Cultivating You, Inc. Summer of Giveaways!

Cultivating You, Inc. is not offering in-person or virtual programs this summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we are committed to nurturing talent through the written word. We will be hosting two book giveaways a month from June through August. The giveaways are to help curb summer slide, build home libraries, and spark discussion. Giveaways will include current topics, new releases, student recommendations, and a mystery selection.  

Review: In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

Cat Winters. New York: Amulet Books, 2013. 410 pp.
Rating: Striking

"They've closed down the city to try to keep the flue from spreading. They quarantined the soldiers sooner than the rest of us, but now it's the churches, theaters, moving picture houses, bathhouses, and dance halls—all closed."

    "Schools?" I asked with hope in my heart.

    "Closed." (15)

The year is 1918, World War I is raging, and the Spanish influenza is spreading rapidly claiming the lives of men, women, and children without prejudice. During the midst of this harrowing time, sixteen-year old Mary Shelley Black's life is turned upside down. She finds herself on a germ-packed train fleeing her beloved Oregon home—the only home she's ever known—to her aunt in San Diego, California after her German father is accused and arrested for treason. Mary Shelley arrives in San Diego to discover her young, widowed aunt working in a shipyard, her sweetheart dead, and her image used to entice grieving individuals to spirit photography by her love's unscrupulous brother. Being a young lady of science, Mary Shelly is skeptical of the spirit world, but will her position shift when she's thrust into its mystical wonders.

Review: Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer

Marissa Meyers. New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2013. 454 pp.
Rating: Striking + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Note: I started writing this review as soon as I finished reading the book on December 7, 2013; however, I never finished writing it. Last month I decided to reread Scarlet, my favorite book of TLC, because I needed something familiar, something I liked, something that wouldn't take up more space than the already jumbled thoughts currently swirling in my mind. I needed a good friend. Not only did this rereading bring me peace, but it also prompted me to finish the review I started seven years earlier. Although many years have passed, I'm leaving the review as I started it. 

In Scarlet, the second installment of The Lunar Chronicles Series, Cinder's story surges forward. Readers sojourn from New Beijing to Rieux, a small province in the French countryside, and there are introduced to Scarlet Benoit, the fiery, red-haired granddaughter of a former European Union pilot. Scarlet is unconvinced that her grandmother's disappearance is intentional though the police and townspeople believe otherwise. While Scarlet grapples with her grandmother's disappearance, Cinder is attempting to break out of prison to elude extradition back to Luna and Queen Levana's malicious plans.

11 Books I Plan to Read in 2020

Happy New Year to all of my book-loving friends! My Goodreads Challenge of 36 books for the year has been set; and I've already begun my first read of 2020. Of all the books I will read this year, the following 11 will be among my reads.

What books are you purposefully setting out to read this year?