MONDAY FUNDAY: November 6, 2017

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date, and adapted by Kellee at Unleashing Readers and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts with a children’s/YA focus. The Sunday Post is hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. These weekly roundups are a great way to discover new blogs and bloggers, share some of the titles you’ve been enjoying, and add to your ever-growing to-read list.

Happy Monday, friends! We had our first snowfall of the year here in Raincity, which was fairly alarming as we don’t typically get snow this early in the year. This does not bode well for the coming winter, especially after the relentless snowpocalypse we experienced in 2016!

In other news, it’s been a bit a crazy week around these parts, in no small part because…..drum roll please….

Wild One is here!

 

YES! My beautiful, beautiful little book published November 1st, and to celebrate I held a little book launch event a wonderful local bookstore here in Raincity. I’ll try and write about the book launch event in greater detail later this week, but for now I’ll just say that it was incredible. So many wonderful, kind, book-loving people came out to help me celebrate this dream come true, and I can’t thank everyone enough for their  generosity and their support. I truly appreciate each and every person who shared their time with me, or who sent me best wishes and support from wherever they were. You’re all amazing, and you made this an experience to remember!

As you might imagine, it’s been a bit of a quiet week on the reading front. I honestly haven’t been able to fit in too much reading recently, but don’t be alarmed, I should be back into the regular swing of things after my upcoming vacation recharges my batteries.

Never fear, though, as I won’t leave you entirely without books this week.

 

Dragon Teeth

The year is 1876. Warring Indian tribes still populate America’s western territories even as lawless gold-rush towns begin to mark the landscape. In much of the country it is still illegal to espouse evolution. Against this backdrop two monomaniacal paleontologists pillage the Wild West, hunting for dinosaur fossils, while surveilling, deceiving and sabotaging each other in a rivalry that will come to be known as the Bone Wars.

Into this treacherous territory plunges the arrogant and entitled William Johnson, a Yale student with more privilege than sense. Determined to survive a summer in the west to win a bet against his arch-rival, William has joined world-renowned paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh on his latest expedition.  But when the paranoid and secretive Marsh becomes convinced that William is spying for his nemesis, Edwin Drinker Cope, he abandons him in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a locus of crime and vice. William is forced to join forces with Cope and soon stumbles upon a discovery of historic proportions.  With this extraordinary treasure, however, comes exceptional danger, and William’s newfound resilience will be tested in his struggle to protect his cache, which pits him against some of the West’s most notorious characters.

OK, I’ll admit that I’m cheating a bit here, because I haven’t actually read Dragon Teeth yet, but I’m extremely excited to dive into it this week, now that I have a bit more free time to devote to reading. I am a massive, massive fan of the late Michael Crichton – in fact, I wrote a post all about my love for his novels that you can check out here. Among my all-time favourites are The Andromeda Strain (despite a bit of a frustrating resolution), Sphere, Eaters of the Dead, and Jurassic Park, and while I didn’t enjoy all of his work, the novels I did enjoy, I really, really enjoyed. Crichton’s novels leave you both entertained and enlightened, and manage to be both incredibly nerdy and ridiculously thrilling – no mean feat by any stretch of the imagination!

So when I saw this stunner on the “new books” shelf at the library I did a bit of a double-take, having been under the impression that I had read (or should I say devoured) all of Crichton’s work. Dragon’s Teeth is apparently an “undiscovered manuscript”, which can be a bit of a mixed blessing for fans of any late author. On one hand, it’s thrilling to be able to dive into a new work from a beloved creator, but on the other hand, one has to wonder how much of the manuscript was completed at the time of the author’s death, and how much has been crafted by others, without Crichton’s input.

But….dinosaurs!! Monomaniacal palaeontologists (which is actually based in fact, once again proving once again that truth is often stranger than fiction)! And just look at that (blatantly trying to cash in on Jurassic Park) cover!

I absolutely cannot wait to crack this beauty open this week, and I’ll be back in a bit to share my thoughts.

Everyone is Yawning

It’s time for bed! The kitten yawns. Look. I think it is tired. All the little animals yawn. And the little kid? Does the little kid yawn too? You’ll find out as you lift-the-flaps in this surprising book.

A sleepytime book filled with tired animals and friendly flaps from the author-illustrator of the Oppenheim Gold Award winner Whose Hat is That?

And now for something completely different! This is such a delightful babytime book that I recently rediscovered. Everyone is Yawning is lots of fun to share with baby or toddler storytime groups – it works particularly well as a pyjama storytime choice with its sleepy theme. The reinforced flaps are lots of fun for little hands to lift and play with, but be warned- some of the animals might be a bit scary for some little ones! The snake and the cat in particular have some pretty impressive chompers!

Also – yes, I can almost guarantee that you and your audience will be yaaaaawning along.

Well, that’s it for today – feel free to check out my recent Poetry Friday post, where I shared a poem about a snail climbing Mt. Fuji, something I think we can all relate to!

Have a great week, friends!