Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 66

"Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train intertwines the stories of two girls searching for a home, one a child in foster care in present-day Maine, the other sent west on an orphan train in the 1920s.  As the story unfolds, we can see parallels between their situations, even though they're nearly a hundred years apart.  Also, the two main characters interact in the modern-day sections, which is especially neat.

I did like a lot about this book.  The writing is good, the characters are fully fleshed o...

"Shane" by Jack Schaefer (again)

I hadn't reread this since I led the read-along for it back in 2016, and I decided it was high time I revisited it.  I loved it even more this time through, if that's somehow possible.  Partly, of course, that's because I know how Alan Ladd residing so firmly in my head that I could envision him throughout the book, which was a delightful bonus.  

The story is deceptively simple.  At its core is a plot of comfortable familiarity:  a stranger rides in out of the un...

Top Ten Tuesday: I Love a Mystery

I love mysteries.  I've got more than a hundred posts on this blog tagged "mystery."  It's my favorite book genre, no question about it.  So for today's Top Ten Tuesday prompt ("Books from Your Favorite Genre") from That Artsy Reader Girl, I give you My Ten Favorite Fictional Detectives. 



1.  Sherlock Holmes from the canonical books and stories by A. Conan Doyle, and also in the Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R. King.

2.  Philip Marlowe fro...

"From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E. L. Konigsburg

I loved this book as a kid.  I love this book as an adult.  It's purely delightful, and I'm so glad I revisited it.  I read it aloud to my kids this month -- my 11-yr-old had read it already, but the girls hadn't yet, so it was new to them.  We had such a great time with it -- lots of laughter and excitement.  

Mixed-up Files is about two kids on a crazy adventure of their own making.  Almost-twelve Claudia is tired of being taken for granted.  She'...

"The Printed Letter Bookshop" by Katherine Reay

Oh.  My.  Goodness.

I have a new favorite Katherine Reay book, y'all.  No question about it.  I mean, I've liked all her other books, even loved a couple of them, but none of them were as special as The Printed Letter Bookshop.  Not one.

Where to begin?  With the characters, of course.

Madeline's aunt has died and left her a bookstore, a house, an old station wagon, and the chance for a new life.  Madeline is a high-powered lawyer at a prestigious Chicago firm....

"A Room with a View" by E. M. Forster (yet again)

I've read this book twice before.  And I am happy to report that I loved it the third time through as well.  Just a delightful, compact, nuanced little story!

What's really interesting to me is how, when I reread books, I often glom onto a different character to pay attention to.  Different from the last times I read it, I mean.  This time through, I found Mr. Beebe very intriguing.  He's got a lot of wisdom and understanding, but he's also almost childish sometimes.&n...

"Everything She Didn't Say" by Jane Kirkpatrick

Eva Schon has such good taste in books.  And she's so good at figuring out what I will like.  While I didn't love this as much as
Anyway.  This is a cool bit of fictionalized...

"The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame

I remember reading this when I was probably ten or eleven.  I remember my mom reading it aloud to us, too.  And I remember disliking it.  But I couldn't remember why I disliked it.  And people kept telling me it's cute and cheerful and funny and sweet.  So I bought a gorgeous Barnes & Noble edition to bribe myself to read it aloud to my kids.

Now I know why I didn't like it as a kid.  And it's the same reason I don't like it as an adult.

Toad.

I can't stand...

2019 INSPY Awards Shortlist

Congratulations to all the authors whose books are on the INSPY shortlist, which was announced yesterday!  You can see that list right here.

This year, I won't be judging the Mystery/Thriller category like I did the last few years.  I'll be judging the YA category!  I'm really excited to read the three books on that shortlist and work with my fellow judges to choose this year's winner.  If you want to see who all the other judges for all the categories are, there's a hand...

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes" by Loren D. Estleman

Yes, you read that title correctly.  This book puts Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson into the world of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde  by Robert Louis Stevenson.  I picked this book up a couple of years ago when I was teaching my niece literature.  We read both The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Strange Case... that fall, and she said she wished someone would write a story where Holmes solved the case.  I said I bet someone had, and lo and behol...