October Read Harder

My October books were Study Break and Monday's Not Coming, and thanks to fall break I finished both of them pretty quickly. Study Break was very nostalgic and sweet. Monday's Not Coming...possibly one of the most difficult books I've ever read. HEARTBREAKING. And it raises the question, who should be responsible for making sure people, especially kids, don't fall through the cracks? (If you're asking me, everyone - gotta have redundancies to make sure people DON'T fall through the cracks.)

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If you're a numbers person, you may have noticed that I do not share that affinity. You may possibly have also noticed that I incorrectly calculated how many books I needed to be reading over the past several months, which put me at two months left in the year with six prompts left to finish. Whoops, should have been picking more than two books before now. So, hey, I picked three challenges for November, AND I finished one of those already. Go me! 

Challenge #23: Read a wordless comic - I was not excited about this one, but there was a wordless graphic novel on the list of books I've been considering for my school library, so I decided to go with that one. I ordered Isla to Island by Alexis Castellanos, read it right away, and LOVED it. Should have been more excited for this challenge, I guess! It was so beautiful, such a touching way to tell a bittersweet story. I'll be adding this book to my school library.

Challenge #8: Read literary fiction by a BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, or Disabled author - I had several options and it was very difficult to narrow down to one, so I went with Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson and Cantoras by Caro De Robertis. Ideally I'll finish both, we'll see!

Challenge #17: Read a book about little known history - Look, little known history? Or history I know little about? There were three books I was interested in reading more about, but the library didn't have one of them, so that was helpful in narrowing it down and preventing me from picking SIX books to read this month on top of my book club book, mystery book, and whatever other books I've got going on. Thank you, library! Anyway, I'll be reading Lifting As We Climb by Evette Dionne and Information Hunters by Kathy Peiss. (Like I said, not necessarily little-known history, but definitely history I know little about.)