A New Chapter

I started another book club and I'm super excited about it.

I've made some awesome friends and 90% of them live in my neighborhood.  We get together all the time for play dates and happy hours and it's great.  But there are usually 800 children around and sometimes it's hard to feel like we are getting any real conversation in.  And I missed book club.

So I merged the two issues and proposed that we start a book club.

I was kind of convinced that everyone would laugh at me, but they were all in.  We had our first meeting this week and it lived up to all my expectations.

I'm beyond happy about this people.

We read Girl On The Train.  I served up Gin & Tonics (main character has a bit of a problem with them) and set up Gabe's train set (thanks for the idea Mama!).  Everyone liked the book, nobody loved it.  My favorite part of the night was listening to everyone try to tell the two that hadn't read it what it was about.  It was hilarious.

my little helper who hasn't touched this train set in a year but suddenly was very concerned about sharing it with his mother who shares her oreos with him every time.

Good Reads - March 2014

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

I bought this one awhile back and tossed it in my hospital bag.  The first week we were there, I didn't feel like my attention span was long enough to actually sit down and read.  But by week two, I was dying for something to occupy my brain.  I picked this up and was done with it in 3 days.  It was a really good story.

I won't give anything away, but it is a mystery and I wasn't able to predict the ending which was nice.  It's basically a story about mean girls in a upper class private school in New York.  This was an easy read, but not simple.  Great character development and maybe it's because I'm a girl, but I could really sympathize with the main character.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn wrote Gone Girl and Sharp Objects, both books I really loved.  Her stories are kind of dark and mysterious and usually have twist endings.  I like her writing style and alway like the characters.  This one was no different.  It was shorter than the other ones that I've read, but just as good.  I read it pretty quick.  It does have a lot of strong language, a few explicit parts, and there are some graphic parts.  Basically, if you think that would insult you, don't read this.  Probably should steer clear of all of Gillian's books.  But it is a good mystery that had me guessing until the end.

Good Reads - February 2014

Divergent Series (Divergent, Insurgent, Alligent) by Veronica Roth

Oh boy.  As a card carrying member of The Hunger Games Fan Club, this series came highly recommend to me.  And since the first movie comes out soon, I figured I'd better read the first book.  Well, ten days later I had finished all three books and my kids had no clean underwear.  I love, love, loved this series.  I was hooked on the characters right away.  The premise, without giving too much away, is that a city is divided into 5 different groups that all live very differently.  At age 16, kids have to pick if they will stay in the "fraction" they were born into or switch to another.  There are twists and turns and a crazy ending (that left me pretty bummed out).  They were good and if you liked The Hunger Games, I'm sure you'd like these.

The End of Molasses Classes by Ron Clark

I'm trying to read more non fiction.  I'll be honest though, it was really hard to get into a non fiction book after reading the Divergent series.  This book is a list of things that parents and teachers can do to inspire students to go beyond the status quo.  There are a lot of great ideas.  I skimmed over the teacher section since that had more to do with teachers in a school setting, but loved the parent section.  Some really good points on the importance of letting your kids fail and what it looks like to support them through it.  If you educate kids, this is a good book to pep you up.

Josie's Read Alouds

Well, I had planned to read The Bravest Dog Ever which looked like a great, true story but when Josie saw the cover she reminded me she is terrified of wolves and I guess Balto is a little too wolf like.  So I hit the library again and we went with A Year With Ms. Agnes instead.

The Last Unicorn

A few of Josie's friends are reading The Magic Treehouse series and so I thought we'd give them a try. This one takes place in New York City in the 1930's.  Josie liked the story and I really liked how they plug true facts in throughout the story.  She really liked how many pictures there were in this book.  I am sure we will read more from the series.

Good Reads - February 2014

12 Years A Slave by Solomon Northup

I wanted to see this movie, but had to read the book first.  If you haven't heard of it, this is the memoir of a black man that was born free yet still sold into slavery.  He was traded and moved around for 12 years.  This was a very different perspective from other books I've read on slavery.  It gives an inside glimpse to the slave trade market as well as what it was like on the different plantations.  It is a memoir so there were parts that were a little drug out, but I did enjoy this book.

