I Want to Eat Your Pancreas by Yoru Sumino

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas by Yoru Sumino was published in 2013 and has manga and anime to go with the light novel I read. 

I watched the anime before reading this light novel, and so many of my questions were answered by reading the book. The art in the anime is incredibly beautiful. The title makes it sound like a slasher story, but in reality, the title is a tender thing the characters say to each other. This is a story of friendship and love. 

When the main character finds a diary of one of his classmates, he discovers she is dying from a pancreatic disease. He is the only one outside of her family who knows that Yamauchi Sakura is dying. She is an extrovert and fun loving. He is very quiet and keeps to himself. She helps him step outside of himself and see more of life. She takes him on her journey to do things she wants to do before she dies. 

Quotes I liked: "I was greeting the house. This is where I've grown up. The place is important to me" (155). 

"Everyone is where they are because of the choices they've made. . . All the choices you've made brought us together. You and I met by your own decisions" (178).  

"Living is sharing connections with other people" (199, 200).

"When you are all on your own, you don't know who you are" (200).

"The flooring had darkened at the edges along the wall, as if fragments of the pervious patients' illnesses had accumulated there and wouldn't let go" (210).

I enjoyed this touching story and find I prefer light novels to manga. 

 Read to a child today even if that child is you. 

Link to our NICU book registry to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

 Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George was published in 2009 and is a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. I love a good retelling of a fairy tale, and this one was quite good.

The story is told in third person omniscient, so the reader gets to see what the villain, Galen (the hero), and Rose (the oldest princess) are doing. I liked that all of them have a back story. 

The princesses are cursed to dance night after night, even if they are ill, and the dancing is taking a terrible toll on their physical and mental health. Their father offers his kingdom to the prince who can discover where his daughters go at night and break the curse, but so far, no prince can figure out it out. 

Enter, Galen who is a returning soldier and kind, young gardener. He wants to help the princesses, but he doesn't expect to be given the kingdom as he is a commoner. 

This story has many twists and turns. I listened to the audio version and found it well narrated. 

The text is larger and there is plenty of white space on each page. This book has a beautiful cover. 

Read to a child today even if that child is you. 

Link to our NICU book registry to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.