reading life – A(nother) Year of Reading

Loving my Reading Week

So, I seem to have gotten past my reading slump and have found lots of joy in my reading this week. I do not typically read more than one book at a time but I do have an audio going (sometimes) at the same time I am reading a book. I am not a great listener, so I am limited in my choices in audio–usually nonfiction, self-help, memoir, etc. It is hard for me to choose fiction when choosing an audio book.

So this week I started Let’s Call Her Barbie by Renée Rosen on audio. I thought it was a nonfiction book, but turns out it is historical fiction and I am loving it. It is the story of how Barbie came to be and includes many of the real people involved in her creation. I am only a few hours in but love thinking back to this. It’s a good audio. I love the creative process being slowed down for me as the reader–I always appreciate a good story about the creative process! And knowing how it turns into such a success while reading makes it more fun. I also love reading the backstory of a toy I loved growing up. And there is something about this work being done in a time when women didn’t have a ton of rights–women involved in the creation and then Barbie, the toy, having an impact on girls and their dreams. Seems timely to me to remember that everyone’s work impacts change–there are so many ways to impact our world for the better.

The other book I am reading and enjoying is One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon. I have loved Yoon’s young adult books so decided this was a good pick. I was hooked right away. I like a lot about this book and am anxious to spend some time reading this weekend.

Finally, I picked up Whale Eyes by Brian Rea today and was so happy when I flipped through it to see the unique format-the visuals, the colors, etc. I nearly squealed when Bryan at Cover to Cover showed me the design under the dust jacket because I love when that is a smidge surprising. Not sure when I’ll get to this one but I think it will be soon.

And I got a notice from Bookshop today that Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins should be delivered today!

Hope you are having a good reading week!

Slice of Life-Books that Stay with Me

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

It is very common for me to finish a book and then forget the details (and sometimes even the main plot) a few weeks after I’ve finished. I enjoy these books but nothing about them is powerful enough to stay with me. Then there are the books whose characters stay with me forever.

Lately, I find myself thinking back to a few picture books as I watch the news. Books that were so powerful, they have stuck with me for years. Sadly, I did not learn much history in school and did not love it as a young adult. But then as I collected books for my classroom library as an elementary teacher and school librarian, I learned so much from the picture books I read. It is interesting the ways picture books can build background knowledge, even at my age. I could learn just enough to learn what I didn’t know that I needed to learn and then I can move beyond that and dig deeper. Two picture books have been taking up lots of my thinking lately because they were powerful learning for me and they are very timeline today.

I Am an American: The Wong Kim Ark Story by Martha Brockenbrough and Grace Lin is a story about the Supreme Court case that solidified birthright citizenship. This decision has guaranteed birthright citizenship since 1898.

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything by Annette Bay Pimentel tells the story of Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins and her participation in the Capital Crawl when she was eight years old. This event was a critical step toward the American with Disabilities Act. Keelan-Chaffins has spent her life advocating for disability rights.

The third book that has been popping into my thoughts more often than usual is The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs. It is not a picture book but it is one of the books that helped me understand so much history that I had not learned. I listened to the audio book and it was incredible. (I noticed that Anna Malaika Tubbs has a new book coming out in May–which I will sure preorder!)

So today, in the midst of all that is happening in our country, I am so grateful for these authors who write these important stories that have stuck with me over time. Each one helped me begin to understand history and how so many people have fought over centuries for things that we take for granted now.

My Life as a Binge-Reader

I sat down to read a book I’d been excited about the other day but I couldn’t get into it and I didn’t have hours to read so I just quit. I do this often lately. I am not sure what’s happened but my reading habits have changed in a way that I don’t love. I have always loved being immersed in a book and living with the characters for a week or two. I’ve been reading books for as long as I can remember and I clearly remember living alongside Nancy Drew, Betsy, Harriet and others throughout my childhood. I loved reading a bit each night before bedtime so that the story lived with me until I could get back to it. And that continued until just a couple years ago.

Over the last few years, something has changed. I have become a kind of binge reader. I want to read for hours at a time–read a whole book on a weekend–or not start a book at all. And it makes no sense.

Over the last several years, I have read a lot-pretty much the same number of books as always-but I can’t say I am always reading something. It is something new I’ve just realized and I don’t like it. I like living my days in the midst of a story that I’ll get back to each day. I’m not sure what happened. It has been a slow process and I am just now realizing how much I miss always having a book and lingering with a book rather than rushing through.

I have started so many books over the last months, books I just didn’t have hours to read at one time. So, I just quit. That is not who I am (or who I want to be) as a reader. I am not sure when this speed-reading goal came about but I am going to work at getting back to it. It will probably mean putting down my phone at bedtime, finding different times during the day to read and being okay with reading a few pages at a time. I like a good binge read once in a while but I don’t want binge reading to be my whole reading life. We’ll see how it goes.