Some more pics and a book recommendation

I thought I'd share some more pics from my trip to Ithaca.

Wildflower Preserve

Wildflower Preserve

Watkins Glen State Park

Watkins Glen State Park

Watkins Glen State Park

I tell ya. There's no way to take a bad picture when your subject is so gorgeous.

I finished a book yesterday called Rodzina by Karen Cushman. Never heard of her? I'm not surprised. She write books for the Young Adult market (actually, almost more of the Independent Reader market). She won a Newberry Medal for her book Catherine, Called Birdy. The funny thing about me and young adult fiction is that the books and authors I love now, I couldn't force my way through back then. I tried, twice, to like Catherine, Called Birdy back in the day, and couldn't do it. Could. Not. Do. It. And yet.... I loved Rodzina and especially The Midwife's Apprentice.

And here's where I get on my soapbox. It's just a little soapbox, I promise. Just because books are about children, it doesn't mean that they are for children. Two cases in point - Harry Potter and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

End soapbox.

So, go out and read Rodzina. And laugh a little when you get to page 79.

"My ma was the knittingest woman you ever saw," Mickey Dooley put in. "She'd take yarn to bed with her at night, and every once in a while she'd throw out a sock."