The long freezing weekend | Weekly Snapshot

Published : 2021 || Format : print || Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

The long freezing weekend | Weekly Snapshot

Happy Valentine's Day, if you celebrate it! In this home, Valentine's Day now means it is time to buy cards so that the toddler and the kindergartener can celebrate at school with their friends. It's become that now LOL. I hope yours has a special meaning to it. We don't have any plans here but it's a long weekend and a cold one, so we'll be staying warm.

Life

We had SO much snow last week - more than we've seen in the past few years. That led to one no-school day and two delayed starts. It's still the deep freeze here this weekend so if it weren't for the people, I'd say it looks like dystopia out there. The kids were thrilled of course - finally, enough snow to make a snowman (who's still standing, 4 days later) and to have some sledding fun. There's more snow starting tomorrow night, so I'm glad for this long weekend because pretty sure that Monday is going to be another no-school or delayed school day, so might as well have the day off.

I know I haven't been around much. Whatever brilliant idea or strategy I had hasn't worked yet and I'm still figuring this out.

As impossible as it feels to do this, I've started planning for my Spring vegetable garden and what I'd like to grow this year. I'm going to have to start some of the seeds indoors soon if I'm serious about it. I don't know if I'll feel the same pull that I felt last year or even have the same kind of time to invest in it but we'll see how that goes. It is as always encouraging to see something you plant grow tall and strong.

Reading

It's while we were snowed in that I read and finished Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice. Even The Memory Police didn't make me appreciate just how dystopian this world could be if we didn't get the virus under control (for the whole world and not just the rich countries). All that winter, constant blizzards, and how much we rely on the often under-appreciated and overworked essential service to allow the rest of the population to get on with their lives. I tell you - I actually got spooked. It was certainly the perfect weekday book - not too distracting from daily chores or work but still so good that I could read it not matter how tiring the day has been. I haven't been lucky to come across enough books like that - either I put everything off to finish a book or I can't be bothered to even read. If you haven't read Moon of the Crusted Snow yet, I strongly recommend this #ownvoices dystopian fiction.

This Friday night, I tried to do the same thing that worked for me last weekend - a mini-readathon of sorts. While I wasn't able to read for as long as I did last time, it did go well. I finished New Kid by Jerry Craft, an author Helen has raved about on her blog and I will have to strongly agree with her on the merit of just one book. If I didn't have to wait in line for his next book, I would have finished that one as well by now.

While looking for my next read, I came across Aisha Saeed's Amal Unbound, which is another book that I've heard about a lot. So far, this is a very good book as well. I usually have a lot of success with middle-grade books - that has to be my favorite juvenile category. I may pick another one after this while I look for an adult fiction that can tide me through the week.