Book #31 of 2021: Wishtree by Katherine Applegate This is a weird little middle-grade story narrated by a talking tree, detailing its efforts to find a friend for a local girl and encourage the rest of the neighborhood to stand up against the recent xenophobia targeting her family (probably Islamophobia in particular, although that’s not …
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Book #76 of 2016: The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate A short but charming novel for young readers, Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan is as much an educational piece about great apes and animal captivity as it is a story. Any primatologist will recognize the emotional and cognitive complexity in the …
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Book #64 of 2016: Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate This novel about a giant talking cat that only the protagonist can see really ended up being more about the boy’s family falling on hard times, and how his imaginary friend was something of a coping mechanism for that. It was honestly a very stressful read for …
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