Our House in the Middle of Our Street

  View somewhere on Whistler or Blackcomb Mountain Canadian Geographic Dec/Jan issue - I really enjoyed the most recent issue, and loved the cover articles - on owls and also the grasslands of Canada, and the health of that ecosystem over the last 200 years.  New Kid by Jerry Craft - This was a fun and easy comic I finished in about two days. It's about a ...yes...new kid to a new school and the friend group he makes. The pictures are done well, and the story has a really nice flow. I don't even know if I've ever read comic books before this year, but it's quickly becoming a fun 'beach read' for me when I need a break. YA Comic Book I can finish in 2 hours? Why not!? Especially when this one won the 2020 Newberry Medal.  The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo - This book was created in little niche that I love, also-books in verse (poetry). This book won the 2018 National Book Award in Young People's Literature, and it's well deserved. The poetry is engaging...

  May and June were easier for me to get books completed, because  we were so close to the end of the school year (and still had so much to do!) but I also read quite a few short books on my own. Each of these books below were under 250 pages, except MAUS but that was a novel set in comic book form, so I read it in a day (and it was completely absorbing- a true story!).  There are another couple of books in this photo above that got abandoned due to time (darn that new Julie Bogart book! I want to read it and so does everyone else!) or lack of interest. I'm much better about not finishing books I don't really want to read. Years ago I would have pushed through and now I am just more realistic. Time moves too fast to read books you don't love.  May Titles  * Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman - Gorman was the National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017 and penned a poem for President Biden's inauguration. She had yet to publish a complete work of poetry until Call ...

One of my favorite spots to stop and take a picture in Ft. Langley: Brae Island on the right hand side I had every intention of getting all my titles together before the end of October and...here we are on November 10th. Ideally I'd love to catalog and share my two vacations from this prior year; our family one in Sooke, BC, and my girls' trip to Albuquerque I did in September. Here's hoping!  One thing I've noticed is that around the middle of summer, my book reading became 'easy' again. I had such high hopes when the lock down first started, but my attention span quickly grew frizzly within a month. My sleeping took a turn for the worst and anytime I sat down to read I just couldn't get anywhere with it. Apparently, it was a common thing with lots of book readers. The low-grade stress eked into my favorite hobby, and I wasn't pleased. Thankfully, my book reading seems to have really had a kick start these last few months, and I've been happy with ...

  Very few of the books above were completed in January, but (most) were done by February. I'm already quite behind in getting my monthly book titles out but I want to be a bit more faithful with posts.  A lot of my completed reading right now is tied with my kids' home school curriculum. We're studying the Ancients this year and we have SO many good books that we're reading. You'll see them below in the Read-Aloud section.  The Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchet - This memoir is a story about a young widow who sailed all up and down BC's local waters with her 5 children (!) on a small, 25-foot boat each summer. The descriptions of the places they went back to each year, the unusual events and people met along the way, the wildlife run-ins, and the navigational ability of this woman was incredible. Each chapter is a mini essay and although the author puts the essays in chronological order, the book does not always feel cohesive and sometimes the kids' ages ...

  Canoeing down Pitt River in Pitt Meadows  This is a good spot to stop you---before I'm even ahead-- and tell you that by putting off the reflecting on these books before months have passed, that I don't remember all the details now. When I talk about a book with someone, I can typically remember the general jist, whether I liked it or not, and how I *felt* reading it (or completing it). This is what I can offer you right now, in these reviews. Some, I will not remember much detail, but the jist.  The Tradition by Jericho Brown - This book of poetry was a 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner, so I knew I wanted to check it out after I heard Brown on the On Being podcast and was entranced by his conversation. I remember liking this book of poetry but not loving it. It was mostly about the body, and it's connection to the world in many different ways.  Master of None by Jordan Raynor - This is the second book of Raynor's that I've read, and I enjoyed both of them. I had my l...

Artist Jane Mount The first night of the protests that started after George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis police officer had my mind racing. I was reading and listening to news reports on and off, and have been for nearly two weeks now. I have been online way too much than is good for me, but I can't  stop reading because I am learning so much. In such a short amount of time, I've learned all about some of the systems that protect the police, what happens when the social contract is up, and that moment of realization that I'm someone to fear , and most importantly, what it looks like to be(come) anti-racist .  I know I am learning so much about racism just in the last two weeks alone, and here I thought I was someone who 'knew'. Dang, I was so wrong. So misinformed. So clueless and ignorant--still am. I am committed to learning more, speaking out when appropriate, and shutting up when appropriate. The only way I can try to help in the immediate time period,...

I literally can't believe I read this many books in July. Now, mind you, I probably finished three the first week that I had been reading for some time, so that feels like cheating a bit, but I found myself very busy, with a lot of restless energy, and very little desire to read especially towards the end of the month. My brain is feeling overloaded from so much. I'm specifically not planning any outings for myself or the kids the last two weeks in August because hoo-boy do I need to actually start planning our homeschool year.  The Wondering Years by Knox McCoy - This is a memoir from a co-host of the popcast , which isn't a podcast I listen to, but a friend of mine does and she loaned me the book because hello! 80s and 90s pop culture references! It was funny and I enjoyed it but the Christianese message at the end of most chapters I found to be a bit corny. Start From the Heart by Kathy Koch - This was a book I got from my mother-in-law at the beginning of the ...

