#childrens mystery

[queerauntie]

February Reads

Trixie Belden: The Gatehouse Mystery by Julie Campbell

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Solito by Javier Zamora

Trixie Belden: The Mysterious Visitor by Julie Campbell

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Are You Listening? by Tillie Walden

The Kindred by Alechia Dow

So This is Ever After by F.T. Lukens

Wow Wow WOW what a month of reading! It's been a crazy month, too! My new job is so delightful I could cry (and have lowkey) tears of joy! The reads have been phenomenal companions on my drives and while out of town helping a friend recover from surgery! So let's get into it:

What can I say about the Trixie Belden books I haven't already? They're so quaint and enjoyable. I continuously compare them to chewing gum, they are stimulating without being exhausting and they have a fun flavor every time! Unfortunately, I ran out of audiobooks this month, the library only carried the 1st four in the series so I have not decided yet how I want to proceed. Get more invested with like 3 more ebooks and then go cold turkey, or just cut my losses now... We'll have to see.

Stone Butch Blues was really impactful and a story I will not quickly forget. It took me almost 2 months to read this one, all of January and a decent chunk of February. Each chapter is a whole story beginning to end that you need to grieve and sit with, it was not a story to be binged, it demanded your time and respect. And that I gave it. This was also the first book I "annotated" (I took notes in my journal bc I was reading the digital edition) which I am so glad I did. Now, the experience will be forever embedded in my journal for future versions of myself to remember!

This next book was what I read on the way to visit my friends. It's about a 4-hour drive one way so I love queuing up a good book (at 2x the speed I can get through some big bois on a round trip) and this was a hauntingly good choice. In Solito, Javier Zamora remembers his terrifying and deadly journey to America to join his parents. At 9 years old this child travels from El Salvador to Mexico and Zamora's ability to recapture what it was like... I know we as readers must only be experiencing a fraction of the stress and fear that so many go through just for a chance at safety, at freedom. This book should be required reading and I recommend it to all of you!

Finally, I have gotten a taste of Akwaeke Emezi! I've heard about their work for a long time now, and my favorite source of book inspo (teacher twitter) has long been raving about their collections. I am thrilled PET was my first novel because it was phenomenal. Emezi has the power that few people have which is to discuss violence with kindness and empathy. It brought me joy to know this book is taught by teachers equipping their students with crucial knowledge. It's going into my required reading for my commune in our intro to restorative justice because WHEW it made me realize just how much more unlearning growing I had to do myself!

This next book was selected for my book club! I joined a book club in January in hopes of having some more intentional reading sessions. Audiobooks are my fave but I still dissociate sometimes and notice I sometimes miss out on themes when I'm not looking for them. So with book club books I am reading physical copies to force myself to slow down and journaling between sessions to reflect back on when the whole thing is read! Reading This Is How You Lose the Time War was a book I am SO GLAD I read in this way! The tension building was so effective this way and the yearning, the yearning oooh I was living for these characters! What a legendary novel! The authors did a phenomenal job putting you into these characters' heads and creating a story that wasn't overwhelming and difficult to understand, but surreal and vast. You knew of the world, but because of who the characters are, you aren't entirely in it. The creativity of this book feels like reading a world where metaphors become literal. It's magical and heartbreaking. It's an instant classic. And you already know it, a must-read!

Damn February was BUSY!! (Okay fair a couple were started in January, but STILL!) We are almost at the end of the month (damn the shortest month to how did I DO this!?) and being the neuro spicy dork that I am, the close to the end of an imaginary deadline means crunch time! That brings us to are you listening? by Tillie Walden. When visiting bestie, they let me borrow a whole bunch of books (I'm counting 9 including this one) and so now I have a lovely intimidating stack on top of my bookshelf I want to slowly widdle down, and this is what we started with! I was definitely not prepared for the undertones of this book, emotionally I was on edge the whole time but very uncertain why. The colors in this story do a magnificent job of making you spend time in the shadows, looking at the edges and focusing on small details. By the end, I was in tears and felt the whiplash of a short but powerful journey. Bestie's given me a bunch more of Walden's works too so you'll be seeing more of those too, I'm sure they'll be just as devastatingly beautiful!

