"Kiki's Delivery Service" by Eiko Kadono

I first encountered Kiki's Delivery Service at Barnes & Noble. I looked at the cover, was immediately intrigued, and thought to myself, "Hey, I'll see if the library has that!" And it did.

Kiki's Delivery Service is the story of a half-witch, appropriately named Kiki, who on her thirteenth birthday moves out  with her black cat named Jiji  and goes to Koriko, a fairly sizable town on the seashore. There she does... what do you think?

She starts a delivery service! And, because she's half witch, she delivers things by flying them places on her broomstick. This makes for some fairly interesting scenarios, as the people of Koriko slowly get used to her flying things to where they need to go. That's basically the entire book: her delivering stuff on her broom.

But don't be put off by what I said in the last sentence, because it is not boring. Not at all. It's a very fun and cute book, and I am still amused by the idea of magic sneeze medicine (which doesn't actually play any real part in the book, but still amuses me.)

If this was a movie, I would rate it also PG  not because it's violent or anything, but there are some things in there that smaller kids just wouldn't understand. And actually, it is a movie! There is literally a movie made from this book. It's presumably an anime-style movie, but I don't really know, having never watched it.

I will rate this book 5/5 stars. I really loved it, as you can see from my rating system (which I really do need to give its own post at some point, but right now, just go here).

Favorite lines:
    "My sister lives in Pointy Manor on Dead Tree Road." Pg. 104. The names "pointy manor" and "dead tree road" probably fall into the category of things that I think are funny, but no one else does.

    Kokiri chuckled and said, "Did you go to Mount Green?"
    "You can tell?" Kiki asked.
    "Yes, you still have very clear grass lines on your face!" Pg. 192.

"Everything on a Waffle" by Polly Horvath

 

This book was... not what I was expecting. For starters, we first learned about on a puzzle of children's book covers. I expected it to be a picture book, maybe even a board book. But no; it's 150 pages long and contains quite a lot of story. 

It's also (SPOILER ALERT) not actually about waffles. It's about a girl named Primrose Squarp, whose parents are lost at sea in the first chapter. So she goes to live with Miss Perfidy, who isn't actually evil, until her Uncle Jack can come to take her to live in his house.

The title Everything on a Waffle comes from a (fictional) restaurant called The Girl on the Red Swing, which serves all its food on a waffle. Primrose likes that restaurant, but Uncle Jack is repeatedly trying to buy it from the owner and put in a "classier" restaurant.

If this was a movie, I would rate it PG, for three reasons. One is that her parents are lost at sea. The second is that some of the characters aren't exactly the nicest people. The third one is a major spoiler, so I'm just going to say... chapters 8 and 12.

All in all, I liked the book, but not a lot. I think I'll give it... three stars out of five? For those of you who don't know my rating system, one star is terrible. Two stars is just bad. Three is okay, four is good, and five is awesome.

Favorite lines: These aren't technically 'lines', but I like how there's a recipe at the end of every chapter. I don't know if they actually work, but they were fun to read. In case you REALLY REALLY want the page numbers, here they are: 13, 19, 30, 37, 46-47, 56, 64, 80, 87, 95-96, 106-107, 117, 124, 139, and 150.