A great week in books (for me)

I have read SO MANY great books in the last week--I don't think I read a single one that I didn't love. Here are my favorites:

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline
Children's Chapter Book
This book is incredible. The title character, Edward, is a china rabbit who was custom-made for a little girl named Abilene. He has a full wardrobe of silk suits and a pocket watch that he's very proud of. Abilene loves him dearly, but he is vain and selfish and does not return her affection. When Abilene takes him on a cruise and there is a terrible accident, Edward finds himself at the bottom of the ocean. This begins a long journey, on which he learns about life and love. The writing is heartbreaking and the illustrations are perfect. Even if your reading level is above chapter books, this one is worth buying. I did.

The Lace Reader
Brunonia Barry
Fiction
I picked this one up and couldn't put it down. It's about a woman named Towner Whitney who is recovering from an emergency hysterectomy when she finds out that her great-aunt Eva has gone missing. She returns to her native Salem for the first time in 15 years to find that the gaps in her memory, brought on by shock therapy after the death of her sister, have concealed more than she thought. As she struggles to come to terms with Eva's disappearance, she must look back into a past she has tried to escape for almost 2 decades. The result is a brilliantly written, often goosebump-inducing tale of mystery and clarity. It comes out on July 29th, and we'll be hosting Brunonia for a reading on September 10th.