Readaloud of the Week: The Bad Guys
When you need a silly readaloud that will have everyone giggling, this book about a Big Bad Wolf determined to be a good guy (even if he has to be bad to do it!) delivers.
THE BAD GUYS by by Aaron Blabey
Sometimes, you just need a book that you can count on to make everyone laugh out loud, and that’s definitely what you get with The Bad Guys. Fans of funny elementary chapter books like Captain Underpants or The Stinky Cheese Man will be glad to discover a new silly series, but there’s a good chance everyone in your family will be giggling at this story.
Mr. Wolf (whose villainous ways you may remember from Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs) is tired of everyone thinking he’s the bad guy, so he decides it’s time to reform his reputation. This is no easy task for a fairy tale villain, of course, so Mr. Wolf enlists the help of a few of his good friends: Mr. Snake (also known as the Chicken Swallower), Mr. Piranha (also known as the Butt Biter), and the notorious Mr. Shark. Together, this band of bad guys hatches the ultimate do-gooder scheme: Rescue to 200 dogs from the Maximum Security City Dog Pound. What could possibly go wrong?
Go into this read knowing that this book prioritizes the punch line above all else — including plot, character development, narrative continuity, and literary quality. Funny is the point, and there’s plenty of funny. With minimal text and witty illustrations, The Bad Guys is also a good gateway book for a reluctant reader, who may well pick it up for a reread after your readaloud. Mostly, though, it’s a book you can laugh your way through together, and when your homeschool needs a little dose of laughter, this book is a solid bet.
Quotable: “What do you do if a cat is stuck in a tree?”
“Eat it.”
New Books Roundup :: January 2018
What's coming to your library's "new releases" shelf: a delightful fantasy from the Netherlands, a wintry mystery full of puzzles to solve, a magical fantasy set in a world where the ordinary is extraordinary, and more.
As part of my resolution to do a better job keeping up with reviewing new books in 2018, I’m going to dedicate one Friday each month to rounding up interesting new books you might spot on your library’s “new releases” shelf.
THE SONG OF SEVEN by Tonke Dragt
Technically, this isn’t a new book, but since it’s newly translated into English (reading challenge bingo square!), I say it counts. I also say it’s utterly delightful, and you should probably get your name on the library hold list, stat. I have fallen in love over the past couple of years with the weird sweetness — I don’t know how else to describe it — of Scandinavian children’s literature, and I can see that I am going to have to broaden my reading horizons to the Netherlands, too, now.
Frans van der Steg leads the least adventurous life imaginable — except for in his fantastic stories, which keep his class of mischievous students spellbound while he’s telling them. So when Frans gets a mysterious job offer that launches him into an even more mysterious adventure, he’s equal parts delighted and terrified. Frans finds himself tutoring a not-particularly-nice count’s charge at their isolated mansion just outside of town — a job, he discovers, that he’s been hand-selected to do by the boy’s friends in town, who are determined to get him away from his evil guardian. Mixed up in all this is the mystery of the treasure hidden by the mansion’s original count, which legend tells only this particular young boy can discover. Frans must figure out the clues, forge new alliances, and convince his new student that he’s on his side before time runs out.
There are lots of wonderfully weird bits — a happy forest dweller and an anarchistic biker might actually be the same person, a card trick-playing man might actually be a magician, and the mansion’s staircase maze interior creates moments both spooky and hilarious. I love the old-fashioned vibe of the language, which echoes both classic fairy stories and the swashbuckling stories Frans tells his students at school. Geert-Jan, the lonely heir and Frans’ new student, is both lonely and rebellious, and his developing letters-based relationship with the students in Frans’ class is one of the sweetest parts of the book. There’s a motley cast of characters, good and bad, and Frans is a likable hero — choosing an adult to anchor a late elementary/middle grades book like this is an unconventional choice, but something about it really works for me. I’m going to be recommending this to everyone.
(I just discovered that there is a Dutch television series based on this book that’s supposed to stick pretty closely to the story, and I cannot rest now until I get my hands on a copy.)
THIS IS NOT A LOVE LETTER by Kim Purcell
This is not a great book. There’s a lot of good stuff here: issues of class, race, and mental illness, which feel relevant and important. I like the set-up of the book, which consists of Jessie’s letters to her boyfriend — her smart, athletic, star student boyfriend, who also happens to be black in a very white town — after he goes missing after a jog. (While they were dating, he wrote her a love letter every day.) I think Jessie’s character, grown up just south of comfortably middle class, has a believable voice. I mean, I even like the cover, which has a wistfulness that promises good things. It just didn’t come together into a good book for me. Maybe it was the editing? It’s tricky with epistolary novels (which this counts as, I think, so reading challenge bingo!), I know, because you have to balance writing believable correspondence with moving a story forward clearly, but I don’t think this book found that particular line very often. Not a winner for me.
WINTERHOUSE by Ben Guterson
I quite liked this middle grades book, though it feels a little like The Mysterious Benedict Society Lite, which may just be an unfortunate publishing coincidence. Still, if you resist the urge to compare it to the adventures of Reynie et al and read this book on its own merits, it’s fun read with an engaging central mystery and lots of likable characters.
Orphan Elizabeth Somers hasn’t had a happy Christmas for as long as she can remember, and this one promises to be the worst yet: Her awful aunt and uncle are shipping her off to a hotel in the middle of wintry nowhere with no suitable cold weather gear and no spending money for food or anything else. Winterhouse Hotel, a warm, welcoming place full of friendly faces, delicious meals, and a generous staff, turns out to be a delightful surprise, and Elizabeth can’t decide if she’s happier about the hotel’s marvelous library (she loves to read) or her new friend Freddy, who’s also spending Christmas alone and who shares Elizabeth’s love of word games. Everything would be perfect if it weren’t for the creepy couple who seem to be paying a little too much attention to Elizabeth and the book she shouldn’t have stolen from the library’s restricted section.
The big-picture mystery is a little unpolished and some of the more obvious plot twists feel like they drag out forever, but the strength of this book is in its quotidian charm. Elizabeth’s bookish inner monologue is a pleasure to follow, and the daily rhythms of Winterhouse come to life so that you, too, feel like a guest at this charmingly over-the-top holiday hotel. I loved the little scenes, exploring the hallways or visiting the kitchen, and the little moments, like Elizabeth and Freddy’s scavenger hunt, much more than the big reveals or adventure. And kudos to this book, which is already showing up on Goodreads as Winterhouse #1, for ending on a solid resolution — sure, it’s clear that more adventures could follow, but it definitely does not indulge in my middle grades lit pet peeve of ending the first book on a giant cliffhanger. I’d recommend this to bookish kids who enjoyed The Greenglass House or Pseudonymous Bosch.
THE BONE THIEF by Alyson Noel
Here’s another middle grades book that might scratch a fantasy loving kid’s readerly itch.
Grimsly is the only regular kid in Quiver Hollow, where being extraordinary is the norm. His friend Ollie can bend spoons just by looking at them. Another friend can levitate at will. The waterfalls flow up, and magic is everywhere. Still, orphaned Grimsly feels like he’s found his niche with his adopted wizard guardian and his part-time job as pet funeral director. In fact, he’s one of the most popular kids at his school — which, he worries, may be causing major problems when the town’s magic starts to drain away. The problem turns out to be even more sinister, and Grimsly must set out on a quest to restore the weirdness to his adopted hometown before it disappears forever.
The best thing about this book is its Tim Burton-ish vibe, which resonates through the book in weird and delightful ways. It’s fun to see the trope of a magical kid in the real world subverted: Grimsly’s total ordinariness is completely out of place in the fantastic community of Quiver Hollow, but it may turn out to be what makes him special. There’s a little icky creepiness, a deliciously evil headmaster at a particularly nasty school, and just enough danger and tension to keep you on the edge of your seat, but it’s the world building and the characters that really shine. The worst thing? The villain feels a little cartoonish — his motives aren’t satisfactory at all — and there are a lot of questions that never get answered about Grimsly’s origins and family history. (There are hints and explanations, but they don’t really gel into anything coherent by the end of the book.) Also: I am not a fan of people murdering rabbits, even — perhaps especially? — in literature. Save the rabbits! But definitely consider this book for a middle grader who isn’t quite ready for something like Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children or Neil Gaiman’s more grown-up stuff.
THE IMMORTALISTS by Chloe Benjamin
I read this because I kept seeing it mentioned everywhere, and I was ready to fall in love with it — but alas, it wasn’t for me.
The premise is interesting enough: Four siblings visit a fortune teller in 1969, and she tells them when each of them is going to die. All four kids become obsessed by what she’s told them, and the fortune teller’s prediction shapes their lives in significant ways. Would you want to (maybe) know your fate? It’s an interesting idea, but the execution didn’t work for me. Maybe part of that isn’t the book’s fault — from the descriptions, I expected some elements of magical realism that never emerged, so I felt like the story left me kind of hanging. But I don’t think my expectations were the only problem: A lot of what happens in this book ends up feeling kind of trite and even a little manipulative (which wouldn’t bother me so much if the heavy-handed emotional manipulation were actually effective, but it’s mostly not), and I never really connected with the characters. Not my favorite, but some people have raved about it, so I could just be missing the point.
Library Chicken Update :: Top 10 Fiction Books Read in 2017
Suzanne's best fiction reads of last year include more than one addictive series, plus haunted houses, Sherlock homages, classic Hollywood in space, and more.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
It’s still January, right? Which means there’s still time to sneak in one last Top Ten Favorites List before tackling all the books on The Millions Great 2018 Book Preview or trying to catch up with everything on the 2018 Tournament of Books shortlist. So if you’re looking for some great fiction to read this year, here are my suggestions!
TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING: BOOK ONE OF TERRA IGNOTA by Ada Palmer
It does feel just a bit risky to put book one of a trilogy on a top ten list when I haven’t read books two and three yet. I’ve been burned before by trilogies that started out amazing and went rapidly downhill. But Palmer’s vision of the 25th century — written in the style of an 18th century novel — was too wonderful to leave off the list. I can’t wait to read her follow-ups: Seven Surrenders and The Will to Battle.
THE IMPERIAL RADCH series by Ann Leckie
One science fiction series that I did read in its entirety in 2017 was Leckie’s space opera trilogy: Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy. We follow our protagonist to a satisfying conclusion at the end of the series, but Leckie’s galactic empire is big enough to hold many other tales, and I’m looking forward to reading Provenance, a new novel set in the world of the Imperial Radch.
THE SMALL CHANGE trilogy by Jo Walton
Walton goes back in time to rewrite history in her Small Change series, which imagines a near-fascist England after Germany is victorious in World War II. Farthing, Ha’Penny, and Half a Crown are alternate histories that read like thrillers, and (unfortunately) they felt particularly relevant in 2017.
THE SUPERNATURAL ENHANCEMENTS by Edgar Cantero
I love haunted house stories. I love epistolary novels. Cantero thoughtfully puts these two genres together for me in The Supernatural Enhancements, so of course I because an instant fan (and early reader of his Cthulhu vs. Scooby Doo follow-up, Meddling Kids.)
WHITE IS FOR WITCHING by Helen Oyeyemi
Another haunted house story — plus this one has creepy twins, so you know it’s going to be awesome. It was hard to pick just one Oyeyemi to put on the list, given that I spent 2017 binging through her backlist, but this was the first novel I read by her and it’s unforgettable, along with being super-creepy in the best way.
RADIANCE by Catherynne M. Valente
Space whales, lunar movie studios, and a private investigator on the trail of a missing filmmaker: this novel is almost impossible to describe as it jumps from film noir to silver-screen gossip columns to serious Oyeyemi-level creepiness. Try to hold on to something sturdy when you’re reading it.
THE INTUITIONIST by Colson Whitehead
Before the zombies of Zone One and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Underground Railroad, Whitehead wrote this strange and moving story of the first black female elevator inspector and her involvement in the great schism between the Empiricists and the Intuitionists. I would not have guessed that anyone could make the philosophy of elevator inspection fascinating enough to carry me through an entire novel, but I should know better than to underestimate Whitehead.
ALVA AND IRVA: THE TWINS WHO SAVED A CITY by Edward Carey
I’ve noticed that “weird” seems to have been a theme for my 2017 reading, but even among the other odd and bizarre entries on this list, Carey’s novel stands out. Alva and Irva are twin sisters obsessed with the scale model they’ve created of the city they live in, Entralia. Carey is best known for his Iremonger trilogy (for younger readers), but his earlier adult novels are also great (and very strange) reads.
DUST AND SHADOW: AN ACCOUNT OF THE RIPPER KILLINGS BY DR. JOHN H. WATSON by Lyndsay Faye
Sherlock, Watson, and Jack the Ripper: this is the best post-Conan-Doyle Holmes novel I’ve ever read. In other great news, Faye’s new collection, The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, means that I can spend even more time adventuring with my favorite Victorian sleuth.
ORLANDO by Virginia Woolf
I’ve always heard that this time-traveling gender-swapping novel of romance and adventure was charming and utterly delightful. Turns out that it is even more charming and utterly delightful than I expected.
And Because I Read So Many Great Books Last Year, Here Are a Dozen More Awesome Novels:
A Resolution to Let English Be Part of the Humanities
Our culture needs the lessons of great literature like never before. In 2018, let’s resolve to elevate literature back to its position in the humanities.
Does English seem wildly different than it was in your school days? For me, high school English class in the 90s (at least for the good years) was presided over by a teacher who seemed like a wise guide who could help us walk through mental exercises that would lead us toward being thoughtful, competent, wise adults ourselves. I’m sure that the actual state standards were more detailed than this, but I imagine that our English teachers operated from a few major objectives: read good books with the students, talk about the big ideas in those books, and teach the students to write.
Then the standardized testing movement roared through our country and, along with pressure from the well-intentioned notion that every child should shoot for college admission, consequently English class became reduced more and more to a means to an end. Now, instead of pondering the choices that led T.S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock to have those overwhelming feelings of hollowness and regret, teachers are expected to spend more time checking that everyone can answer a question on the end of course test about an inference that could be made in line 40, which literary device is used in lines 23 and 24, or how context clues could be used to ascertain the definition of a word in line 32.
And it’s not just a thing that’s happened in public schools. Standardized test culture has influenced the homeschooling community as well, whether it’s because many of us are required by state guidelines to submit our children to periodic standardized testing, because we want to steer our college-bound kids toward ACT and SAT scores that will open up as many scholarship and admission opportunities as possible, because we know that we might need to place our children into the public school system and don’t want them to be completely unacclimated, or because of the pressure we feel from a culture that increasingly wants everything quantified.
But… have you read the online comments section lately on… well, just about anything? Whatever your politics, I think we can agree that people these days seem meaner and less empathetic.
Our culture needs the lessons of great literature like never before. In 2018, let’s resolve to elevate literature back to its position in the humanities. Let’s resolve to look to the big ideas in literature as a balm that will insulate our children from a world of keyboard bullies. Let’s resolve to look to books to help us remember those common denominators that unite us.
Readaloud of the Week: Audubon, On The Wings Of The World
Naturalist John James Audubon's biography comes to life in this gorgeous graphic novel that's a must-read for every bird lover.
AUDUBON, ON THE WINGS OF THE WORLD by Fabien Grolleau
Audubon, On the Wings of the World is a beautiful graphic novel about the life of John James Audubon. It was written by Fabien Grolleau and illustrated by Jérémie Royer. Most the story is based on Audubon’s own writings about the adventures he had while journeying through America at the start of the 19th century on a mission to paint every bird that inhabited this land. With only a few artists’ tools, an assistant, a guide, and a gun, he encountered many dangers, foul weather, and illness. He also had a difficult time being taken seriously by scientists. But nothing would deter him from his life’s quest. Royer’s illustrations are the best part of the book, and they will make you want to linger over the pages.
If your family loves birds, this is a must read. My boys and I love birds, and I’ve tried to teach them a little about John James Audubon in the past, and I’ve showed them his paintings, which you can view and download for free at audubon.org. When I saw this book recommended by another birder on Twitter, I checked it out from the library, and I loved it. I read it to my eleven and eight-year-old boys, and they liked it too. I would love to follow it up someday with a more detailed biography of John James Audubon. I know liberties had to be taken to make the graphic novel work.
Some parents might want to read it over before letting their children read it, and you may want to read it with them, too. Naturalists in the 1800s hunted and collected their specimens before drawing them, and Audubon followed this practice. This book also makes it pretty clear that he was married to his quest to record all the birds of North America, so he was a pretty horrible father and husband. Since the dialogue in the book is sparse, I sometimes had to explain to my boys what was happening. They weren’t quite old enough to understand all the facial expressions and other visual clues in the illustrations. There are some mild swear words and a few illustrations of Native American women with naked chests.
I think it would make a great supplement to any homeschool’s American history studies, especially for a mature student.
Stuff We Like :: 1.19.18
Snow days, why all those books you haven't read yet deserve a spot on your shelf, why are there so many terrible history books for your Kindle, recent reading, and more stuff we like.
We got snow! That makes twice this winter, and I loved having an excuse to snuggle up in our pajamas for a bonus vacation day right after the start of the new semester. (I also stressed intensely about whether I need to schedule a make-up day for my first AP English class of the semester, but I got to wear my pajamas all day, so I think the balance worked out in my favor.)
around the web
I love the idea of the antilibrary—instead of feeling guilty about the books we buy and don’t actually get around to reading (I’m looking at you, The Corrections), we should see them as reminder of all the things we don’t know, all the things we still have the opportunity to learn. I’m not sure this will convince Jason that I need another bookcase in the bedroom, but you know I am going to try.
If you need a laugh this week, you need to read these examples of toxic femininity in the workplace: “Members of the all-female upper management of a company never think to talk about sex in the workplace. As a result, they forget that sex exists and uniformly fail to perpetuate the human race. This is a global phenomenon that accelerates the demise of our species.”
It’s not a short read, but I thoroughly enjoyed this piece about the seismic shifts happening in U.S. pop culture right now. With shout-outs to everything from Moonlight to Get Out to Ellen Willis, it’s a fascinating look at how the present political climate is shaping art—and a timely reminder of why critics matter.
There are SO MANY TERRIBLE history books out there right now, and if you have accidentally bought one when it was cheap for the Kindle, you will definitely want to read this.
at home/school/life
on the blog: Suzanne’s starting fresh with Library Chicken for 2018
also on the blog: Beverly has some great advice for keeping the holiday spirit alive in your homeschool all year
one year ago: A funny fantasy book list, or what to read when you’ve run out of Edward Eager
two years ago: A Mary Tudor reading list
three years ago: The importance of me-time for homeschool moms
reading list
I picked up a copy of The Knockoff by Plum Sykes because I will pretty much read any book about people working at glossy women’s magazines, and I loved the idea of this one, about an older editor-in-chief who must suddenly cope with the digital magazine world. (I may identify with this premise a little.) It was a bummer, though — the main character wasn’t that sympathetic, and her foil, the up-and-coming digital guru was so utterly unlikable and ridiculously villainous that it just got silly. I’m glad it was a quick read because life is too short, you know?
