April Books

I think my reading highlight of April was getting to attend the North Texas Teen Book Festival! I took Arden and Turner with me and we had SUCH a fun time getting to hear from a bunch of well-known authors, including our absolute favorite: Karina Yan Glaser who wrote the Vanderbeekers series (she was so kind to chat with us and take a picture with the kids!). We also met Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (who wrote The War The Saved My Life, a book that Arden listened to and really enjoyed), and bunch of other authors whose books are now on our to-read list! The kids were pumped to hear from Wings of Fire author, Tui T. Sutherland, and I absolutely fan-girled at a panel that had both Jennifer Lynn Barnes & Katharine McGee!!!

Kid Reads: 

We finished another Dimwood Forest book: Ereth's Birthday (focused on the lovable, gruff porcupine who thinks everyone forgot his birthday & ends up saving a litter of kits - baby foxes). Loved this one! The Tiny Hero of Ferny Creek Library was a recommendation from an indy bookstore in Ft. Worth and it was SUCH a cute story! We are still talking about the tiny green hero, Eddie, and all his adventures - we just love books that talk about books & the love of reading. 

Top reads this month: 

The Inheritance Games - Cinderella-esque middle-grade novel with short chapters, riddles, puzzles, mystery & a love triangle. It's not deep, but super cute and I loved it. Getting to hear from the author at the book festival was SO fun...and I'm already listening to #2 in the series!

Berlin Letters - Cold War, historical fiction, multiple timelines, CIA...espionage...code breaking...this was a great one! I don't think I've read any historical fiction novels specifically around the Berlin wall before - always love digging into a new time in history. I particularly loved the end being tied up with a bow (tho not always realistic, it's my favorite!).

Frozen River - Another historical fiction novel (my fav genre!), this one about a midwife in the late 1700s. Besides the storyline of normal chaos that comes along with midwifery (Call the Midwife anyone!?), there were also plot-points of murder, rape, trials, and lots of other 1700-era drama.

Garlic & Sapphires - I was excited to read another by Ruth Reichl after loving the Paris Novel last month, and this one was great too! So fun reading about her wild disguises she'd put on so she could review restaurants without being recognized. Lots of great (and delicious) food descriptions!

Honorable Mentions:

The Mystery Guest - Pretty similar to the first one, but I have a soft spot in my heart for sweet Molly (I loved Amelia Bedelia as a kid) so I enjoyed it anyway!

The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder - If you’re a Little House fan (like I am!), this is such a great book that dives into the historical details of Laura - and Rose’s life. I loved learning more about what life was like then, for both women. I was fascinated to discover that Laura and Charles traveled so much as they got older, and downright shocked to learn that Rose literally traveled across the country and to Europe - numerous times! In my mind these characters stopped in time where the books ended (& that's so not the case!), and so I loved learning more about them. I also didn’t realize quite how successful Rose was as an author, and how much she helped her mom make the Little House books what they are today. The only warning I’d give on this book is that is super flower/gardening heavy - but the beautiful pictures make up for the occasionally dense agricultural parts. I was excited to see that MM has written other similar books on some of our favs…Beatrix Potter, Secret Garden, etc - can’t wait to read those!

 

What a good month of books!

Somehow I read 17 again - not my normal number.

It's such a joy to sit down and revisit what I liked (and disliked, ha!) about each book I read (or listened to!) this month. 

Recommend: Phoenix Crown & Zero Days - two of my FAV authors and both of these were FAB (former: historical fiction around the San Fran Earthquake of 1906, and latter: a thriller about a hacker trying to solve her husband's murder). The Paris Novel is a francophile's dream: the most gorgeous descriptions of French food and art and fashion in the 1980s (pub date 4/23!). The Many Lives of Mama Love (our April book club pick!) was one of THE best books I've read this year - absolutely gutwrechingly raw memoir of Lara Love Hardin's life (an addict who ended up in jail but manages to turn her life completely around). Couldn't put this one down & has forever changed the way I view addiction & incarceration. Amanda Skenandore has been added to my list of fav historical fiction authors, and her newest novel, centered around the Galveston hurricane of 1900, was a really great read. 

Honorable Mentions: The Seven Year Slip (time travel right-person-wrong-time romance), & The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard (multi-generational Parisian fashion historical fiction). 

Kid Reads. 3 family readalouds: another one of the Penderwicks (absolutely darling family series that we just love so much), an "I Survived" (not our normal readaloud speed, but absolutely timely for us as we read it while IN Galveston over spring break), and our top favorite: Nothing Else But Miracles (WW2 historical fiction, set in NYC, about 3 sweet siblings waiting for their dad to return from war - SO GOOD). Arden and I finished the 2nd Sarah Plain & Tall ("Skylark" - the family is forced to spend time in Main to escape the prairie drought), and Turner and I finished the 2nd Dimwood Forest book ("Poppy & Rye" - where we follow the adventures of our heroine mouse and her porcupine friend as they defeat the beavers). 

Nonfiction. Everyone should read Atomic Habits! Such a good book with so many good takeaways (and step by step methods) about how to make habits actually stick and become part of who you are. Lasting habits (ie parts of your identity) get formed from tiny small changes. 

Evelyn's Birth Story 7.15.19

After we had Arden, our baby #1, I thought I'd never forget the details of her birth day. I mean how can you? Especially with your first precious baby! And yet, as sleep deprivation set in and as time went on, the very specific parts of her story started getting a little blurry. Sure, we knew the big picture, the overarching story, but when exactly did we get to the hospital? What was that funny thing the nurse said once we hit hour 9 of labor? Etc. So, with Turner, baby #2, I was determined to get the details down on paper (or more accurately, on my computer!) so that we'd have everything straight (his birth story is here) - and we did the same thing with Evelyn, our tie-breaker baby #3. Here is her story:

To set the scene: my due date, Friday 7 /12, came and went and our little family got to have one last fun weekend together, just the 4 of us - details to bring you up to speed are over on my 40-week bumpdate (and all previous bumpdates can be found here).