May the Fourth

May the Fourth, and the Force be with You!

So, my son is 13, and he hates to read, but he loves Star Wars. This means that if I want him to read, I have to have Star Wars books on hand. And honestly, as long as he’s reading something, then that’s ok with me. We have gone through many reading levels worth of lightsaber and droid stories. Here are a few we have come across over the years that he says are pretty good.

For a long time, activity books were a critical need in our house. Star Wars themed sticker books or search and find picture books were things that held attention for hours. 

The Jedi Academy books are a great set of middle-grade reads. They are easy and fun with cartoonish drawings instead of the move quality illustrations.

We spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so we have tried out our share of exciting cookbooks. As far as galaxy cooking is concerned, we’ve tried The Star Wars Cookbook: Bb-Ate: Awaken to the Force of Breakfast and Brunch and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: The Official Black Spire Outpost Cookbook. They definitely got us out of a cooking rut for a few days.

Recently he has been reading the Star Wars High Republic books. My knowledge of anything Star Wars is minimal at best, but he says these books are awesome. 

As he gets older, I know I’ll have to get a little more creative with his books, so I plan to buy him William Shakespeare’s Star Wars set as he gets closer to high school. Knowing he will be reading Shakespeare at some point in high school, maybe this will help him to connect with it more.

I know that there are many other books out there, some we’ve read, and many others we haven’t. But, as long as they keep my son reading something, they will always have a place in our home.

I am an affiliate member with bookshop.org, so any purchases through the links in this post will give a commission back to me.

Reviewing Myself

I spent some time lately reviewing old posts and old journals that involved my reading goals and ambitions for a particular time. Some of these lists were book specific, some were specific topics or setting locations. Looking back at them now, I realized that they all have one thing in common and that one thing is that I have not achieved any of them in full. One list of books I came across that I have read about one-third of, but I don’t think that was done during the time window of that goal list. 

Going over all of these old goal lists was a mix of emotions. I spent a lot of time being frustrated because I didn’t finish any of the specific goals that I set out to accomplish. But when I stepped back, I realize that I have done even more by detouring from the plans and just reading where my heart and gut lead me to. And while there are some great books out there that I have intended to get to for years, I have discovered some great authors by leaving the list behind and taking a different book off the shelf. 

Before I came across these old lists, some of which I forgot that I had even written, I felt like I was in a book rut. I’ve been reading off a list again this year, and many of them lately have been underwhelming, and I think that was beginning to wear on me. So, for now, I have thrown aside that list, and I have started reading what I feel like, not what is next on the checklist. 

What does this new plan mean for those of you who are reading this? Nothing really, I’ll still be reading books and giving you my thoughts on them. At most it might mean that even though I have been given an advanced copy of a book, I may not get to it until after publication day instead of ahead of time. Who knows, maybe pushing those advanced copy books back some will make them a more enjoyable read rather than feeling like an obligation.

Trudging Through

Lately, I’ve been struggling with books. Even things that should be right in my typical box are just not working for me. I have trudged through or walked away from what feels like a lot of books lately. One of which is touted as one of the best books to look forward to this year. These books were back-to-back reads or books I walked away from. 

American Rose: A biography filled with stage performers and scandal, this should have been an exhilarating read for me. I was so excited to finally dig into this book, as it has been on my shelf for a couple of years, but I ended up disappointed. The time jump formatting between chapters made it difficult to stay focused on the entire story. 

Final Revival of Opal and Nev: The premise of this book captured my attention. The formatting is an interesting way to write and read a book, and while it was a struggle to get into the flow of it, it worked for the effect the author was going for. However, I just could not for the life of me get into the story. I felt like I was trudging through mud trying to read it. This should have been a quick read for me and it takes days for me to get through a chapter because I cannot get hooked. I have heard a lot of rave reviews about this book and I know it is one of the most anticipated releases for 2021 (it comes out next week) which makes my disappointment greater, but it is also a reminder that not every book is for every reader.

The Vines: The Vines is an intriguing mess of a story. It covers generations of doctors and secrets. There is a long history of disease coupled with lies throughout each character. But I trudged through this mess of a story just to be disappointed in the ending because there is absolutely no reconciliation of the problems that drove the plot. I am sad that it takes a second book to finish the story because I feel like this one was much longer than it needed to be and still wasn’t finished.

There is also Rhapsody which I talked about a couple of weeks ago. Which makes four books in a row that have been exhausting instead of enthralling. 

I have become frustrated and exhausted. I love reading so to have so many lately that just don’t fulfill my needs is a confusing problem for me. This many back-to-back let downs is something I have never encountered before so I’m nervous to pick up a new book for fear of more disappointment. 

I am an affiliate member with bookshop.org, so any purchases through the links in this post will give a commission back to me.

Bookshop

Have you heard of bookshop.org? This is a book shopping website that connects shoppers with small business bookstores. If you want to support a small bookshop, but don’t know of any, this site is designed to help you out.

