Ashby brings class to an often times heartbreaking tale of forgiveness. Once in a Blue Moon is a trek through conflicting emotions, long withstanding mistakes and perhaps a second chance to make everything right. Yet, foolish pride can be a bitter pill to swallow when it comes to matters of the heart. A hauntingly, predictable tango into love.

Twelve Year Old Angela Ashby is dealing with a lot at the moment. Her parents are divorced and neither her mom or her dad seem to have time for her anymore. At school, there is a bully that loves to pick on Angela and her best friend, Mallory. Things begin to change, however when Angela and Mallory attend their school's carnival. A mysterious fortune teller gives each of the girls a gift, a necklace for Mallory and a journal for Angela. The journal comes with a warning though, "With great power comes great responsibility." It takes Angela a while to figure out what the warning means as the hopes and dreams that she writes down in her journal begin to come true in her life.

The Journal of Angela Ashby is an exciting and magical middle grade drama. Angela and Mallory were wonderful main characters and the inclusion of fairies, gnomes and unicorns helps to keep the book entertaining. The characters were realistic as pre-teens in their actions and motives. I enjoyed that the journal was not only a source of fun, but also responsibility that helped Angela to realize the impacts of her actions on those around her as well as help her grow into a caring person. There are also many good lessons on friendship, family and bullying. As an adult reader, the middle of the book got a little boring for me as Angela continued to test out journal entries to see what would happen, although this is also where many of the fun characters come in, so middle grade readers may be more entertained. Overall, an entertaining, supernatural adventure for middle grade readers.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 

A gorgeous publication, and it started off strong for me, as the first entry is the platypus.  But I have to admit to a whole lot of skimming; the writing is dry and the author uses the book to fly the flag for the Grant Museum of Zoology at every opportunity.  There's also a mind numbing number of entries involving worms.  Now, I like reading about worms if the writing is engaging - I've read an entire book about earthworms (5 stars!) - and the author's aim to fairly represent animals that make up a huge part of evolutionary history, is logical.  But there's only so much information one can take on-board about all the wormlike creatures in the history of the world before falling asleep.

It's a worthy book, but could have been more engagingly written.

This was one of several works I stopped reading for a bit while Kill Your Darlings was going on. Easing back in wasn't too much of a problem.

Right now this book feels really long. And I feel a bit bad saying this, since it's supposed to be a poly romance, but I prefer Nik x Wisteria over whatever the author plans on doing with Nik, Wisteria, and Justin. I'm not really a fan of Justin, and he seems to frequently and inadvertently make Nik miserable. The main thing Justin and Nik have going for them as a couple is attraction and sex. And I'm still a bit worried that Wisteria is going to end up being some kind of third wheel. I could see Nik marrying Wisteria to shut his parents up, and Wisteria agreeing to Nik and Justin continuing their relationship. So what about Wisteria? She's pining for Nik but doing so in such a way that he doesn't realize it, and Nik likes talking to her but that's it. Please, no pity sex.

TITLE:  Animal Kingdom:  A Natural History in 100 Objects

AUTHOR:  Jack Ashby

DATE PUBLISHED:  2017

FORMAT:  ebook

ISBN-13:  978 0 7509 8613 7

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This book does exactly what it says on the cover - it provides a natural history of the animal kingdom in 100 objects.  The objects in the title refer to museum objects - specimens of various animals found either on display or in the museum's storage facilities.

The book is divided into 4 parts:  (1) Understanding Diversity; (2) Life's Turning Points; (3) Natural Histories; and (4) Displaying Nature.   Each part has a variety of very short animal/object chapters highlighting various scientific concepts, observations and historical anecdotes.  The narrative at the beginning of each part is rather useful and informative in tying all the separate objects and concepts together.  Each chapter also includes a photograph/illustration of the object as well as additional illustrations or diagrams as required.  The writing is clear, concise and easy to read, without bogging the reader down in too much scientific jargon.  

Ashby starts off by discussing the diversity that exists in the animal kingdom by using 18 different museum objects that represent 18 major groupings of the animal kingdom.  These 18 selective objects don't generally receive a great deal of attention, so there was generally something new to learn for each short (extremely short) chapter on each animal.   

Life's Turning Points takes a look at 10 objects that represent 10 points of evolution that lead to mammals:.  This section includes the Cambrian Explosion, jawless fishes, cartilaginous fishes, ray-finned fishes, lobe-finned fishes, tetrapods and vertebrate life on land, amphibians, amniotes (e.g. reptiles), mammal-like reptiles, and modern mammals (e.g. the horse).

The Natural Histories section deals with how evolution works.  So objects/animals have been selected to discuss such concepts as:  natural and sexual selection; convergent evolution; biogeography; processes underlying animal adaptations; animal senses; genetic systems underlying animal ecology; symbiotic and parasitic relationships; how humans are affecting the world today; etc.

The final section of the book takes a look at how museums obtain, preserve, display their specimens and represent nature.  It also examines the purpose of museums and their relationship with the public.  This is a particularly interesting section since the subject of preserving and displaying specimens that aren't always in a good condition is a fascinating subject (how do you preserve a jellyfish?). 

The author manages to condense a variety of biological concepts and extras, in plain language, in 100 short, illustrated chapters without being boring.  His selection of objects to represent various concepts is interesting and provides an opportunity to highlight several uncommon animals, as well as provide fascinating information about each animals.  This book lends itself well to reading a chapter or two at a time.  The expert zoologist or biologist will probably not find very much new information in this book, but the general interested public may find a great deal they haven't come across before.

SOME OTHER BOOKS:

-The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History by David Beerling

- Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer

- Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin

- Restless Creatures by Matt Wilkins

- Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods by Danna Staaf

-  When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time by Michael J. Benton.

-  Tales From The Underground: A Natural History Of Subterranean Life by David W. Wolfe.

-  The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David  
Quammen.

- What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins by Jonathan Balcombe.  

 
-  Life: An Unauthorised Biography: A Natural History of the First Four Thousand Million Years of Life on Earth by Richard Fortey.
    
-  The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins