[BOOK REVIEW] Garfield Gets in a Pickle by Jim Davis

Title:  Garfield Gets in a Pickle

Author: Jim Davis

Genre:  Humor / Animals / Relationships 

Year Published:  2012

Year Read: 7/7/2017

Series:  Garfield #54

Publisher: Ballantine Books 

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 7+ (Some Rude Behavior)

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository

Introduction:

I admit that when I saw another “Garfield” comic on my library shelf, I could not help myself and I ended up getting another “Garfield” comic called “Garfield Gets in a Pickle” and it is just as hilarious and witty as the previous “Garfield” comics I had read!

What is this story about?

In this collection, we are introduced to more adventures of Garfield, his dim-witted sidekick Odie, his goofy owner Jon and his level-headed girlfriend Liz and the foursome get into hilarious adventures such as Jon and Liz going out on dinner dates, Garfield’s dealings with the mice and Garfield’s dealings with the spiders!

What I loved about this story:

Jim Davis’ writing: Jim Davis’ writing continues to be as witty and hilarious as the previous volumes and even though Garfield and his family are still in the same situations we usually see them in (Garfield dealing the mice and spiders, Jon and Liz going out on dates, Garfield picking on Odie), the writing continues to be entertaining to read and I still enjoy seeing these adventures that Garfield, Jon, Odie and Liz continue to get into!  I also loved the fact that Liz is usually the voice of reason to Jon’s bizarre mannerisms and Garfield still continues to snark about Jon and Odie’s buffoonery as it is great seeing these two sane characters trying to deal with the humorous chaos going on around them.

Jim Davis’ artwork:  Jim Davis’ artwork is still as creative and humorous as it has always been and I loved the humorous way that Jim Davis draws these characters as they all have huge bulging eyes that greatly reflects the humorous nature of this series!

Final Thoughts:

Overall, “Garfield Gets in a Pickle” is another brilliant collection of “Garfield” strips that fans of the “Garfield” series will greatly enjoy!

You might also like:

• Garfield Brings Home the Bacon by Jim Davis

• Garfield Cleans His Plate by Jim Davis
• Garfield: Lard of the Jungle by Jim Davis

The Sunday Post Meme (94)

Hey everybody! I am participating in a book meme called the Sunday Post which is being hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer!The goal of this meme is to share news you have  on various books and things you’ve read or received and also talk about what is coming up for your blog! Book hauls can include library books, yard sale finds, arcs and bought books and you can share these finds with other book bloggers!

Hello everyone!  I still can't believe that June is already passed! This year is certainly going by pretty fast!  Also, me and my family had a nice 4th of July as I had the day off from work that day and me and my family had a nice barbecue to celebrate the occasion! We had ribs, potato salad, hot dogs and hamburgers which I enjoyed a lot, especially the ribs!  I'm just glad that I had a restful weekend from working so much this week! I hope everyone has a nice weekend!

★Book Reviews☆

Hola! Let's Learn Spanish: Visit New Places and Make New Friends! by Judy Martialay (@judyruth10) Review

Three Samurai Cats by Eric A. Kimmel Review

★Miscellaneous☆

Book Photo Sundays #36: July 2, 2017

June Monthly Wrap Up!

2017 Mid Year Book Stats

Waiting on Wednesday #46: The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell

  

Book Photo Sundays Meme!

 

Looking for New Guest Posts! 

 

My TBR List!

 

  

Comic Book Bingo Challenge 2017 Sign Up! 

One Word: RELAX!!!

 

★  Check out In the Know with RO's discussion on DO YOU KNOW A SOCIAL MEDIA BULLY?



☆ Check out Carole's Random Life in Books'  June 2017 - Monthly Wrap-Up

★ Check out Read All The Thing's June Wrap-Up

Well, that's the Sunday News for today and I will have more news for the various books I've read in the near future!

Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2017.

Book Photo Sundays #37: July 9, 2017

Hello everyone! Welcome to "Book Photo Sundays" where you get the chance to showcase photos of your books, bookshelves and book conventions you have gone to!  The goal of this book meme is to basically just post up a photo of the various books you have read or your book hauls on your blog and link back here so that way everyone can check out your wonderful book photos!  You can get your book photos through your Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Iphone or any other account where you can get your photos!

#bookphotosundays

So let's get started!

Here's another photo of my Throne of Glass book!

An InLinkz Link-up

Waiting on Wednesday #46: The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell

Hello everyone! "Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, that is hosted by Breaking the Spine and the purpose of this event is that we spotlight upcoming releases of books that we are excited for!  This will also tie into Wishful Ending's Can't Wait Wednesday post!

