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| so many books... image here |
How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind - I read this last year, just a short time after the woman who had been cleaning for us the past few years retired, so it was great timing! It was silly and a little over-the-top but I think it is probably one of my favorite cleaning/organizing books I've read. I still think about little bits of it, like her very basic discovery - ''people who have clean dishes wash the dishes' (Meaning, there is no secret trick to it, you just have to do the work) I think I especially liked it because I'd just finished a completely opposite book that made me feel like I was a pretty terrible housekeeper, and this made me feel like 'I'm doing fine, and I can do better' which is always a happier feel.
A Week in the Woods - An Andrew Clements book that we had on our shelf, and I can't remember any details a year later :)
Lost and Found - Same as above!
Higher Power of Lucky - Ha, I read the little goodreads description to remind myself what this was, and it was barely familiar!
Simply Clean - I'm pretty sure this was the 'completely opposite' book :) I'm sure there may be another season of life when I'd enjoy a book like this more.
Countdown - This one's just barely familiar with help from the book description, I think it took place during the cold war...
The Screwtape Letters - We read this for book group and I really enjoyed it. Lots of little bits stuck with me. Right now I'm thinking of a bit about the effort to make people think that all the frivolous distracting things in life are real life so that they miss what actually matters.
The One Who Took the Really Long Nap - I think these fairy tale's by Wendy Mass are just pretty fun. Very light and silly.
Hold Fast - These Blue Balliett books are really different, but I always do enjoy them. This one is a bit fuzzy, but I think I really liked it -- here's one bit: “People get distracted by worries and sadness, and have to struggle to see anything else. They have to work hard to hold on to beauty, to hold fast to dreams and words”
Bluffton - Ha. Almost every one of these I'm having to look up to remember what it even was! This one looks familiar, but I'd have to read it again to remember anything I think.
Night - Another book group pick, this one about the Holocaust. And all the time I was reading it I had it confused with another I'd read years and years ago. And so I kept waiting for the positive spin and the 'seeing the good' in a terrible situation perspective that I remembered, but it didn't come (And then I finally went and found the book I was confusing it with!)
Moo - I really love Sharon Creech, so even this book all about a cow I actually enjoyed. :)
13 Gifts - Another fun, light Wendy Mass book.
The Girl who Drank the Moon -- I loved this. I'll have to read it again soon, but it was really great. And Landon read it at the same time so it was fun to enjoy it along with him. So many interesting things to think about from it.
QB: My life behind the spiral - I still think it is funny that I even read this book. It's an autobiography by Steve Young, and actually I skipped over all of the football parts (ha!) and really enjoyed the book! I think he's just an interesting person, and I really enjoyed his stories.
All the Answers - This was a cute idea with a magical pencil that could answer any question you wrote... i remember liking the idea, but I can't remember beyond that (hmm... I'm seeing a pattern here...)
Brown Girl Dreaming - Should I just skip the books I have to look up to remember?
The One and Only Ivan - I've read this twice now, and I think I liked it a little better the second time.
Okay For Now - I love this book so much. I think this second time I read it with Jordan which is even better than reading alone.
Understanding Poverty - I don't remember too much (surprise) but I do remember feeling like this was interesting and helpful to read, and stopping throughout to tell Jordan about little bits and pieces I was reading.
Victoria with Kids - Ha! The travel guide for last summer's vacation :)
Ramona and her mother - I read this with Ellie last summer for our summer school time. It was really fun to just read one-on-one with each of the kids and get to spend that focused few minutes with each of them each day.
Wonder - This was Landon's summer book last year, and I enjoyed it even more reading it with Landon than on my own.
Walk 2 Moons - I listened to this on a few longer car rides, and it was fun to hear this favorite.
At Home In the World - I've followed Tsh's blog for a long time, and this was a fun record about her families 9 month's of life traveling the world. I listened to her podcast recently and she mentioned again how the highlights of their trip for her kids were those times when they kind of put down roots for a bit and stayed in one place/lived regular life for a little while. I loved this. I loved our New York trips where I went for the week with Jordan and we'd sight see on the weekend and then all week he would work and I'd just live life with the kiddos with just a bit of extra exploring. But things like taking walks, visiting the library, grocery shopping... Those are really sweet memories for me.
The Danish Way of Parenting - This looks like a great pick from the cover (and only vaguely familiar. I guess at least I have another list of books here to read again since I remember so little about them!)
French Kids Eat Everything - Books like this kind of stress me out. I'd feel better if it was called "Some/Most/Lots of French Kids Eat Everything but you're probably still a great parent even if you try all these tips and they don't seem to work..."
Ella Enchanted - We listened to this with the kids on a few car rides, another fun one to listen to since it was already a favorite.
Goodness. A year of books is too much to write about all at once...
The Boy who Harnessed the Wind - I loved this. We read it for book group and I thought it was fabulous. I watched his Ted talks and was just super impressed and inspired.
12 Finally - Another fun Wendy Mass
Nothing but the Truth - I remember really liking this as a kid, so I re-read it and it was fine but not so fabulous. I felt much more like I sympathized with the adults of the story more than I remember feeling before :)
Talented Clementine - I love Clementine, and Ellie has now read all of these too which makes me happy!
A Long Way Home - This was a crazy true story of a boy lost in India who was adopted and raised by an Australian family and who later went back and found his home and his mother. Amazing, right?
Capital Gaines - I can't remember the details, but I know I liked this. I can remember reading it on the little bench while the kids were in swim lessons :)
Clementine and the Family Meeting - Hooray for sweet books like this!
Keepers of the School Series - This is a cute Andrew Clements series, I'm still waiting to catch the last book at the library to see how it turns out. I really liked these.
The Vanderbeekers on 141st Street - very cute story. And I read it soon after we went to New York and stayed in a Brooklyn brownstone, so it made the story come alive as I could really imagine where they were living! I'm hoping for more stories about this cute family.
Danger Box - Another fun Blue Balliett story, which I can't remember at all but I'm sure was probably interesting...
Mr. Lemoncellos' library - One of Landon's books that I borrowed, he loved all the book references, and I thought those were fun too. I'm happy to see this one because it reminds me I was going to read the sequels!
For the Love - This was a fun collection of essays by Jen Hatmaker.
The Man who Invented Christmas - I was really excited to read this one, but it was actually pretty slow for me. But still fun to get some back story and history about the famous author. (I also tried watching this on a flight, but again didn't love it)
Esccape from Aleppo - The thing that struck me most about this was that it was happening almost just right now. Usually a book like this would be a history book about something long ago, but this was just a few years ago!
Hope in the Holler - I can't remember the details, but I know I liked this one.
The More of Less - An interesting book about minimalism. I like his blog with stories and such about minimalism too. I have to be careful about not reading too much like this or I start to feel discontent with our home full of the treasures of 7 different people :) For example, he tells a story of a Saturday garage clean-out and how it led him to minimalism, so every time we clean out the garage, I wonder 'are we doing this wrong?' even though I know in this case all these bikes and trailers and scooters really do bring our family a lot of happiness...
It's like this cat -- This was a newberry I hadn't read so I tried it out, and I didn't really like it so well.
The Littles - I read this with Owen this summer, and he liked it so much, so I really enjoyed it too!
Boxcar Children - This was Ellie's book this summer, and it was fun to share it with her. I loved how sweetly grateful the kids were with every tiny little thing!
Whoosh!
