Blooming at the Texas Sunrise Motel by Kimberly Willis Holt

I admit it--I bought this for the cover. Flowers, long hair in the wind, and the phrase "Texas Sunrise Motel." A bit of a trifecta really. 

And it was SO GOOD.

Stevie is the beloved daughter of two flower/fruit farmers New Mexico . Life is good. Until some careless driver. runs into her parents roadside stand, killing both of them. That part is not good. 

When we meet Stevie, she is heading to her Grandfather and his Texas Sunrise Motel in Texas. She doesn't know her grandfather because her mother refused to speak of him. But since he is closest relative, off she goes. 

My mother and her brother were sent away from the family farm in Quebec to friends in Pennsylvania after her parent's death which made this book that much more interesting to me--I have always thought how devastating it must have been for my mother to lose her family, her farm, and her country. Stevie is much the same, minus the losing the country part.  

How do you recover from the total upset of your life?

Stevie isn't sure. But she is pretty sure that to continue life, she needs to be back on their farm. It is the only place that makes sense. But the adults in her life seem to have different ideas for her. As Stevie gets to know her gruff grandfather, the interesting residents of his motel, and the family she didn't even know she had, she begins to understand her mother and father better and learn a little of her own life story. When tough choices arise, Stevie has to think carefully about the new life she is building and what is most important to her. 

 And then, no matter where you are, there can always be flowers. Always.

This is a light book--we don't have any raw emotional scenes. But it feels authentic. Stevie is a girl I could relate to--her love of flowers! Her love of the family farm! There is a touch of friendship, a little bit of romance, family dynamics, and optimism to round it all out for a completely satisfying middle grade read. 

The Girl in the Well is Me by Karen Rivers

I have seen this book on various blogs and Amazon and snagged it off the New shelf at our library. 

I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

The plot is a bit thin, really--a girl is stuck in a well. By the end of the book (*spoiler alert!*) she is out of the well. That is the overarching plot. But reading Kammie's internal monologue while stuck in a well is worth the price of admission. I like this girl. 

(Since there are no illustrations to take pictures of, I will just show you little blips of parts I liked.)

I like people who stay gently where they are, a little bit behind what they are doing. They just sing. You think of the song first because it is so good, before you think of the person doing the singing. 

Preach it, sistah!

Kammie has recently moved to Nowheresville, Texas after a rather traumatic experience back in her hometown in New Jersey and has decided to reinvent herself by joining the popular girl club at school. In order to join the club, they demand Kammie change pretty much everything about herself. And then continue their initiation by having her sing a song while standing on a board. They neglect to tell Kammie the board is slightly rotten. Or that the board is covering up an old well. Whoopsie!

Kammie's Mom tells her to wave her freak flag high, but Kammie is of the opinion she is not a freak, so no, thank you. While in the well, Kammie decides popular girls are not all they are cracked up to be. They are not "your kind of people, honey" as her mother would say. This is majorly stereotypical, since I know some super nice, beautiful people, and some horribly mean geeky people. But there is an element of truth to this. And when you are in your younger years, it is hard to know exactly what kind of people are your kind of people. Everyone is a bit awkward in those in between years.     

While Kammie is stuck in a cold slimey well, the three   andys (Mandy, Sandy, Kandy) vaguely try to help by leaning into the well and telling her to wiggle up or just simply "Get out!" (Kammie is convinced that they are sharing one brain between the three of them, which is why they are so completely useless.) One of the    andys, while leaning into the well to say something, spits her gum in Kammie's hair. The    andys find this hilarious.

I hear Kandy's manic bellow of laughter. She laughs like nothing has ever been funny before and this is the funniest thing that humanity will ever achieve. 

After a long period alone in the well, Kammie hears something snuffling around outside. She thinks it might be a coyote. Then she pictures the coyote falling on her head. Since she has thoroughly rehashed her life up until this point, there is nothing else to think about, so she thinks about the coyote. I love her stream of consciousness thinking here. 

Plus, a silver french speaking coyote is a really great imaginary character. 

After a very long time, the three    andy's come back, with Kandy's Dad is tow. Kammie stops talking to the imaginary silver coyote and starts talking to real people again. She also slips a little lower in the well. And things start feeling a little weird. 

Kammie is definitely below the oxygen level in the well. Hallucinations abound. The zombie goats she thought might be below her (in a worst case scenario) start moving around. She talks to them in French too.

Eventually the National Guard is involved and Kammie is rescued from the well. But really, the well is just an interesting sideline to the main event. Which is getting to know Kammie. Her life is complex and her personality and way of thinking are worth knowing. Kammie, moving to a new town, is trying to navigate her tween years, which are always so fraught, even when you know everyone and don't have the weight of the past and other people's mistakes hanging over you. She is doing the best she can. She likes to picture people's souls like grapes. But once they lie and make big mistakes, their soul turns into a raisin. While in the well, Kammie sees that she "raisined out" by trying to join the popular girls. She needs to stay grape-y. And you can only do that by being yourself. 

Read it!

(I feel like this was a bit of a fluff overview of this book, but if I got too deeply into the complexities of Kammie's life, it seems like it would give too much away. And I am trying to learn not to give too much away. So just read the book!)

Buffalo Music by Tracey E Fern & illus by Lauren Castillo

This awesome book is a fictionalized account of Mary Ann Goodnight's conservation efforts on behalf of the American Bison. At a time when Buffalo herds were seen as so many hides for the hunters, Mary Ann realized their intrinsic worth and started her own herd to ensure their continued existence.  

I love this book. And buffalo.

The main character Molly and her husband Charlie move to the Palo Duro Canyon area of Texas, when large herds of Bison roamed free. The rhythm of their lives, the "Buffalo music" was the backdrop against which Molly went about her life. 

"I stirred the fire to the huff-huff of buffalo breath clouding the chill dawn.

I hoed the garden to the scritch -scritch of buffalo scratching themselves against the cottonwoods.

I scrubbed the bedclothes to the slosh and splash of buffalo bulls wallowing in the mud hole. 

I swept the dugout to the thunder of buffalo as they drifted like a dark cloud across the prairie."

Then came the buffalo hunters.

Soon Charlie and Molly were driving past huge piles of buffalo bones. Within six years, the buffalo were mostly wiped out.

Molly's buffalo music had come to a discordant and abrupt end. 

One day, a young cowboy discovered two small buffalo calves sleeping under a juniper. Knowing Molly was tenderhearted to animals, he brought them straight to her.

Molly decided to do her best with the calves. Her husband was skeptical. 

"But Charlie knew better than to waste his breath arguing with me. When I got a notion, a wise man knew to let me have my way."

She brought them into the cabin and wrapped them up.

Soon the calves were running around with the milk cows, growing healthier and stronger by the day. 

Molly's success with the two orphan spread throughout Texas. Soon any orphan calves found were brought to Molly. 

She cared for them and protected them--giving them space to grow. 

Within time, she had one hundred head of buffalo.

When she heard Yellowstone Park was trying to rebuild its buffalo herd, Molly sent four Bison north to Yellowstone. 

Because of Mary Ann Goodnight and others like her, the bison roaming the American West were saved. The Goodnight herd formed one of only five herds from which  most of the modern buffalo are descended. It is safe to assume that without the timely intervention of these early conservationist, the American buffalo would have been entirely destroyed. 

Hats off to Mary Ann Goodnight.