A much better read was Cloud and Wallfish, which has been on my list for a while and which we’re finally getting around to. It’s set in Berlin in the late 1980s, before the Wall came down, and Noah’s parents have given him a new name, a new birthday, and a new bedroom—in Berlin. Luckily, he also finds a new friend, Claudia, who lives in the same apartment building and who suspects that her parents’ deaths might have been invented by her grandmother. Claudia and Noah (now called Jonah) create their own secret world by covering maps of Berlin with their own drawings—these parts may remind you of Bridge to Terebithia, with the increasing pull of imaginary worlds. We really enjoyed this. It’s the best kind of middle grades historical fiction with a story and characters that feel genuinely compelling and tons of historical information. (I feel like I learned so much about the history of Berlin reading this.)
Also read: The Ambrose Deception by Emily Ecton, a love letter to Chicago that tries to borrow some of the puzzle-solving charm of books like The Mysterious Benedict Society and Book Scavenger with mixed success. (If you enjoy those kinds of books — or if you love Chicago — it’s definitely worth putting on your list.)
at home
My son got an iPod for Hanukkah (not from me), which he mainly uses to make YouTube videos and send me dog memes all day. I’m ambivalent about devices for kids—I don’t love how addictive they are, but they can be so incredibly useful—but I do really love when my phone beeps and there’s a pug pun.
If you’re following along with the Classical humanities class I’m teaching at Jason’s hybrid high school, we’re kicking off the spring semester reading list with Antigone, Nicomachean Ethics, and SPQR.
This Week in Library Chicken :: 1.17.18
Suzanne kicks off a new year of library chicken with mysteries, biographies, short stories, and some decidedly weird fiction.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
It’s the first Library Chicken Update of 2018! We’re wiping the slate clean and starting over from scratch in honor of the new year. I’m looking forward to a great year of reading, but mostly I’ve been busy rearranging my to-read list and (finally) copying it over from Amazon Wish Lists to my goodreads account. There’s no easy way to do this (that I’ve discovered), so I’m going through and transferring it book by book, which takes a while when you have [ACTUAL NUMBER REDACTED BECAUSE I’M EMBARRASSED BY THE EXCESSIVENESS OF IT ALL] books on your list. It’s a wonderful way to waste time online, though, and I’m much more cheerful afterward than if I’d spent the same amount of time on Facebook or Twitter being brought up to date on all the horrible things happening in the world.
Also new this year, in an effort to make it look like I’m accomplishing something by lying around and reading all day (and because it seems like a lot of fun), I’m officially tackling three reading challenges: BookRiot’s Read Harder Challenge, the Popsugar Reading Challenge, and of course our very own HSL’s 2018 Reading Challenge! Happy reading, everyone!
THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY by Edmund Crispin
Gervase Fen #1. New year, new mystery series! This 1940s series stars an Oxford don as our sleuth. In fact, as Fen says early on in this erudite murder mystery, set around the production of a new play in Oxford: “I’m the only literary critic turned detective in the whole of fiction.” I love it when books break the fourth wall, so I’m definitely looking forward to #2.
(LC Score: +1)
FUN PHANTOMS: TALES OF GHOSTLY ENTERTAINMENT edited by Sean Manley and Gogo Lewis
THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH DETECTIVE STORIES edited by Patricia Craig
This week I start the short stories class at our hybrid homeschool (Poe! Jackson! Wodehouse! more Poe!), but I’ve still got anthologies stacked all over the floor, waiting to be read. Now that I’ve (re)discovered the joys of short fiction I have, as usual, become a bit obsessed. I’ve taken a break from The Modern Tradition this and 50 Short Masterpieces that to veer into genre with some ghost and detective stories. Fun Phantoms is an unusual 1979 collection that specializes in humorous ghost stories, some of which are classics (e.g., “The Canterville Ghost” and “The Open Window”) and some of which (ahem) are not. Meanwhile, The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories takes us all the way from the classic early days of alibis based on train schedules and locked room whodunits to the 1980s with P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. I do have a bone to pick with the editor: at a minimum, a story included in an anthology of “detective stories” should actually have a detective in it. If it has a murder but no detective, that’s a crime story, and that, I would think, belongs in a whole other anthology.
(Challenge Accepted: HSLs “A Collection of Short Stories”)
(LC Score: +2)
THE WEIRD: A COMPENDIUM OF STRANGE AND DARK STORIES edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
“Weird” is a difficult genre to describe —it’s something of a cross between horror and sf/fantasy, and it may be my favorite kind of writing just now. A shelf of “Modern Weird” would include books by Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Helen Oyeyemi, and the co-editor of this anthology, Jeff VanderMeer, but this massive (over 1100 pages!) and thoroughly enjoyable collection goes back in time and around the world to collect weird tales from a diverse group of authors. Full of wonderful and disturbing stories, this anthology is more than an introduction to the genre, it’s an education.
(LC Score: +1)
CARTER & LOVECRAFT by Jonathan L. Howard
THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM by Victor LaValle
H.P. Lovecraft is classic weird, and modern authors have been having a wonderful time in the past few years revisiting and revising him. And he does need some revising: H.P. is unfortunately as well known for his virulent racism and sexism as he is for tentacled mind-melting hell-beasts. Howard and LaValle both play with that reputation in different ways. In Carter & Lovecraft, an ex-cop private eye gets mixed up with the last Lovecraft descendant — who happens to be both female and black — and a plot to change the rules of reality in very unpleasant ways. (SPOILER: By the end of the novel things are looking fairly bleak for our heroes, but the sequel, ominously titled After the End of the World, just came out for all of us who want to read what happens next.) In The Ballad of Black Tom, LaValle reimagines Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook”, often described as H.P.’s most racist tale, by telling the story from a different perspective, creating a powerful novella that comments both on the original work and on modern day society. (SPOILER: It also includes a tentacled hell-beast or two.)
(LC Score: +2)
EVERY HEART A DOORWAY by Seanan McGuire
I’d had this fantasy novella (first in the Wayward Children trilogy) about a boarding school for children who had disappeared into magical worlds and had trouble readjusting when they returned to their old lives on my list for a while, but Amy’s positive review pushed it to the top, just in time for the release of the final book in the series. Can’t wait to read the next one!
(Challenge Accepted: home|school|life’s “The First Book in a Series” and “A Book You Can Read in One Day”, ReadHarder’s “A One-Sitting Book”)
(LC Score: +1)
THE COMMON READER: FIRST SERIES by Virginia Woolf
I’ve read several of Woolf’s novels, but this is the first time I’m tackling her essays. Her narrative voice is, as always, engaging and very pleasant to spend time with, but I was a little intimidated by the French and Greek quotations that she apparently expects her “common” reader to be able to handle.
(LC Score: +1)
VIRGINIA WOOLF: A BIOGRAPHY by Quentin Bell
PORTRAIT OF A MARRIAGE: VITA SACKVILLE-WEST AND HAROLD NICOLSON by Nigel Nicolson
I picked these up as part of my ongoing Girl-Who-Reads-Woolf project. Bell’s biography of his aunt Virginia is the original account of her life, but I didn’t expect to be so charmed by his wry narration. He treats his topic with the casual informality appropriate to a nephew and I only wish he’d written a dozen other Bloomsbury biographies for me to read. In Portrait of a Marriage, Nicolson presents the autobiographical writings of his mother (and Virginia’s great friend), Vita, along with his own history of her life. Vita’s portion is mostly an overwrought account of her wild affair with Violet Keppel/Trefusis, still ongoing at the time of her writing. Both books together present a fascinating account of two unique partnerships made up of talented and original people: Virginia and Leonard, and Vita and Harold.
(LC Score: +2)
RETURNED UNREAD: LC Score -4
Library Chicken Score for 1/17/18: 6
- Running Score: 6
- Challenges Met: 4
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
- Growing Up Ethnic in America edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan (short story collection about learning to be American)
- Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales by Ray Bradbury (revisiting one of my favorite authors)
- The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton (sequel to The Just City)
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (finally got my hands on this one after spending months on the hold list)
How to Keep the Spirit of Gratitude Alive All Year
Keep the spirit of gratitude and giving alive in your homeschool after all the winter holidays are over with these tips from Beverly.
Gratitude. It seems to be in the forefront of our thoughts especially during the holidays. But, how many of us genuinely practice gratitude all year long?
Aside from the heart-tugging commercials about donating to your local food shelter, or adopting a family on Christmas; there are ways to teach your children how to have a heart of gratitude not just in the giving seasons. As homeschoolers, we have the unique opportunity to instill and share values of gratitude with our children all throughout the year.
1. SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION
Encouraging gratitude in children is best done by modeling the behavior. Daily routines of expressing gratitude help children understand that the practice begins at home.
Try some of the following:
- At dinner time, have each child and adult write down one thing they are grateful for that happened that day.
- Place the folded pieces of writings in a gratitude jar. At the end of the week or even on New Year’s Day, read the entire jar’s worth of writing. It’s a great reminder not only of how much you have shared as a family but about those who care for you each day.
2. ASK FOR HELP
Asking for help is something that everyone must do at some point in life. Asking younger children to help with meal preparation, clean up, and daily chores helps them realize that contributing makes a difference to everyone. People feel appreciated when others lend a hand and help. Talk to your children about the experiences of both giving and receiving help.
