I read a lot of books in February and then have taken forever to report on them. My reading was all over the place without any particular rhyme or reason. I read 6 books in this short month due to a short trip I took by myself that afforded hours of airplane reading time.
The first book I read was Siblings without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. It was comforting to read that we were already doing some things right and horrifying to find out that we were doing some things really wrong. For instance, my girls are competitive and we often fuel it by setting them up against each other. It feels innocent, i.e. "Who can clean the room faster? Oh Maggie is the fast one!" but that builds rivalry so we've been doing our best to stop that and instead we are saying, "Come on Team! Let's clean the room together! Many hands make fast work!"
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard was an "assigned" book from my Coffee & Crumb's Year of Creativity group. I was fooled into thinking that it would be a short read due to the compact size of the book but Dillard's writing requires deep concentration and often tears me away from the pages with the journey's my mind is encouraged to roam on. I loved this book and took away so much from it.
I was attracted to Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon because of the beautiful cover artwork which was designed by Yoon's husband. I ended up loving this book. It's a Young Adult novel about a girl with so many allergies, etc that she basically lives in a bubble. The teenage girl soon falls in love with the teenage boy next door and the adventure begins there.
I am not a money genius but I want my kids to be confident with their money. Make Your Kid a Money Genius (Even If You are Not) by Beth Kobliner was so helpful and one I know I'll go back to again and again. I did skip the teenagers information because we are years away from that. My biggest takeaway was there is no "RIGHT" way to do allowance, one just has to be consistent about it. The other one was to talk about money with your kids. Be open about how much things cost.
This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel was the Seattle Refined Book Club pick and I LOVED it. The book is about a transgendered child and how the family deals with it. Laurie Frankel is also a Seattle resident and so her descriptions of Seattle were top notch. I also loved how the family dynamics worked and kept thinking, this is how I would hope to parent in this situation.
I read The Handmaid's Tale by Margret Atwood years ago and decided to re-read it in light of the current political atmosphere and the Hulu Mini Series. It was just as horrifying now as it was a few years ago. The part that struck me the most was where Atwood noted that she didn't want to write about anything that hasn't happened somewhere at some point.
Yearly Book Total: 11/52
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