A New Skippy jon Jones book? Si, dude!

Am I the only poor soul who has only recently discovered Judy Schachner's Skippy jon Jones books?

At the risk of sounding a little snooty, I looked past this series until now because it was so popular. (I resisted the Harry Potter series for a while, too.) Lesson learned: don't judge a book by it's popularity, hombre.

Anyway, Skippy jon Jones is a siamese kitten with big ears who thinks he's a chihuahua. He puts on a bandito mask and becomes a swashbuckling hero known as El Skippito. In Skippy jon Jones: Class Action, Skippy gets on the bus and goes to dog school. This is much to his mother's dispproval because only rambunctious, drooly dogs need to go to school to be TRAINED. But Skippy, as his alter ego El Skippito, is needed to to fight the Woolly Bully.

The best thing about these books is that they just beg (no pun intended) to be read aloud. The illustrations are full of cute animals with adorably HUGE heads and the snappy text is peppered (pun intended) with spanish words like chico, burrito and tamale.


Join us (in store) on Friday, September 16th at 10:30am for a fun-filled hour of stories, crafts, and games all centred around our favourite cat-who-thinks-he's-a-chihuahua! Wild Rumpus Time is suitable for pre-schoolers to older children. See our website for more details: www.wordsworthbooks.com.


See you there, amigos!

Takes me back to Ghana

I have enjoyed discovering the new Inspector Darko Dawson mystery series by Kwei Quartey. The novels are set in Ghana (where my husband is from) and the details of this West African country are perfect. In the first novel, Wife of the Gods, Darko Dawson must leave his wife and son to travel to the small town of Ketanu to investigate a murder.

A woman's body has been discovered just outside the small town. She was a promising med student that was involved in an HIV-Aids NGO. The local police are sure they have cracked the case when they charge a teenage boy with murder. They are less than thrilled when Darko is brought in to lead an inquiry. Darko speaks the local indigenous language so he is the right man for the job. However this area is an emotional landmine for him: his own mother disappeared here twenty-five years ago.

Dawson finds that his level-headedness, and deductive insight failing as he becomes more embroiled in both mysteries. And his modern sensibilities are clashing with the age-old customs of the town, primarily a disturbing tradition where families offer their teenage girls to fetish priests as troksi, or Wives of the Gods.

The second mystery, Children of the Street, takes place in Accra, the capitol of Ghana, where teenagers are turning up dead in the slums. Dawson has seen many crimes but none as chilling as this. All of the bodies feature a different signature – though what it represents, Dawson is not sure. He must search through the ghettos that pepper Accra, in hopes of finding the killer, or even street children who will be willing to talk to him to help solve the crimes.

These novels bring both the charm and poverty of Ghana to the forefront. All the details of Ghana are here and on point: the slang, the food, and the mannerisms, along with the gorgeous scenery. These would be a good pair for a weekend away. Enjoy!

- Bronwyn

Rules of Civility

by Amor Towles is my favourite book this summer, and may end up being my favourite book to the end of this year! Towles has done an incredible job creating a smart and dynamic female character in Katey Kontent and the Manhattan of the late 1930's. The novel opens with Katey at a photography exhibit at MOMA with her husband in the mid-sixties. She discovers two portraits of her old friend, the dashing Mr. Tinker Grey. She sees something in the photographs that take her back to meeting Tinker on New Year's Eve in 1937.

Tinker is part of Manhattan's elite and he introduces Katey, and her best friend Eve to a world they can only dream of: money, art, limousines and doormen. They in turn introduce him to their own little nooks and crannies of the city: down and out jazz bars, the Russian show at an underground booze tank. Everything is going along swimmingly until a car accident happens, Eve is badly injured and Tinker takes her in. Over the next few years, the world that Tinker has created for himself will fall like a house of cards, forcing Katey to discover that many of her new and sophisticated friends are a self-made mirage. She continues to rise, surviving on her bracing wit and cool nerve.

Just like Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City is a love letter to San Fransico, Rules of Civility is the quintessential snapshot of a magical Manhattan in the thirties, a love letter to a forgotten time and different place. This novel is totally fulfilling: the characters are dynamic, the descriptions are lush, and the dialogue is witty and on point. After I was finished the last page, I did something I rarely do – turn back to the first and start reading again. Do yourself a favour and READ THIS!

- Bronwyn

Forgotten is Unforgettable!

I devoured this book in two days, because I was so eager to know what would happen next to London, and what her "flash-forwards" would foretell.

Imagine for moment that your short term memory is gone. You don't remember what happened yesterday, or the day before that. You must rely on notes that you write meticulously at the end of each day to know what happened in the last few months of your life. You know who your mother is, and your best friend, and which high school you go to. But you can't remember why the head cheerleader always glares at you. Or why the new boy seems to recognize you.

Welcome to London's life. She reads her notes every morning to make sure she doesn't wear the same outfit two days in a row. And to understand what is going on her life so she can appear "normal" to everyone else around her. London has no short-term memory and portions of her long term memory are gone as well. She does, however, have "flash-forwards" of what the future may hold. London is able to survive with the help of her notes, her mom and her best friend. But when Luke Henry, the new boy at school, things get complicated.

This is Cat Patrick's debut novel for teens, that was inspired by her experience of sleep deprivation and not being able to remember things properly for a day. I am looking forward to seeing what other amazing plot ideas she write in the future

-Bronwyn

TO WIN A SIGNED COPY OF THIS BOOK ~ EMAIL BRONWYN
BY AUGUST 22 WITH FORGOTTEN IN THE SUBJECT LINE!!!