Where We Read [March 2023]

Well, here we are, already at the end of March. March began in Winter, with snow storms and lots of reading on the couch under multiple blankets.

A favorite series this month was Happy Hollisters. I think they checked out every book we could find in the library system.

One evening while the littlest was at gymnastics, the oldest picked up a Happy Hollister book, Hubs sat next to me to read Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone and I flew through The Writing Retreat.

I started making my way through L.M. Montgomery’s Emily series, with the dog nestled snugly on my legs.

My lap became his favorite place to be this month. Sometimes he’d fight the book for the favored spot.

Other times he settled for the pillow on the other end of the couch.

He really loved reading Flamer with the girls one Saturday morning.

They continued reading Happy Hollisters, as well as The Meanest Doll in the World, over afternoon brownies.

She discovered the pup made a really great pillow while she read The Impossible Quest: Battle of the Heroes.

I brought back read aloud time before bed a few nights a week with We Dream of Space. Although I didn’t plan it, it coincides nicely with the Astronomy unit we were using for Science.

By the middle of the month, I was tired of Winter, but Mother Nature disagreed, so I stayed on the couch reading this month’s book club selection, March.

We finished our journey through Find the Constellations written by the one and only H.A. Rey, best known for Curious George. They made a Solar System model out of air dry clay, using the book as their guide.

On the first day of Spring, I kicked the kids outside and laid on the sunroom couch to read Independence. I was done in a day. I simply couldn’t put it down.

One day I took the girls to the library so I could do some research on graphic novels for The Woebegone Literary Society. They were tasked with finding nonfiction books about any science topic they wanted to learn about. I brought this stack of graphic novels home.

They chose books on gravity, metals, birds, and marsupials. The weather finally decided to take a turn for the better, so they took their library books outside for a picnic lunch.

The next morning, before breakfast, they decided to see if Anya’s Ghost or Passport were any good.

I decided it was time for Spring Cleaning and changed up the curtains and blankets in the living room. Then made myself a cup of tea and sat down to begin Weyward, while she continued her graphic novel journey with Be Prepared.

We hosted our niece-by-choice for a sleepover one Saturday night and they made me read Twenty Yawns to get us all ready for bed.

And this is how the last week of March began. Sunshine streaming through the windows, quilt on our lap, books in hand.

By the time March ended, Spring had sprung! The sun was glorious, so we took Seabird and The Children’s Homer outside to complete our lessons for the day.

As soon as we finished our lessons, I claimed the blanket for myself and read the last half of Weyward. Another book I just absolutely could not put down.

Technically March isn’t over yet, but we are heading out of town later this week so I wanted to go ahead and get this out. Where (and what) are you reading this month?

We do buy a lot of books, but we also check 25-50 out of the library in any given week. If I could include links to these books that went directly to your library holds list, I would, but I can’t. So, I include affiliate links instead. If you choose to buy a book, I get a very small percentage of your purchase. You can think of it as a very small finder’s fee. But seriously, use the library. It can be your very best friend.

Where We Read: February 2023

Well February just flew by. Here we are in March already. It felt like I didn’t do much reading last month, but looking back on these photos made me realize I did a ton of reading; I just didn’t finish many books. I love that our homeschool schedule allows us to carve out a few minutes a day to snuggle on the couch and read. We finished up the first half of The Children’s Homer and are looking forward to beginning the second half later this week.

It was haircut month for the girls. If you walked the streets and peeked in the window on the right day, you could spy her reading Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom while she waited for her turn in the stylist’s chair.

She finished Meet George Washington and I slowly made my way through a bit more of Chernow’s Washington: A Life. It may take me all year to finish this book.

And she sat across the living room reading whatever book was left on the chair that day.

Prince Harry joined me for a pasta lunch.

One evening after yoga, I had cheese and crackers for dinner while reading an essay from My Body by Emily Ratajkowski and a chapter or two of Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Broks before picking the youngest up at gymnastics.

I carved out one glorious Saturday for reading and writing at my favorite library in all of Massachusetts.

A few days later, it felt like Spring, so I took Spare and The Dead Romantics outside with a nice hot cup of tea.

