Sep 18
My Successful Sneak Attack Using Fiction. Let’s Discuss

My Successful Sneak Attack Using Fiction. Let’s Discuss

Let's Discuss 2

Sometimes talking with your kids about an important subject is hard. Depending on the kid, a conversation might be brushed off or misunderstood. This was the case with my youngest when it came to having conversations about the fact that his sister is transgender. My youngest was the last one in the family to consistently use proper pronouns and call his sister Jade—it’s not like he was willfully rebelling. Noah has a cognitive disability that makes certain concepts harder for him to grasp, especially abstract concepts (time is one example—it’s never come easily to him). For him, the idea that the person he always knew as his brother was actually his sister was more than a little confusing—he’d lost that childlike ability to just go with the flow, but he also didn’t have the immediate ability to grasp concepts of gender vs. sex either. Luckily, Jade never held it against… Read more »

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Sep 16
My Life in the Fish Tank: Giveaway of a Book I Loved!

My Life in the Fish Tank: Giveaway of a Book I Loved!

Current Giveaways 0

Hey, guys! Today I’m featuring a Book Blast for My Life in the Fish Tank. I posted my review last week, so go check that out by clicking the link on the book title (spoiler: I loved this book!) and then hop back here to enter to win a copy of your very own!! Grade Level : 4 – 8 ISBN-10 : 1534432337 ISBN-13 : 978-1534432338 Hardcover : 320 pages Publisher : Aladdin (September 15, 2020) Language: : English Praise for MY LIFE IN THE FISH TANK “I loved My Life in the Fish Tank. Once again, Barbara Dee writes about important topics with intelligence, nuance and grace. She earned all the accolades for Maybe He Just Likes You and will earn them for My Life in the Fish Tank too.” —Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, author of Fighting Words and Newbery Honor Book The War That Saved My Life ”I felt… Read more »

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Sep 14
Sunday (Monday) Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 9/13/20

Sunday (Monday) Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 9/13/20

Sunday Post 13

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on my blog and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead. This past week on FYFA (and in my life): Once again, I’m not getting my Sunday Post up until Monday. We were crazy busy this weekend, and I just didn’t have the energy to write the post last night before I went to bed (it really does take me multiple hours with all the giveaways and pre-order stuff). So, what were we up to? We painted another bedroom. That’s what I did most of this weekend—the final bedroom has now been painted after all of our shuffling, and it’s now set up as an office for my husband and a sleeping space for my mom on the weekends… Read more »

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Sep 08
Bite-Sized Reviews of My Life in the Fish Tank; Girl, Serpent, Thorn; Flamer; and Graceling

Bite-Sized Reviews of My Life in the Fish Tank; Girl, Serpent, Thorn; Flamer; and Graceling

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  I’ve got four reviews for you today: two YA fantasies, a MG contemporary, and a YA historical graphic novel. I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! A compelling story about grief and mental health, My Life in the Fish Tank examines how secrecy and shame can be the root of pain. When Zinnia’s brother is in an accident, her whole life changes, not because he’s hurt but because it reveals an issue her family had been unknowingly dealing with for a very long time—her brother is bipolar. Now, Zin’s parents have asked her to keep her brother’s mental health issues private, while her friends seem to be expecting her to unload her grief on them—it all leads to Zin feeling like she’s under the microscope and like she can’t win, no matter how she responds to the circumstances. This book deals with mental… Read more »

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Sep 06
Sunday Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 9/6/20

Sunday Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 9/6/20

Sunday Post 12

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on my blog and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead. This past week on FYFA (and in my life): School has started! Elearning is going decently well–not ideal, of course, but it’s working. Danielle has also started swim, and she had her first swim “meet” on Friday. They compete against their own team and then just compare scores with the other team. It makes the competition aspect a lot less fierce, but at least they still get to do it. We were able to watch via webcast, which kind of worked. Kind of. I’m just glad she’s still able to compete and stay active. We put together a bed and moved stuff. Plus, buying and selling. The room… Read more »

