland

Summary: Short version: Dinah is crowned Queen, although it is not without heartbreak