When I had to take a last minute weekend trip to Georgia, I read every word of For the Love of the Bard for my book club. It made for the perfect travel companion. And when I got home, the author came to our book club gathering, which made it extra fun!

While I was gone, they read books and ate lunch together, turning pages in sync.

When I got back, David left the next day for a work trip and Leo was way sad. He loves to snuggle when he’s sad, especially when she’s reading her history book.

That afternoon, he snuggled on mine when I read another essay from My Body. He likes me to know he misses me when I’m gone.

She took America Grows Up to the kitchen counter and read over a cup of hot tea.

February’s weather was bipolar. When the snow finally showed up , I took Washington: A Life and Remarkably Bright Creatures to the couch with a couple of blankets and stayed there for an hour or two.

The next day brought frigid air, so I read by the fireplace instead.

Later that night, she snuggled next to me on the bed and read The Happy Hollisters on her Kindle while I read Remarkably Bright Creatures. This doesn’t happen often anymore because her evening schedule is so hectic, so I cherish the moments when it does.

The snow just kept falling in Februarry, so I used it as a good excuse to cuddle with the dog on the couch and read The Last Days of Dogtown.

Where’s the coziest place you read this month?

A Library Book Spine Poem

Spine Poetry is one of my favorite ways to create in the margins. I love sitting beside my bookshelf holding a warm cup of tea while reading the titles of the books on the shelf. When a title nudges me, I pull it off the shelf and put it in a stack. Then I rearrange them over and over again until I come up with a poem (of sorts). Here’s a little spine poetry I put together with a stack of library holds that all came in at the same time.

Girl with a pearl earring
the idea of you
(may be a) state of terror
(That’s okay)
Find your unicorn space
under the whispering door
(and let) the house in the cerulean sea
(be your) paper palace

Go ahead - try it. What poems can you create from the books on your shelf?

Where We Read This Month: January 2023

I know there are other months with 31 days, but for some reason January always feels like the longest month of the year. We filled it with tons of books in a variety of places. I finished 8 books this month, started a handful of others, abandoned a few, and made my way through the first third Ron Chernow’s Washington (which should count as 4 books in my opinion!) Here’s a glimpse at January through our reading life.

We started off the new year reading at the beach. Going to the beach on New Year’s Day has become an annual tradition. Some years it’s icy cold and we’re so bundled up you can barely see our eyes. This year, it was almost 60, so we brought our books and stayed a while.

Of course, even almost 60 at the beach in January feels cold, so it means lots of layers and her favorite owl hat. She’s on her fiftieth read through of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.

I started The Great Belonging, which I highly recommend. Bitty Baby agrees.

The next day, Leo and I resumed our normal reading position on the couch and I started A Year of Writing Dangerously.

I finished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow in the car while waiting on my daughter’s dance lesson.

I started Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life over dinner at the YMCA, while waiting on the other daughter to finish gymnastics.

I read The Red Pony while on a solo retreat.

Then David went to NYC for work and the puppy was sad. So I let him snuggle me in the wee hours of the morning while I read Good Apple.

while she read Princess Academy by the fire. Now I understand why they call it Child’s Pose.

They shared The Meanest Doll in the World while eating breakfast (gosh, isn’t this the sweetest thing ever?)

And later that day, I read Seabird out loud while they did some stretching.

David caught me reading The Cloisters on the floor of our church while the kids were in Sunday School.

The next day we got a ton of snow, so we curled up on the couch and read. Me, The Cloisters; Her, Princess Academy.

We started reading Romeo & Juliet together. They prefer the original Shakespeare text rather than the modern; we all agree the cadence is much more fun.

On the next snow day, I devoured The Lions of Fifth Avenue in less than 36 hours. It was a perfect snowy day escape, especially because we were heading to NYC just a few days later.

When David had a second trip to New York City, we all tagged along and turned it into a school field trip. We tried to read Shakespeare on the train, but it didn’t work. out very well. We gave up after just a few lines.

It didn’t take us long to settle into our hotel and dive into the many books we loaded onto our Kindles. Little Women, The Menagerie, and The Masterpiece made great traveling companions.