The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch

Oh man, y'all.  This is our book club pick for this month and it was a good one.  The story takes place in the 1600's.  A child turns up dead with a strange tattoo on his body and the town quickly cries witchcraft.  The entire book is about the hangman of the village and a doctor trying to prove that it wasn't witchcraft all while the town is crying for the town midwife to be burned at the stake.  It's written well and, even though it was long, it was an easy read.

Educating the Whole Hearted Child by Clay & Sally Clarkson

This is a pretty standard read for homeschooling.  It goes over the importance of taking the whole child into account and not just the books.  It goes over different learning styles and how best to teach each one.  This book was really inspiring.  I recommend it to anyone that is homeschooling.

Josie's Read Alouds:

The Wheel On the School by Meindert DeJong

Still plugging away at Sonlight's First Grade Reading List.  This one was a book I had never heard of (and neither had anyone else I talked to).  It was really good!  It's an older book that takes place on a small Dutch island.  The story is about the six children that live in a village.  Their village is the only one around that doesn't have storks nesting on the roofs.  The children along with their teacher decide to find a wagon wheel to put on the steep roof of the school to try to get storks to come and nest there.  The children have adventure while searching for a wagon wheel.  Pretty much each chapter ends with an adult that they had thought was strange or unkind being a friend.  It is well written and we all really enjoyed it.  Warning:  This book is long for a children's book.  It took us all month to finish it.

Good Reads - November & December

Like everyone else in America, November and December were busy.  

I didn't fit in a ton of reading, but did squeeze in a few good ones.  I especially loved the books I read out loud to Josie these past couple of months.

The Late Homecomer by Kao Kalia Yang

This book tells the history of how the Hmong people came to America.  I grew up in Minnesota where there is a high population of Hmong people.  I thought this story was very interesting.  It is written more like a history book then a story.  It took me a little while to get into the writing style, but learning about this culture of people made me keep reading.  It's another story where it is hard to believe that this is how so many people live in the world.  The Hmong people came to America in the 80's so this is pretty recent history.  If you enjoy learning about other cultures, I recommend this one.

Garden of Stones by Sophie Littlefield

I hosted out book club this month and this was my pick.  It takes place after the attack on Pearl Harbor and follows the tragic events that happen to one Japanese family.  It is fictional, but the author did a lot of research on the internment camps so there was quite a bit of interesting history.  I haven't read much on this part of our countries past.  It took me about 200 pages to get really into it, but once I did I couldn't put it down.

Let's Go Straight To Bethlehem by Ray Pritchard

This was the devotional I picked for Advent.  I can't remember how I found it, but it was really good.  Pretty much the basic advent devotion style, a few paragraphs each day all focusing on the birth of Jesus.  The author had a unique view on a few of the verses and I really enjoyed.

The Book Thief by Mark Zusak

Our book club read this as our very first pick back in January of 2009.  Since it's about to be a movie and we are hitting our 4 year anniversary, we decided to read it again.  I hosted that first month and while we all liked the book, the questions at our meeting were, um, intense.  Like college essay type questions.  We don't know if it was because it was our first meeting or if they were really that hard.  I'm super excited to do the discussion again to finally get the answer to that!

This book is told by Death.  He narrates the story of a German girl and her foster family during World War 2.  I've read quite a few books about Jewish people during WW2, but this is the first I've read from the other side.  I really enjoyed this book.  Both the writing style and the actual story are great.  I can't wait to see how they do the movie next month.

Josie's Read Alouds

Homer Price by Robert McClowskey

Homer Price is a classic children's book.  I loved reading this one with Josie.  Homer is a young boy from a small town who has some interesting things happen to him.  Each chapter is a stand alone story. It was written in the early 1940's so the trouble he gets into is wholesome, which I appreciate since so many stories now a days aren't what I consider appropriate for 6 year olds.

Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary

Oh man.  I loved reading this one.  I grew up on Beverly Cleary books.  This one is all about a little boy named Henry who thinks his life is super boring.  Until one day he finds a dog and then everything gets a little more adventurous.  Josie and I both liked this one.

