It's Monday! What Are You Reading? for January 9, 2017

Bout of Books wrapped up last night. I had high hopes for the week, but the entire family came down with a bad cold, and sleeping and tending to a sick toddler took over a lot of my reading time. But I did get to read some books, including many of the titles I said I was going to read when I posted last Monday.

I read three more award-winners for the Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge that I am hosting. They were:

• The Windy Hill by Cornelia Meigs (Newbery Honor, 1922)
• The Night Swimmers by Betsy Byars (National Book Award, 1981)
• The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton (Edgar Award, 1969) 

Reviews of all of these will be on the blog before the end of the month.

I also had a great time exploring what is available at OpenLibrary.org. I found great old gems by Betsy Byars, Lois Lowry, and even one of my newer favorites, Tricia Springstubb. The site is not ideal for browsing, but I have gotten into the habit of typing in the names of authors as they occur to me, and it's been fun to discover how much is available. I definitely recommend trying it out.

In the week to come, my reading plans are a lot lighter than they were for Bout of Books, but I have a couple of books in mind.

The first is The Other Side of the Moon by Meriol Trevor. My husband surprised me with this the other day when it arrived in the mail. Trevor is an excellent author of Catholic fiction for kids, teens, and adults, and this odd science fiction adventure story sounds a lot like Madeleine L'Engle's work. I just hope it turns out to be more A Wrinkle in Time and less A Swiftly Tilting Planet. (I really did not like A Swiftly Tilting Planet.)

The others are novels by recently deceased authors Marilyn Sachs, who died on December 31st at age 89, and Nat Hentoff who died on January 7th at age 91. I own paperback copies of both Amy and Laura and Laura's Luck by Sachs and OpenLibrary has Amy Moves In. I also have a paperback of Hentoff's Does This School Have Capital Punishment?