Been waiting a loooong time to read this one! I really had no idea how many books I had actually read in June (I thought it was half of this!) until I started this blog post and realized the four I thought were from May were actually this month. What?! That might be an example why my brain feels so slow these days.  I am fully into the book, but time is passing quickly and I just can't remember when I finished what. Thank goodness for Pinterest, where I keep track of the books I want to read and those I have finished .  * No Walls and the Recurring Dream by Ani DiFranco - My best girl Ani finally wrote a memoir! It only covers her first 30 years (she's close to 50 now), but it was just as good and rife with feminism and weirdness as I expected it to be. I first started listening to Ani Difranco's music in high school and I am so glad I found her, her uncontrollable guitar, and her penchant for fierce political poetical lyrics early in life. Loved this; 100% bia...

This reading month was a little crazy: no reading at all while finishing up a big project and then a lot of reading while taking a break from life for about a week, then sporadically through the holidays. A little unbalanced, I suppose, but I did finish enough good books for me to call it a decent reading month!  I'll be back early January with my 10 Favorites of the year, along with what did and didn't happen on my 18 in 2018 list, along with a new one for 2019. Now, onto the book list: * He Who Dreams by Melanie Florence - This was a quick little YA book that I saw was the Langley Book of the Year on an endcap and with the topic (pow wow dancing) and big font I figured I could read it in a few sittings. I enjoyed it, but I don't know if I'd pass it on as a recommendation. The language was a bit too simple though the theme was well-done and positively executed. * Dear Farenheit 451 by Annie Spence - I laughed out loud with this book so much, and had zero exp...

One of my kid-oriented goals this year was to take my kids to a movie. We never go to the actual theater because it's so expensive (this afternoon matinee was $30!), but it's something fun to do over the summer, and when it's very rare, it's a big treat. I had seen the trailer for The Secret Life of Pets last year and thought it looked really cute. The kids loved this movie and laughed quite a bit, though to be honest, I was a little disappointed in this movie. It wasn't nearly as funny as the trailer made it look, and the plot was only so-so. I wished I had watched this at home after it came out on DVD from the library, but the kids enjoyed the movie treat, and that's what I cared about. We enjoyed our time together. I'm here to tell you, however, to skip this one in the theaters and wait for a better Pixar or Disney movie, and watch this one at home on the couch with a bucket full of popcorn made in the microwave.  It tastes just as good. 

At the end of June we finished a monumental task- we finished the entire Laura Ingalls Wilder series; nine books where the shortest one was 150 pages, and most were well over 300. It took us a solid 7 months of reading aloud, during school time, bedtimes, bored times, etc. and I am so glad I made this a year-long goal, because quite frankly, it was a doozy. I had never read the entire series myself, I remember reading at least two of them, but I knew my kids were at the right age to enjoy these books. There are a number of series I have 'planned' to read to them through the next 3 years or so, and these were the books that I thought best to start with, because the kids would enjoy the simple stories of pioneer life, and were considered the 'youngest' of the series. The last two large books, Little Town on the Prairie, and These Happy Golden Years, were listened aloud on audio with Cherry Jones (thanks for the tip, Jamie Martin! ) because I needed a break, and my ...

April hopefuls; only three actually made it I finished a lot of great books this month, one or two slogs, and found a new favorite author. It's been a great book month. Our family watched quite a few good movies this month so I'm adding those here, too. * Girls on the Edge by Dr. Leonard Sax -- Last month I raved about Boys Adrift, also by Dr. Sax, and I couldn't wait to read his take on the other gender side. I didn't find this book as eye-opening (maybe because I am a girl?) but there is still valuable information here for parents, teachers, and caregivers. I fully plan to read The Collapse of Parenting , his newest book, when it finally comes to me at the library (I've been waiting for months, and it's now in transit). The thing I love about Dr. Sax's writing is that it takes huge ideas based on science, and shuffles them alongside anecdotes so the reader-who may or may not have any medical/scientific knowledge base- and explains them in an a...

Alright guys, settle down. Yes, I read a lot this month but I barely did anything else. The three of us were 'off' school from Dec. 8 and aside from two wonderful Christmas dinners with extended family, the holiday season was pretty slow for us. I spent this month of no extracurricular stuff on the couch reading nearly every night. It was delightful! Stay tuned, since I have 2016's reading list coming up soon. * My Kitchen Year by Ruth Riechl - This half-memoir, half-cookbook was full of pretty color photographs from Riechl's year after Conde Naste shut down Gourmet , the magazine Riechl had been editor of for years. It's her year of grief over losing a job she loved, a year of confusion as she felt restless and like a wanderer, wondering what to do next, and of slow meals meant to satisfy herself and those closest to her, quiet in the sustenance of time and thought. It's a beautiful memoir, though I didn't have it long enough to try any recipes. Not a...

via Remembrance and Veterans' Day, a day to remember what our countries have been through to provide you with the freedom you have in this lifetime. Be thankful. As always, some picturebooks to help children understand what this day is about: * Proud as a Peacock, Brave as a Lion by Jane Barclay * A Poppy is to Remember by Heather Patterson * Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh by Sally M. Walker (fantastic history lesson here about a well known bear) * The Wall by Eve Bunting * H is for Honor by Devin Scillian * The Poppy Lady by Barbara Walsh