Happy Birthday Miss Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

We are big fans of Miss Piggle Wiggle here.  This is the fourth one we have read.  Well, we didn't technically read this one.  We listened to the audio tape on the way to visit my Dad in Florida.  Why have I never thought to do audio books on the drive down?!  Made the ride much more enjoyable and even Gabe sat still and listened.

Good Reads - November

Between Sundays by Karen Kingsbury

This was last month's book club pick.  This is the story of a little boy whose mother dies and he ends up in foster care.  A friend of his mother takes him in and raises him.  The boy is convinced that a football player is his dad, but nobody believes him.  At that same time that his story is going on, the story of the football player and his struggle to find himself is going on.  It's a christian fiction book, so no big surprises or crazy plot lines.  You pretty much know from that start who will end up together and how it will end.  Not my favorite book, but not an awful read.  I guess it's nice to have a happy ending every now and then.

Because half of our book club has had or is in the process of dealing with our state's foster care system, the discussion of this book was pretty good.  We have all had vastly different experiences so I thought it was really informative to talk about it all.

At Home In Dogwood Mudhole by Franklin Sanders
Volume One: Nothing That Eats

This was a review for the TOS Crew.  It's is written in the first person, sort of like a journal.  It gives the history of a family and talks a lot about war reenactment, which is a big part of their family life.  The family decides to go to a more simple way of life.  This was the first in a series so it didn't get too much into the story.  I did not love this book, but found the war facts interesting especially since it focused so much on the South.

The Scent of Rain and Lightening by Nancy Pickard

So after 2 books that really didn't capture my interest, I wasn't too excited to start our November book club pick.  But after the other girls told me how good it was, I decided to start and I LOVED this one!  It tells the story of a girl whose dad was murdered and mother disappeared when she was 3.  The book starts off in the past then jumps ahead to when she is a young adult.  The man everyone was convinced killed them is released from prison 23 years after the murder due to an unfair trial.  The whole book has you trying to figure out who actually killed them.  At the end of the book it goes back to the night of the murder and you find out who did it.

We've compared who we all thought did it and every one of us got it wrong.  I can't wait to discuss this one next week at our meeting.

Josie's Read Alouds

Gooney Bird and the Room Mother by Lois Lowry

We read the first book in this series last month and this one was just as cute.  Gooney Bird is such a lovable character.  A quirky second grader who loves to be the center of attention.  In this story, the class is putting on a Thanksgiving play and they need a room mother to bring in cupcakes.  Trouble is, nobody wants to be the room mom (can't imagine why!).  Gooney Bird finds the class a room mom, but won't tell anyone who it is.  This book is pretty short (only 10 chapters) and a really cute story.

Good Reads - October 2013

 I only finished one book this month, but it was along one so I'm ok with it.

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill

Y'all. This book was good. Really, really good. I always like history books that are able to transform me to a totally different era. This is that kind of book. It's almost 500 pages and had quite a few parts that I had to put it down and process what I was learning about our countries history. I totally get that it is a fictional story, but it still shows what I assume to be a very close to reality depiction. 

The story starts out with an old black woman who is serving as an ambassador for human rights in the early 1800s. From there it flashes back to when she was a young girl in a village in Africa. The book tells her entire life story, from her relationship with her parents, to getting kidnapped by African slave traders, to the voyage across the ocean to America, life on a plantation, to her escape to freedom. From there it shows how hard freedom was and what daily life was like for both races in that time. It follows her all the way to the end of her life and left me super satisfied with how it ended.  It was a good read. 

Desperate by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson

I'm counting this one since I technically did finish it thus month. I've been reading this one at a chapter a week with my small group at church. It is a parenting book with a Christian emphasis. The authors do a great job of making you feel normal even with all the crazy struggles we deal with on a daily basis. They focus a lot on giving yourself permission to not be good at all aspets of mothering.  It was good. Like most parenting books I've read, it started off rocking my world, but about halfway through started to feel repetitive and not as insightful. 

Josie's Read Alouds:

Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry

Josie and I are working through Sonlight's first grade read aloud list. So far we've loved every book from it. This month we read Gooney Burd. She. Is a second grader who just moved to a new school. It turns out she loves to tell stories, only absolutely true stories. Each chapter is a different story that she is telling the class. They are all funny stories and Josie loved them. As an added bonus, this boom also teaches kids the parts of a good story as well as how to add suspense and keep readers interested. Josie is working on writing her own Gooney Bird type story using the tips we learned in the book.  Warning: the chapters are on the long side.

