Candy Bunny Reader

  Here is the link to the audiobook video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APG1upS8LDw&ab_channel=ChristopherWilliams This is my first audiobook of the year. It is of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's novella The Little Prince. While it may look like a kid's picture book story (and can still be read as one), it is also a story of deep philosophical themes that can hit harder when you are an adult. That's why the book is so popular among adults as well. The plot itself is about an unnamed narrator who is a pilot who crash landed in the Sahara Desert. As he is trying to fix his plane, a young boy, The Little Prince, asks him to draw him a sheep. The narrator is not confident in his drawing skills as he gave up drawing as a kid a long time ago when the grown ups in his life couldn't understand his drawings of boa constrictors. He draws a sheep inside of a box for The Little Prince, which satisfies him, and then he tells the narrator about his planet and flower, his journey o...

Did you know I also like to read manga?  Well, to be honest, I watch more anime than read manga. The last manga series I remember reading in it's entirety was Kitchen Princess back in middle school , which was more than a decade ago. For the last decade or so of my life I've only consumed manga-original stories through their anime adaptations. Sometimes the anime adaptations don't even cover the entire manga. They're more like advertisements to get you to go buy the manga (clever marketing, huh?) Additionally, there are probably hundreds of manga out there that have no anime adaptation attached to it. Go figure.  But I've decided to start reading actual manga again, and last week I finished the very first volume of  My Love Mix -Up by Wataru Hinekure.   In American marketing terms, this a YA contemporary romance manga series about three teenage friends (two guys and a girl, in this order): Aoki, Ida, and Hashimoto. Aoki has a crush on Hashimoto, but he's too shy...

  I just finished reading Listen to Your Heart by Kasie West. This is sweet and cute YA contemporary novel.  It's kind of hard to give a simple summary on what happens in this book aside from the romance, but in this book, you will find (without getting into spoilers):  Our MC named Kate, loves lake activities and her family has a lake activity business that she wants to one day take over. Kate's BFF, Alana, is outgoing, loves to cook, and has a crush on a guy named Diego. A school podcast that Kate is reluctant about hosting at first but then realizes she has a knack for it. A classmate named Frank who's family has a rivalry with Kate's, but he wants to get along better with her. Bonding over magazines at a tutoring center Kate and her big family A little brother named Max and a cousin named Liza with their own fair share of problems. That's all I'll share for now! This was such a cute and fun book! Although it does get serious and dramatic in three of the chap...

I went to the library the other day and I picked up a copy of Snapdragon by Kat Leyh on a whim. I did not have it on my TBR, but when I saw it I had to pick it up and read it! The cover looked really cute and I have been craving graphic novels recently. They're easy and quick reads and the stories are almost always so relatable to me! Plus the artwork is gorgeous.   Snapdragon is an urban fantasy, and is about a girl named Snapdragon who has trouble fitting in at her school, and she is obsessed with witch movies. Her dog Good Boy goes missing, and she finds him in the house of an old woman who lives secluded from everyone in her area. Snapdragon thinks the old lady is a witch, and when she goes to her house to get Good Boy back, she sees the lady has skeletons of animals everywhere, and freaks out thinking the old lady will eat her dog. Luckily the old lady doesn't eat her dog, and Snapdragon forms a bond with her after rescuing some baby opossums from her school and gets her...

  I just finished reading Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. I gave it 5/5 Stars. This has quickly become one of my new favorite books this year! This is a middle grade fantasy novel inspired largely by Chinese folklore,  The story is about a girl named Minli who's family is very poor, and she wishes to change her family's fortune. After hearing stories her father tells her about the Old Man of the Moon (and an encounter with a talking goldfish), she decides to go on a quest to meet the Old Man to ask him for help to make her family wealthy. Along the way up the mountains, Minli makes many new friends (including a talking dragon!) that help her along her journey to get to to the moon.  I love the way this book was written. It read just like a fairy tale or a myth from ancient times. Even though I read it for the first time as an adult, it felt like I was a kid again reading all sorts of fairy tales and myths. The author did a great job crafting a magical atmo...