Molly's Favorite Books of 2023

The Lockwood & Co. series by Jonathan Stroud

Lucy goes in for an interview at Lockwood and Co. She gets greeted by a grouchy guy named George who tells her she will probably leave screaming. She gets hired and then gets wrapped up in some ghost fighting, mysteriously intriguing plot. This book is literally so good. So, so, so, SO, good. I love how the main character is really relatable and how well written the adventures are. This might have been my favortie book series of all time. Read it. Ditch that boring book your reading right now and pick this one up.

Anya and the Dragon series by Sofiya Pasternack

One day, Anya's family was told that if they put a man from their family on the doorstep they would be excused from their taxes. They left their father there, but now they are being told that since they have a different religion than the rest of their village, they still have to pay their taxes. Anya has to find a job to get a lot of money quickly, and when a dragon hunting opportunity shows up, she takes it immediately. I love this series because the friendship and magic is so amazing it makes a really good book.

The Spirit Glass by Roshani Chokshi

Corazon's parents are dead, but they show up for Saturday dinner anyway. It's because of the soul key that lies around her neck. But when a spirit steals her key, she has to go on an adventure to go and make a new key. Roshani Chokshi is also the author of the Aru Shah series too, and I jumped at an opportunity to read this book. I love everything by this author I can get my hands on, and love everyone of those books.

Finally Seen by Kelly Yang

This book centers on a girl named Lena. The kids in China call her leftbehind Lena, because the rest of her family is in America. When she finally goes to her family she feels she has to prove herself. I love immigrant stories, and this one is no differrent. Lena's challenges are so interesting to read about, and put you in such a different perspective.

The House at the Edge of Magic series by Amy Sparkes

Nine is a pickpocket orphan. One day she steals a miniature house from someone, but when it grows and she sees people inside, she gets in a magical adventure. I love all of the magical inhabitants of the house and Mom likes this author so... It was a perfect match.

A Spoonful of Time by Flora Ahn

Maya's grandmother shows her how to cook into memories, but not everything is as it seems. This book is full of mystery and magic. I really love seeing the memories of her grandma. This book is a hit!

Daughter of the White Rose by Diane Zahler

This book is so sad. So sad. Nell is the daughter of the royal butcher, and she is best friends with the prince. They say the prince dies on the first page. I cannot stress how sad this book is. Don't read it if you cannot handle very sad deaths.

Five Kingdoms series by Brandon Mull

On Halloween, Cole and his friends get brought into the five kingdoms as slaves. He tries to save them, but instead goes on a long adventure through the whole five kingdoms. The magic is powerful and fun to read about. Love this book.

Books of Bayern series by Shannon Hale

I really love this book series. It is full of elemental magic, friendship, and loyalty. In the first book, a princess named Ani is forced to become a goose girl for the king. You should read these classics.

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Mom read this book to me as a read aloud. Ella was cursed as a baby by the evil Lucinda. She has to do everything that anybody tells her to do. This is an adventurous tale based off of the beloved fairytale of Cinderella.

The Unwanteds series by Lisa McMann

Alex is about to be purged. He is creative and loves art and that can't do in Quill. He gets exiled, but saved into the magic land of Artime. This story is really good and a fun read.

Pages & Co. series by Anna James

Tilly Pages lives in a bookshop. She figures out that she can travel into books. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. Meeting the story characters is amazing and fun.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Miri lives in a town on the mountain. When her village is chosen to have a princess academy, Miri is whisked off to a school with an awful mistress. I love hearing about Miri's struggles, and feel that she is a very relatable character.

Elliott's Favorite Books of 2023

Here's Elliott's favorite books from the past year!  He still loves graphic novels but has also started reading a lot more chapter books. Elliott is writing the descriptions for me this year :)

The Wild Robot series by Peter Brown (Elliott's favorite)

On the first book, the robot gets launched onto an island and has to adapt.  On the second book, he is trapped into the place that he was made and he tries to get back and he somehow does it. He started on a farm in book two.In book three, there's a poison tide and it's coming to the island and poisoning the water.  Everyone has to everything they can to survive and the robot goes to the place that is making the poison tide. I really love these books and I read the first book because I thought it was something else but I decided it was fun and read the others.

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein

There's a little writing assignment and the people who come to the library are the people who get chosen. They have to do some mini-games to get the grand prize. It's a fun book and some of the kids who are mean are going to have some troubles.

Editor's note: Elliott read this book all through Molly's Knowledge Bowl competition and Miles's spelling bee, and it was great for him to be entranced in a book instead of deeply bored.

Legends of Lotus Island series by Christina Soontornvat

Turns out she has magical powers so she gets sent to Lotus Island and she has to do stuff to make it to the next year.  In book two, she passed the year and they're going on a field trip and she has to go to a place where the city is cutting down some of the trees.  Whenever one tree gets cut down, it hurts all of the trees, so if you cut down enough, all of them die.  The first book has dough sheep and they are very cute!