3. VOLUNTEER
Regular volunteering can foster a lifelong attitude of giving back to community. While volunteering around the holidays is always needed, making time to serve all year long, exposes children to the long-term benefits of helping and gratitude.
Families sometimes find it difficult to search for opportunities for younger children to volunteer, but children of all ages have many opportunities to give in their community. Those people who aren’t as socially active as they used to be often love the presence of young children and helpers. After volunteering, ask your children how they felt, how they think those that they helped felt, and what more they could do to help in the future. Remind children that gratitude is often unspoken, and that their purpose is to help others, even if words of thanks don’t always accompany the act.
Consider some of the following if you’re having trouble locating volunteer opportunities:
- Visiting nursing homes to play board games with the residents or to sing songs.
- Maintaining a garden at group homes.
- Helping at a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm.
- Donating food and care at animal shelters.
- Offering lawn care to elderly.
- Spending some time in a soup kitchen or clothing outlet for the homeless.
- Putting together bags for the needy with toiletries, lip balm, protein bars, socks, gloves, and hats. Check with your local shelter to see what they need.
- Knitting or crocheting hats for premature babies.
- Walking a neighbor’s dog.
Try to make volunteering a regular tradition to foster gratitude all year long.
4. GIVE EXPERIENCES, NOT THINGS
Instead of Grandma and Grandpa giving your children plastic toys for every holiday and birthday, encourage them to give the gift of experiences and time. Experiences help grow and deepen family connections.
Ask relatives and friends for memberships to the zoo, or aquarium. Or perhaps a special lunch and movie date can be become a new tradition. Take lots of photos of the event, and gift the giver with a special card or photo album of the wonderful day as a thank you. Children will remember and cherish the special outing for years to come.
5. EXPRESS GRATITUDE FREELY AND OFTEN
Children learn from observing the behavior around them. Be sure to express your own gratitude for their efforts, and for being part of the family. Show kindness and gratitude when you are out in stores or markets or whenever kindness is shown to you. It’s easy to overlook small efforts as not being worthy of gratitude, but even small acts of kindness go a long way in the eyes of children.
Instilling the gifts of gratitude in the hearts of children does not happen overnight.
Readaloud of the Week: Stuart’s Cape
Winsome, worrisome Stuart figures out the key to adventure in this charming early chapter book.
STUART’S CAPE by Sara Pennypacker
“Adventures only happen to people with capes,” Stuart realizes, but that’s okay because he’s got a hundred of his dad’s old ties that he can use to DIY a cape for himself.
If you love Pennypacker’s Clementine and Waylon books, you’ll be happy to discover this whimsical early chapter book. Stuart is the new kid in town, and he’s worried about everything: man-eating spiders lurking in the closet of his new bedroom, getting locked in the bathroom at his new school, not making any friends in third grade. Antsy and anxious waiting for what’s going to happen, Stuart decides to make his own adventure, starting with a cape he makes by stapling together his day’s tie collection and one purple sock. And sure enough, Stuart’s new cape sets him off on fantastic adventures, including learning how to play pretend with help from a dinosaur and a gorilla, growing giant toast, and learning how to fly with a little assistance from his Aunt Bubbles’s angel food cake. (Of course, once he’s soaring through the sky, he has to figure how to get back to the ground. . .) It’s silly, playful fun that also manages to be sensitive to the very real worries of childhood.
This is one of those laugh-out-loud readalouds that you can finish in a couple of relaxed reading sessions, which makes it a great get-you-groove-back readaloud for your post-holiday homeschool. Stuart is a winsome little worrier, and the book’s black-and-white illustrations are sweet and playful. And if you love it, you can follow right up with the equally charming sequel Stuart Goes to School.
Stuff We Like :: 1.12.18
What it's like to think like a bee, erasing women in the workplace, the messy magic of the home office, fantastic books, and more stuff we like.
Happy weekend!
around the web
I still remember how it exciting it was when Bridget Hughes (a girl!) got the top job at The Paris Review, and I am a huge fan of the work she’s done at A Public Space. So this piece about how Hughes has been systematically erased from the Review’s history made me really sad.
I think all of us who work from home can appreciate this ode to the home offices that would never be featured in home design magazines but that we love anyway.
Haven’t you always wondered what it would be like to be a bee? This is my favorite neurobiology read of 2018 so far. :)
at home/school/life
in the magazine: I just signed off on the winter issue’s final proofs, so expect it in your inbox soon!
on the blog: Suzanne’s favorite nonfiction of 2017
one year ago: Suzanne’s guide to reading the Brontes
two years ago: Tips for organizing your homeschool library
three years ago: Carving out time for yourself
reading list
I put The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh on my library holds list back when I was thinking about teaching it as part of a classical literature curriculum. but I’m just now getting around to reading it and I want to recommend it to everyone. It’s fascinating! The book starts in the 19th century with an English engraver who basically taught himself cuneiform with the tablets at the British Museum and started to piece together the story of Gilgamesh, then meanders — along several equally interesting detours — back 4,000 years to the time of the historical Gilgamesh. Some of the literary connections the author tries to make feel like a stretch, and I’m not sure he really dives into the more interesting implications of some of his ideas, but overall, this was a terrific read.
Apparently, this was a heavy-on-nonfiction week, because I am also going to rave about The Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical. I did not know much about Parsons beyond the blurb on the book jacket going in, and I definitely had that “How is she not in a history book!?” feeling as I was reading. Parsons was born to an enslaved woman about a decade before the Civil War, but her radical labor organizing feels way ahead of its time — Parsons (and her husband who was executed for his inciting rhetoric that may have provoked a Chicago bombing) believed that armed struggle was the only way to destroy capitalism. Honestly, the book is a little on the dry side writing-wise, but Parsons is so interesting that it felt like I was reading a novel.
Our readaloud lately is What Goes Up by Katie Kennedy, and it’s pretty much exactly the right blend of funny, smart, and exciting. Rosa, Eddie, and hundreds of other science-smart teens are hoping to get into a top secret NASA program, but the competition is stiff — and the program comes with plenty of hazards, too. I feel like this is kind of a stealth book right now, so get it at the library before other people start discovering it and the hold list gets crazy.
at home
Jason got a Roku stick thingy for Hanukkah, which came with a free month of HBO — so, way behind the rest of the world, we’re binging Game of Thrones. There are many interesting things about it, but seriously, why does HBO only make series where women are generally marginalized and abused characters? It’s like every show is The Handmaid’s Tale.
Library Chicken Update: Top Nonfiction Books Read in 2017
Suzanne's favorite nonfiction reads of 2017 grappled with race in America, considered communities forged by disaster, illuminated under-appreciated women in history, and more.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
Happy New Year! Before we return to our regularly scheduled Library Chicken updates, we’re going to take a look back at the past year with Library Chicken’s Top Ten Favorite Nonfiction Books Read in 2017 so you can load up your to-read list.
2017 was a big year for nonfiction here at Library Chicken HQ. Usually, nonfiction makes up about 20-25% of my annual reading, but this year it was up to a whopping 31%, including the following fantastic reads (in no particular order):
THE GIFTS OF IMPERFECTION: LET GO OF WHO YOU THINK YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE AND EMBRACE WHO YOU ARE by Brene Brown
Self-help books are something of a gamble for me. Am I going to read something that can help and inspire me as I navigate daily life, or am I going to experience pages of cutesy (and trademarked) Self-Help Lingo? (Don’t forget to buy the calendar, daily planner, and ticket to the seminar!) Brown’s short but engaging book definitely fell in the first column. I was still thinking about it (and enthusiastically pushing it on my very patient friends) months after I first read it.
A PARADISE BUILT IN HELL: THE EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNITIES THAT ARISE IN DISASTER by Rebecca Solnit
I really needed this book in 2017. Rebecca Solnit (author of Men Explain Things to Me) writes about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and how humans generally respond to tragedy and disaster not with panic or selfishness, but by reaching out a helping hand to their neighbors. A great read if you’re looking to restore your faith in your fellow man.
NEUROTRIBES: THE LEGACY OF AUTISM AND THE FUTURE OF NEURODIVERSITY by Steve Silberman
A fascinating look at the history of autism as a diagnosis. That history can be at times infuriating and deeply upsetting, but it always feels topical and relevant to the conversations we’re having today (or should be having) about creating a society where neurodiversity can thrive.
BOOK OF AGES: THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF JANE FRANKLIN by Jill Lepore
Benjamin Franklin’s youngest sister, Jane, was his faithful correspondent for years and inherited her own set of intellectual gifts, but was denied access to education and opportunities to exercise her talents. A bittersweet but compelling history by the author of two other nonfiction books I enjoyed in 2017: The Secret History of Wonder Woman and Joe Gould’s Teeth.
THE PEABODY SISTERS: THREE SISTERS WHO IGNITED AMERICAN ROMANTICISM by Megan Marshall
Sophia, the youngest sister and a talented artist, married Nathaniel Hawthorne. The middle sister, Mary, married the American educator Horace Mann, and was a writer and educator in her own right. And the eldest sister Elizabeth--well, she was too busy running a bookstore and teaching with Bronson Alcott and getting her brother-in-law Hawthorne a job and hanging out with Emerson and Thoreau and creating kindergartens throughout the land and basically BEING AWESOME ALL THE TIME to get married. Marshall mysteriously ends her history halfway through the sisters’ lives, but it’s still a wonderful introduction to these amazing women, and once you’re finished you can read her biography of another talented and unfairly forgotten woman: Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.
