What We Read in July

July was quite the reading month for me. I was shocked to add it up and realize I had read 11 books! This is not typical for me! But I read a lot of lighter, page-turners - hence the higher book count for the month. That brings my 2020 total of books read to 55! I am sure my pace will slow down, especially in December when the baby arrives, but I am guessing I'll end up reading around 80 books this year. Not bad!

I figured I'd break my books read into categories and a select a favorite from each since I didn't have any duds this month! 

Lighter Reads

I enjoyed all 5 of these books, but "The School of Essential Ingredients" was probably my favorite. It's about a cooking class that meets at a restaurant each week. We meet a different student in each chapter, but the various characters are weaved together throughout each chapter. It was a short, fast read! 

Fiction with some heft

These fiction reads had enough heft to not quite classify them as light reads. I loved both of them, but "The Boston Girl" was my favorite of the two. It's about a woman growing up in Boston in the 1900s. In this book, she's telling the story of her life to her granddaughter so it reads like an oral history. It's a page turner! I had a hard time putting it down each night!

Nonfiction reads

All of these were great, but "So You Want to Talk About Race" was my favorite, followed by "We're Going to Need More Wine." So You Want to Talk About Race is probably the best antiracist book I've read so far. In each chapter, she tackles a topic such as police brutality, affirmative action, etc. She weaves in her personal experiences and helps you talk about these controversial issues. We're Going to Need More Wine is a memoir by Gabriella Union. She was raped while working at Payless Shoes when she was young, so she talks about her experience with that and how it's impacted her life. She's extremely vulnerable and real in this memoir. 

Paul's reads

Paul has sort of 'graduated' from board books. We still read them but he can now read longer picture books which is exciting for me as they tend to have more of a story.

But first - what  is probably an unpopular opinion: I don't really like most of the Dr. Seuss books. I know they are meant to teach kids rhyming but they are so nonsensical with made-up words and choppy story lines. Like One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish stands out as one we don't like. Plus it's like 60 pages long! But Paul loves it so we continue to read it, but definitely NOT at bedtime!

Now that he's into longer books, I pulled out my favorite book from when I was young - "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." My mom gave me my copy at my baby shower. Gotta love my preschool handwriting. Also, you can see that some of the phone numbers I was practicing only had 5 digits - back in the 1980s, we only had to dial the last 5 digits for local numbers. I told Phil about this and he said that was NOT the case here in the Twin Cities area so I guess it was a rural America thing! Anyways, Paul loves this book! 

Another book he loves is "The Best Nest" by P.D. Eastman. We read this book in the hospital when Paul was getting his tubes back in November of 2018. It's about a bird couple who is looking for a house because Mrs. Bird hates their current house. At that point we were over a year into house search and Phil thought the book was hilarious (Mrs. Bird is kind of bossy and not so nice to Mr. Bird - that is NOT how I am, but I was definitely the one pushing us to buy a different house). So Phil tracked the book down - he had to order a used copy from Amazon as it's out of print. This is one of Paul's favorite books so now we get to relive the process of house hunting from a bird's perspective every day!

He also loves the Laura Numeroff books (If you give a cat a cupcake/moose a muffin/etc). They are cute and a fast read so we always read one at bedtime (he gets 4 books at bedtime so we try to pick shortish books). And lastly, he loves this 8 Little Planets book that my parents got him for Christmas 2 years ago. Phil reads this to him nearly every night and now he can ask Paul which planet we live on/which is red/which is the fastest/which one has rings, and Paul knows the answer. So he knows more about the planets than I do - for real. Science is really not my forte so Phil will be the one teaching him that kind of stuff!

What have you been reading lately? If you have kids, what books are they loving these days?