Hi friends!
September reading started off light, but has picked up for me. Last weekend a friend and I spend the weekend enjoying a reading retreat at my parents’ house (while they were out of town). It was so relaxing but we, of course, wished for more time. The best part was tandem reading a couple of books. We kept asking each other, “What page are you on?” and chatting about our thoughts.
After not sending a post last week, I will have a good little collection of recent reads for you next week highlighting all the month’s MG & YA reads.
🏡. At Home with the Bennetts…
📖. What We’re Reading
Gigi (17)— All The Light We Cannot See, and The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (which seems a bit dark for me!)
Brody (14)— Great Expectations (he’s reading this for honors English and really enjoying it! I’m also trying to read along but I’m several chapters behind. It’s funnier than I expected!);
Hallee (13)— Olivetti, and she just finished a cute MG romance on audio (I haven’t read it yet) called Not if You Break Up With Me First by G.F. Miller
Me!— As I’ve said, I usually have audiobooks going with my two kids who don’t drive. Whenever we’re in the car alone, we try to listen to these. It’s been a very enjoyable (and dare I say, special) activity for us. Current listens are…
with Hallee: we just started City Spies (which she’s never read; I’m so excited to get her into this series)
with Brody: still laughing and eye-rolling our way through The Superteacher Project which keeps getting zanier; it’s funny to listen to with everything going on now with AI)
🥰. What We’re Eating/Loving/Watching/Doing
We escaped our house-with-no-AC during the crazy heat wave for a delightful beach dinner. My go-to beach dinner is caesar pasta salad, which I layer in old Thai food takeout containers for each person: chopped romaine, penne (or other short pasta) tossed in caesar dressing, TJ’s pre-cooked grilled lemon chicken, chopped up, parmesan cheese. We bring along the bottle of dressing along with some bubbly drinks, and voila! Easy portable dinner. Just add extra dressing, shake up with the lid on and enjoy.
David and I have 2 episodes left of The Bear season 3, but we keep defaulting (after long days) to Brooklyn 9-9. I’m not saying I don’t like this season of The Bear but it’s not quite grabbing us like last season.
Something to look forward to: an author I loved announced a new book! Maggie Stiefvater has an adult debut coming out and it sounds intriguing. And yes, I do plan to read The Scorpio Races again in November. (Want to join me?)
📚. In the Library
This past week was our book fair, which I co-chair with a PTA member. It’s a fun but exhausting week, especially this year as I really wanted to keep library checkout going this time concurrently (i.e. cue Mrs. Bennett running back and forth from the library to the MUR and back all week). We went with Literati again this year and again I was happy with their book selection. Last year I wrote a comparison between Literati and Scholastic. I recently found out that Scholastic has made some positive changes to their program this year, but we’ve been happy to stick with Literati.
While working book fair, I met a mom who was volunteering, and asked her how their pet search was going. She looked confused. “You know, since your daughter’s been checking books about different pets each week? She told me she was doing research so she could choose a new pet.” The mom laughed as she told me that no, they were definitely not in the market for a new pet. But now she understands why her daughter (a precocious 3rd-grader) has been bringing home books about parakeets, guinea pigs, rabbits, etc. Kids are funny.
🤓. At My Writing Desk
I’ve worked in small increments lately (even when I only have a few minutes) and now have only 10 chapters left in my revisions. Then I have a few random scenes left to write before the 2nd draft is officially done. Woohoo!
👩💻. On Substack
I loved this guest post full of old and new MG recs from
I’d love to know what you’re reading/watching/eating/enjoying!
xo,
Nicole
I always use affiliate links with Bookshop.org when I link to books. If you purchase through my links you support me a tiny bit, and more importantly, you
I can't take credit for that fabulous (guest) post, which was written by my friend and middle-grade author, Laura Anne Bird, but I appreciate the shoutout, nevertheless!
City Spies is on my state's Battle of the Books list this year, and I'm so happy it is, because it made me actually pick it up for the first time ~ what a fun story! I'm excited to sell it to tons of kids this year :-)