A HOUSE FULL OF DAUGHTERS: A MEMOIR OF SEVEN GENERATIONS by Juliet Nicolson
Nicolson traces the fascinating and scandalous history of her female ancestors, including her grandmother, Vita Sackville-West. An entertaining truth-is-stranger-than-fiction account of flamenco dancers, vicious inheritance battles, and shocking (for their time) lesbian relationships.
HARRIET TUBMAN: THE ROAD TO FREEDOM by Catherine Clinton
I spent part of 2017 catching up on American history that I’d missed (and that my education had neglected). Clinton’s biography is a wonderful introduction to Tubman, a real life superhero. Just put Harriet on all the money already.
MARCH by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
This three-volume graphic novel series tells the story of another American hero, John Lewis. It’s a must-read history of the civil rights movement, at a time when we desperately need to remember and learn from the accomplishments of earlier generations.
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME by Ta-Nehisi Coates
I don’t know what more I can say about this deservedly much-praised memoir of being a black man in America. Toni Morrison calls it “required reading.” Listen to Toni.
STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING: THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF RACIST IDEAS IN AMERICA by Ibram X. Kendi
I think it’s okay to be a bit dubious when a book describes itself as “definitive”, but this history easily earns its subtitle, and was perhaps the most important book I read in 2017. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
13 Fun Homeschool Extras that Will Give Your Winter Homeschool a Boost
These fun extras (all less than $30!) will add a little oomph to your everyday homeschool routine and help ease you over the midwinter slump — without busting your budget.
Having a little trouble getting your post-holiday groove back? These fun extras (all less than $30!) will add a little oomph to your everyday homeschool routine and help ease you over the midwinter slump — without busting your budget.
MEDIUM CRACK-OPEN GEODES ($25)
Smash through the mid-winter blues literally with a box of crack- open geodes—they’ll break open to reveal cool crystalline structures formed by mineral deposit build-up in sedimentary or igneous rocks. (You’ll want to break out safety glasses for your smash session.)
DRAWING WITH CHILDREN ($15)
You (yes, really, you) can add art to your curriculum even if you swear you don’t have an artistic bone in your body, thanks to the deliberate, detailed instructions in Mona Brookes’ easy-to-use art guide.
MUDPIES TO MAGNETS ($11)
With more than 200 activities to choose from, the fact that some of these hands-on experiments were designed for classrooms or science centers shouldn’t get you down—just choose ones that work for your homeschool, and you can do a new science experiment every day this winter.
GALILEO AND THE STARGAZERS CD ($19)
If your kids haven’t discovered the magic of Jim Weiss’s storytelling, this science- and history-rich tale is a great place to start. Bonus: It feels like playtime but totally counts as science.
MOZZARELLA & RICOTTA CHEESEMAKING KIT ($23)
Science class doesn’t get more delicious than this. In this handy kit, you’ll find all the supplies you need to make eight one- pound batches of homemade mozzarella or ricotta cheese. (For best results, read directions online in addition to the ones included with the kit—if you’re a cheesemaking newbie, more details are helpful.)
SILLY PUTTY SIX-PACK ($9)
While kids are stretching and molding this pliable putty, they’re also building hand strength and getting some of the fidgets out.
HARRY POTTER COLORING BOOK ($14)
Sometimes, everybody just needs to calm down and chill out for a few minutes. That’s when you break out this devilishly detailed coloring book and the colored pencils.
KEEPING A NATURE JOURNAL ($13)
Winter may seem like a counterintuitive time to start a nature journal, but trust us: There’s plenty of window-side journaling to be done this time of year, and the more limited options will give you plenty of time to hone your skills and get into the journaling habit before the excitement of spring nature walks. Try a different area of focus every week.
TANGOES ($10)
Put your tangram skills to the test with these classic Chinese puzzles. Use the seven included pieces to recreate the images shown on each puzzle card—some are surprisingly tricky. This is a great warm-up-and-get-focused activity or a handy transition between subjects on tough days.
ANT FARM ($29)
Go ahead and order your ants from a supply company that ships them in a heated package— consider it the price of this excellent cold weather entertainment. You can hit the library to start a full-on ants unit study, or just watch your adopted insects tunnel their way through the weird blue gel.
I’M JUST HERE FOR THE FOOD ($22)
Any cookbook can work as the basis for a kitchen science curriculum, but you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a better option that Alton Brown’s nerdy, detailed I’m Just Here for the Food, which explores the science behind cooking decisions (like how to sear a piece of meat) thoroughly and thoughtfully.
DJECO COLORED SAND ART ($17)
These art kits are perfect for meditative, focused work — we recommend the sand kit because the birds of paradise are so pretty, but any Djeco art kit makes a nice mid-winter pick-me-up for your homeschool.
MOLYMOD ORGANIC CHEMISTRY MOLECULAR MODEL ($21)
Get hands-on building molecules with this molecular model set—it’s designed for students taking organic chemistry, but even elementary age kids with a passion for science will appreciate being able to see how atoms fit together. It may take a few sessions to get the hang of connecting the atom pieces to each other, so be on hand to help minimize frustration.
This was originally published in the winter 2016 issue of HSL. Prices and availability were updated in January 2018 but may have changed since then.
Readaloud of the Week: Confessions of an Imaginary Friend: A Memoir by Jacques Papier
An imaginary friend discovers that he's imaginary and sets off on a whimsical quest to find himself in this odd but lovely book.
CONFESSIONS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND by Michelle Cuevas
Jacques has just discovered that he’s imaginary — which certainly explains why everyone always ignores him and talks to his “sister” Fleur instead but doesn’t really tell him much about where he fits into the world. When Fleur’s worried parents take her to a psychiatrist to talk about her attachment to her imaginary friend, Jacques meets a whole group of oddball Invisibles in the waiting room, including Stinky Sock, who invites Jacques to the next meeting of Imaginaries Anonymous. As Jacques is reassigned to child after child, reforming his identity to fit their imaginary friend needs, he ponders the nature of reality and existence.
So clearly this is a niche book that gets a little heavy-handed with the whimsy sometimes, but it’s a sweet, odd story that makes a great family readaloud and a springboard to conversations about friendship, belonging, and (why not?) the meaning of life. It’s particularly easy to identify with Jacques’s feelings of invisibility early on: No one ever picks him for kickball, bus drivers close the doors in his face, people never talk to him directly. Figuring out that he’s an imaginary friend — and therefore literally invisible to people who aren’t his imagine-ers — may throw Jacques into an existential crisis, but it’s also kind of a relief. You might think of this as Toy Story for imaginary friends — just as that popular Pixar flick introduced the idea that toys have their own inner lives and experiences that their children know nothing about, this book suggests we only know the tiniest bit about our imaginary friends.
There are plenty of funny parts clearly written for parent readers — when Jacques is on the phone with the hilariously bureaucratic imaginary friend placement agency, his phone tree options include “Press 1 if you have been imagined as a trademark character and are worried about legal action” and “Press 2 if you have been imagined as food and are about to be eaten.” If you have kids who just can’t handle lots of whimsy, this whimsy-rich book is not going to be a good pick, but for kids who love a gentle fantasy with a philosophical twist and who can handle a tender, bittersweet ending, this is a delightful winter readaloud.
Quotable: “To tell the truth, I was beginning to think you would be in awe of anyone if you saw the parts of them that no one else gets to see. If you could watch them making up little songs, and doing funny faces in the mirror; if you saw them high-fiving a leaf on a tree, or stopping to watch a green inchworm hanging midair from an invisible thread, or just being really different and lonely and crying sometimes at night. Seeing them, the real them, you couldn't help but think that anyone and everyone is amazing.”
Stuff We Like :: 1.5.18
Life before the Internet, the importance of real journalism, transitioning back to homeschool after a break, some recent readalouds, and more stuff we like.
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get more comfortable with myself, and so you might see a little more of my life peeking through here in these weekly roundups. For instance, I’m going to confess that I haven’t done a load of laundry since Hanukkah, and when I stumbled past the hamper this morning, I caused a clothing avalanche that I didn’t even pick up. This is what doing it all looks like in my house, y’all.
around the web
I love blogs. I really do. And I’ve learned a ton from homeschooler bloggers who’ve been willing to put their lives out there. Heck, we post on the HSL blog multiple times a week. But I worry when blogs take the place of real reporting — we need both! Real people’s stories and experiences AND serious journalism. I think that’s why this Wired piece about why journalism is a great place for tech to invest really hit home for me.
Love this! How “Get Out” inspired a college class on racism. (Suzanne and I are still trying to figure out how to teach an ethics class based on The Good Place.)
What was life like before the Internet? “‘Should I test out these pens on this turquoise pad?’ you’d ask yourself, staring at some pens by the phone.”
Warning: This piece by Clint Smith about visiting the National Museum of African History and Culture with his grandfather and realizing how not-at-all-long-ago legislated racism actually was might make you tear up a little.
at home/school/life
in the magazine: The winter issue’s out next week!
on the blog: Join our 2018 Reading Challenge!
one year ago: Perk up your homeschool space for a happiness boost
two years ago: Transitioning back to homeschooling after a break (I should probably go read this!)
three years ago: Education for a different version of success
four years ago: What do we mean when we say we’re a secular magazine?
reading list
Holiday reading is the best reading! We read Aru Shah and the End of Time together — it’s basically Percy Jackson with Indian mythology (and the heroine is a girl), but that’s not really a surprise since this is one of the first books in Rick Riordan’s new imprint. Maybe critically it would have been nice if it had diverged a little from the Percy Jackson narrative line, but hey, it’s the hero’s journey, right? That’s the story. And it was fun and full of Indian mythology, and I giggled every time someone got huffy about the Pandava brothers being the Pandava sisters in this incarnation, so I’ve got no complaints. It's out in March, so I'll plan to review it properly closer to the release date.
