209. Window Boy by Andrea White

I liked Window Boy. Sam Davis is an entirely believable character who both loves basketball and is confined to his wheelchair with cerebral palsy. The year is 1968. Sam, with the help of his babysitter, Miss Perkins, is allowed to enroll in public school. Here he fails and excels, meets friends and makes enemies. Sam’s mother longs for a normal life and she thinks she might find it in a new boyfriend. Sam’s most faithful companion is a voice in his head, Winston Churchill. Churchill cheers Sam on time and again, just when Sam is ready to give up, and helps Sam make his way in an uncertain world.

One of my favorite conversations between Sam and Winnie:

I just wish that the inside of me was outside so that everyone could know me, Sam says.

We all do, Sam.

210. Rules of the Red Rubber Ball by Kevin Carroll

Carroll shares his thoughts on finding success in this very thin inspirational book.

211. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Toad is both the hero and the villain in this wonderful children’s book. He is really just a big child himself and, despite the near constant admonitions of his friends, he cannot stop himself from engaging in danger. Boats and cars call to him and he answers, but his adventures lead him into terrible troubles. Toad’s weakness is also his strength and he is able to use his daring mind to find a way to escape. Delightful.

212. The Book Stops Here by Ian Sansom

The third book in the mobile library mystery series. Israel Armstrong unexpectedly finds he and a colleague have been given an opportunity to attend a mobile library convention in London and he is determined to go. The mobile library van Armstrong drives is ancient; somehow, Armstrong is told he may choose a new van. Armstrong and his friend make their way to London and, before he knows it, the mobile library van is gone. The two librarians track down the perpetrators. Along the way, they engage in misadventure after misadventure and that is the fun of the book.

213. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

I read The Road and found it to be an unsettling and dark tale. The Handmaid’s Tale is as well, particularly so for women. The time is the future. The world’s religious sects are at war. Women have been relegated to serving men and attempting to have children. Not many children are being born and no one really knows why. Our main character is trapped into serving as a surrogate mother in this new society and it is not a world she likes. Instead, she longs for her days with her husband and child and seeks to find a way to rejoin them.

It does not seem likely this will happen. Yet our main character has no other choices in this life that she now lives; she must either try to find what pleasure she can as the handmaid of another woman’s husband or she must try to escape.

214. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Claire Waverly has made a life for herself in Bascom. She creates magical dishes with wonderful herbs and spices she grows in her own garden that can change the people who eat them.

Then her sister, Sydney, returns home, and she returns with a child. It takes Sydney time, but she, too, is able to find her own Waverly magic to wend upon her world.

I bought this on pure impulse after hearing Cokie Roberts speak and visiting the bookstore that sponsored her talk. It was the best impulse buy I’ve made. Why, oh why, can’t textbooks read like Tony Horwitz? Lots of information, yes, but info interspersed with cool stories. Everything you always wanted to know about American explorers. Some I wish I hadn’t learned (DeSoto wasn’t a nice guy, for example.)

 152. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

First time read. I’ve read all about this book, of course, but I’ve never read the book itself. Like many people. Characters that make you think, I know him…Doesn’t he go to church with me? Excellent. A must read for everyone.

153. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer

This book blew me away. Talk about a heartbreaker. Two boys lie to their parents, telling them they are going to ride their bikes up to a park when they fully intend to do something they’ve been forbidden to do. One boy doesn’t come home.

 154. Like Jake and Me by Mavis Jukes

A Newbery Honor Book, but also a picture book. A boy and his stepfather grow closer when they realize they are more alike than they thought.

155. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

Loved, loved, loved this book. Miss Pettigrew is middle-aged, a spinster, and having trouble finding a new position as a nanny. She has never really been successful in her profession. She’s dowdy and has no friends and no suitors. Her life is about as grim as life can get. Then she is inadvertently sent by her employment agency to the wrong house where she meets a nightclub singer. Her whole life is about to change.