All Aboard the ARC: The Littlest Yak by Lu Fraser (Author) and Kate Hindley (Illustrator)

***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***

Gertie is a little yak with a big heart. Eager to be big and tall like the other yaks in her herd, Gertie tries her hardest to make herself bigger and stronger but finds her negative self-perception tested when an emergency calls for someone smaller like her.

In the end, Gertie learns that it’s not the size of your horns that matter but the strength of your character, and that everyone in the herd has something amazing to offer regardless of their size or ability. Reminiscent of the story of Rudolph with his blinking red nose or Kyo Maclear’s picture book Spork, The Littlest Yak shows readers of all ages that sometimes the things we don’t like about ourselves end up becoming our greatest assets. Five stars and two thumbs way up for Gertie, who now holds a coveted spot as one of my favorite heroines in all of children’s literature.

Five stars and two thumbs way up for Gertie, who now holds a coveted spot as one of my favorite heroines in all of children’s literature.

The Littlest Yak is due to be released in the U.S. on October 1st, 2021 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 follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Poem for the Day: August 14th, 2021

As If I Am Someone Else by Douglas Piccinnini

so much depends 
on the authority 

of a reality 
to guide me 

in a logic 
of circumstance -   

to live comfortably 
yet desire differently.

Quote for the Day: August 14th, 2021

*Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer’s Activism* by Alice Walker

We are all substantially flawed, wounded, angry, hurt, here on Earth. But this human condition, so painful to us, and in some ways shameful – because we feel we are weak when the reality of ourselves is exposed – is made much more bearable when it is shared, face-to-face, in words that have expressive human eyes behind them.

Poem for the Day: August 13th, 2021

From the Long Sad Party by Mark Strand

Someone was saying
Something about shadows covering the field, about 
how things pass, how one sleeps toward morning 
and the morning goes. 

Someone was saying 
how the wind dies down but comes back, 
how shells are the coffins of wind 
but the weather continues. 

It was a long night
and someone said something about the moon shedding its 
     white 
on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead 
but more of the same. 

Someone mentioned
a city she had been in before the war, a room with two
     candles 
against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching. 
We began to believe 

the night would not end. 
Someone was saying the music was over and no one had 
     noticed. 
Then someone said something about the planets, about 
     the stars, 
how small they were, how far away.

Quote for the Day: August 13th, 2021

*Birds of a Feather (Maisie Dobbs, #2)* by Jacqueline Winspear

The pain of being reminded is a sharp sword.

Original Poem: Holding Onto a Reason by Fred Slusher

This is the first time I’ve posted my own poetry on my blog so naturally I’m terrified. Here you go.

Holding Onto a Reason by Fred Slusher

i write memoirs of crushed rose petals and 

poetry aided by artificially 

-intelligent algorithms predicting 

what it is my thumbs want to say 

next but sometimes a different agenda

takes root. on an island of one, there is 

no need for a king or a dream because 

in the world of the self, there is only 

the now — no need for dreams or sleep or 

dreams or dreams or dreams or the sound of 

rain slapping the truth out of the earth. the 

closest i ever came to nirvana was the first 

time i saw lady gaga perform yoü and i 

bearing down on a baby grand in heels higher 

than heaven studded in leather and the 

glimmer of the stage lights brighter than 

broadway than all the stars in the sky. 

somethin’ ‘bout lonely nights and my lipstick 

on your face. i swam through a river of my own 

blood to wash up on another unforgiving 

shore. i clutched years like shards of glass 

in my clenched fists and decided to keep 

holding onto a reason.

Quote for the Day: August 12th, 2021

i want a parade
i want music
i want confetti
i want a marching band
for the ones surviving in silence
i want a standing ovation
for every person who
wakes up and moves toward the sun
when there is a shadow
pulling them back on the inside

People in the book world are always giving Rupi Kaur a hard time. They say her poetry isn’t actually poetry. It’s too sanitized. It’s too accessible. Well pardon the f&$! out of me, but I don’t think you should need an MFA to be able to access poetry. Maybe it’s jealousy? Maybe they’re pissed that Ms. Kaur is out here stacking up paper while twelve people in the entire world are telling them they’re the next Emerson? I don’t know and I don’t really care. If something someone reads resonates with them and makes them feel something, then damn the literati and their thinly-veiled colonialism. Mazel tov.

Quote for the Day: August 11th, 2021

Nevertheless, do not allow yourself to be carried away by how you shoot in the morning, whether well or badly. There are many more days ahead, and each arrow is a life in itself. Use your bad moments to discover what makes you tremble. Use your good moments to find your road to inner peace. But do not stop either out of fear or out of joy: the way of the bow has no end.

Album Review: Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish

How does Billie Eilish respond to criticism of her newest full-length offering, Happier Than Ever? With a dismissive eye roll and a snappy comeback.

Apparently, many “fans” of Eilish are not enamored with her sophomore effort, ostensibly because of its lack of radio-friendly tracks. This doesn’t seem to bother Eilish, however, who’s too busy counting her stacks and referencing her rack at the same time to be bothered by petty inanities.

This doesn’t seem to bother Eilish, however, who’s too busy counting her stacks and referencing her rack at the same time to bothered by petty inanities.

Clapping back at a slate of recent TikTok videos made by so-called fans, Eilish posted a video with “NDA” playing in the background while her eyes are rolling up at the text is it just me or is billie in her flop era like why does she suck now. Her c(l)aption: literally all i see on this app…eat my dust my tits are bigger than yours.

…eat my dust my tits are bigger than yours
Billie Eilish

This is the very reason the world (and yours truly) loves Billie: she doesn’t play by anyone’s rules except her own. The same woman who drew criticism for wearing excessively baggy clothing on the red carpet is the same woman who drew criticism for posing seductively on the June 2021 cover of British Vogue wearing a corset and sporting new blonde locks.

Happier Than Ever embraces these complexities while at the same time rejecting all classification whatsoever. What matters more than anything is what Billie wants to say in the moment, and she has a lot to say on this record—about fame, mental health, sex, and the (im)balances of power inherent in all relationships (toxic and otherwise).

What matters more than anything is what Billie wants to say in the moment, and she has a lot to say on this record—about fame, mental health, sex, and the (im)balances of power inherent in all relationships (toxic and otherwise).

Haters are never happy with how women own their power and inhabit their sexuality, always attempting to reify a made-up circumscription placing them within a false dichotomy of prude or slut, Madonna or whore. How much cleavage is too much? How little is too little? Is she pure or just a tease? It’s all nonsense rooted in the detractors’ own unavoidable mediocrity: eat my dust my tits are bigger than yours.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/4)

Favorite Tracks: “I Didn’t Change My Number”, “Oxytocin” “OverHeated”, “Your Power”, and “Happier Than Ever”.

Quote for the Day: August 10th, 2021

I was a humble ant in the middle of the world and I had so much to learn.

My love for Drew Barrymore is everlasting and today’s quote from her memoir Wildflower perfectly encapsulates the humbleness and sense of wonder that pervades her entire being. And if you think about it, aren’t we all just ants in the grand scheme of the cosmos? Smaller than small, playing out our tragedies and triumphs against the backdrop of the biggest stage in the universe. That thought grounds me. I hope it does the same for you.