What I need is for the emerging book genre, New Age, to become more prominent and specified because some of these books are there, they're THERE, but a lot of them still get pushed into the YA pg-13 section which is so limiting! I think The Kindred by Alechia Dow is a great example of this where it could've given me more but it was appealing to a younger audience so we had to keep it innocent, which is sweet, but these are two characters I know would be doing it down and dirty if they were just aged up ever so slightly! It's a good story, a fun way to talk about the issues that our country struggles with. It's definitely because of the way the author approaches these human rights topics that definitely feels rooted in YA so maybe it was always meant to be there! The young YA yearning is cute too, it's just not seamy in the way that adult romance is, and maybe I want a little bit of both! Sue me!

Admittedly, I do not learn my lesson from The Kindred and continue reading YA romances! I don't know how it happened, I think I just put a bunch of books on hold, and wham!, here we are a mini sprint of sci-fi romance! And after reading So This is Ever After I was not complaining!! These boys are SO cute! I loved how the story started, seemingly picking up where the gang left off- post-slaying the big evil monster and fulfilling their prophecy. It really gagged me and made me feel like I was reading a sequel, but of course, that is the intention, as we are now in the "ever after". Our protagonist and hero, now King, must do his best to fulfill his new role, which of course comes with its own plot twist problems to solve! The writing in this was really sweet and entertaining. I loved the scenarios the characters are put in, I will always be a slut for an ensemble cast, so this was a really enjoyable read! Unlike The Kindred though, I thought this book was perfectly aged as their shenanigans could only have been concocted by immature insecure, and communication-skills-lacking teens! It was a good time!

I did it! That's February everyone, I hope you enjoyed my ramblings if you read through it all, I always have fun writing these and if nothing maybe you'll see a book you want to read from my tags and it'll be the push you need to go for it!

Yearly Book Count: 16/?? Yearly Reading Goal: 50 Books

[musubiki]

my favorite fields of mistria boys 🥰

[kazoosandfannypacks]

as always, I'd love to hear your answer in the tags, especially if it's one of the "other" choices!

[scribz-ag24]

thank you Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon for making Future Trio recruitable at any time, thus making it plausibly canon that they suffered the petrification incidents.

I have some ideas for these guys in the voidlands

a lot of them revolve around Dusknoir getting bullied by Espurr, wonder how that happened

[bet-on-me-13]

The Bat-Adoption Papers are literal Magic Contracts

So! In the Deified Batman AU (the AU where the Belief of the peoples of Gotham accidentally Ascended Batman to minor godhood), the Bat Adoption Papers would be a fun concept.

Batman is a God of The Night, Fear, and Protection. Specifically, the protection of Children, which is one of his biggest motivators. Meaning, it's a big part of his Divine Domain.

So when he, a God of Protection and Children, adopts his own Child? It's kind of a big deal.

His Adoption Papers basically become Magical Contracts that claim Dick to him as his own Son, basically turning Dick into a Demigod by the fact that he is the Son of a God.

Then each time Batman adopts a kid, they become a Demigod as well. Maybe after enough time, and after they forge their own Identities, they could become Minor Gods of their own? Idk, fun idea

Why do I bring this up?

Well, when Danny eventually joins the JLA, and runs into Batman, all he sees in a God of the Night, who takes one look at him, and then pulls out a Magical Binding Contract from his Belt.

Needless to say, he books it.

[caffeinerabbit]

Our Isekai'd Bodies, Ourselves: A Human's Guide to Being a Hero

[canisalbus]

Hypothetically if. If they had a kiddo. A puppy. Does that hypothetical child have a design in your genius artist head anywhere

.

[aemiruo]

I have no sense of self-care and I had to do this before bed. I really enjoy we all are looking alike, it makes me feel the community is closer than ever.

[msmoon-and-the-cyberdemon]

Doodles for Chapter 10 and 11 (No spoilers I’m stuck in the Pit)

[quicklings]

trapp is like murph in the way that he WILL end up the straight man of any party.

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Sesame Street dedicated a Muppet character to Vincent Price in the 80s when Vincent hosted the PBS show "Mystery".

[fallstaticexit]

Chapter Seven Adie (Fate pt 2) - Previous // Next // Beginning // Werewolf Lore

[loveinstreams]

every debrief episode is just shane going “I’m divorcing ryan we’re enemies now” and then proceeds to look at him with warmth and affection the whole time while ryan laughs

[zoerocksand1]

okay yah i did the "draw this in your style"

i love these sweet weird kids so much and it's been toooooooo long since i've drawn them

[bodhrancomedy]

By the way, if it was Harry Potter or Percy Jackson please don’t answer because I’m trying to see what else people loved. Also, children’s, not YA.

[nostalgiahime]

From the book Care Bears: The Mystery of the Missing Dreams (1986), scanned by me