A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Tidal debris deposits a baggie containing a heck of a story, right at the feet of a beach-combing stymied writer.

The bag's contents include artifacts and journals: an early-2000's Japanese schoolgirl's troubles, her 104-year-old great-grandmother's zen teachings, her depressed father's woe, and a dramatic WWII kamikazi story told two ways. Those many, many stories are layered and twisted into the threads of the novelist's life and longing in a small Canadian outlier island as she explores her find.

Many times while I was listening to this book, I suspected I'm not deep enough to really get all that was going on in subtext and philosophy. But none-the-less, I enjoyed the story immensely.

This audiobook is read by the author - and there's an interesting note at the end. Ozeki explains that the book includes graphs, footnotes and other marginalia that doesn't translate well to the audio format, so you may wish to find a copy of the book to see what you missed. Additionally, though, she explains that audio listeners get a richer, deeper portrayal of the book's characters as she gets to add inflection, tone, and characterization through her dramatic reading. Much like the book itself, many different interpretations of the same text. Up is down - down is up.

The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

Reclaiming wasted spaces is big on my mind these days, and that's the real heart of this incredibly illustrated new picture book.

One day Liam finds stairs leading up to the abandoned railroad tracks and just can't help himself - he has to explore. His imagination is captured by the weeds and plants growing wild there, and he decides to give them a boost. His project grows and grows (literally!) until the whole city is blooming.

Brown's illustration style has a sci-fi surrealistic 1960s look to me, and the pictures are so detailed that kids and adults will find things to look at on each re-read.

Ballyhoo bay

Ballyhoo bay by Judy Sierra

A fun new picture book with an ecological twist. See how children and sea animals work together to save the beach from greedy developers. An interesting introduction to the concept of town meetings. I have to say, parliamentary procedure doesn't work quite this way.