What I Read: August

I'm actually surprised to see I made it through as many books as I did this month, even though its significantly lower than usual. With school starting, I was so exhausted, I fell right to sleep without reading most nights. Then Elise had a close contact exposure and had to quarantine for a week. I was so nervous and anxious about the possibility that she might have Covid, that I couldn't listen to my audiobook when I ran because I just couldn't focus. Things have calmed down and I'm feeling a lot more relaxed. I spent one weekend working on my sub binder so I feel so much better about the possibility of multiple quarantines for the kids. We will get through this together as a family! I'm so glad Ty was able to work from home when Elise was in quarantine because it happened the first full week of school and I was still having some movement on my class roster and working out the kinks in my schedule. Plus those first couple weeks are learning rules and routines so it would be a mess to have to have a sub at that time.

Books:

• Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins- The 3rd book in the Hunger Games series was really good but some of the sad parts made me stick with the 2nd book being my favorite. I'm excited to read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes next.
  
  
  
• Sweeping Up the Heart by Kevin Henkes- The kids and I went to our local independent book store and checked out the damaged book section. Books there are 20% off. I was excited about this book because Kevin Henkes is one of my favorite picture book authors and I thought this was an adult book. When I started the book I quickly realized it was a children's chapter book. It was good but I was really wanting an adult book because I had just finished the Hunger Games series.

• A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath by Jeanine Cummins- I really liked American Dirt so I looked to see if Cummins had written any other books. I didn't really read what it was about and added it to my to-read list. Then I was hosting book club and it was a nonfiction month so I read the blurb to see if I should give it as a choice when we voted. I normally just skip over subtitles so when I read the blurb and realized the event had actually happened to Cummins and her family, I was shocked. The story was horrific and reading about what the police put the family through was infuriating. This book along with others I have read,  Dreams of Ada, Just Mercy, and Innocent Man, make me wonder what we can do to improve police and detective investigations so the wrong person isn't convicted or even just put in jail in an attempt to "solve a case" quickly. This book really brought to light the part media plays in pushing police to quickly take someone into custody which may cause them to wrongfully arrest someone.  
  

• The Doughnut Fix by Jessie Janowitz- I read this book aloud to the kids. There was a racoon on the cover and we all couldn't figure out why they chose to do that since the racoon was such a small part of the book. Both kids kept waiting for the racoon to come into the book and then expected it to return after it finally did. We were all disappointed by that and it took away from the story. There's a 2nd book so we're wondering if the racoon maybe comes back for it. I didn't think this was really anything too special. It was cute and we enjoyed it, but I don't plan to use it as a read aloud in my classroom or anything.

• Anxious People by Fredrik Backman- I love Backman and would go so far as to say he is one of my favorite authors. This is his newest book. I liked it but it was not one of my favorites of his. I think part of that may have been due to the timing of reading it. I was reading it when school started so it took me a long time to get through it and I also had a hard time focusing on the story because I was constantly thinking of things I needed to do as I read. 
  

eBooks:

• None this month, that gives you an idea what this month was like! I started one but didn't finish it before it was due and never checked out another one.

Audiobooks:

• The Lion's Den by Katerine St. John- This was our book club pick for the month. I got a late start with it and had other books I had checked out so I decided to get it as an audiobook. I was surprised by how much I liked it. The twists were awesome and kept me guessing throughout.
  

• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton- The format of this novel reminded me of Daisy Jones and the Six, which I loved, and it had multiple different narrators for the characters which I love in audiobooks. I liked what the author did to incorporate race issues in the past and the present. I liked this but didn't love it and toward the end I was ready for it to be over.

• The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon- I picked this searching through available audiobooks on my Libby app. I liked the title and the story seemed interesting when I skimmed the blurb. I felt like I was tricked a little because the cover had a picture of 2 adults but it ended up being a young adult book which I wasn't too enthused about. The main story line was cringe worthy for me, just so cheesy with the meeting and falling in love in one day. But I absolutely loved the in-between sections where it would do a little short chapter about a side character or would go into details about a topic that arose in the book. That's what kept me going with it. I also loved the ending.