Catching up on reading

Well, I have actually read quite a few books in the last year, not sure why I didn't get around to posting comments about any of them. Here are a few highlights of my reading in the past year:
The Mountain that Walked by Katherine Holubitsky. The story of an English boy, sent to Canada as part of the Barnardo's Home charity program for orphans. The "family" he's assigned to is awful, and he escapes to work in the mines in Frank, Alberta. Then one day, Turtle Mountain comes crashing down.
Visiting my brother in London, I saw a Barnardo's Home charity shop. I guess in England they never heard about all the awful stuff that often happened to kids that were basically sent here to be slaves. I also visited the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre last summer. I think I learned more from this book than I learned there. But if you're ever in the area, make sure you go on a Bellevue Mine tour. It's fantastic!

So B. It by Sarah Weeks. Heidi’s mother only knows 23 words, and one of them is soof. Heidi goes in search of her mother’s family and for the definition of soof.

Stop Pretending! What happened when my big sister went crazy by Sonya Sones. Based on a true story. Fantastic verse novel, and her others are just as great, including One of those hideous books where the mother dies in which a girl is sent to live with her movie-star father who she hasn’t seen since she was a baby, and What my mother doesn't know, about a pretty typical girl who has crushes on a few guys.

The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty. Like her previous books, Feeling Sorry for Celia and The Year of Secret Assignments, this one is a combination of notes, journal entries, etc. Funny and fabulous!