Personal Best of 2012

Best Audiobook - The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater  (She plays the bagpipes!!! Enough said.)

Best Graphic Novel - Squish: Brave New Pond (I have resisted graphic novels, but I love Jennifer & Matthew Holm)

Best Creepy Book about Librarians- The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger

Best Cozy Mystery Series featuring a Monkesque Librarian - The Miss Zukas series by Jo Dereske

Best World Building Novel - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Best Novel Written in Verse - A Girl Called Mister by Nikki Grimes (Poetry is difficult enough, but poetry arranged into a novel BRILLIANT!)

Truth in Fiction - The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

It is never too late to be what you might have been ~ George Eliot

With such an opening I should have known that I would fall totally and completely in love with The One and Only Ivan.

Me being me, I would have to disagree with the use of the word 'never", but I generally agree with the premise of the above statement . If I didn't, I wouldn't have entered library school after 16 years as a classroom teacher, joined the Peace Corps (twice), or joined the blogging community.

"There's a difference, " Stella says gently, 

"between ' can't remember' and 'won't remember.'"

 "Memories are precious," Stella adds. "They help tell us who we are'

There is indeed a difference between can't and won't. Sometimes we won't remember because we can't deal with what the events in our past say about ourselves and others. Memories are indeed precious and are to be treasured. Memories are not who we are, nor are past events all that we are, but memories do help tell us who we are.

"They think I'm too old to cause trouble, " Stella says.

 "Old age," she says "is a powerful disguise."

This is SO true and it just made me laugh. HARD. It is truly amazing how some people, communities, institutions,  underestimate old people. Truth be told old people cause the most trouble in my experience.