I’ve spent a bit of time at the library looking for books for Mondayitis lately. It’s a lovely experience and takes me back somewhat, not to my childhood as libraries have changed dramatically since then, but to my children’s childhood when we’d go and borrow lots of books for them with a few for me.

The problem with Mondayitis is the book has to capture my imagination and be short enough for me to be able to finish it, think about who or what to write about and then write it. That generally means the book must be short, simple to read i.e. a children’s book.

I rarely get to write more about a Mondayitis book so here’s a wrap of a couple of recent ones and one I found I couldn’t write about. I would give more but I seem to have not taken photos of the books.

This book captured my imagination. This period in history is full of men and not much of women as they tend to be pushed to one side. I know Queen Elizabeth I was an amazing lady, she must have been to have taken over the top role in her country despite Edward VI’s will naming Lady Jane Grey as his successor. She didn’t marry and have progeny despite everyone assuming she would, going against the tide is challenging to do and she did this for many years.

What really captured my mind about this book was the idea of a young lady-in-waiting to the Queen being far more than just sitting around reading, sewing and entertaining the Queen. Lady Grace Cavendish actually gets out as far as she possibly can (and then a little further) in order to investigate the disappearance of the Queen’s gold and jewels. Young girls need good role models and there have been far too few in literature until recently.

While this book caught my mind I found I couldn’t really write a Mondayitis on it. There was nothing I felt I could write about. What I thought about when I was reading was Jumanji, a movie released in 1995 with Robin Williams as one of the lead actors. The premise is similar in that when you play the game you get sucked into it but this book is much more gentle and aimed at younger readers. The book was written in 2000 so highly likely to be influenced by Jumanji. There is an actual game called Game of the Goose.