There are 4 in the series so we went and picked up the next one last week.

Good Reads - August

Well, I followed last month's record high book consumption with a measly 2 books.  Let's blame vacation, school starting, and all the other activities that have us on the go.  I did start a 3rd, but it's a 550 page doozie so that will have to go on September's list.

Parenting With Love And Logic by Foster Cline & Jim Fay

I've been seeing this one around the interwebs and decided to read it.  While I did pick up a few pointers that are great (such as letting go of the control I don't need, meaning letting them make decisions that don't really effect me), I found that the majority of it was just unrealistic for my family.  It suggested giving kids "thinking words" and letting them come up with their own solutions and letting natural consequences be the teacher.  I agree with both of those in theory, but also feel that there are a lot of times that kids need a more immediate effect to their actions.  I did love the last half where they lay out a ton of real life problems with possible solutions using the Love and Logic method.  Made me feel like my parenting troubles must be pretty universal.

Mimosa Lane by Bob Perry

This is our book club book for this month and I really liked it.  The first few chapters give the family background for the main character, Rachael, who you don't meet until a few chapters later.  The book follows the tragic childhood of Rachael who's family came from a wealthy plantation but had lost it all by the time she was born.  Her mother was young and made a lot of really bad choices that left the girl to fend for herself.  Throughout the book, Rachael has to overcome a ton of obstacles and meets some great women who influence her life along the way.  It's a real coming of age book and is written in a way that makes you cheer her on.  It follows her entire life, which I loved.  It is set in the early 1900's and gave a good perspective of what it was like when Southern slaves were freed.  The chapters are super short so it was for sure one of those books where I stayed up way too late saying, "ok, just one more chapter."  We've had some excellent book club books this year and this is one of my favorites.

Bonus: it's only $3.99 on Kindle

And with Josie, I read:

Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater 

We are working our way through Sonlight's First Grade Reading List and this one was the first up.  It is a quirky story about a man that is obsessed with Antarctica.  After writing a letter to his favorite explorer who was stationed in the Antarctic, he receives a box as a thank you.  And in the box, a penguin!  The story is about how the Popper Family end up on the road with 12 penguins in a performing show.  It is really cute and we both enjoyed it.  We finished it last week and had a movie night to watch the movie with Jim Carrey as Mr. Popper.  Josie liked it, but liked the book better (that's my girl!).

Hope The Happiness Fairy by Daisy Meadows

Josie found these Rainbow Magic books at Barnes and Noble and became slightly obsessed.  Luckily, our library has quite a few in the series.  The Princess Fairy series is a cute little story about two girls that are staying at a castle for spring break.  The girls can see fairies and when the goblins steal the princess fairy's tiaras, the girls help the fairies get them back.  They are short (about 7 chapters) and easy to read.  Josie really liked the story.  And it was a good excuse to finally get around to making our fairy gardens that have been on our list all summer.

Good Reads - July 2013

So we cancelled our tv service which appears to have led to a serious book binge.  I read a ton this month.  Here's how I spent my down time:

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

This book is hard for me to explain so I'll just give you a quick rundown.  The book centers around a deaf-mute man and follows four people's story lines.  These four people have very different lives; one is a man wandering from town to town, one owns a diner, one is a black doctor, and one is a young girl.  The book is set in the South in 1940 and covers a wide range of topics from race, poverty, and the human condition.  I had a hard time following part one of the book but am so glad I stuck with it.  I really liked the rest of the book once I got the characters straight.  It was a book that made me think and I like that.

Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple

A few family members recommended this book and it was a good one.  It roped me in from the start.  It is about a mom who was a notorious woman.  Married to a big shot at Microsoft, Mother of a genius child, social outcast at the PTA of her daughters private school.  She is opinionated and a little bit crazy.  She is so antisocial that she hires an assistant that lives in India to do all her tasks.  Then she disappears.  The book is pretty much a compilation of letters, emails, documents, and other things that her daughter puts together trying to find where her Mom has gone.  I did not like the ending of this book at all, but the rest of it was a good read.

