Happy Monday, and welcome to our first amble through the alphabet!

Last week, Sara @ The Bibliophagist showcased the ABC Book Challenge, which I thought would be such fun to take part in this week. Of course, last week’s letter was U, which makes this week’s letter V. Which I found, uh… vastly vexing! But enough verbiage: let’s get into what I managed to scrounge up, shall we?
✰ MEMORABLE (FIVE-STAR) BOOKS STARTING WITH V ✰

ALRIGHT, we actually have a few good ones here! Please no judgment on the fact that these are technically all kids’ books – kids’ books rule.
First off, we have The Voyage of the Dawn Treader from C.S. Lewis‘s classic fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. While it’s no The Silver Chair or The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Voyage is still a magnificent, rollicking journey full of adventure and life lessons. Not to mention that it’s got dragons, talking mice and sea travel! Plus it introduces the most odious character, Eustace Clarence Scrubbs, and I just have to commend good ol’ Clive Staples for giving this tedious kid a name that perfectly encapsulates his personality at the start of the book.
Next is Margery Williams‘s The Velveteen Rabbit, and guys, I had no intention of crying on a Monday morning (okay, this is a lie – doesn’t everyone cry on a Monday morning?), but good golly did my revisitation of this book cause some emotion. Just so we can all cry together, let’s revisit this part of the book, when the Skin Horse is talking to the Rabbit about being loved by children:


Yes, yes; I’m teary again. I blame this book and the Toy Story franchise for convincing me that my toys were actually alive when I was a kid.*
Finally, we must mention The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, simply because this caterpillar’s appetite is as voracious as my own and it makes me very happy. I mean…

*and by “kid”, I mean that I’m still fairly convinced that they live and breathe…
✰ BOOKS ON MY TBR STARTING WITH V ✰
Hmmmm. This I found a little more difficult, but here are the titles that caught my eye:
What a wild smattering of books, huh? V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd has been a must-read for a while (I haven’t watched the movie either… oops!); on the other hand, Villette by Charlotte Brontë is a book I’d never heard of until today. I actually read the first chapter or two of Paulo Coelho‘s Veronika Decides To Die when I was in high school and remember being intrigued by it. Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre sounds like a horrifying yet possibly necessary read.
Now, just for fun, an additional two categories:
✰ MY FAVOURITE BOOK CHARACTER WHOSE NAME STARTS WITH V ✰
Here, I’m gonna go for my girl Viola Eade, of Patrick Ness‘s Chaos Walking fame. She’s badass, she’s smart and tough, she’s sensitive and resilient. I think she and Todd are so cool that I convinced Kyle to read the series and he’s busy narrating his way through all the books: see here, here and here!

And finally…
✰ MY LEAST FAVOURITE BOOK CHARACTER WHOSE NAME STARTS WITH V ✰
WELL, WHO D’YA THINK, YOU GUYS?

Alright, alright – I think I’ve exhausted the letter V, and now I’m off to vanquish the rest of this Monday 😉