Happy Halloween. This holiday just isn't as much fun when you don't have a little one around. Mary called to say MJ was going trick or treating as Tigger but he doesn't like how warm the costume is. But, I am sure once he figures out he is getting candy out of the deal he will decide it is okay. He certainly takes after Gramma and Mom with his sweet tooth. Buffy offered to lend up her Fiona before and after Midnight costumes but Steve wasn't too keen on going out as a female ogre in a tiara! We'll be party poopers and stay home tonight.

I had written a long posting on Friday and lost it when I tried to spell check it. GRRR!! It was about Shyam Selvadurai's Swimming in the Monsoon Sea. What a beautifully written coming of age novel set in 1980s Sri Lanka. Fourteen-year-old Amrith, the "adopted" son of his mother's best friend, is quite naive and doesn't realize that his jealousy over his newly met older cousin's attraction to his "sister" is because he, himself, is sexually attracted to and in love with him. Discovering he is different from the other boys is not a welcome revelation to Amrith, but with time he comes to accept himself and his mother's death. Selvadurai is a gifted writer and if Funny Boy, his first novel written in 1994, is as beautifully crafted as Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, one cannot question why he received both the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Lambda Literary Award. Swimming in the Monsoon Sea is published by Tundra Books - one of the Canadian publishers I look at closely as their YA novels are always quite unique and wonderful for booktalking. Two of my favorite Tundra YA novels to booktalk are Mercy's Birds by Linda Holeman and More Than You Can Chew by Marnelle Tokio.

I'll end today's blog with a fun Halloween read for the little ones by Elizabeth Spurr - Halloween Sky Ride, a delightful rhyming Holiday House title. Witch Mildred is on her way to the Witches' Wobble, but along the way she picks up hitchhikers - a skeleton, a jack-o-lantern, a scared ghost, a cold mummy, a bat, and a lonely black cat - but the load is too much and the broom breaks. Not a problem - they are in the front yard of the Witches' Wobble. Big problem - all the food is gone - those greedy goblins ate all. Problem solved - the witch and her riders are welcomed with open arms to the neighbor's party where they eat candied apples and drink sweet lemonade. A delightful, not at all scary, look at some of our favorite Halloween characters.

Back to finding the top of my desk! The piles of books are teetering a bit to precariously for me.