Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

I read this book for a read-along with War Through the Generations blog.  At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Isabel is a 13-year-old slave from Rhode Island.  She was promised freedom when her mistress died but was sold by her mistress's son (along with her sister Ruth) to the Locktons, a Loyalist couple from New York City.  Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, who encourages Isabel to spy on her owners to help out the revolutionary cause.  I thought the book was well written and I probably would not have read it if it hadn't been for the read-along, because I don't usually read young adult books (which this book is).  I rated it 3 out of 5.

Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz by Charles M. Schulz

This is another book I found among my mother's, and it was delightful.  I'm going to "cheat" and quote Goodreads here:

More than five hundred comic strips are reproduced, as well as such rare or never-before-seen items as a sketchbook from Schulz's army days in the early 1940s; his very first printed strip, Just Keep Laughing; his private scrapbook of pre-Peanuts Li'l Folks strips; developmental sketches for the first versions of Charlie Brown and the other Peanuts characters; a sketchbook from 1963; and many more materials gathered from the Schulz archives in Santa Rosa, California.

 It was fun to re-visit a comic strip I grew up with.  I rated this 4 out of 5.

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

I found this among my mother's books, and it caught my eye for some reason.  I am not a religious person, and I am not a Christian, while C.S. Lewis was both, so I'm not exactly sure why I chose to read it.  It was a memoir of the year or two after his wife died, when he was questioning much of what he had believed all his life, including his belief in God.  It was very short or I would not have finished it. I rated it 2 out of 5, but most who read it rate it much higher.  Certainly it was well written, and you could feel the anguish Lewis felt over the loss of his wife, but the religious aspect of the book was difficult for me to relate to.

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

I'm behind (again) in posting reviews of books I've read, so these next few will be brief (well, all my reviews are brief, but these will be even briefer than normal).

This is a historical novel about Alice Liddell Hargreaves, who was the real Alice of Alice in Wonderland. It follows her life from the time she is seven years old until she nears her 81st birthday.  It's a well-written, interesting story that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I rated it 4 out of 5.

Lollapalooza One: A New Journal

When my brother and I were going through my mother's desk after her death, I found what might have been every card I'd ever made for her. I was so touched by the fact that she'd saved them that I decided to put them all in a book. This is the book I made for them.

Here is the front cover.

And here is the first page.

Lollapalooza One Front Cover

My art snippets journal cover from Martha Lever's Lollapalooza One class.

Giveaway by Sue Bleiweiss

Sue has a very generous giveaway on her blog at this post - go check it out!