20 Degrees From Normal by Anissa Ferris and Antonio Ferris

Genre:  Poetry, Children
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

This fun book of poetry was created by a brother and sister team. It isn’t only fun to read but has very subtle messages. The very first poem, “Underappreciated Wheel” had be looking at wheels in a different way. They carry all the weight on bikes, trikes and cars, yet no one ever talks about how wonderful they are. 
I teach middle school and I am here to say that my students would love this fun rhyming, quirky poetry. I loved “Perfect Friend”. So often we want a “perfect” friend and after finding what we think they are we find that what we had before was much, much more. “Skip” teaches that you have to do some preliminary things to be a success.
This book has something for everyone, old and young. I will enjoy adding this to my classroom library next year and providing a copy to our elementary school which will be merging with our school. I highly recommend this book to teachers and parents.

The Creativity Project: An Awesometastic Story Collection

Genre: Writing
Source: I purchased a copy

This is a book I will definitely read over and over again. Colby Sharp asked writers to submit two writing prompts. He then sent those prompts back out to the authors. Each other was asked to pick one of the two prompts someone else had written and write. There were no guidelines. The prompts were small cartoons, poems, words, sentences. The stories and poems that came out were wonderful. I read through it the first time in a couple of hours. Now I want to go through and mark those I want to use with my students. I also want to have my students do something similar in the classroom.  This book is awesome. I definitely recommend it to anyone young or old who loves to write.

Flying Jenny by Theasa Tuohy

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction
Source: I purchased a copy

I love historical fiction. One thing that will make me love a book of this genre is when the story has so many details that I read with a pad and pen. I need to look some of this information up to find out if it is truth or just told so well it feels like truth. The story is set during the 1920's.  Women have had the vote for a while. Now they have stepped out  to try to find their place in the world. We find two women stepping into a world that is dominated by me. Jenny is a pilot who loves the freedom of flying for the fun of it. Women have begun to step into the pilot's seat for different types of challenges, endurance and speed challenges as well as stunt flying.  Laura is a reporter in New York. Due to her bohemian background, she has had to find her own way in the world since she was a small child. She meets Jenny while covering a story where a pilot is going to fly under the major bridges in New York City. That is when Laura realizes the pilot is a woman.  There worlds collide in many ways.  I felt more like I was reading a biography than a historical fiction book.  The whole thing was so well written I felt like I was a third character in the book just observing.  I had not heard of this author before. I will definitely look for more by them.  A very interesting book that I would recommend.