We also enjoyed Winterhouse, another middle grades book with a familiar feeling — it will remind you a bit of books like The Mysterious Benedict Society. Orphan Elizabeth Somers is summoned to Christmas at the resort Winterhouse, which she dreads until she arrives and discovers the friendly staff, delicious food, and (best of all) massive library. Elizabeth makes her first friend — Freddy, who loves word games as much as she does — and discovers a hidden book in the library that points to a dark Winterhouse mystery. We liked it but didn’t love it.
Also read: A Darker Shade of Magic, which I have had forever on my Kindle and which I am now kicking myself for not reading sooner because it’s surprisingly compelling. Kell is a kind of magician who has the power to move between worlds: Red London (his world, where magic is real), Gray London (our world, where George III is king of England), and White London (a creepy place ruled by creepy people). There also used to be Black London, which now exists as a cautionary tale about the trouble that can happen when people introduce magic into worlds that don’t have it. I don’t always love fantasy, but this book had likable characters, great world-building, lots of action, and enough surprises to keep me reading.
at home
I have been wrapping up the winter issue and trying to get ahead on a couple of other projects, plus planning out the spring semester classes I’m teaching, so I am not sure this has been the totally chill, relaxing break I would have liked it to be. It has been lovely being home all day again, though, and I am not going to ever complain about getting to wear pajamas for 24 hours straight, so I am going to say it’s been a great holiday. I hope yours has, too!
Mission Possible: Totally Doable New Year’s Resolutions for Your Homeschool
Small changes can make the biggest difference in your homeschool life. Here’s how to make this year your most satisfying yet.
The ancient Babylonians — who started the whole New Year’s resolutions trend with annual self-improvement promises to their gods — had the right idea: Their resolutions were simple, concrete acts that they could accomplish easily — returning borrowed farm equipment or planting a tree. Today, New Year’s resolutions seem silly if they are not big, sweeping goals: be happier, make more money, keep a cleaner house. The nebulous nature of these pursuits (what does one do to be happier?) make them almost doomed to fail, but if we can hone in on specific, small, actionable pieces of these goals — making time for ourselves each day, say, or stopping the out-the-door chaos on co-op mornings — we can actually see our New Year’s resolutions, well, resolve themselves. We can make it a better year—realistically and meaningfully. So read on for steps you can take to tackle some of the more common homeschool life road bumps, and resolve to make 2016 a better year for your family, one step at a time.
RESOLUTION: Stop being late for everything.
If your clan is chronically late, changing into people who show up on time can be a big task—but it’s doable if you—and your kids—are willing to commit to making a series of small changes every day, says Pauline Wallin, clinical psychologist and author of Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide for Transforming Self-Defeating Behavior.
Start small. Set one manageable goal per day: I will not hit the snooze button this morning. I will put the library books by the door tonight instead of trying to find them in the morning. If you can’t commit to these small inconveniences, being on time may not be as important to you as you think it is.
Retrain your sense of time. Track your activities for a week — jot down daily tasks, how long you think each will take, and how long each actually takes, from morning readaloud to the breakfast dishes. Often, people are late because they have a fixed but incorrect idea of how long an activity takes.
Resist the urge to do one more thing. The need to feel productive is why you suddenly start opening mail or wiping counters when you should be walking out the door. Train yourself to stop what you’re doing — even if you’re in mid-wipe — at your designated go-time and walk right out the door.
Aim to be early. Plan to be exactly on time, and any unexpected event—your 6-year-old’s missing shoes or forgetting to charge your phone—will make you late. Instead, plan to be 15 minutes early, and bring along an activity you enjoy to fill those 15 minutes. (Family Uno game, anyone?)
What if it’s your kids who are always late? You can’t force someone to be on time— and tricks, like pretending events start earlier than they do, only work once or twice before kids figure you out. If being on time is important for an activity, talk to your kids about whether they’re willing to make it a priority. If not, this may not be the right year for that activity.
RESOLUTION: Clean up your homeschool clutter.
Let’s face facts: for a lot of us, some clutter is part of homeschool life. Even if you’re fairly vigilant about pruning papers and organizing supplies, stuff can get out of hand — and if you don’t stay on top of things, you can watch your dining room table disappear underneath your piles. You may never be a super-organized homeschooler, but you can make your space feel less chaotic with these tips and tricks.
Aim higher. Add shelves to make your bookcases stretch all the way to the ceiling, and you’ll be amazed by how much extra space you get. Store very specific (5th grade math manipulatives or extra printer cartridges) or seldom-used items on the higher shelves.
Color code. Assign each kid a color, and use that color consistently: Buy notebooks, folders, and pencils, cover schoolbooks, and flag important pages in your own books or binders with your chosen color, and you’ll instantly know whose stuff is where. If your kids have lots of writing assignments, you may want to edit their papers using a pen in their designated color, too.
Back up. Invest in an off-site Internet service or external hard drive to keep your computer data safe, and you can scan and toss (or just plain toss) papers when they start to pile up.
Get into the habit. The key to staying organized is to spend about 10 minutes at the end of your school day tidying up your learning spaces and prepping for the next day. There’s no dramatic before- and-after with this habit, but the long-term difference is huge.
RESOLUTION: Get comfortable with imperfection.
Perfectionism gets a bad rap, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing: Heathy perfectionists know how to set ambitious-but-attainable goals and work to achieve them, which gives you a strong sense of purpose and accomplishment and a healthy perspective on the times when things don’t go right. (“This will make a great story someday!”) The problem is that it’s easy to veer into unhealthy perfectionism, where you’re mentally setting expectations that are just plain impossible and ensuring you hang on to that sinking feeling of constant failure. The key is to channel the good parts of your commitment to excellence without dragging in all the negative baggage — and a big piece of that is getting comfortable with the parts of life that may not live up to your high standards. “To be enlightened is to be without anxiety over imperfection,” Buddhists say, so think of these imperfection-accepting strategies as steps along the path to enlightenment.
Be your own measuring stick. Forget your friends, forget the blogs, forget Pinterest, and measure yourself against only your own abilities, says University of British Columbia, Vancouver clinical psychologist Jennifer Campbell. No one can be good at everything.
Know when okay is okay. Sometimes you want to be the best, but sometimes (Tuesday night dinner? Friday morning math?) just getting the job done counts as success.
Embrace the minimum. It is much better to have a terrific spontaneous 20 minutes of history than to plan out an entire year with a schedule so intense that you’re overwhelmed just reading your lesson plan. Find a balance that works for you, and don’t assume that more always means better.
Acknowledge the failures. Sometimes things go wrong, and it’s okay to say “this reading curriculum just isn’t working,” and let it go. Making failures into “I’m-not-trying-hard-enough” is a sure way to get stuck in a bad situation.
Be present. Live where you are with things as they are rather than getting hung up on the future or the past.
RESOLUTION: Make time for yourself.
We get it—oh, boy, do we ever get it: You’re busy. Like, insanely busy. But if you don’t make yourself a priority, you’re going to get burned out and grumpy. There’s a fine line between generosity — an integral part of being the kind of giving, doing parent we all want to be — and martyrdom, and we cross it when we get hung up on doing everything, including the things that someone else can do just as well — or sometimes better — than we can. It’s tempting to see this perpetual doing-too-much as an expression of love, but always putting yourself last will ultimately make you feel stressed out and resentful. And worse, over time it actually makes our kids appreciate all the things we do less and less because real respect can only come when someone recognizes that another person has hopes, dreams, and goals, too. Make this the year you channel some of your generous spirit into an area that needs it: you.
Consider yourself important. You are going to feel guilty about making me-time as long as you have the idea that your me-time is somehow less important than making-dinner, teaching-science, or cleaning-the-bathroom time. Say no to things that don’t feed your soul. Making yourself a priority means crossing some things off your to-do list. What can you let go of?
Write me-time on your calendar. Treat it just like any other part of your schedule, and write in 15 minutes a day of me-time — in pen.
RESOLUTION: Stay motivated when homeschooling gets hard.
Starting the school year, we have all these great plans and ideas for making this year the Best One Ever. By February, though, many of us hit a slump, where homeschooling feels like a slog and we’re taxing our inner resources just to do our version of the minimum. Sometimes, this is a sign that you need a mid-winter break. But if a break doesn’t boost your motivation, there are other ways to get it back.
If-then your routine. When you’re planning your week, anticipate bumps so that you have a plan in place to handle them: If we don’t get to math in the morning, we’ll do a lesson after dinner. If it’s raining, we’ll watch a documentary for nature study.
Be reasonable. If your homeschool plans are too ambitious, you can lose steam and give up. Set smaller goals, like doing an hour of school every weekday or doing one family project a week, and increase if you want to as you build stamina.
Keep a daily record. Some people opt to be accountable on public platforms, but even jotting down a paragraph in your homeschool journal every night can be commitment enough to keep you motivated. Feeling responsible to someone, even if it’s just yourself, can really help you stick with something when you aren’t feeling motivated.
Find a support network. One of the best tools in your motivation toolbox is a network of people who understand your challenges and will empathize or cheer you on as the situation requires. Every homeschool parent really needs at least one fellow homeschooler in her social circle — if you don’t have a real-life community, find an online group where you feel comfortable. (Just don’t forget to return the support when your friend is the one needing a motivation boost.)
