My Top 10 Middle-grade Books of the Year

Here are my favorite middle-grade books, fiction and on-fiction, of 2017. I by no means read a great deal of children's literature, but this year I tried to step it up a bit, resulting in some wonderful finds. About half of these were published this year, the rest are backlist. I've listed them in order of preference, The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate, Grover Cleveland, Again!, and Appleblossom the Possum being my favorites.

 

 

What I'm reading this week (12/12/16)

Last week I finished:

I know that Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air is considered the tragic adventure book (which is why I read it), but I didn't care much for this book at all. In case you don't know what it's about, it's the true story a 1996 Mount Everest climbing expedition that goes horribly wrong. My main objection here is that Krakauer writes a book about personal experience like a journalist. There's a robotic this-then-that-then-that narration that just turned me off. I couldn't engage with the book or characters at all. Speaking of characters, there are so many mentioned that I could not keep them straight or remember who belonged to which expedition. I constantly felt myself skimming the book instead of reading it, then going back to force myself to read it, only to find myself skimming again. It was a terribly frustrating read, and I blame Krakauer for that. My final objection is that Krakauer spends a lot of time and energy defending himself, and I found that sort of distasteful. I feel bad for the man, as one of the only people to survive, he suffered terribly survivor's guilt, but this book didn't seem the proper platform for a defense. My rating: 3 stars.

I've been looking forward to Megyn Kelly's Settle for More for months and months. I was expecting a personal view of her life and career in law and later at Fox News, and this I got. It was interesting to see where she came from and how she got where she is. I was also expecting a strong pro-woman message on changing your life of the better, and this I got, too. But. Two things. One, I was annoyed at how much of the book was devoted to her campaign-long dustup with Donald Trump. The blow-by-blow was just exhausting. I don't follow this sort of thing because it's so junior high, but to read page after page after page devoted to it was just boring. Neither of them were fair to each other. Period. Second thing, for a really smart woman, she seems to lack the ability or desire for deep introspection. She is introspective, but she's more of a doer than and thinker, more of a decider than someone attuned to her emotions. I was expecting, well, more. More depth. More wisdom. Perhaps I expect too much from these autobiographies, they are, after all, written by humans. Still, I enjoyed the read and enjoyed learning more about Megyn Kelly. My rating: 3 stars.

This week I continue with:

 

I'm sort of bored with young readers' edition of The Boys in the Boat, perhaps because I know the story already.

Lulu Walks the Dogs is an interesting book. Its narrator is interactive with the reader, and Lulu is quite snarky/spunky.

I'm loving Living with Pattern. I didn't have high hopes for this one, but I'm very pleasantly surprised.

My audiobook:

 

Still loving Bryson's latest. I'd say it's my second-favorite of his many book. (First being In a Sunburned Country.)

A Year of Reading about Presidents

Some of my favorite books of the year have been books about presidents, first ladies/families, the White House, presidential candidates, and American history. In honor of election year, I'd set a goal to read 12 such books between September 2015 and November 2016, and I ended up reading 22. I think I'm really going to miss this challenge next year! I learned so much, and I hardly hit a stinker book among them. I've included covers of all of the books I read below. They're in the order I read them, but my favorites were Five Presidents, The Residence, and Grover Cleveland, Again!. (You'll notice Killing Reagan on the list twice; I read it in late 2015 and then listened to the audio again in 2016 as part of my "re-read a book within a year" challenge.)


You might wonder what I learned in this year-long immersion course of my own making, and I'd have to say I've learned a LOT of presidential and White House trivia, but beyond that, I've gained a better sense of American history, how our country has grown and changed. I've also gained a better grasp on the order of the presidents and more about what various presidents accomplished (or didn't) and for what many were famous (or infamous). My reading spurred me to ask what we can do to get children interested in American and presidential history. I posed this question to Brady Carlson, author of Dead Presidents, and he suggested the most important thing we can do is to show them history. Take them to museums and monuments and presidential libraries. I would have eaten that up as a kid!


Regrets? None in what I chose to read. I regret there aren't more engaging books about American presidents, though. So many of the biographies I've tried have been boring beyond words. And I regret there aren't more books about first ladies. I also regret that I didn't get to more president books this year! I'd love to read a book about Truman (maybe this one, but oh my is it long), and Wilson (perhaps this one) and Hoover (this one just came out this fall).

2016 Presidential Reads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I'm reading this week (12/5/16)

Last week I finished:

I enjoyed How to Celebrate Everything so much. I remember loving Jenny Rosenstrach's first book Dinner: A Love Story, but her second book disappointed me. It was a completely different format from her first and current books, and the recipes seemed inaccessible and fussy. This book, though, part cookbook and mostly memoir-y talk of family rituals, is a winner. I enjoyed every page. There were generally photos for every dish, and the layout was fun and fresh. I recommend this one for most anyone, but especially moms with young families. My rating: 4.5 stars.

I'll finish this soon:

I think I'll be finishing Into Thin Air today. I'll post a review next week.

I continue with:

I sort of stalled out on this one last week, trying to finish How to Celebrate Everything before the end of the month. I hope to pick it up again and make progress this week.

Last week I began:

 

I'm not really far enough in either to comment.

Next up:

 

I've been looking forward to this one for MONTHS!

My audiobook:

I'm thoroughly enjoying Bryson's The Road to Little Dribbling. I think audio was the way to do with this one.

 

December 2016 reading list

Well, here it is, the last reading list of the year. What a great year of reading it's been! For December, I usually choose a mixture TBR cleanup and fun, quick reads for long winter nights. Here's what I plan to read this month.

Nonfiction

"Other"

 

[Living with Pattern]

Children's

 

Dec./Jan. cookbook

 

Audiobook