When I Found You by Catherine Hyde

This one is our book club pick for August and it is one of my favorites.  I'll be up in Minnesota the week of our meeting and I'm pretty bummed to miss it.  This is the story of a man who finds a baby in the woods one morning while he is hunting.  The man wants to keep the baby, but the police locate the maternal grandmother and she decides to raise the baby.  The grandmother doesn't share anything about the boy's story so he only knows what he overhears.  This leads to some big rebellion and the grandmother decides she cannot take any more and drops the teenage boy off at the man's house.  The majority of the story follows their relationship.  It was an emotional book for me for a ton of reasons and I thought it was very accurate to what a lot of kids have to deal with when they are abandoned or abused.  Josie was abandoned at the hospital by her birth mom so this really struck a cord with me.  I absolutely loved the way the book ended.  Highly recommend this one.

Unschooling Rules by Clark Aldrich

I love all books that have to do with schools and different options to reform them. This one isn't so much about how to reform the schools as it is how we need to refocus our thinking about schools.  The author gives 55 rules to unlearn what we think about school.  His rules are really good.  He doesn't spend the book browbeating our country's current education system, but he does point out truths about how kids learn and how schools fail to meet these needs.  Each rule is a chapter and only a page or two long which made this an easy book to read.  My highlighter worked overtime in this one.  I'm glad I read it before we start this school year since it reminded me of the things I want to focus on.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Earlier this year I read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and could not put it down.  I read it in record time and spent days after I finished thinking about it.  It was strange in an intriguing way.  I saw Sharp Objects on a late night Target run and tossed it in my cart.  I finally got around to reading it this month and it was even more addicting then Gone Girl was.  Same strange thriller type story line, same characters that pulled me in.  This one is a lot shorter then her other books and I finished it in a few days.  It's about a reporter from a small town that has a ton of her own issues.  After a rough childhood she moves to the city and doesn't return to her hometown.  Until girls begin to be murdered and she is sent home on assignment for the paper she works for.  You learn a lot about her family and where her issues come from and every chapter brings you deeper into the crazy home life she came from.  The ending was creepy.

*disclaimer: like Gone Girl, this book has some graphic parts and is a thriller.  if you're easily offended, you'll want to skip this one.  it's not the whole book or even a big part of it, but i wouldn't want you caught off guard.

Savannah Blues by Mary Kay Andrews

I read one of Mary Kay Andrews books last month and really liked it so I borrowed a few more from Darlene.  I couldn't decide if I liked this one or not.  It is about a woman in Savannah who finds out her husband is cheating.  They get a divorce but she refuses to move off the property and lives in the garage in the backyard while the mistress moves into the house with her ex-husband.  Did you follow that?  She is a picker for antique stores and while snooping around the biggest estate sale in Savannah, she discovers the body of the mistress.  The story sort of follows her love life, the estate sales, and the murder investigation.  It was OK.  Not one of my favorites, but still a good summer read.

Stewart Little by E.B. White

This was Josie's read aloud this month.  We are trying to find a balance between her reading to me and me reading to her.  This month it worked well for her to read to me before naps and me to do our read alouds at bedtime.  This book was really cute.  It's about a mouse that was born to a human family.  The first half of the book sets up his life and how he lives in a big human world and the second half is about him going on an adventure looking for his bird friend that has disappeared.  I never read this as a kid and thought is was really good.  Josie loved it too. When we finished it, we had a movie night and watched the movie Stewart Little.  It was nothing like the book, but we all still liked the movie.  Josie said the book was better.  Score!

Good Reads - June

Called Home by Karen DeBeus

I read this as sort of a morning devotional this month.  The chapters are short and were perfect to read while I had my coffee before starting our day.  This is written by a homeschooling mom.  It focuses on putting God first in our days and letting Him direct our homeschool.  The parts that stuck with me the most were where she talked about how often we make plans and then ask God to be with them instead of asking Him first what we need to focus on.  I also felt better about wanting to be home more and allowing us more free time here.  Society, especially around here, seems to say kids need to be in every sport and activity available.  We tried that road with Josie last year and it wore me out and made me crabby.  Through this book I saw that it's ok to say no and just enjoy being with my kids at home.  This was a good way to start my day and I recommend it as a devotional for homeschooling moms.

