This was just kind of boring? It's the story of real-life Belle da Costa Greene, who was hired by J. P. Morgan to be his personal librarian. She is in charge of finding and purchasing all of the rare books he wants for his collection, and in exchange he pays her a salary that is sufficient enough to keep her family comfortable. There's a lot of room for things to be stressful here - first, Belle is a woman, and it's not common for a woman to be hired for this position during the time period. She also deals with the stress of being the main income provider for her family, as her father left when she was a child. And, of course, Belle has to content with the fact that while on any official document she has been checking the "white," box, with enough digging, anyone would be able to find out she was lying - Belle's father is black. This is very much historical fiction, and is not at all a biography about Belle - however, with that in mind, I expected more to happen? It seems like a book where the character is constantly stressed, but nothing ever really seems to happen. There's no real tension or drama here to make the book compelling.

Mimi gets really hurt and has to go to the hospital and Claudia thinks it’s her fault because she yelled at her. Claudia has to stay home and help Mimi when she gets back from the hospital and misses Babysitters Club. Janine and Claudia made up at the end of the book.

I LOVED this book. The sisters spent 8 1/2 months thru hiking the Appalachian from Maine to Georgia. It tells of the high and low points of the journey, the amazing friendships they made and the really kind, interesting people they met. It reminded me of all the COVID hiking I've been doing and inspired me to think about hiking at least a part of the AT.

After getting into a fight with her roommate and abandoning her at a party, Charlie Jordan has become known on campus as "the girl who let her roommate get murdered." Though few will come out with their blame towards Charlie, the same can't be said for her roommate's family. You see, Charlie was at the party her roommate was last seen at, and she's pretty sure she saw the man who killed her. Unfortunately for Charlie, she has a tendency to get lost in her thoughts and hallucinate, so she's not sure what the man actually looked like - just what the figment of her imagination looked like, and he was something out of a Hollywood movie. Unable to deal with the guilt of being useless in the investigation, Charlie decides to use the local ride board to hitch a ride off campus and go home. Cue Josh Baxter, who just so happened to be at the board at the exact same time, and who is going in the same exact direction as Charlie needs to go. It seems like a perfect match! Unfortunately for Charlie, the further along the ride she goes, the more certain she is that the man she's with is not actually Josh Baxter. And he's probably not actually going to where she needs to go. And he seems to know things about her roommate's murder that he shouldn't know, things that were never released to the public. Stuck in the car with him for the rest of the night, Charlie has to do whatever it will take to survive. This is a great quick read, but there's nothing really spectacular about it. The main character getting "movies in her mind" was kind of weird and didn't really seem necessary to the plot at all. I really loved the idea of this book, but the execution of it wasn't there. It's definition something I couldn't put down, but it's not something I'd be likely to remember in a year.

Behold the Dreamers gives a realistic picture of African immigrants struggling to make a life in New York City, and it feels timely even though it takes place in 2008. The best part of the book for me was getting to see things through the eyes of Jendi and Neni Jonga, with their dreams and expectations of life in America running up against a broken immigration system, cultural naivete and their own bad decision-making. I'm giving it 3.5 stars (rounded down here to 3) because some parts of the story fell flat for me, especially those involving the wealthy white family whose lives become intertwined with those of the Jongas after they hire Jendi as their chauffeur.

Book number two in the Aloha Reef Series. This one is about Annie Tagama who is a volcanologist. She recently had an injury and is trying to work her way back to where she was before the accident. She and Mano Oana, who we met in the previous book are trying to help her brother whom they thought was dead. The mystery of why he returned and who is threating the family.

This book is a non-fiction and its about a lion fighting a hyena clan (5 hyenas). It was a battle and it was time to fight and the hyena leader was pushed to the ground by the lion. One hyena tried to sneak up from behind and the lion spotted him and bit him. My favorite part was that the lion won!

First Anna and Jack went to the praries of Kases. Then the meat a class with 3 studnets and a 16 year old teacher. A studnet named Jeb who was not being nice to Jack. Then there was a twister when they were running back to the tree house. Then they rushed back to the school to safe every won.

Book 5 in the Rock Harbor Series. I just love these characters that I want to keep going and see what happens in their lives. In this book Bree finds a crying baby in the woods with her search and rescue dog Samson. Bree struggles to figure out if she wants another baby in her life with her husband. While caring for this baby and searching for the mother. Why would someone leave the baby out in the cold. Another mystery for the people of Rock Harbor.

Trials Of Apollo Book 2 was awesome. It had some of the same characters from the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series, which was great. Also I love that the chapter titles are haiku poems because Apollo is the god of poetry, and in the Percy Jackson books everyone hated his haikus.