Put your own learning on the lesson plan. One of the best ways to stay motivated in your homeschool life is to enjoy the process, so why limit all the learning fun to the kids? Sign up for a local college or online class that sparks your interest, and share your enthusiasm with your kids.
Remind yourself why this all matters. You’re more likely to stay motivated when a goal has true personal meaning for you, and when you hit a slump, remembering that meaning can pull you through. Multiplication drills may not inspire your heart, but raising kids who don’t stress over every math test they encounter might. Keep an eye on the big picture.
This article is excerpted from the winter 2016 issue of HSL.
The HSL 2018 Reading Challenge
Now this is a New Year's resolution we can get behind: Read more in 2018 with the HSL homeschool reading challenge.
New year, new books! If you’re looking for a way to organize your (endless) reading lists for 2018, consider our Reading Challenge Bingo — it’s flexible enough to work for you and your younger readers and a fun way to keep track of what you’re reading throughout the year. You can be as ambitious as you like: Complete the card, or just complete a row. Ideally, this challenge will point you toward a few books you wanted to read anyway and toward a few books that you might not have picked up otherwise. (We’ll choose books that tick off bingo boxes for our readalouds of the week during 2018.)
- a book at least 100 years older than you are
- a book you can read in one day
- a book by a Native American author
- a book that has more than 500 pages
- a novel based on a real person
- a book by a South American author
- a book told through letters
- a book with a protagonist who is (on the surface) nothing like you — from a different country, of a different ethnic background, etc.
- a book set on the continent of Africa
- a book your librarian recommends
- a book by a favorite author
- a novel written in verse
- a collection of short stories
- a banned book
- a book that’s been translated into English
- one of Suzanne’s Library Chicken recommendations
- a book by a writer from another country
- a book published in 2018
- a book about nature
- a book with a title you love
- a classic you’ve been meaning to read
- a book published the year you were born
- a book written by an immigrant
- a book inspired by Asian mythology or folklore
- the first book in a series
You can download a copy of the Bingo card here. (And Suzanne has some great tips for keeping up with what you're reading during the year.) Happy reading in 2018!
Readaloud of the Week: The Children of Noisy Village
Sometimes you want a readaloud that's pure comfort read. The Children of Noisy Village is a good bet.
THE CHILDREN OF NOISY VILLAGE by Astrid Lindgren
Sometimes you just want a book that’s pure comfort reading — a story that’s warm and gentle and set in a time before Netflix and Instagram. Anyway, that’s the kind of readaloud I like to start a new year with, and if you’re feeling like a soothing story time, too, you can’t do much better than The Children of Noisy Village.
The Children of Noisy Village is set in a little community of Swedish farms: Middle Farm, where narrator Lisa and her two brothers live is nestled between two other family farms, each of which also has children. (The children spend most of their free time playing together, which earned their little village its name, explains Lisa.) It’s not a particularly eventful story, but it’s funny and charming and oddly captivating. When Lisa and her friend go to the market without a written list, they keep forgetting things and having to walk back to get them. Lisa decides she wants to do good deeds and goes around inadvertently torturing her neighbors with her efforts. Everyone wakes up at four in the morning to go fishing for crayfish. Lisa and her friends at the next farm send notes to each other through their windows. The seasons come and go, and with them, the seasonal celebrations and food and activities. (I find myself jotting ideas on our calendar that I don’t want to forget when our days are full and busy again.)
A lot of young readers could read this on their own — it falls somewhere between those very early I Can Read chapter books and Little House in the Big Woods, I think, as far as reading levels go. But I think it’s the most fun as a readaloud because it’s funnier and sweeter when you read it together.
Stuff We Like :: 12.29.17
Literary resolutions, how to stop wanting everyone you meet to like you, the end of the period, and more stuff we like.
Happy New Year! I hope you are getting to slow down a little and enjoy some downtime with your family.
around the web
Your perfect New Year’s resolution based on your favorite literary character. (I am Hermione Granger-ing all the way in 2018.)
Speaking of resolutions: How to get over the need to be liked by everyone you meet
Suzanne and I were just talking about this! Apparently “OK.” is the most passive-aggressive text you can send someone.
This is fascinating: The ongoing archaeology behind The Island of the Blue Dolphins
at home/school/life
in the magazine: We’re wrapping up the winter issue—hooray!
on the blog: Our family’s favorite books of 2017
one year ago: A high school history curriculum that asks big questions (I know lots of people who are using this program and loving it)
two years ago: How to start homeschooling in the middle of the year
three years ago: Three words every homeschooling parent should know
at home
I’m sort of obsessed with these coffee malted cookies, and I love that I have the extra time to actually bake them right now.
We are all really enjoying hanging out, playing games, reading our new books, and eating way too much yummy food. It probably doesn't make for very exciting reading, but it’s been pretty fabulous.
Some of Our Favorite Books of 2017
It's time for our favorite books of 2017 roundup! From picture books with swagger to hard-hitting investigative journalism, from feminist dystopias (not what you think!) to Victorian mysteries, these are our picks for best homeschool reads of the year.
Since it’s the end of the year, everybody’s getting new reading logs — which means our scribbled-up, book-filled 2017 reading logs have been getting marked up with stars to indicate our favorite books of the year. Some of these books were published this year, some weren’t, some I’m surprised to see on the list, but all of them were rated favorites by me or my kids. (They are not listed in any particular order.) I am terrible at categorizing books by age because my own kids read above and below their “levels” more than they read on them, but I’ve tried to group these loosely into children’s books, young adult books, fiction, and nonfiction — though I definitely wouldn't recommend treating these categories anything more than loose guidelines.
Children’s Books
5 WORLDS: THE SAND WARRIOR by Mark and Alexis Siegel
At the top of my son’s list is this gorgeous graphic fantasy about three friends on a quest to save the five worlds. The worlds are brilliantly imagined (a little bit “Avatar: The Last Air Bender,” a little bit “Star Wars), the action is fast-paced and exciting, and we can’t wait for book two.
OUT OF WONDER: POEMS CELEBRATING POETS by Kwame Alexander and Chris Colderley
I try to pick up a new poetry collection for our bookshelf every year, and this was the one we chose this year. Visually, it’s gorgeous — the collage style illustrations are sheer exuberant joy. And I love that the poems are all tributes to other poets (including Naomi Shihab Nye, Langston Hughes, Basho, Pablo Neruda, and more) — it made us excited to go explore those poets, too.
LET’S PRETEND WE NEVER MET by Melissa Walker
Probably because he’s never been to school, my 10-year-old is fascinating by books about middle school politics. In this one, a lonely new girl in town finds out that her fun new neighbor is actually the “weird kid” at her new school. I think he also loved the book’s totally relatable, Judy Blume-ish vibe, which I enjoyed, too.
ALL’S FAIRE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL by Victoria Jamieson
Always homeschooled Imogen grew up working at the Renaissance Faire with her parents, and she’s determined to tackle her new challenge just like a brave knight would. But going back to traditional school seems more difficult than slaying dragons in this likable graphic novel.
BEN FRANKLIN’S IN MY BATHROOM! by Candace Fleming
If your kids loved the Magic Treehouse and the Time Warp Trio series, they will probably be as happy as my son was to discover that there’s a new time travel history series in town. When Ben Franklin shows up in Nolan’s bathroom (go with it), Nolan has a great adventure showing the Founding Father how the world he helped imagine has turned out.
CROWN: AN ODE TO THE FRESH CUT by Derrick Barnes
I loved this playful, freestyling ode to the barber shop — the place where little boys get to experience the thrill of being king for the length of a haircut. It’s a lovely book for young black boys, but I loved it, too.
BRONZE AND SUNFLOWER by Cao Wenxuan
Oh my goodness, this little book packs such a wallop. It’s the story of two only children living in poverty in rural China during the Cultural Revolution who slowly build a friendship that enriches them both. It made me cry in the good way.
THE ARRIVAL by Shaun Tan
This wordless graphic novel is incredibly powerful. Strange and surreal, it reads like a silent movie, as the newcomer discovers his new country, which is fantastic and beautiful, lonely and isolating, frightening and limited, warm and welcoming all at the same time.
A MILLION SHADES OF GRAY by Cynthia Kadohata
This novel of the Vietnam war focuses on a side of the war that we seldom consider — what was life like for the Vietnamese after the U.S. soldiers withdrew? Y’Tin is a child of the war who dreams of training elephants one day but faces more immediate pressures when his village is captured by the North Vietnamese.
UNDEFEATED: JIM THORPE AND THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM by Steve Sheinkin
Everyone teases me that sports is my trivia kryptonite — I always just guess “Jim Thorpe” and hope for the best. So we may have been predisposed to dig this book about the future Olympian who was sent to a school designed to “un-Indian” him and who didn’t even become a U.S. citizen until 1924, when the government extended the privileges of citizenship to Native Americans. Sheinkin is always awesome; this book is no exception.
OTTOLINE AND THE PURPLE FOX by Chris Riddell
Ottoline is one of our favorites! We loved this adventure with an urban safari and a secret poet, but it’s the illustrations that make this book so delightful.
THE DOORMAN’S REPOSE by Chris Raschka
The interconnected stories centering around a possibly magical apartment building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan are just plain charming.
