reading – …take the day off

What You Should Read Next

Jennifer — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 01:51:33 +0000

Do you know about the awesome podcast, What Should I Read Next? It is the show for every reader who has ever finished a book and faced the problem of not knowing what to read next. Each week, Anne Bogel, of the blog Modern Mrs. Darcy, interviews a reader about the books they love, the books they hate, and the books they’re reading now. Then, she makes recommendations based on that person’s tastes and her seemingly infinite mental card catalogue of every book every published.

Inspired by that primo podcast, some bookish friends and I decided to have a dinner party wherein we played literary matchmaker for each other. Here is how it went down. A few weeks in advance of our dinner, an email (and corresponding excel spreadsheet (nerd alert)) went out with these three questions:

What are three books you love?
What is one book you hate / didn’t like?
What are you reading now?

Having each person’s picks in advance allowed us to thoughtfully consider books that person would enjoy, and come to the main event armed with suggestions.

When we gathered together for dinner, we took turns going around the table telling why we loved the books we loved, and what rubbed us wrong about the books we didn’t like. We pulled out themes based on preferences (i.e. WWII historical fiction, endearing narrator in a story well told, dystopian epic, family saga, mildly disturbing memoir, etc.) and discussed favorite authors. Then we played literary matchmaker for each other by answering the big question for each person: “What should I read next?” It was so nice to hear sentences like “If you loved The Nightingale then you HAVE to read All the Light We Cannot See.” “If you appreciated The Sound of Gravel then download Under the Banner of Heaven on your Kindle immediately.” Around the table a cumulative zillions of pages had been read. It was like a live version of Pandora–but for books–with wine and dessert.

I came away from the evening with a solid list of TBR (to be read) books I know I will like, and the joy of recommending books I loved to others. The whole night was chicken tortilla soup for the reader’s soul. (This recipe, for those who’d like to know.)

For your reading pleasure, I wanted to share the books that each of us identified on our three BOOKS WE LOVE lists. I am not going the mention the books we hated because we all know the internet is a place for only kind words, rave reviews, and positivity. I implicitly trust the taste of these ladies, AS SHOULD YOU. So look no further than the list below to decide what you should read next. I know these titles will grace my bedside stack for months to come.

Books We Loved:

Euphoria (Lily King) | The Outlander Series (Gabaldon) | When Breath Becomes Air (Kalanithi) | Homegoing (Gyasi)

The Glass Castle (Wells) | The Nightingale (Hannah) | Walking on Water (L’Engle) | The Language of Flowers (Diffenbaugh)

The Prophet (Gibran)| East of Eden (Steinbeck) | Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (Demick) | NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children (Merryman)

Eligible (Sittenfeld) | The Hours (Cunningham) | Bossypants (Fey) | Hellhound on His Trail (Sides)

Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolover) | A Prayer for Owen Meany (Irving) | To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) | Devil in the White City (Larson)

The Examined Life: How we Lose and Find Ourselves (Grosz) | Wild (Strayed) | Boys in the Boat (Brown) | How Children Succeed (Tough) | Tasteful Nudes (Hill)

Definitely consider throwing such a dinner with your book club or a group of your bookish friends. It is a surefire way to reinvigorate your reading life, a new way to connect with old friends and get to know new friends better. Great conversation guaranteed.

(More into listening than reading? Here is a post about my favorite podcasts. )

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Awesome Princess Books (Even Anti-Princess Parents will Appreciate)

Jennifer — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 04:00:00 +0000

Last year for Halloween, my daughter was the lone chicken in a sea of princesses. I was proud that she made the choice to go as a barnyard animal, smugly thinking that she was different than the rest of the girls her age who had fallen hard for the prevalent princess propaganda. She’s unique! She’s a free-thinker! She beats to her own drum!

I am definitely doing something right, I thought to myself as my free-range chicken went door to door trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Sure I would have been even prouder had she wanted to dress up like Malala Yousafzai, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or Rosa Parks, but she chose to be poultry over being a princess and that was good enough for me.

Weeeeeeeell, by Christmastime that same year, she was sitting on Santa’s lap asking for this Ariel doll, a Princess First Aid Kit and an Elsa dress. In the past year our costume basket has exploded with tulle, tutus and tiaras, and our bookshelf runneth over with books featuring princess protagonists.

She always brings home princess books from the school library and together we have read and reread no less than 6 billion pages of princess prose. And we all know how the typical princess tale goes: Meek and mild damsel in distress gets rescued by a heroic handsome prince. They get married and everyone lives happily ever after.

I’m all for happily ever after, but let’s give the damsel a little more dimension. Make her brave, courageous, creative, spunky, independent, and the hero of her own story. Here are a some of our favorite princess books that turn the tired story-line on its head, and a few of these clever tales even offer solid little life lessons for your little princess.

There are some gawd awful children’s books out there, but there are also some treasures—even, and perhaps especially, in the princess genre. I hope you enjoy these as much as we do. They will help give your daughter’s princess aspirations a little more pizzazz.

Interstellar Cinderella The Apple-Pip Princess The Monster Princess Part-Time Princess Follow, Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems

The Princess Knight Falling for Rapunzel Not All Princesses Dress in Pink Sleeping Cinderella and Other Princess Mix-ups Waking Beauty

The Do Princesses… Book Series Princess Hyacinth (The Surprising Tale of a Girl who Floated) The Paper Bag Princess Very Fairy Princess series

(And be sure to check out this post featuring some of our other favorite Children’s Books)

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Our Favorite Children’s Books

Jennifer — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 03:49:41 +0000

Reading to my little ones is one of my favorite things. We have a great collection of books at home and we make a point of regularly going to the library to get a big stack to keep things fresh for the reader and the read to. Over the years I have read hundreds of children’s books, and as the reader, I definitely have developed an opinion on the subject.

To me children’s books fall into three categories:

Really. How did this get published? I’m not going to name names, it just wouldn’t be nice. And I wouldn’t want the author of Gulp! or Crocs! to beat me up in a back alley. These books make you want to quit whatever it is you are doing and start writing children’s books because anyone could do it better.
Um, okay. I guess. Average blahness is by far the most plentiful category of children’s lit. So many books just make you shrug your shoulders and say meh. Even some books hailed as “classics” make you go hummm. The message may be odd or off, morally questionable, too wordy or just plain boring. These are the books I am most likely to hide in a drawer or donate. (Our copy of Titanicat may be available at a Goodwill near you).
Treasures. Let’s read that again. Real gems with either great stories, classic characters, valuable lessons, beautiful illustrations, or all of the above.

The list below are treasures and represent some of our very favorites. These books are proud members of our permanent collection that the children and adults in our family love to read and re-read.

Now the breakdown (book titles are amazon links):

If You Give a Mouse A Cookie (and others from the series)

Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin

Fix-It Duck (and others from the series)

Madeline

You are Special

I Had a Favorite Dress

Miss Nelson is Missing

Fancy Nancy (and others from the series)

What Time is it, Mr. Crocodile

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Llama Llama Red Pajama (and others from the series)

Press Here

Big Words for Little People

The Gruffalo

Each Peach Pear Plum

Angelina Ballerina (and others from the series)

What are your favorites? We definitely want to add some new books to our collection so I am taking suggestions. I know I appreciate it when my children are gifted books just as much as they do.

P.S. Need a break from reading to your children? LeVar Burton is fully qualified to take over. Reading Rainbow is now available for streaming on Netflix.

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OH AND! My Man was proofreading this post (blame all grammatical errors on him heretofore) and we were revisiting the topic of favorite and least favorite children’s books. Had to add a few more before pressing publish!