Category: book reviews

There Are No Ants in This Book 5/5

Everything about this picture book is perfect. I love the child’s stubborn opening attitude and their dislike of ants, and how gradually the ants themselves make them change their mind, while educating the reader about a whole lot of different ants that are out there and how each has a specific role in its community. Anna Pirolli’s illustrations are wonderful and I love Rosemary Mosco’s underlying message of inclusiveness mixed in with the wry fresh humor and ant education. Thank you Tundra Books and Netgalley for the ARC.

The Words We Share 5/5

Immigrant kids learn English more quickly than their parents and so often have to translate for them. This role-reversal can be demeaning for the parent and burdensome for the child, but Jack Wong shows that there’s more to communication than knowing the right words. His illustrations have a graphic novel feel to them and they make the story very approachable. The text is everything that’s needed but no more, making it crisp and clear to read. I love that the father’s words are written both in English and Chinese.

Simple, beautiful, brilliant and universal.

Russia’s War on Everybody 5/5

This book is written by Keir Giles, who is a Senior Consulting Fellow for the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. He speaks with authority on the topic of Russia’s world-view and goals and the risks we all are facing because we don’t take the malevolence of the Russian Federation seriously enough. Giles shows how Russia uses the west’s openness, innate decency and democracy as tools to destroy those very things. Russia’s antipathy to the west is all encompassing, as is Putin’s ruthlessness. No enemy is too small to destroy, nor too big. This book will shock and inform you. I urge you to read it. If you think the current war is just about Ukraine, you need to read this book. If you think the road to peace is negotiation, you need to read this book.

Reviews stripped from Amazon

First Russia bans me, now Amazon bans me. This past summer, Amazon stripped me of reviewing privileges, both for amazon.ca and dot com, plus they deleted years’ worth of my reviews. Why? Because they said I violated community guidelines with one of my reviews, then cited two earlier reviews. The cited review is posted below, plus I looked up the other two. One is linked below. The other is odd — I didn’t review a book that day. I keep them all logged on my goodreads profile. I don’t know how these reviews break guidelines, but I have to wonder why books about Russia are being targeted. Sooooo … now I am posting my reviews in a new spot on my website, as well as on as many other places I can think of. I do like to support my fellow authors, after all.

Amazon.com <community-help@amazon.com>Tue, Oct 3, 2:14 AM
to me
Message From Customer Service
Hello Marsha Skrypuch,

I’m sorry we haven’t been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. However, I won’t be able to offer any additional insight or action on this matter.

We removed your posting privileges because your most recent post violated our guidelines and Conditions of Use. You previously violated our guidelines on 2023/05/31 and then again on 2023/09/07. (I posted no review on this date)

This book will shock and inform you. I urge you to read it.

This book is written by Keir Giles, who is a Senior Consulting Fellow for the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. He speaks with authority on the topic of Russia’s world-view and goals and the risks we all are facing because we don’t take the malevolence of the Russian Federation seriously enough. Giles shows how Russia uses the west’s openness, innate decency and democracy as tools to destroy those very things. Russia’s antipathy to the west is all encompassing, as is Putin’s ruthlessness. No enemy is too small to destroy, nor too big. This book will shock and inform you. I urge you to read it. If you think the current war is just about Ukraine, you need to read this book. If you think the road to peace is negotiation, you need to read this book.

We won’t reinstate your posting permissions for this account.

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Learned by Heart 3/5

Emma Donahue is one of my favorite authors and the topic of this newest novel is fascinating. It’s the reconstruction of Anne Lister’s (aka Gentleman Jack, the 1800s openly lesbian trailblazer) year at a boarding school in York as a teen, and of Eliza Raine, her first love. The mass of research and passion that went into writing this novel is evident on every page, but the narrative bogs down from the weight of it. This novel lacks the classic narrative pull that makes an Emma Donahue book so unputdownable. I was also put off by the uncharacteristically clunky dialog tags. That said, it was still an interesting read.

I Love Russia (not!) 5/5

I almost didn’t read this book because of the title, but I’m glad I did. Elena Kostyuchenko fearlessly and precisely documents what life in Russia has become under Putin. The hopelessness, the casual cruelties, the graft, and the utter desolation of backwash communities where people are living in conditions akin to medieval times. It brought to mind a real life Hunger Games, with Putin and his cronies living in the Capital and everyone else vassals in the districts.

This book is not in any sense an apology for Russian behavior, but it does give context to the complete grip of Putin and his cronies. Reading this book brings home the fact that Russia must lose this war, not just for Ukrainians and the sake of the world, but also for Russians.

It’s always important to know one’s enemy, and this book helps those who cherish a democratic world to do just that.

What Should I Wear to Work? 5/5


I can imagine young kids going through this book time and again, poring over the pictures of people in the wrong work clothing and marveling over new things they notice each time they look. I love the message of this book, about how the utility of clothing changes depending on what you want to do. This is a concept that’s hard for kids to understand as they don their favorite pajamas to play in the snow or insist on wearing a bathing suit to kindergarten. Jana Sedlackova shows with humor, accuracy and energy how a mask suitable for the opera will not protect a firefighter, and how hiking boots, while sturdy and practical for many things, won’t help a ballet dancer get through her performance. Each page spread gives the humorous depiction of a person wearing a wildly inappropriate selection, and on the other side is a labeled collection of what that person would wear, plus the equipment they’d use. For example, a firefighter would use a ladder, fire extinguisher, axe and so on, in addition to the specialty clothing. A nice book that will be enjoyed by a wide variety of children.