Completely Full Bookshelf

For MMGM, I am recommending The Secrets of Eastcliff-by-the-Sea  by Eileen Beha. The Secrets of Eastcliff-by-the-Sea  is told from the point of view of a sock monkey named Throckmorton. Ten years earlier, a wealthy woman named Ethel Constance Easterling sewed Throckmorton, her 49th sock money, and gave him to her new great-granddaughter, Annaliese, continuing a long-held tradition. Annaliese loved Throckmorton as a young child, but, all of a sudden, she stopped paying attention to him. But when Throckmorton's original maker sends out invitations to her 90th birthday celebration, which require that attendees bring their sock monkeys, Annaliese and Throckmorton happily reunite. Problems at Annaliese's home, Eastcliff-by-the-Sea, remain, however: she is still a lonely girl with a sad/angry father, a mother who left for reasons unknown to Annaliese, a nanny who doesn't fit in well at the home, and two siblings who are soon to be sent to boarding school, leaving Annaliese...

Sorry about my erratic posting schedule lately—life has become nothing short of insane! I have another graphic novel this week to recommend (they are helpful when I have almost no time to read): Invisible Emmie  by Terri Libenson. I hope to get back to posting more often—that may or may not be this month, but I'll try! A few months ago, I read Greg Pattridge's review  of Libenson's newer book, Positively Izzy , but I decided to read her debut graphic novel first. Invisible Emmie  switches viewpoints between Emmie, an extremely quiet girl who loves to draw but hates to be around others, and Katie, an extremely popular girl who seems just about perfect. Emmie's part of the story looks like a book filled to the brim with illustrations (usually one or two per page), while Katie's storyline is drawn in traditional comic panels. The novel chronicles one day of school in which Emmie loses a silly but mortifying love note that she wrote with her friend, Brianna, and ...