Good Stuff, Vol. 7

March 2025 edition

Hi friends!

Spring sports are no joke around here—good thing we love watching our kids and their teammates play, because our calendar is a tad insane. You’ll always find me squeezing in pages of reading between innings and during warmups (plus audiobooks while driving!). These days I’m often carrying my Kindle and my Kobo around because I can’t stop starting new books and I need both devices to keep track of them all.

It’s Middle Grade March, but I’m not sharing anything special because my reading life has gotten so that every month I probably read the equivalent of an average person’s MGM. I have lots of MG reviews in my archives here if you need ideas, or leave a comment if you want a personal rec of a particular kind! :)

Anyway, here’s the latest from the home front…

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🏡. At Home with the Bennetts…

📖. What We’re Reading

• Gigi (17)— several things (she takes after me!) including rereading a Harry Potter, along with A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur

• Brody (14)— so many Agatha Christies, I can’t keep up, lol! He’s starting The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd for school, and I’m going to try to listen to it as well (his teacher says her students always like but, knowing nothing, I fear it will be too literary for me—maybe it will prove me wrong!)

• Hallee (13)—Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger (this is also on my TBR for this month as my Libby hold came in after a 2-month wait—considering there are currently 11 books out in this series, that wait time is pretty astounding for book 1!)

• 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 (slow but steady) listens are…

  • with Hallee: City Spies by James Ponti

  • with Brody: The Secret of Golf by Joe Posnanski

  • See all my current reads here on StoryGraph

🥰. What We’re Eating/Loving/Watching/Doing

• We barely have time for TV these days, but my husband and I did start season 3 of Full Swing on Netflix.

• Recent family movie night: Three Musketeers—not sure how I had neglected to previously show this to my kids since it is so deeply ingrained in my childhood memories. Loved it again after all these years. D’Artagnan!!!!

• Need something summery to soothe your winter soul? Try Burst Tomato Burrata Pasta. And it’s easy!

📚. In the Library

My big project for the end of the year is to try to genrefy my upper-level fiction! I have this done already in our small satellite 5/6 collection, and now I’m upping the game with color-coding and attempting it in the main library. I get nerdily excited about projects like this.

🤓. At My Writing Desk

I finished my 3rd draft (after a round of my own revisions and a round of revisions with my critique group) of my middle grade novel, and I have officially sent it out to a handful of readers. Current emotion: nervously excited. I’ve sent it to a couple of grown-ups and a few kids. I also sent it to my own kids’ kindles, and we’ll see if they get around to reading it in the near future. They’ve now outgrown the target audience age but I’m still hoping they read it and like it. This story is really special to me, and I’m cautiously optimistic to hear what others think of it, especially the younger readers.

👩‍💻. On Substack

Some more introspective links this time around. This post really stuck with me:

YOUTH

Also, this one for the reader-writers, from one of my favorite authors:

You can have everything you want

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We’re off to take dinner to the beach and enjoy the sunshine before the rain returns for most of the week. I’d love to know what you’re reading/watching/eating/enjoying!

xo,

Nicole

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