I've been partying with Poe and dancing with Doyle as I prepare for the new school year, so my mind is on mystery. My work has seeped into my personal reading, but that should come as no surprise since I have been a mystery lover since I first picked up Encyclopedia Brown, Cam Jansen, Nancy Drew, and Trixie Belden. Although, just between us I think From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler solidified mysteries as my forever number one — my OTP if you will. A few we

The first day of school is fast approaching. I'm excited, but I'm sad about the end of summer. Summer more than any season represents the passage of time for me. It could be because summer is so focused on family and fun. When it finally comes to an end you look up and your children have grown just a bit older. Although, I feel like I've grown just a bit younger, maybe from all the lovely, lazy days. The same is true for the children we teach - the part about growing just a b

Everything Jason Reynolds writes reads like poetry, so it should come as no surprise that Miles Morales: Spider-Man is a love letter to poetry, but that’s just a small part of everything it is. It might be too much to say that it is everything, but not by much. This book is so deep it reaches back through time and rips open the history of oppression and lays bare the modern repercussions. Reynolds has grounded his tale of Miles Morales: Spider-Man in the ordinary world. He ha

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will break your heart. They can also save a life. Both sentiments are cliche, but hold true in John David Anderson's Posted. Posted is a book of lessons. It reminds me of E. L. Konigsburg's The View From Saturday. It is subtle, understated, and the perfect read aloud. It forces the reader to examine the consequences of empathy that is silent and still, actions that are quiet and cruel, and the bumpy roads between. The pacing l

When we last journeyed down the rabbit hole I told you about abandoning my short “career” as an Amazon reviewer. My experience as an Amazon reviewer was a big bust, but my love for sharing what I was reading and my newfound crush on contemporary mystery novels was not. I said before that my taste when it came to mystery novels became more sophisticated, but that was poor word choice. The word sophisticated plays into the destructive and dichotomous idea of highbrow versus low