Books Read in April

Are you freakin' kidding me?  May already?  That's just not possible.  From now until June, things will be insanely busy with end-of-school stuff, graduation stuff, soccer stuff, school play stuff, etc.  I enjoyed all the flowering trees in my neighborhood this month and also some great books:

• The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart, a warm and light British novel read for a book group.
• The Night of the Spadefoot Toads by Bill Harley, a middle-grade novel.
• Ship Breaker by Paolo Bagocalupi, a teen/YA dystopian novel on audio.
• Looking for Bobowicz by Daniel Pinkwater, a hilarious middle-grade audio that our family has listened to at least 4 times now!
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, a wonderful novel (and I got to hear the author speak this month, too!).
• The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, winner of the Man Booker Prize for fiction last year.

 So, it was an all-fiction month, with two middle-grade novels, one teen/YA, and three grown-up novels.  I enjoyed all of them.  My favorite was Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet; it was so well-written, warm and tender, and set in a fascinating historical setting (the Japanese internment during World War II) - an all-around winner!  The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise was a close runner-up, with its great sense of humor.

I am behind in writing reviews but have been working to catch up this week.  Stay tuned!

As for my 2012 Reading Challenges, I added 4 new states to my Where Are You Reading Challenge (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Washington), plus 2 more books set in England (I've been on a British streak lately!), so I am now up to 16 different states and 4 different countries outside the US.  I added a third novel - Ship Breaker - to my Dystopian Challenge list.  I read nothing at all from my TBR shelf this month, so I need to get back to that in May.  And I read no memoirs, either.  I did add one title to my What's In a Name Challenge - I think spadefoot toads qualify as creepy-crawlies, don't you?

What were your favorite books read in April?