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Title:  The Last Magician

Author:  Lisa Maxwell

Expected Publication Date:  July 18th, 2017

Stop the Magician.
Steal the book.
Save the future.

In modern day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.

Esta is a talented thief, and she's been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta's training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.

But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.

This definitely sounds like a unique and interesting read! I would love to know how the protagonist would save her future!

So, what upcoming books are you looking forward to?  Please respond below!

[BOOK REVIEW] Three Samurai Cats by Eric A. Kimmel

Title:  Three Samurai Cats

Author:  Eric A. Kimmel

Artist:  Mordicai Gerstein

Genre:  Japan / Animals / Trickery / Folktale / Peace

Year Published: 2003

Year Read:  2008

Publisher: Holiday House

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 5+  (Some Scary Scenes)

Buy or Add on:  Amazon  //  Goodreads

“Three Samurai Cats” is an ancient Japanese folktale about how three samurai cats come to the Daimyo’s castle to defeat a savage rat with the last samurai cat giving the rat a taste of his own medicine.  Eric A. Kimmel’s hilarious retelling and Mordicai Gerstein’s colorful drawings combine greatly to make a great and funny story from ancient Japan. 

Eric A. Kimmel’s humorous storytelling of an ancient Japanese folktale is extremely inventive and witty as the last samurai cat uses a nonviolent stragety to defeat the rat at the end of the book.  I found the part where the rat kicks the fierce samurai cat across the room to be extremely funny since the samurai cat looked funny when he crashed to the ground.  Mordicai Gerstein’s illustrations are colorful yet scratchy, giving the story a humourous edge.  One of the illustrations that really stood out the most for me was the image of Neko Roshi giving an intense look after he had just woken up when the rat yelled out “help!” when he was stuck in the rice ball.  Neko Roshi’s eyes look huge like when a cat sees something that terrifies it and his hair also stood on its end. 

“Three Samurai Cats” is an excellent story about how violence does not always solve the problem and how clear thinking can always win the battle if you allow the right moment to come.  I would recommend this book to children ages five and up since the younger children might not understand the Japanese vocabulary, such as daimyo and docho.

You might also like:

• The Boy Who Drew Cats by Margaret Hodges

• Peachboy by Eric Metaxas
• The Samurai's Daughter by Robert D. San Souci

2017 Mid Year Book Stats

Hey everyone! Finally!  It's mid year and that means that I will gather up all the books I had read so far and do some stats and review what I've read so far!  I also promised that I will be doing graphs for my book stats and I had used the graph makers from the NCES Kids' Zone website to make the graphs!  So, here are my book stats for the mid year so far:

Books Read so Far:

Types of Books I've Read:

So, I've read mostly Children's Books so far, which is something I tend to do every year and so far, most of the children's books I've read are pretty good!  In second place, there's Graphic Novels which is another area I tend to read a lot and I'm hoping to read some more graphic novels in later months!  Unfortunately, I still haven't read many Adult and Young Adult Books even though I'm making some progress with them this year and I'm hoping to read more adult and young adult books in the following months.

ARC Reads:

I've mostly read NetGalley Books since I've been using NetGalley since last year and that seems to be the ARC program I'm the most successful with so far due to lots of graphic novels and picture books being released through this site.  I've also made some progress with ARC Books that were given to me by various authors and publishers.  It's just that I just now got around to reading these ARCs and this year, I'm going to try to improve on responding to author's and publisher's requests for me to review their books!  I haven't listed Reading Alley or any other ARC programs I had recently joined because I hadn't made any progress with them yet and I'm going to try to reach those programs as well!

Book Ratings: 

YAY!!! Most of my book reads were 5 Star reads, which is awesome, meaning that most of the books I've been reading so far are pretty good!  Second place is surprisingly 4.5 Star reads, which rarely happens whenever I'm reading books since I usually settle on 4 star or 3 star reads, so that's quite impressive!  The least star rating I have so far this year is a 3.5 Star rating and yet, I have a bit more books from that rating than for the 5.5 Star rating, which is above a 5 star rating.

Male and Female Authors:

WOO HOO!!! This is amazing!!! I never would have thought that I would have a tie between both Male and Female Authors!  I'm hoping to keep this up for the remainder of the year since I always try to read books by both male and female authors!

Series and Stand Alone Books:

I'm not that surprised that I've read more Series books than Stand Alone books since I'm always a sucker for books that are in a series and I always loved reading the different stories being told in a series!

Total Books read for January - June: 

35

Well, that's my results for the mid year so far!  So far, everything's looking pretty good with my reading and I'm hoping to read some more great books in the second half of the year!