So how does this amazing site help out thousands of small bookstores across the country? How they explain it on their website’s about page is that once you go to their website, “If you want to find a specific local bookstore to support, find them on our map and they’ll receive the full profit off your order. Otherwise, your order will contribute to an earnings pool that will be evenly distributed among independent bookstores (even those that don’t use Bookshop).”

They also work with small affiliate book reviewers like me (my store link is put into every post I make). When you read any of my reviews and click the book link, that takes you to my store within the bookshop.org world. And if you buy something from there I get a small portion of that sale. 

What I love is that bookshop.org has created this business model to help out the small stores by pushing 75% of the sales profits made to these stores! And, this was launched just before the pandemic hit last year and we all started shopping online all the time. Because of this website, dozens of small bookstores were able to keep their staff paid and their business floating. 

So, now that you know about them, go check it out for yourself. Look at their map to see if you have a local store on their listing and if not then you can still shop and add to the pool. No matter what you choose everyone wins.

 I am an affiliate member with bookshop.org, so any purchases through the links in this post will give a commission back to me.

An Experiment with Gone Girl

My husband and I recently watched a video online about movie endings that viewers hated. What got me was that a few of them are from movies that are based on books. So I started to wonder if the author wrote that ending or was it changed for the movie version? 

I have said before that I struggle with watching book adaptations, but because I can’t get this question out of my head I decided to take one of the movies from this video list and find out. I picked Gone Girl because I have seen the movie once before and because I have enjoyed reading Gillian Flynn’s other books. Sadly this experiment did not go well, but I did learn something. 

I learned that as much as I struggle to enjoy a book adaptation after I have read the book, it is nothing compared to the torture of reading the book after watching the movie version. Because I had already seen the movie I knew how things were going to end. I knew all of the dramatic places already which left zero drama for the pages in the book. I became bored very quickly. So bored in fact that I had to abandon my experiment of trying to see if the book ending matched the film ending.

I have watched plenty of film adaptations after reading the books, and as dreadful as I find most of them, I can usually get through it. But as much as I enjoy watching the story unfold, I think I enjoy reading the story and the drama even more. I love the nights where I push my limits of exhaustion, turning pages and trying to find out what is going to happen next, and I don’t get that feel from a movie. It is very rare that I get that feeling from a movie.

Since I had to abandon my mission due to lack of excitement does anyone have the answer for me? Does the Gone Girl movie follow Flynn’s writing or did they change things up? I’m fairly certain I know the answer, but I’d love to hear it from someone who pushed through both.

I am an affiliate member with bookshop.org, so any purchases through the links in this post will give a commission back to me.

A boy’s favorite books

My son turns 13 today. And in typical mom fashion I began reminiscing over his life and how much he has changed in all of those 13 years. In the midst of my nostalgia I put together a list of his favorite books from over the years. My son was a much bigger reader when he was smaller so there are more little kid books on here than big kid books. I’m still hopeful that the reading bug will bite him again.

How Do Dinosaurs: This was one of the first series he discovered, and he could not get enough. I have some of these books memorized because we read them so many times.

Captain Underpants: These books are ridiculous, but they are also the first set of books my son was determined to read all of. And I’m just grateful that he wanted to read at all so even if it was a ridiculous book that was alright.

Blue Hat, Green Hat: I can definitively say that this was my son’s very first favorite book. It is the one he began to “read” himself first and always burst into a giggling fit while reading. Because of that, this has become our go-to baby gift so that other parents can enjoy it as well.

Touching Spirit Bear: This is his most recent find. It was required reading for school last year and he could not stop talking about it. He made both my husband and I read it because it was such a good book. 

Goodnight Gorilla: Bedtime routines are important when the kids are little, and this book was involved every night.

39 Clues: This series of books is long, but it is so good. I have read a few of them that my son declared the best ones. 

I am an affiliate member with bookshop.org, so any purchases through the links in this post will give a commission back to me.

It is OK to Walk Away

Three weeks into the year, and I have given up on my first book of 2021.

I spent years wanting to read Allison Pataki’s books. Her subjects always seemed to be so interesting. Last year I finally gave her a try by reading The Queen’s Fortune. I ended up walking away from it because I was bored and disconnected. To be fair, Napoleonic history is not really my era of choice, so I wasn’t terribly discouraged about walking away from that one, especially knowing that she has so many other books.

A few days ago I decided it was time to give Pataki another chance, this time choosing The Traitor’s Wife. I figured that since I like American Revolutionary history, and this one was about Benedict Arnold and his wife, that it might be a better fit for me. Sadly, I was wrong. I just cannot connect with Pataki’s writing.

I am disappointed in this, but I am also encouraged. I have given this author two good faith tries and I am content that she and I will not have a growing relationship as author and reader. Knowing this, and being ok with it means that I can shift my focus to all of the other books and authors out there that I am itching to read.

This in no way means that Pataki is a bad writer. It just means that while she and I don’t gel, her books are amazing to plenty of other historical fiction lovers. This is one of the great things about writers and their books, they speak differently to each reader. And while I can’t get into her books, I can think of other people that I know who would probably love her writing style.

I am an affiliate partner with bookshop.org which means that if you decide you want to buy yourself a copy of any book linked in this post I will receive a small commission from your purchase.

