It’s been a while since I featured a children’s book, and this is one I haven’t even read to my kids yet. I was immediately drawn to the cover illustration of Music for Mister Moon, by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead (I’m a sucker for a husband and wife team).
I started listening to Americanah on the commute to Sewing Camp. Written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and clocking in at just under 17 and a half hours, I figured I’d speed it up to 1.25 like I usually do for my audio books and cut the listening time down a bit.
That lasted for less than a few paragraphs of the first chapter.
I was doing some sewing research on patterns when I came across a blog. The person behind the blog was a sewist and knitter, but also, I discovered, had just released a new book. I usually stay away from suspense novels because they tend not to be great for bedtime reading, which is when much of my pleasure reading happens. They are hard to put down and they mess with your head.
But a maker who writes books? And blogs about knitting, sewing, and writing? I was intrigued. I could tell from the blog that the author was doing some of the same hard, good work I’m doing as I enter the mid part of my life. So I requested R.H. Herron’s Stolen Things from the library.
My dad introduced us to Star Wars early on in our house. We watched the original films over and over as kids, and when we got older, religiously went to see the subsequent movies (We still do!).
I went to a midnight showing of one movie. Since it was actually at midnight, I have no idea which movie it was, because I dozed through parts of it. (I checked with my brother, who was with me that night and is a better historian when it comes to Star Wars movie watching. The episode I dozed through was Revenge of the Sith. I was a young single mom of a two-year-old who was still getting me up at night when that movie came out. I did watch it again later with my eyes open).
I’ve passed down my interest in Star Wars to the kids, although the franchise and its size have started to alienate me a little. It’s not the same, special thing it was when I was a kid, with a limited number of movies to enjoy. Someday there will be so many subplots and new characters that I won’t have any idea who half of them are (that may already have happened, as indicated above).
Two knows I’m a nerd, and she handed me Don’t Cosplay with My Heart, by Cecil Castellucci, after she’d read and enjoyed it. She’d read the “good parts” to Three along the way and thought I would like it, too.
Like her sister, 10 year-old Three lets me know when she reads a book she likes and wants to recommend, but she shares fewer books – although the number may increase as she sees me reading her picks. One of her recent and rare recommendations was Ghost Boys, by Jewell Parker Rhodes.