Our first day in the city, we spent the entire day at the New York Public Library. We saw Shakespeare’s First Folio, Charles Dickens’ Writing Desk, a Gutenberg Bible, the Declaration of Independence, and the original handwritten manuscript draft of The Secret Garden, just to name a few. After seeing all the Treasures, we went back to the hotel for a lunch of leftover Chinese and books.

An afternoon at the children’s library was pretty much their idea of a perfect afternoon. (My kids are dreams to travel with, I’m telling you…)

The second day, we took the subway to The Strand. I made a mistake on the way back and went the wrong direction, but we saw it as a pleasant detour. We saw a few extra sights (World Trade Center, Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty), and she finished the second book in The Menagerie series.

The end of our trip came too soon. We said farewell to Grand Central station and took the Commuter rail halfway home. One continued her journey through Little Women and the other finished the final book of the Menagerie series.

And I cracked up at Katherine Center’s newest book, Hello Stranger (coming in July). Preorder it friends. It’s going to be the perfect beach read.

The final leg of our trip was a 2 1/2 hour car ride from Connecticut home. She was quite happy to spend the time with the March girls.

Now that we’re home and book club is in two days, it’s time for me to finish reading Romeo & Juliet. I’ve found listening to the audio while reading along is the very best way for me to maximize comprehension.

Whew - what a month! What stories does your reading life tell??

You can see a complete list of the books mentioned in this post here. All links are affiliate links.

Reading Romeo & Juliet with Kids

I have been wanting to read (and talk about) more Shakespeare ever since I read Hamnet a couple of years ago. So when my book club decided to start the year off with Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, I was thrilled. We thought it might be fun to read a play in 2023, so when we learned Romeo & Juliet was coming to the local theater in early March, it seemed like a sign. The night after book club, I told my kids I was going to see Romeo & Juliet with my book club friends; they asked if they could come along. What started as Ladies Night Out quickly became Mom and Kids' Night Out, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. I love when we find ways for adult book club to be something the kids can be a part of too.

I try to read at least one Shakespeare story with my kids each year. Although I still feel intimidated by Shakespearean English, my kids really adore the stories. We haven’t attempted to read it in play form yet, but I think we may attempt it with Romeo & Juliet. I put together a list of resources for my book club and thought I’d share it here on the blog too.

If you want to be brave with us and read Romeo & Juliet with your kids, here are some of my favorite resources:

When introducing Shakespeare for the first time, I found it really helpful to read a book about Shakespeare in general before diving into the poetry & stories he wrote. If your kids (or you) don’t know anything about Shakespeare, William Shakespeare & The Globe is a fantastic picture book biography.

Bruce Coville has an entire series of Shakespeare picture books. They use the original language to tell the story, so it's a great way to introduce Shakespearean English. The artwork is gorgeous as well, so it makes for a great cozy read by the fire. Sometimes libraries will have them, or you can buy a pretty inexpensive copy of Romeo & Juliet here.

A Stage Full of Shakespeare has a bunch of stories in narrative form. I picked this up at Costco on a whim last year and the girls adore it.

Tales from Shakespeare by Tina Packer is another beautiful compilation book of stories. I learned about this one through our A Gentle Feast curriculum. The girls love the artwork and the way the stories are written..

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit is also a compilation, with language that is somewhere between modern and Shakespearean. Nesbit wrote several other favorite children’s books, including Five Children and It, The Enchanted Castle, and The Railway Children.

If you want to read Romeo & Juliet in play form, but want plain English, No Fear Shakespeare is a great way to begin. This is the one I’m going to try to read with my kids.

For the Graphic Novel lovers, this graphic novel by No Fear Shakespeare gets great reviews.

As does this one by Gareth Hinds. I love the diversity of characters in the artwork.

This graphic novel includes the original text of the play for those who want to dive in to Shakespearean English but need a few pictures to help them along the way.

Also—who knew there were so many graphic novels for Romeo & Juliet?!

If your kids get all about Shakespeare and want to read more on their own, my oldest loved The Shakespeare Stealer. It has more to do with Hamlet than Romeo & Juliet, but it’s a very fun novel about what life might have been like when Shakespeare (and his actors) were alive.