THE WINGSNATCHERS by Sarah Jean Horwitz
What a fun story! Part steampunk adventure, part twisted fairy tale, this fantasy teams up a frustrated would-be inventor (currently employed as a magician’s assistant) with a fiery faerie princess to find the cause behind a string of faerie disappearances. We read this aloud twice because everyone enjoyed it so much.
AMINA’S VOICE by Hena Khan
Soojin and Amina are best friends who’ve always bonded over their “other” status — both of their families are immigrants who don’t exactly fit the “American” mold. But when Soojin embraces her new U.S. identity — even adopting an Americanized name — Amina is lonely and confused.
AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor
I know this one’s on Suzanne’s list, too, but I couldn’t leave it off — my daughter and I both loved this book, which is much more than a Nigerian Harry Potter, even though that’s the most immediate reference that comes to mind. American-born 12-year-old Sunny doesn't fit in anywhere, until she gets admitted to a school for magical kids.
HELLO, UNIVERSE by Erin Entrada Kelly
Four unlikely friends get caught up in an unexpected journey together in this well-plotted story about finding your inner hero. My son liked this one so much he read it himself after we read it as a readaloud.
RISE OF THE JUMBIES by Tracey Baptiste
Corinne doesn’t believe in the Jumbies — evil creatures that live in the dark forests of the island where she lives. But when a strange, beautiful woman named Severine appears, Corinne must battle the forces of darkness to save her home. I love that this book is based on a Haitian folktale that I’d never heard of, but the story definitely stands on its own.
REFUGEE by Alan Gratz
Focusing on three turbulent periods — 1930s Germany, 1994 Cuba, and 2015 Syria — Gratz imagines the stories of three young refugees fleeing unspeakable horrors in search of a better life. Maybe I wouldn’t hand this to particularly young or very sensitive kids, but I think this is the refugee book we should all be reading together.
CHEF ROY CHOI AND THE STREET FOOD REMIX by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
My son and I loved this picture book biography of street food chef Roy Choi, whose Korean fusion food helped kick off the street food trend. We’re always looking for fun biographies, and this one proved to be a big hit.
THE BOOK OF MISTAKES by Corinna Luyken
I am thrilled that my perfectionist son triple-starred this picture book about the unexpected magic of mistakes. Sometimes the thing you think you messed up ends up being the best part.
Young Adult
A CORNER OF WHITE, THE CRACKS IN THE KINGDOM, and A TANGLE OF GOLD by Jacklyn Moriarty
I read The Colors of Madeleine trilogy on Suzanne’s recommendation — mostly because she said it was a great characterization of homeschoolers, which is true — and, as usual, she was right. I loved the world of Cello, which is full of marauding colors and rapidly shifting seasons, and I loved the friendship that develops between Madeleine and Elliot when they find a crack that connects Oxford in our world to Elliot’s world. Moriarty does a brilliant job building connections and ideas that deliver big pay-off in later books.
CITY OF SAINTS AND THIEVES by Natalie C. Anderson
Tina, a teen refugee-turned-pickpocket, is determined to get revenge for her mother’s murder. She’s been harboring her dream of vengeance for years, but the closer she gets to fulfilling her mission, the less sure she is that she knows the truth about what happened that night. My daughter devoured this book.
AMERICAN STREET by Ibi Zoboi
Fabiola Toussaint thought coming to America would be her happy ending. Instead, her mom gets detained by U.S. immigration, and Fabiola is forced to make sense of life with her rowdy cousins in a rough part of Detroit alone. We’ve been reading a lot of good books about immigration and the immigrant experience this year, but this is one of the best.
STRANGE PRACTICE by Vivian Shaw
My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.
LUMBERJANES by Noelle Stevenson
Another title that also shows up on Suzanne’s list! My daughter loves this comic series starring five badass buds so much she keeps it stacked on her night table.
MOXIE by Jennifer Mathieu
I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school.
THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas
You’ve probably already seen this book on several best-of lists, but it really is pretty amazing — heartbreaking, hopeful, tense, and timely. Starr lives in a poor urban neighborhood but attends a fancy suburban prep school, a world-straddling proposition that gets even more complicated when she witnesses the police shooting of a childhood friend.
THE BEST WE COULD DO by Thi Bui
Another great book we discovered while reading about immigration experiences, this graphic novel memoir is an achingly evocative account of one family’s escape from 1970s Vietnam. Bui weaves together her childhood memories with her experiences as a new mom in a roller coaster of emotions.
PURPLE HIBISCUS by Chimamanda Adichi
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's debut novel focuses on 15-year-old Kambili and her life in her father’s harsh, abusive Nigerian home. As Kambili realizes — with the help of her free-spirited aunt — that her father’s authority is not absolute, she also realizes, for the first time, the possibility of her own life.
THE DIRE KING by William Ritter
My daughter was a huge fan of this supernatural Sherlock Holmes-ish series, so she greeted its last of four books with a combination of excitement and sadness, but as finales go, this one was pretty satisfying. As always, assistant-to-the-detective Abigail Rook shines in the apocalyptic battle that’s been building over the series, but shapeshifting police detective Charlie, ghostly Jenny, and expert on all things supernatural Jackaby all have great moments, too.
THE RUBY IN THE SMOKE by Philip Pullman
My daughter got hooked on this mystery series this year thanks to this first book, in which 16-year-old Sally Lockhart sets out into the seamy underbelly of Victorian London to solve her father’s murder.
THE POWER by Naomi Alderman
In this dystopian novel with a feminist twist, teenage girls around the world discover that their bodies have the power to emit a deadly electric charge on demand, totally shifting the traditional power dynamic. It was exactly the book I needed this year.
Fiction
EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid
I was shell-shocked by this book in all the best possible ways. Hamid weaves a thread of magical realism through the all-too-real portrait of a city on the edge of war, making the story of Saeed and Nadia both an unlikely love story and a haunting tale of refugee life. It’s difficult, and gorgeous, and definitely worth reading.
AUTUMN by Ali Smith
Set in post-Brexit England, this is the story of ]30-something art history lecturer Elisabeth and the 101-year-old man who helped care for her when she was a child. Now drifting in and out of consciousness at a residential care facility, Daniel becomes a “sleeping Socrates,” an anchor for Elisabeth in a turbulent, complicated time. It’s a tender, touching story that’s slow and subtle, and I really loved it.
FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GOD by Louise Erdrich
Tis the season for dystopia, I guess, but this is another one that I enjoyed: I know Erdrich mostly for her lovely Native American stories, so this is a different vein for her. In a dark future where evolution reverses course, the government starts rounding up pregnant women, and a pregnant, part-Ojibwe woman goes on the run as society begins to disintegrate.
THE SECRETS OF WISHTIDE by Kate Saunders
I don’t know if this prim-with-an-edge Victorian mystery — starring a clergyman’s widow who has been navigating life as a middle-aged woman in reduced circumstances — counts as great literature, but it was certainly enjoyable literature. I’m always on the lookout for a mystery that’s fun to solve and peopled with interesting characters, and this one delivered on both counts.
THE MAGPIE MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz
My other favorite mystery of 2017 was this multi-layered treat: An editor gets a manuscript of a famous detective novelist’s last book, but the last chapter is missing — and, it turns out, the famous detective novelist in question may have been murdered. It’s an homage to classic British detective fiction and a modern-day mystery, and even though I didn’t love everything about the ending, I found the experience of reading it to be very, very satisfying.
Nonfiction
BUNK: THE RISE OF HOAXES, HUMBUGS, PLAGIARISTS, PHONIES, POST-FACTS, AND FAKE NEWS by Kevin Young
Brilliant. Young considers the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, highlighting historical frauds in the context of their times and in the racism and stereotyping that often accompanied their chicanery. If you’ve been more than a little stressed out by the trend toward choose-your-own-facts, you will definitely appreciate this book.
THE MAGIC OF REALITY: HOW WE KNOW WHAT’S REALLY TRUE by Richard Dawkins
We all four loved this readaloud about the science of everyday life — and the ways in which the scientific truths of reality are often even more interesting and exciting than any mythical explanation.
WHAT SHE ATE: SIX REMARKABLE WOMEN AND THE FOOD THAT TELLS THEIR STORIES by Laura Shapiro
I’ve been recommending this book to everyone. Shapiro chronicles the lives of six women — Dorothy Wordsworth, Rosa Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt, Eva Braun, Barbara Pym, and Helen Gurley Brown — through the food they cooked and ate, and the result is utterly fascinating.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON by David Grann
David Grann rocks my world, and this book is everything I love about his obsessively researched, detail-rich writing. This is a tragic story that most of us have never heard about murders of Osage tribe members by their protectors in the 1920s — and how the investigation of those murders helped create the modern FBI.
DINNER: CHANGING THE GAME by Melissa Clark
I buy cookbooks by the dozen, but this one is a standout. I love the variety of recipes and the keep-it-simple philosophy Clark embraces.
I CAN’T BREATHE: A KILLING ON BAY STREET by Matt Taibbi
I feel like I read a lot of sad books this year, but this one is particularly gut-wrenching. Tabby tackles the problematic death of Eric Garner, a black man who died in New York City police custody. It’s like watching a really great episode of “The Wire” but without any humor in it — it’s honestly hard to get through in some places, but maybe that’s what makes it so important to read.
Our Favorite Holiday Readalouds
Happy Holidays! If you're looking for an excuse to snuggle up with a good book and your favorite people, here's a handy roundup of some of our favorite holiday readalouds.
Looking for a middle grades fantasy for your next homeschool readaloud? We review three of our newer faves: The Time of Green Magic, Amari and the Night Brothers, and The Language of Ghosts.