Editor's note:  Elliott really wants me to make dough sheep.  In the book, they're real but look like they're made of dough but are really disobedient, but he wants me to make ones out of normal dough.

Pinball! by Jon Chad

Pinball has a strange story.  It was legal for a bit, then illegal and they destroyed the pinball machines.  Then they were legal again and then they were illegal.  Pinball did not used to be this fun and this is what hooked me up to like pinball!

Editor's note: Elliott is fully obsessed with the Mario pinball machine at Nickel Mania now.

The Ice Cream Machine by Adam Rubin

There are six stories in the book and they are all about something that you could call an ice cream machine. The first story is about someone who travels around the world eating different ice creams. The second story someone makes some ice cream out of their mother's ice cream machine.  I can't spoil everything! The third story has an evil ice cream man who destroys all the ice cream for kids.  The fourth story has a guy that always one the competition because he couldn't get brain freeze, but then someone else couldn't get brain freeze so she won. The fifth story has a wizard assistant who has to do boring stuff when the normal wizard is gone (is what you expect!). The last story is about a person who gets stuck on an alien space ship with a magic machine that can grant wishes. The book also shows you how to make a story like this one.

Wayside School series by Louis Sachar

A lot of strange and unusual things happen. I loved seeing some of the strange stuff!

Donner Dinner Party by Nathan Hale

The Donner family just walks over, joins some families, and faces harsh things because someone decided to take "shortcuts". They went through a forest, a jungle, a super super long desert, lost a bunch of their stuff, kept getting hurt because of that person that kept being "shortcuts". They were quite late because of the "shortcut"and then they get stuck in the mountains during the winter.

Super Potato series by Artur Laperla

Super Potato is a superhero that got zapped by a ray, and now they are a potato. I loved seeing all of the stories.  One of them had a chompy! 

Editor's note: A chompy is a venus flytrap :)

The Story of Gumluck the Wizard by Adam Rex

This is about a wizard who makes unexpected friends like a little ice cream ghost whose name changes but he doesn't know. I like the book because I liked seeing all the adventures.  Also, at the end they say they say there's no happily ever afters because something bad will always happen, so just an everly after.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Charlie is poor and he just barely gets a golden ticket.  At the end of the book, he gets a special prize (not the infinite supply of chocolate). You'll have to read and see!

Editor's note: Elliott read this for the library book club this year and he loved it!

The Terrible Two series by Mac Barnett

Miles and Niles do a bunch of trouble while it lasts.  You'll have to read and see why!

Editor's note: Elliott would like you to know that he also loves a whole bunch of other books by Mac Barnett, like The First Cat in Space series

Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville

Jeremy runs away from bullies and gets a dragon egg with an instruction manual.

Editor's note: It turns out that Elliott really loves an editor's note!

Fifties Flashback New Year

Our library throws the cutest "Noon Year's Eve" party every year!  This year's theme was a 1950's throwback and it had a lot of great activities.

A) Check out those decorations! and B) Elliott and Gerrit were so excited about the root bear floats.

Miles threatened to take this picture with his phone so he would be "texting and driving". He can get an actual learner's permit in four months, by the way...

The library always has the best scavenger hunts.

Elliott was thrilled to get a slider whistle and party blowers for the noon countdown.  Miles was less thrilled.

Balloon drop!

You're looking at the limbo contest winner! Our kids were older and therefore taller and at a substantial disadvantage for the limbo contest.

You can see that clearly in this picture of Miles.

The hula hoop contest, in contrast, heavily favored the older kids.

Hopscotch is also a big winner!

The Week Between Holidays

We really packed the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve full of fun this year!  Since we didn't have many days off before Christmas and Gerrit had the whole week off, we decided to have as much fun as possible.

We saw Elf  at the Hale in Sandy the day after Christmas.  It was everyone else's first time in the theater and they were in awe of the sets and special effects. It was a really cute show!

We noticed that Nickel Mania had moved closer to our house (in Orem) so we made a stop.  We learned an important lesson that the $10 per person we tried last time would have been plenty, and $20 per person meant we were there for 3.5 hours!!

This Mario pinball machine is Elliott's absolute favorite.

But he was also excited about the Mario video game machine.

The bowling game is also a family favorite. We also love Dance Dance Revolution, Piano Keys, skeeball, and air hockey.

Really, our favorite thing there is the pinball.  I don't get my own card...I just borrow other people's and these machines were three of my favorites.

We headed up to the zoo for their "Wild Weekdays" with Gerrit's mom and sister and also with potentially everyone else in three counties who had the same idea.  We got there right as they opened so it didn't start out crowded, but it really got crazy by the end!

The otters are always so cute!

We had a lot of fun watching the ostrich and the warthog this year.

This sleeping sand cat is basically the very cutest thing ever!