This morning, I made my 200th blog post. That doesn’t even seem real. I can’t remember what my life was like before The Voracious Bibliophile so I want to thank everyone who has given this blog a chance. I am over the moon with joy right now. Here’s to the next two hundred!
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Beneath the Trees: The Autumn of Mr. Grumpf by DAV
***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***
Mr. Grumpf is a lovable curmudgeon. When we first meet him, Mr. Grumpf is busy trying to sweep away the last of the leaves from his doorstep in preparation for the fast-approaching winter. He is a badger that doesn’t want to be bothered. His neighbors, however, must have missed the memo because he is constantly being interrupted.
Despite his ill-tempered disposition, Mr. Grumpf always helps his neighbors when they ask and sometimes even when they don’t. Whether it’s helping a mouse retrieve his kite that’s stuck in a tree (and then repairing it when it turns out to be broken) or delivering nuts to a beleaguered father squirrel who has fallen behind in gathering nuts for winter, Mr. Grumpf is always of service to his neighbors…though never with a smile.
When Mr. Grumpf finally makes it home, he finds all the neighbors he’s helped helping him with his pre-winter chores. The smallest of smiles breaks through his grumpy veneer when the same mouse whose kite he saved presents him with his once-broken broom—repaired and ready to go.
I loved the illustrations in this book. The author uses a minimal of dialogue and narration to tell the story. It is image-driven, so children must interpret what’s happening most often by following the sequence of images on the page and reading the characters’ facial expressions.
All in all, I loved Beneath the Trees and I’m looking forward to the next books in the series.
Beneath the Trees: The Autumn of Mr. Grumpf is due to be released on October 12th, 2021 by Magnetic Press and is now available to preorder wherever books are sold.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
There’s a lot of pain, yes, but there’s also so much joy. The Color Purple is so radiant it practically glows in the dark.
The Color Purple is one of my favorite books of all time. Because there are so many books I want to read, there are only a few books I’ll reread; The Color Purple is one of them. I get more from it each time I read it. More than just a great novel, it is a blueprint for expressing love through careful attention, through putting oneself in a place of openness and willingness to accept the love we feel we don’t deserve. There’s a lot of pain, yes, but there’s also so much joy. The Color Purple is so radiant it practically glows in the dark.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Someone Somewhere is Googling “Stonewall,” Inauguration Day 2013 by Stephen S. Mills
A screen is filling with black and white images: police officers, drag queens, and a few actual stone walls. There are links to history pages, organizations that have taken the name, and the website for the bar where it all began. A bar that now makes its money off of tourists paying homage to the riots, raising a gin and tonic to a movement that’s still not over, but has changed direction. Today, people talk of marriage. Of becoming like everyone else. It’s cold outside and inside our Harlem apartment. A place that knows something about fighting, about surviving, about deciding how to be equal. Here on this day our computer screen is filled with a president taking a second term. A president we’ve fought to keep. A president willing to acknowledge our fight. We’ve learned to adapt, you and I. To find our own meaning. Our own way into love, sex, happiness. In the coming years, we’ll make choices, and yes, one day, we’ll probably be legally tied to each other. Protected under the law. Written down in the history books. Two men. Two names. Two bodies. But that act, no matter how simple or elegant, will never capture our lives, or our history, or our desire to be undefined.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
I hope you do more than just survive. I hope you act boldly without apologizing for who you are or the things you love. I hope you make art and listen to songs that make you sing out loud. I hope you discover new places and hidden coffee shops. I hope you fall in love with stories and dance in snowflakes and raindrops. I hope you achieve all your dreams and find the courage to love yourself. I hope you live.
Mother, you have never seen such snow, such emphasis on setting. So it is accurate to say my heart broke in the snow. One patient here is a Vietnam vet. His torso is hard like an old-fashioned suitcase. Kick my dog, he says, referring to his beloved animal over ten years dead, and I’ll kick your ass. The light is fluorescent. Everything hums. It is so important to go on naming, even if all I said to you this winter was snow, snow, snow.
Then Winter: Poemsby Chloe Honum is available to order from Bull City Press.
Update
I had trouble getting today’s poem to format the way the author originally intended, so for clarity’s sake and to preserve the integrity of the line breaks, I am including an image of the poem taken by @ChelsDingman on Twitter, to whom I am indebted. Thank you, Chelsea!
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Is the world such an evil place, that love should be indistinguishable from the basest and most abusive forms of violence? Outside her breath rises in a fine mist and the snow keeps falling, like a ceaseless repetition of the same infinitesimally small mistake.
I am so overwhelmed with the way this blog has been received. Being able to share my work with the world and talk about books on a platform where I have the final say is a privilege I’ll never take for granted. Thank you so very much!
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Weather is nothing until it reaches skin, freezes dust, spits its little swords. Kept to oceans, feeding only on salted water, I was a rudderless woman in full tantrum, throwing my body against worlds I wanted. I never saw harm in lending that aches. All I ever wanted to be was a wet, gorgeous mistake, a reason to crave shelter.
Her words are alchemical, an accelerant to the fire already burning inside my chest.
I love the way Patricia Smith uses the imagery of a hurricane as a metaphor for the ways in which she herself has embodied fury, longing, and destruction. I’ve never read any of her work that wasn’t breathtaking and even that seems too cheap a word to describe the effect her poetry has on me. Her words are alchemical, an accelerant to the fire already burning inside my chest. If you’ve not yet read any of her collections, today is the perfect day to start.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
I can’t remember if I mentioned this yet or not, but I created a special Instagram page to post complementary content for this blog. I really enjoy doing amateur graphic design work so being able to churn out simple, sleek, and stylish graphics with relative ease is a definite mood booster. I probably won’t cross-post everything I put on there because I want it to be complementary, not identical, but I couldn’t help but share the one below. Enjoy.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
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