2021 Reading Intentions

I read a lot. That is not a shocking revelation. Last year I read over 130 books, and COVID sheltering in place was not even a factor in that reading. But in all of my reading I have realized that I am still lacking in a diversity balance. So my plan for 2021 is to be actively intentional about reading outside of my box. I want to red about different cultures, religions and countries. I want to read about people and their experiences from all over the world.

Wanting to do this is the easy part. Keeping track to make sure I accomplish the goal is a bit more difficult. After a lot of thinking I decided that I will be keeping a chart of all my reading so that I can finish the year feeling like I have accomplished my goal of diversifying my year in books.

What will I be tracking exactly? I will be breaking it down as fiction, biography and other non-fiction.

For fiction I will be tracking the locations and the time period it is set in. I have a tendency to lean heavy on World War Two era fiction, and many of the fiction books that I read are set in France, Germany, England, Russia, and the US. I have read books set in other countries, but these seem to be the most frequent. And I am not saying that I will not read anything set in these places this year, I am just going to be more intentional to reach out to another country more often.

Biographies and Memoirs get their own tracking because I read a lot of them. They are hands down my favorite type of non-fiction to read. But, again, things need to be shaken up within the typical books I reach for. I will focus on logging the race and occupation of each person I read about. I will also make an additional notation if they were born outside the US, are a member of the LGBTQ+ community, or have a disability.

All other non-fiction will be noted by its subgenre. I honestly have no idea how many, or what types of non-fiction books I read that aren’t biographies. So this is more about informing myself of what I am actually doing.

My hope is that by the end of the year I will have traveled the world and met a lot of new people while learning a ton of new things because I was intentional with my reading.

What are your goals for this year? I would love to hear what you have planned. And if you have a book recommendation for me to help in my quest let me know and I’ll add it to my to-read list.

An Alphabet of Alphabets

As a parent of two, and an Aunt to many, I have read and bought all different alphabet related books over the years. I love these types of books for kids. They are such a great way to learn about the world while learning the alphabet. They have them for travel, science, food, and just about everything.

A new alphabet book came out today that out does all of the other ones! If you are only going to buy one alphabet related book, then An Alphabet of Alphabets should be it! This is probably the best book out there for teaching younger children about the world, and about their letters.

I am an affiliate member of bookshop.org, so any purchases made through the links in this post will give a commission back to me.

An Alphabet of Alphabets is exactly what it sounds like. Each page is dedicated to a letter of the alphabet and discusses a subject or theme that begins with that letter. Then as you read through the page you find that it is filled with an alphabet’s worth of items that fit with that theme, For example, Y is for yellow things, and the Y page is filled with something yellow for each letter of the alphabet; K is for kitchen and the K page shows one thing you would find in a kitchen for each letter of the alphabet.

So in one book, you get 27 reviews of the alphabet while learning about 26 different subjects. And it is all done with pages that are filled with fun drawings that make me think of the seek and find books with all the different pictures.

I had so much fun reading this book, and I know that any child you know would have fun with it too.

Holiday Reading

Whether we like it or not, the holiday season is here. And as we prepare for gatherings that look a little abnormal this year, it is the perfect time to hold on to the traditions we still can or make some new ones. 

When my kids were little, one of their favorite things about the Christmas season was the stack of books that we had all about the holiday. We always kept them packed away with the decorations, so when the decorating started, the kids unpacked the books and spent hours going through them each day throughout the season. As the years have gone by, the kids have gotten older, and the book collection has slimmed down to the special few that were the ultimate favorites. So, as we get ready for the holiday season, I thought I’d share some of those favorites with you.

The Gingerbread Pirates was one of my son’s favorite Christmas books when he was little. There was a good few years where he was a bit obsessed with pirates, so this was the perfect book for him. The story follows the adventures of Captain Cookie as he tries to save his pirate crew from the legendary cookie eater named Santa Claus. It is an entertaining story for the adventurous little ones in your life.

My daughter loved Fancy Nancy when she was little, and Fancy Nancy’s Splendiferous Christmas has been read dozens of times over the years. In case you can’t tell by her name, Nancy is all about the glitz and glamour of life, but even during the holiday season, when everything is lit up and sparkling, you sometimes have to create the fancy in your world.

I am a huge fan of Gregory Maguire, and Hiddensee tells the story of the very first nutcracker. I read this one a few years ago, and I catch myself thinking about it as we head into the Christmas season every year. It is definitely a holiday book for adults to help you get into the spirit of things while also separating yourself from the kid’s books.

As a military family, The Soldier’s Night Before Christmas is a book that speaks to our family in a special way. We have had our share of spending the holidays apart due to military deployments. This book was helpful when the kids were tiny, as it explained that daddy was still able to celebrate Christmas even if he wasn’t home with us that year.

Hopefully, this list will inspire you to find a new Christmas read and to look forward to whatever your holiday season looks like this year. If you’ve got a favorite Christmas (or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa) book, I’d love to hear what it is so I can add it to my to-read list for next year.

 I am an affiliate member with bookshop.org and Amazon, so any purchases through the links in this post will give a commission back to me.