"Don't Make Me Count to Three!" by Ginger Plowman

I read this book when Josie was little, but she was such an easy toddler that I didn't put much thought into it.  Now I have Gabe and it hit a whole other cord with me this time.  My kids are both far from bad, but I hear myself yelling, "ONE, TWO, THREE!" way more than I want to.  I want my kids to obey and do it because it's the right thing to do.  This book is a lot like the highly recommended book Shepherding A Child's Heart, only it is written by a mom and has a lot more practical advice and more real life examples of how and when to use it.

Ladies Night by Mary Kay Andrews

I had heard of this author but never read any of her books.  Vicki picked this for our book club's July meeting and I read it in like 4 days.  I really liked it.  This is the story of a semi-famous lifestyle blogger who finds out her husband is cheating on her.  She drives his car into their pool which lands her in anger therapy.  Her husband shuts her out of their mansion home, her bank accounts, and her blog forcing her to start her life totally over.  She decides to fix up an old house and recreate her blog around that.  There are a few surprises and an overall good story line.  I ended up really liking the characters which always makes a book more fun for me.

And With Josie:

Sarah, Plain & Tall by Patricia MacLachan

We did a unit study on this book this month and all three of us really enjoyed it.  Sarah, Plain and Tall is about a family living in Kansas on a farm in the 19th century.  The mother dies (before the story really starts) and the dad advertises for a new wife.  Sarah, who lives in Maine, responds and comes to the farm.  Josie liked the story.  This was the first read aloud that we did discussion questions with and it really helped to get her to listen closely and think about what we were reading knowing there were questions at the end.

Hello, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

I finally went and got Josie another Mrs. Piggle Wiggle book.  The child is in love with these stories.  I really like them too, but feel a little bamboozled by this magical nanny this go round.  The chapters in the first book were long, but manageable.  In this book, I swear the chapters were about 20 pages.  And that's a lot when you've been going all day and desperately want to close the kids doors and clock out for the night.  I was a good sport though and found a way to use it to my advantage; if you want Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, you better be ready for bed 30 minutes early!  The stories in this one are just as great as the first book.  Each chapter tells about another naughty child and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle helps them behave.  The first book was more practical changes, this one had more medication type solutions.  Either way, they are awesome for starting talks about bad behavior and what the kid could do different. If you're up for that sort of thing after 20 pages at 9 PM!

Good Reads - May

French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon

I'm, like, 15% French so this seemed like required reading for me.  I have wanted to read it for awhile now and all the time I've been spending out in our garden has made me want to read about eating well. This book isn't a story, I guess it falls more under a memoir.  The author is married to a French man and they live in Vancouver with their two young daughters.  They decide to spend a year in France and this book follows the food rules she discovered in France.  Their food culture is drastically different than ours; no snacking, 2 hour long meals, kids eating strange sounding vegetables without crying about it.  She talks about how she got her own kids to be more adventurous and how she went from a fast food mindset to a slow food mindset.  I couldn't help but notice all the people that eat in their cars or give fussy kids food (myself included) to keep them quiet.  All big no no's in France.  I thought this was very interesting and I really liked how honest she was about the things she tried and what worked for her girls and what didn't.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

I started this book a couple of years ago but never finished it.  This is another book following a family's food journey.  This time, the family decides to only eat food that is in season locally.  A big part of me longs for the days of big family farms where you knew where your food came from.  Our little garden isn't nearly big enough to really feed us all Summer, let alone all year, but I wish it was.  I loved this book and thought it was really inspiring.  I originally thought this would be just about eating local, but it  really is about farming, raising animals, gardening, recipes, and supporting local farmers; all things that make my heart go pitter patter.  She really educated me on all parts of our food industry and what it does to the farms that are feeding us.  The author is obviously passionate about food and where it comes from. And I'll never look at buying bananas the same.

Save Me by Lisa Scottoline

This is June's book club pick for our group.  It's my turn to host and since I had to have my last turn at a resturaunt due to our crazy traveling last Fall, I'm super excited.  I've got a few fun themed ideas which makes me a bit giddy.

