Father of Lions: the remarkable true story of the Mosul Zoo rescue

Father of Lions: The Remarkable True Story of the Mosul Zoo Rescue by Louise Callaghan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Father of Lions is a fascinating glimpse into life in Mosul before, during, and after ISIS (Daesh) control. Until the last quarter of the book or so, it focused far less on the zoo and the few animals struggling to survive than it did on the humans, however. I hadn't expected this, so it seemed almost like reading a civilian survival story and its animal-rescue-themed sequel. Louise Callaghan has done an amazing job of evoking the tense, dusty, waiting and mortar-driven hiding inherent in an urban battlefield. Her pacing intensifies throughout, although sometimes the timeline gets a bit confusing with seasons apparently passing during the span of days, and at times she dwells a bit too much on the pre-ISIS backstory of the participants. For a Western reader many thousands of miles from the fighting, however, Callaghan's portrayal brings the conflict down to a comprehensible human (and feline/ursine) level. It should appeal to anyone interested in either animal welfare or the fight against ISIS.

My thanks to Bookbrowse.com for the ARC they provided in exchange for my honest review.

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Highfire

Highfire by Eoin Colfer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I finished reading the ARC from NetGalley a couple of weeks ago, and even with that amount of time to ponder, I still am not quite sure what I thought/think of the book. It is definitely unlike anything I have ever read before! From the description, I was expecting something much less dark and violent. Yes, there is a great deal of humor, but it's not a lighthearted read. Characters die, nearly die, and lose body parts. The vast quantity of profanity starts on page one, the crude sexual references and jokes not long after.

You can't help but root for teenage (Everett) Squib Moreau, and I grew fond of Vern, the depressed curmudgeon of an ancient dragon, as time went on, too. Constable Hooke freaked me out--he's a ruthless psychopath who has been getting away with murdering people for years, beginning with his cruel zealot of a father.

On balance, I think I'm glad I read the book because it was so unusual and kept me reading to find out what would happen. But it's not one I'll re-read. I prefer my escapist fiction to be more laugh-out-loud and less dark. I'm sure other people with different reading tastes will love this, though.

For readers' advisors: story doorway is perhaps primary? Readers will need an incredibly high tolerance for bad language, sexual references, and on-screen violence. Vern is, he believes, the last of his kind--a fire-breathing dragon ("Vern" is short for "Wyvern"). The closest genre it fits into is contemporary fantasy because the story revolves around a dragon living/hiding in a swamp in a modern-day Louisiana bayou.

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The Girl and the Bicycle

The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Pett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely LOVE this sweet, wordless book about a girl who spies a bicycle in a store window and does chores all year to earn money to buy it, only to discover it's no longer available. She chooses kindness and generosity to her little brother instead, despite her overwhelming disappointment. And there is a surprise waiting for her at the neighbor's house when the children return home.

I checked this out from the library last week, and my son has been fetching it, asking to read it to me--yes, I have my kids tell ME what's happening on each page--every single night since then. That makes my librarian-mama's heart so happy!!

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Enemy Pie

Enemy Pie by Derek Munson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a story about a little boy who experiences jealousy when a new boy moves in next door to his best friend and invites the friend to play but not him. He decides the new boy is his enemy. Thankfully, he has a wise father who suggests feeding the new boy Enemy Pie, which is guaranteed to get rid of enemies. The catch is, he has to play nicely with the boy all day first, before they eat the pie. Unsurprisingly, playing all day teaches the boy that the new kid is not that bad...in fact, he's pretty great! Enemy pie becomes friend pie that the boys and the dad share together after dinner--delicious!

Ultimately, this is a story about how kindness and spending time getting to know a stranger breaks down barriers and heals misunderstandings. I read (watched) the TumbleBooks version of this book, so I'm not sure what the static pages look like, but it looked to me like the characters were all white males, although hair and eyes were brown, so it's hard to tell for sure.

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Wolfie the Bunny

Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is not your usual new-baby-jealousy book, as Dot the bunny has reason to be wary of her new brother the wolf, because, you know, wolves eat bunnies! But this wolf loves his big sister, and when put to the test, Dot gets fierce in her defense of her (big) little brother. Sweet and funny!

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We Don't Eat Our Classmates

We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Penelope Rex is nervous about her first day of school--will her classmates like her? Poor Penelope has a hard time making friends, especially when she keeps eating her classmates (because children are delicious!). It's not until the class goldfish gives her a taste of her own medicine that Penelope learns how to treat others as she'd like to be treated.

This book is HILARIOUS, as per usual for Ryan T. Higgins' books. I bought it just before my daughter started kindergarten, when she was getting nervous about what school would be like. It is a great way to teach empathy and kindness through humor, and there is so much to look at on every page that it bears endless re-readings.

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Twice in a Blue Moon

Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Tate Jones is 18 years old, her grandmother takes her on a rare vacation to London. While there, Tate meets the 21-year-old Sam Brandis and his grandfather, Luther, also on a rare vacation in London. The quartet spend most of their waking hours together, and Sam and Tate fall deeply in love, telling each other their deepest secrets: Tate is actually the daughter of Hollywood's biggest movie star, raised in a tiny town since her parents divorced a decade earlier, and despite being kept strictly out of the spotlight, what she really wants to do is act; and Sam would rather be a writer than take over the family farm. When circumstances cause Sam to sell Tate's identity to the paparazzi, she's devastated...and also plunged into the very career she secretly desired. For fourteen years, the pair have no contact, until the day the now-famous Tate steps foot on the set of the new movie she's about to film and is shocked to discover that the screenwriter is, in fact, Sam. Old wounds are reopened, lanced, and given an opportunity to finally heal.

I really enjoyed this quieter tale of first love and the struggle to understand and forgive. The common theme among reviewers who didn't like this book seems to be that they were all expecting the type of humor found in most of Christina Lauren's previous novels, so if readers set expectations aside (or read something else if they are in the mood for banter and slapstick), the tone of this book shines.

I did find that certain aspects of this story strained credulity, however. For one thing, once the initial shock of betrayal wore off, why didn't Tate ever ponder what could have caused Sam to sell her out? She had to have known it would take something extraordinary, and she knew the name of his town, so it wouldn't have been that hard to locate him. Likewise, she was insta-famous, so surely Sam could have tracked her down to apologize and explain?

For another thing, how on earth could Tate have read the movie script and NOT recognized the story? It was completely obvious who wrote it and about whom. Even if she didn't recognize it prior to arriving on set, she should have caught a clue the moment she discovered Sam was the screenwriter.

Also, despite her fourteen years in the spotlight, Tate remains surprisingly naive. She really should know better than to believe anything her father says--she KNOWS it's all an act. So why is she stunned when he betrays her in order to garner media attention? Then again, perhaps that is a common mistake for children of narcissistic parents to make because they so badly WANT to believe their parents might for once put their kids' needs ahead of their own? So maybe that's more accurate than I'd like to think.

Nonetheless, the overall story was really well done, and I greatly enjoyed it. Many many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ebook ARC in exchange for my honest review!

For readers' advisors: character doorway is primary. Some profanity and a couple of sex scenes. No violence. Main characters are white, but best friend is half Asian, step-grandfather (Sam's) & costar are African-American, & best friend's assistant is gay.

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