Uncategorized 
Comments Off on Another Book Down! Another Book Down!
One thing about the library closure–I am, in fact, getting to books that I haven’t gotten to in quite some time. Tonight’s victory was finishing Julia Gillian and the Art of Knowing, which I rather think my 10-year-old is going to enjoy. It’s one of those almost-300-page-but-big-font-illustrations-and-almost-double-spacing kind of books–perfect for a reader transitioning into longer books but still prone to being overwhelmed. (That’s not particularly my 10-year-old, by the way.) Julia Gillian is an only child with a dog named Bigfoot; her parents are taking summer classes to improve their teaching and she’s frustrated with her domestic world. As she endeavors to maneuver her way around–and then through–her difficulties, she meets both the expected (not always good) and the unexpected (not always bad).
There are also pretty great illustrations. (I noticed, though, that they appeared to purposefully not mirror the details of the text. It seemed intentional by the end, as if the illustrator was adding his own scenes to the story; I felt it happened too frequently to be an oversight.)
Ultimately, this is a book aware of itself in a way that could have been off-putting but–for me–wasn’t. Alison McGhee co-authored the “Bink & Gollie” books with Kate DiCamillo, and there’s a bit of the feel of them here. I’ll definitely be reading the subsequent books before passing them on to that 10-year-old!
That is, when the library opens back up again.
Sigh.