Maurynne Maxwell (Miss M)

Here's the link to the blog mentioned below, Miss M Recommends.

Ok, Miss M's favorites--mostly books, but you never know what will turn up here...Miss M promises to continue blurbing the books, but can tell you now her approval ranges from the lyrical to the humorous to the authentic: things that touch the heart, tickle the funnybone, spark the imagination, and ring true. Miss M is prone to stop to admire the beauty of the vegetables whilst she is chopping them up, and she definitely wanders off to smell the roses and cilantro.

Note: additions will be in green; I'll change the text color monthly.

Miss M has joined goodreads.com

For kids, in no particular order:

(PB=picture book, PR=Primary (grades1-3), MG=ages 10-12 up, YA is 12 up) 

Miss M sent her niece Pinkalicious, by Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann, as a 4th birthday present. Miss M was very popular with her niece--not so much with the parents, who had to read the story 20 times the first day. Yay! Miss M strikes again! (Sorry, Sis & Bro.)

Thunder Bunny, by Barbara Berger. Philomel Books. PB I have always loved Grandfather Twilight; this book is about being special and different and wonderful.

Big Momma Makes The World, by Phyllis Root. Candlewick Press. PB The rhythm and tone of this book remind me so much of the folk-preacher sermons in God's Trombones. They have a tenderness missing from the Baptist sermons of my childhood.

Bad Kitty, by Nick Bruel. Roaring Brook Press. PB Miss M is says the sequel, Bad Kitty Takes a Bath, is funny, but not really a kid's book. Maybe a sophisticated 6th-grader, someone who reads MAD Magazine. It's really an adult book, though. And it is not a picture book...

Another Perfect Day, by Ross MacDonald. Roaring Brook Press. PB You get up, everything goes swell, you're even a superhero! What could be better?

Bubba the Cowboy Prince, by Helen Ketteman. Scholastic. PB It's Texas, and Cinderella is a boy named Bubba; the Princess is a Dolly Parton lookalike named Miz Lurlene. So much fun to read aloud for Rodeo Days, wearing your purple cowgirl hat.

Margaret Wise Brown PB

Sandra Boynton PB

Barbara Parks' Junie B Jones books. If you do not have a five-year-old, you will remember being one from the very first sentence of each book--okay, she's getting older. If you need to revisit those school years, this is the way, with humor and love.

Saffy's Angel and all the books about the Casson family, by Hilary McKay. Various divisions of Simon & Schuster. MG

Herein I must add to/revise my previous comment that the adventures of the Casson family are better than The Penderwicks (by Jeannne Birdsall, which won the National Book Award for children's fiction). I have just finished The Penderwicks on Gardam Street and it is just as good. Funny, dramatic, heart-warming. This one hits the mark. Good job!

 
Cynthia Rylant--from picturebooks to novels! 

Frances Hodgson Burnett MG

Tamora Pierce MG, YA

L. M. Montgomery MG, YA

E. L. Konigsburg MG

Jennifer J Stewart,"seriously funny books for children."

Mostly middle-grade, but a new picture book coming out, and a very helpful, funny, all around good person with helpful tips for wanna-be authors on her website.

Diana Wynne Jones MG, YA

Diane Duane Start with So You Want to Be a Wizard. YA

Patricia Wrede YA

Francesca Lia Block YA Her magical realism is like Alice Hoffman's, perfect in the context of the story, and like the magic you've seen, orknow you could see, in your own life.

Melissa Marr's new series. Wicked Lovely was a great urban/elf fantasy, and one is so looking forward to reading Ink Exchange.  A teensy bit edgier that Charles de Lint's Newford books. You must read Charles de Lint! YA

Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. Miss M believes that Mr. Pullman is not an atheist, no matter what he says. She finds the books not anti-God, but anti-religion.  YA

And many more to come... 

Authors for Adults, in no particular order

I like this guy as poet and priest, in that his work celebrates the reality of the incarnated and eternal worlds: farmer, essayist, philosopher;  Wendell Berry

Michio Kaku--great science writing for non-scientists 

Rumi 

Hafiz 

Annie Dillard

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller--Go Korval! 
Miss M is working on a blog post entitled Korval, Jesus, and 9/11. For adventure, humor, and sensibility, the Liaden (TM) universe is hard to beat for "comfort food" reading. 

Diane Ackerman

Eric Flint

Lee Child

S. M. Stirling

Robin McKinley I read Chalice in December, wonderful as always.

Robert Parker

Grace Paley

Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni

Alice Hoffman

Mary Oliver 

Charles Stross

Douglas Adams

Anthony Bourdain

Terry Pratchett is hilarious (you have to like British humour). He was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's last year and has donated $1 million to research in the UK.

Tom Holt

Ursula K. LeGuin 

Mercedes Lackey 

Kim Stanley Robinson's multiple-award-winning Mars trilogy: Red Mars, Blue Mars, and Green Mars, some of the best sci-fi of the last century. An amazing achievement, taking on the scientific, sociological, political, psychological, and even spiritual perspectives of terraforming Mars and a Space-living society.

Katie Fforde

Kathleen Ann Goonan 

Jill Mansell

Michelle Sagara/Michelle West

C. E. Murphy 

Peter Bowen's mysteries--I have not been captivated by such a voice since reading How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn.

Elizabeth Goudge

There is a perfect mystical science fiction novel; it's called Beauty, by Sheri S. Tepper

Mary K. Lasswell 

What's on my to-read shelf:

Minders of Make-Believe by Leornard S. Marcus--yes, the same one who's written about Ursula Nordstrum and Margaret Wise Brown.

Acedia & Me by Kathleen Norris

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Nation by Terry Pratchett--my uncle asked me what my favorite book of the last 6 months was and since I haven't gotten to Marilynne Robinson's new book (after Gilead) it was this wonderful true myth with death and wonder and knowledge and hope--life in an alternate Earth island chain after a tsunami. This is the first book he's written since his Alzheimer's diagnosis and I rank it right up there with Beauty (Sheri Tepper, above).

Amazon UK tells me the new Maeve Binchy is on its way to my door.

City at the End of Time by Greg Bear

Burning Water by Laurette Sejourne --and about 100 more

More favorite things: 

Long days of sunlit summer

Desert sky with desert moon shining 

Tulips and Asian lilies

Green chiles 

making someone smile 

Hold 'em poker.  Miss M plays with the ladies at the retirement home and is pondering a YouTube video. 

The beaches at Rocky Point, Mexico.

Prins Christian Sund in the summer..I guess it will remain beautiful for a while. The seapass used to freeze over in the winter and not allow ships through, but with global warming, who knows?

The flowers and cream of Cornwall