I bought this randomly at Target a couple months ago and thought it would be a good book to discuss so I saved it for book club.  It's the story of a mom who volunteers at her daughter's school.  Her daughter is being bullied and she wants to keep an eye on her.  While she's volunteering there is an explosion at the school.  She ends up being highly persecuted for the way she responds to getting the students out.  About half of the book is about the way the community responds to the explosion and to her, the second half turns into more of a who done it kind of mystery.  The first half I liked, even though it did have me spitting mad at times.  The second half I had to suspend all reality to read it.  It wraps everything up well at the end and the chapters are like two pages which I love.  I think book club will be fun with this pick.

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

Now, my reads were good this month, but Josie's read aloud takes the cake (except we aren't eating cake unless it's in season).  After we finished the Mercy Watson series, we had a couple duds that just didn't take off.  So I asked a few online friends to send me their recommendations for 6 year olds.  This one was at the top of the list and it was totally perfect.  Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is an older lady that has a special way with kids.  Think Super Nanny meets magic fairy.  In this book, each chapter focuses on a different childhood issue (not sharing, talking back, not eating your dinner).  The parent calls in Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle to help and she has some creative ways to teach kids to do the right thing.  Josie and I both laughed a lot in this one.  The chapters are a bit long, but I didn't mind staying up later to read since I was enjoying it too.  This is the first in the series and I can't wait to go get the next one.  I think that this will be a perfect gateway into constant read alouds for us.

Good Reads - April

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

This was borrowed from my own personal librarian, Amber.  She read it and liked it and I needed a book for our trip.  Unfortunately, vacationing with two small children didn't leave a lot of free time for poolside reading.  I ended up reading most of it when we got back and I thought it was a good story.  This one is about a a pharmaceutical company that is developing a fertility drug in the Amazon.  There's a story with some good characters going on in the background, but the general theme is just because something is possible doesn't mean we should do it.  My only complaint about the book is that the chapters are super long and I have a hard time putting a book down in the middle of one so it led to some late nights.

The Year of Learning Dangerously by Quinn Cummings

This is a book written by a mom that pulls her daughter out of public school and home schools.  It is hilariously true to real life which is refreshing after reading a million homeschool books where the moms seem to have it all together.  She tries pretty much every method and writes about her inadequacies, her daughter being smarter than she is, and the bliss that comes from realizing grocery shopping can count as school.  The last chapter was my favorite.  She talks a lot about the current state of US schools and where she thinks it's headed in the future.  I'm in the same boat with Quinn in thinking that it will be a mix between traditional schooling and homeschooling.  I loved it and recommend it to anyone who is homeschooling and can laugh at themselves.

Carry On, Warrior by Glennon Melton

Y'all.  This book.  It ruined me in the best way.  Glennon shares her story is such a real way.  She calls us forward to keep moving, keep trying, keep breathing.  To let go.  To forgive others and ourselves constantly.  I was hooked from the prologue.  Her story was so close to mine, it was alarming.  I've shared here before that I am a former meth addict who dabbled in a little bit of everything before my parents literally sent me away to save me.  I was high functioning and most people didn't have a clue the kind of life I was living.  Like Glennon says, "sometimes people that need help look a lot like people who don't need help."  She writes about life after sobering up and how hard it was, but more than that, how much life there was.  She spoke my heart sharing how much each day can be savored.  I feel that way everyday and know that it comes across as hokey and not real, but it think it's just a result of nearly losing it all.  The book isn't just about overcoming addictions.  It's about being real and letting other people be real.  I wish I could recommend this book enough, but I can't so just read it.

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker

This is our May pick for book club.  After reading the Amazon reviews I didn't think I'd like it, but I did.  I think I'd call it a love story.  It's about a man that grew up in Burma and during childhood becomes blind.  He faces a lot of hardships, but than he meets a girl that can't walk and they form a bond that helps both of them overcome their handicaps.  Without giving too much away, they are separated and live separate lives for 50 years and then he goes back to find her.  It was a really easy read with short chapters.  I think the discussion will be good at our meeting too so that's always fun.