The Serpent King, by Jeff Zentner, is the second book I read for the YA Book Club I joined at my library. (The last book I read for the book club was The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black).
I started The Serpent King at a tender time. I was spending a second weekend at the bedside of my grandmother, who was dying. Many of my most vivid memories of my time spent at her home were from my teenage years, when my friendships with my cousins were one of the most important things in my life and the summer visits, full of new experiences, were larger than life.
The house itself is full of senior photos of the cousins and grandkids, all of us gathered on shelves and side tables, frozen in time as 17 and 18-year-olds, and the home’s interior has barely changed over the course of the time I visited there from childhood until I was an adult.
I’ve had Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me on my reading pile for an embarrassingly long time. I was incredibly intimidated by it because I already had an inkling of the pain that is inherent in a Black man’s existence, and I didn’t know if I could handle reading a whole book about it. It’s still sitting on my pile, waiting for that time.
Then, I discovered Coates had just come out with a work of fiction. I felt like that was a format I could handle.
This year, Sunday, December 1, 2019 marks the beginning of Advent.
If you’re looking for an activity to remember Advent with your school age kids, I want to tell you about the book we used last year, a gift from my mom.
Jotham’s Journey: A Storybook for Advent, by Arthur Ytreeide, is a saga told day-by-day throughout Advent. The story takes place in Bible times and climaxes with the birth of Jesus.
What are the highs and lows?
Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince is a YA novel our local library was promoting for an adult YA book club that meets monthly at the library.
While last year’s themes were Surrender and Acceptance, this year’s theme seems to be, Find Your People. I’m an adult, and I like YA lit. I picked up a copy of the book at the front desk, and snagged one of two spots left in the book club meeting for later in the month.
Then, I spent several hours I could (and maybe should) have spent sleeping before and after a night shift and binge read it. Indoors, outdoors, and way past my bedtime.
It’s been a while since I featured a children’s book, and this is one I haven’t even read to my kids yet. I was immediately drawn to the cover illustration of Music for Mister Moon, by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead (I’m a sucker for a husband and wife team).
