Send us a Text Message.Is it a memoir? Is it fiction? Who can say when your author and main character are both wunderkind business people. This episode takes us to the Calivista Motel, a charming motel operating on the backs of children and horribly exploited immigrants. When you are an 10 year old front desk clerk, you're responsible for a lot - checking people in, locking bad guys out, making keys, your English and Math homework, and chasing down conmen car thieves. In Front Desk by K...

Send us a Text Message.Ever felt overshadowed by a sibling or struggled to find your own identity? Katherine Paterson's "Jacob Have I Loved" brings these raw emotions to the surface, and we're peeling back the layers. Join us as we navigate Sarah Louise's turbulent journey, from her envy-ridden youth on the Chesapeake Bay to her quest for self-recognition as a nurse midwife (or alternatively, her journey from maybe a 5 in Maryland to a 10 in a small Appalachian Mountains town). Our conve...

Send us a Text Message.Forever was a real headscratcher for us. We *think* Judy Blume was trying to disseminate information about teen sexual health in an easily digestible way but we wanted to check in with an expert. In this frank conversation, we untangle the complex dynamics of the book's central relationship and contrast the sexual health services of the past with the ways teen access health services today. Our expert thinks this book may be a miss for the teens of today but sees a...

Send us a Text Message.Oh Judy Blume, you are officially our most frequently covered author on TBMM and oh my, have you ever given us some wild rides. We weren't sure what to expect when we revisited Forever, one of the most frequently challenged books of all time, but it wasn't Ralph. The first rule of the Judy Blume fan club is you do NOT talk about Ralph. Unfortunately for us, we kind of had to talk about Ralph since the whole book is about him, which might be problematic from a femi...

Send us a Text Message.How many times have you read The Bluest Eye by the legendary Toni Morrison, and why is it never enough times? In this episode, we all revisit this literary classic and realize there are several interpretations and layers we missed in previous readings. Like, did you ever consider that Pecola is Jesus and the prostitutes (*ahem* China, Poland and Miss Marie) are the 3 archangels? Neither did we until Heather talked through her religious interpretation. Whether you agree ...

Send us a Text Message.With a May 8th birthday, Katniss Everdeen is a Taurus not a Sagittarius (Latin for 'archer') but we challenge you to name a more iconic wielder of bow and arrows in pop culture. It seemed therefore essential that we seek out an expert to talk to us about the venerable art of archery. We connected with Hannah, an analyst who works for the federal government and enjoys both archery and young adult books in her spare time. Not only did we learn about different types of arc...

Send us a Text Message.Much like Katniss Everdeen, in this episode we are faced with some very tough choices. Four librarians enter the podcasting studio, only one will leave! Actually no librarian podcasters had to fight to the death during the making of this episode, though we did learn that Darlene would simply opt out of the Hunger Games, so I think we can safely assume she's not library Mockingjay. That's right, we're taking a trip down horrible child fatality memory lane this episode wi...

Send us a Text Message.In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we're revisiting some of our favorite episodes! To close out HHM, here's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. If you missed this episode the first time around, it's back with some bonus recommendations for readalikes. This episode we dive into Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, the 1991 reverse chronology story of four sisters who flee to the United States from the Trujillo regime in the Dom...

Send us a Text Message.In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we're revisiting some of our favorite episodes! First up is The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. If you missed this episode the first time around, it's back with some bonus recommendations for readalikes. In this episode, we're spending time with Esperanza Cordero, her family, friends, and neighbors from 1984's groundbreaking novel, The House on Mango Street. This paragon of the Chicano/a literary canon challenges us to...

Send us a Text Message.We had such a good experience with Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. that we decided to go back to the Judy Blume well as a palate cleanser of sorts post-Sisterhood. Well, you know how it's really gross when you drink orange juice when you were expecting milk? That was sort of how using Blubber as a palate cleanser went. This book was just not what we remembered or what we were expecting. We explored the bullying hellscape that is Ms. Minnish's 5th grade classroom ...