And also, this podcast from Sarah Mackenzie is really great (and not just for homeschoolers!) She makes reading Shakespeare sound so much fun!

Have you read Shakespeare with your kids? Have you read it on your own? I’d love to hear about your love (or hate) for Shakespeare!

This post includes affiliate links.

Where We Read This Month: December 2022

While November brought the change of weather, December brought Winter in full force. This was a month of reading under blankets by the fire.

I had aspirations to start the month off with a week or two of regular lessons. We started a new book for Geography: Seabird by Holland C. Holling.

It wasn’t long before I abandoned my lesson plans and decided we would just sit on the couch and read Christmas books all month instead.

We read in the morning, snuggled under blankets and the pup.

We read in the afternoon, when the sun set at 4:10pm. Sometimes it was hard to choose what book to read from the massive stack on the coffee table.

When the temperature was -6° outside and 54° inside the house when they woke up, they read by the fireplace. Apparently the dog bed makes a great reading seat.

Leo climbed onto my lap when I sat down to read my book club book.

Every. Single. Time.

I think he might have been upset that I took his favorite reading spot.

We celebrated his first birthday this month. In the ten months that he’s lived with us, he’s decided being on the couch when he read is his very favorite place to be.

He really loved listening to A Christmas Carol while I worked on crocheting a scarf.

Sometimes I read the latest Jodi Picoult on the couch in the afternoon when everyone else was busy with something else.

Once, I got caught reading while grinding coffee in my pajamas.

Two days before Christmas we had a terrible wind and rainstorm that kept us inside all day. Leo and I took the opportunity to start a new book.

Three days later, I was still reading the same book. Leo was still laying in basically the same spot.

Christmas came and went. Our book choices shifted from Christmas tales to memoir and biography.

We mostly spent the month right here in the living room. Books in hand and dog never out of sight.

But I did get to spend quite a few hours at the end of the year reading in the local library while the youngest was at gymnastics.

And tonight, as the world ushers in the new year, I’m snuggled into bed nice and tight with a cup of tea and Book of the Month and Goodreads best book of the year.

Where We Read This Month: November 2022

The blog has been a quiet place this month. I went on retreat to work on a book idea, I’ve been working on launching Insider News over at Substack, and this week, I’ve been trying to lean into the slowness that Advent has to offer. When I started pulling photos together for this post, I noticed how November is the month where we really begin to see the season shift from Fall to Winter.

Early November had moments of reading outside in tank tops and bare feet.

We had to pick up a very large stack of books (aka the entire Poppy series) from the library on the way to gymnastics one day. The sunshine was warm, but the wind requested sweatpants.

Sometimes I’d kick them outside to play so I could read The Starless Sea for book club in peace.

We finished reading D’Aulaire’s George Washington while standing on our heads. Well, she stood on her head. I sat upright.

She took her history book (America Is Born) to the sunroom couch, apple in hand, to read about the Stamp Act and the early days of the American Revolution.

I started John Irving’s latest book, which is more than 900 pages. I affectionately call it a doorstop, and although I’m taking a break from it over the holidays, I will hop right back into it in the new year.

Reading Harry Potter next to the puppy has become a favorite pastime.

As has reading Critter Club in the dog pen.

Sometimes we read recipe cards on the floor while in fancy dress up clothes.

And sometimes they read wherever they land when I’m out of town.

They finished up Story Thieves for bedtime reading while I was on retreat.

While they read at home, I did a lot of airport reading when I flew home standby. Paris Daillencourt was an excellent traveling companion.

The morning after I got home, the weather had chilled enough that we needed a morning fire.

I’m still not sure why she loves reading upside down, but I guess it doesn’t matter how she reads, as long as she’s reading, right?

You better believe I read this beauty from cover to cover the second it arrived on my doorstep.

We read on trains.

And in the theater, waiting on SIX to begin.

Sometimes the puppy got to snuggle next to me on the couch.

When he was being mischievous, he got stuck in his pen.

And eventually he decided if he’s going to be part of our family, he should probably learn how to read.

By the end of the month, we’ve packed away our tank tops and have nestled in for a long winter of reading buried under our thickest down comforters.

Where did you read this month?