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Sep 02
August 2020 Wrap-Up & Best of the Bunch

August 2020 Wrap-Up & Best of the Bunch

Best of the Bunch, Monthly Recap 38

My Goings On in August: Here’s what I accomplished in August: Not much blogging. As you’ve probably noticed, most weeks I’m only managing two posts—my Sunday Post and one other. And the Sunday Posts are mostly only making it up because I really hate the idea of missing someone’s birthday or blogoversary. Seriously, it’s the only thing keeping me posting, so I guess it’s good I include it! We brought my oldest to college! Jade is attending IIT, majoring in AI with plans to get her Master’s in Data Science. She’s technically transferring in as a junior (or possibly second-semester sophomore? It’s hard to map it exactly) because of all her community college credits she got in “high school.” Not kidding, she’s kind of brilliant. Like, when most kids are graduating high school, she had already completed all three Calcs, Linear Algebra, Discrete Math, Differential Equations, Physics 1 & 2… Read more »

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Sep 01
September 2020 Discussion Challenge Link-Up & Giveaway

September 2020 Discussion Challenge Link-Up & Giveaway

Book Blog Discussion Challenge, Current Giveaways 6

Welcome to the September monthly link-up for the 2020 Book Blog Discussion Challenge hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction and Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight! Thanks to all of you for sharing your awesome posts! We are all in dire need of a life respite, and your lovely discussions are just the key! The winner of our July discussion challenge giveaway was Louise @ Monstrumology. She got to pick a book by a black author in honor of BLM, but Shannon has not heard back from her yet, so if you see this Louise, hit me up! If you don’t know what this challenge is all about or haven’t signed up yet (but want to), head on over to the challenge sign-up page to learn more! Even if you’d rather not join, we hope you’ll stop by occasionally to check out the MANY discussion posts that are… Read more »

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Aug 30
Sunday Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 8/30/20

Sunday Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 8/30/20

Sunday Post 19

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on my blog and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead. This past week on FYFA (and in my life): School has started! The kids started e-learning this week. The process is actually going fine, though they did have to restructure things because they had some Zoom bombing going on one day (I think that some kids actually might have shared info purposely or something—they’re still investigating). The big issue is that my son has proven that I need to babysit him to make sure he’s actually doing what he’s supposed to be doing instead of watching random videos (bordering on inappropriate—we’ve blocked anything and everything actually inappropriate). This, even though he knows I have Securly set up so that… Read more »

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Aug 28
August 2020 Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up Link-Up & Giveaway

August 2020 Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up Link-Up & Giveaway

Current Giveaways, Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up 2

The Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up is hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction and Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight. The July giveaway ends soon, so head over there for your last chance to enter! This is the link-up AND giveaway for our August wrap-up posts. If you don’t already know about the Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up, read the information below: Every month, at the end of the month, we’ll put up a monthly wrap-up link-up post where everyone can link up their month-end posts. There are no specific requirements for what needs to be in your post, as long as you have a book blog and your wrap-up summarizes your month in some way. The round-up will include a giveaway that encourages people to visit YOUR month end wrap-ups, giving entries for commenting and/or sharing. Anyone can participate in the giveaway—you won’t have to actually link up in order to… Read more »

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Aug 23
Sunday Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 8/23/20

Sunday Post: Book Pre-order Campaigns & Giveaways Galore – 8/23/20

Sunday Post 17

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on my blog and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead. This past week on FYFA (and in my life): We brought my daughter Jade to college! It’s official—she’s there. She’s majoring in AI, with plans to get a master’s in Data Science. I’m both incredibly proud of her and sad to see her leave! We’re nervous about how everything’s going to work with COVID (they already have the first two weeks all completely online for people who need to quarantine because they’re traveling from high-risk states), but I guess we shall see! Seeing your first kiddo off to school is HARD! (I’m guessing it will be just as hard when the next one leaves.) We watched: My daughter… Read more »

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