Calendar Girls: April 2020

Hey all, Dani here.

Welcome back to another very early post for me. Same as with last month, this post is going live while I’m deep asleep, but I want to make sure that all of the participants in Calendar Girls can link to my post as soon as possible, so why not have this post go up at midnight my time? I’m so glad to be involved with Calendar Girls; I feel like my relationships in the online book community have been grown and strengthened by this blog event, and that my blog has developed far more than I imagined because of it as well.

Anyway, it is the first Monday of the Month and that means it is once again time for a Calendar Girls post.

Calendar Girls is a monthly blog event that was started by Flavia and Melanie, but is now being hosted by Katie and Adrienne. They are all wonderful ladies, and you should check out their lovely blogs. Okay, so Katie is still on a brief hiatus for a few months, so for right now Flavia, Adrienne and myself are temporarily hosting Calendar Girls until our fearless leaders are ready to step back in.

Honestly Calendar Girls is a group effort and I feel like we have become a pretty good group of friends, so it makes sense that we can share in the responsibilities and pick up any slack should it happen. I’m happy to do my part to help keep this tradition going. So if you link back to Flavia, Adrienne, and me, we can keep track of all the book picks and posts each month. Thanks, everyone!

First, more about the Calendar Girls. It is designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers, and was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song, Calendar Girl.

Just like the song, each month has a different theme. Each blogger picks their favorite book from the theme, and on the first Monday of the month reveals their pick in a Calendar Girls post. Make sure to post back to the hostess’s post, and both Katie and Adrienne will make a master list for the month. The master lists allow everyone to see the other Calendar Girls’ picks and to pop on over to their blogs. Thus, we all get to chat about books and even make some new friends!

Oh, and you don’t have to identify as female to join the Calendar Girls. We welcome readers of all types. So if this sounds like fun for you, join us in all of the fun bookish conversations.

Finally, the April theme is…

National Library Week

Favorite Book You Discovered at the Library

I am ecstatic about this theme! I love libraries and I feel like I always have. That’s why I made the decision pretty early in life that I wanted to work around books when I grew up. So I went to college, earned a B.A. in Literature and then proceeded to get my Master’s of Library and Information Science. But not having any luck in landing a librarian position, I have thrown myself fully into my book blog. It’s fun because now I can definitely put book blogging on my resume for future librarian job interviews.

Also, I’m already planning a slew of posts for National Library Week, which is April 19-25. I’ve actually already started writing some of those posts, which is pretty fun.

This is also exciting because several of my fellow Calendar Girls were talking about having to think back to middle school for their picks for this theme…so I can’t wait for all the throwback nostalgia that today’s posts will bring.

I didn’t even have to think or debate for my choice this time around. It’s funny because normally I can come up with at least a handful of contenders, and so I can show off a lot more books and talk about them briefly, but this month there is just one book shining so brightly in my mind that I can’t even think of any runners-up or anything else.

Which is fine. Some months are going to be like that.

Okay, are you ready to find out my pick for April’s National Library Week theme? Because I am so ready to talk about it.

All right, my choice for this month’s theme is…

Okay, so true story…I borrowed this book so frequently from the library that I ended up having the librarian tell me that I was banned from borrowing it again. So I went out and picked up a copy at Waldenbooks. (In all fairness, I have to state that the librarian in this story was my mom, which is the only reason banning a book works). I think it’s an amusing story, so please don’t try and hate on my mom in the comments or anything.

Real talk though, I actually also need to give a shoutout to the other series by this author that I discovered from the library and was also obsessed with, and that is the Guardians of Time series. It was originally a trilogy, but last year (?) a fourth book was released. So, I definitely need to read the first three books before I grab that one.

I loaned out my copy of Old Magic to a friend and never got it back, so I bought myself another copy…and I loaned it out like a year later and never got it back. They have re-released it with a new cover and I very much dislike the new cover. So if I want to have this book in my library again, I’m going to have to go shopping in the used books area of bookstore sites. And I think this time I’m going to say that nobody else gets to borrow it.

This book features magic and time travel and some romance. All right, I’ll be honest, I ended up writing a couple of short novels that were basically rip-offs of Old Magic. Thankfully those books have been lost to time, probably thrown away during one of our moves over the years.

Okay, now I really want to read this book again. Sigh, I guess I’m going to stop the post here and go online book shopping.

Other Calendar Girls Picks and Posts

Flavia @ Flavia the Bibliophile – After Dark by Jayne Castle

Dani (that’s me) @ MousaiBooks – Old Magic by Marianne Curley

Adrienne @ Darque Dreamer Reads — The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Katie @ Never Not Reading — Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing
Written by Julie Barrett, Illustrated by Ron Barrett

Lindsey @ Lindsey Reads — Free Fall by Joyce Sweeney

Deanna @ Deanna Writes About — Titanic Crossing by Barbara William

Ashley @ Inside My Minds — The Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer

More added soon.