Tag Archives: book recommendations

Greetings from Alaska. Sort of.

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The cover of Fodor's Travel The Complete Guide to Alaska Cruises

As this blog post goes live, I’m on a cruise ship navigating the waters of the Alaskan coast and enjoying what I’m hoping is a relaxing vacation and not two weeks of seasickness. I’ve never been on a cruise before, so who knows? Given where I’m at, I decided to make this post about Alaska. I’d put up a travel guide, but our Alaskan travel guides are pretty old; the internet exists, is far more up-to-date, and you have access to it if you’re reading this post, so it feels pretty pointless. Although I will have to pay for internet on the cruise, so I suppose there is value in packing a physical travel guide if you’re actually on a trip. They don’t leave much to talk about, though, so that photo on the left acts as a link to the Alaskan travel guides we’ve got.

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The Best of Two Great Worlds: Storywalks 2024

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Cover-image-for-French-book-Rikki- Rouquin-et-Rocco
Credit: Scholastic Canada

It’s Storywalks season! Now that summer is right around the corner, the annual tradition continues with a long list of participating parks and nature areas to enjoy. For those who may be unfamiliar, a storywalk is like a deconstructed dessert. What’s that you say? What do I mean by that, you say? Well, buckle in and let me tell you. Imagine a picture book that’s been unbound and turned into a series of two-page spreads. Then, picture these spreads turned into boards, rods inserted in the bottom and artfully arranged along one of Vaughan’s beautiful nature trails. It’s the best of both worlds (to borrow the parlance of our dear Hannah of Montana) — relaxing, getting exercise outside, and reading a story all at the same time. What follows is a comprehensive list of the selected stories and their corresponding locations. They will all be in place by mid-June! Maybe this year there’s an enticing book at a park you’ve never been to? There’s plenty to choose from below. Or, here’s an outlandish idea, what about a storywalk tour of all seven parks?

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Cross-Genre Works: A Reading List

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bone-out-from-boneville

I was thinking about my colleague Maya’s post on comics (an excellent read!) while I was downsizing my bookshelves in preparation for a move, when I came upon my collection of graphic novels and manga. Among them are the Bone comics by Jeff Smith (which I love and am definitely keeping) and I thought it would be fun to talk about them and other works that I consider ‘cross-genre’.

But first, a definition of the term. According to Wikipedia: “A hybrid genre is a literary or film genre that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. Works in hybrid genres are also referred to as cross-genre, multi-genre, mixed genre, or fusion genre. ” [Emphasis mine.]

Bone is definitely a cross-genre series. If I had to describe it in as few words as possible, I would say it’s the Snoopy comics meets The Lord of the Rings. They’re comical and funny, but set in a fantastical world with a plot that gets increasingly dark and the stakes increasingly higher. There’s a prophecy, dragons, lost princesses, a failing kingdom, a great eldritch evil, corrupting power…and strange little ‘bone’ creatures on the run from the fallout of a financial scam that had them chased out of their city by an angry mob. Hijinks and nonsense abound, as well as quests and heartbreaks.

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