What I Read: September

This month has been the perfect weather for sitting outside and reading a book. I just wish I was able to do more of it! I've discovered that I can get away with reading a little bit of an ebook while I sit with Elise when she's on her Zoom Meetings. If I have a book out she can tell I'm not focusing on the meeting. If I have an ebook she doesn't notice and stays focused herself. I have to have an ebook where I don't mind distractions because I do still have to pay attention to what is going on in her meeting and help her when she needs it.

Ready to cozy up in bed with my snuggle buddies and read! Tesla is down by my feet and barely visible.

Books:

• Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger by Soraya Chemaly- This was our book club pick for September. I didn't vote for it and wasn't super interested in reading it, but surprisingly really enjoyed it. There were some things mentioned that really resonated with me and I never thought about. As a teacher talking about my anger to students was super poo poo. I was always sure to validate their feelings but toned mine down. If a child was acting out I'd tell them it was okay to be angry. We just had to work on how they reacted to their anger. But I would never admit to being angry myself. I always referred to myself as feeling sad, disappointed, or frustrated, but never angry. It never occurred to me that children might need to know that the adults in their lives feel anger too and see how they react to their anger. That's something I want to work on at home with the kids although I feel like I do a better job of it at home and the kids definitely know when I'm mad, haha! One of Elise's vocabulary words was enojado (which means angry), something happened (I don't remember what now) and Elise said, "Mommy's enojado!" So I think I am better at displaying emotions at home!

• The Morning Meeting Book: K-8 by Roxann Kriete- I put this book on hold through our interlibrary loan system that connects us with libraries in Missouri because our library didn't have it. I wanted to read it because I was planning to have a friend's 2 preschoolers at our house a couple days a week for distance learning and thought morning meeting would be a fun way to bring all the kids together and I wanted some more fun ideas for our meetings. That ended up falling through but this book was still really beneficial. There were so many fun greetings and group games in the book. I'll use them with the kids and they will be useful when I go back to teaching as well.

• Eventide by Kent Haruf- This was the second book in the Plainsong series. As I read this, I was reminded of what happened in the first book. I realized Plainsong had a very similar storyline to The Story of Arthur Truluv which I thought was interesting. This book was ended on a depressing note and made me want to read the 3rd book to find out what happens with all the characters. The first book I didn't have that feeling with, obviously because I read the first one quite a while ago. 
  

• The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson- My mom recommended this one. She was right, it reminded me of Forrest Gump with his luck and how many famous figures he met. It was also a bit of a darkish, dry humor which had me cracking up. I got the movie from the library and am looking forward to watching it.

• Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson- During the One Book, One Tulsa author event with Woodson I attended through Zoom, she mentioned this was her newest book. I immediately put it on hold at the library. The story line revolved around a boy whose dad was struggling with CTE due to playing professional football. It was beautifully written, like all her other books, but it was sad. It made it even harder for me to see football, especially big tackles with head contact. 
  

• Night by Elie Wiesel- I've had this on my reading list for a while and found it at Goodwill. I am blown away every time I read a true story of someone who survived a concentration camp during World War II by how unbelievable parts of their story are. It's so hard to believe that such atrocities actually happened and that anyone could have survived them. There were aspects Wiesel shared that I hadn't heard about before.

• Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me and You by Lin-Manuel Miranda- I follow my favorite area libraries on Facebook. One of them listed a good night from this book one evening and I had to read this book. It was fun and a perfect "book" to follow up Night.
  

• The Happy Runner: Love the Process, Get Faster, Run Longer by David and Megan Roche- This one came highly recommended by multiple friends so I powered through it even though I hated the first half of it. Their writing style just super annoyed me and I couldn't stand it. I love dogs more than most people, but their constant typing in all caps as a dog just drove me nuts! Then I felt like a big grump for not liking it, haha! I did like the 2nd half of the book a lot more. They discussed issues many runners encounter and actual training plans. I liked that they brought up eating disorders and discussed how not getting enough nutrition actually makes you slower over time. It's interesting that the seasons I've restricted calories in an attempt to lose weight and become faster, I actually bombed my goal races. There is definitely an aspect of running that makes weight really hard. When I'm out for a run and catch a glimpse of myself in a store window as I run by, I always think I look so chubby. But when I'm strength training and check the mirror for form, I always think I look so strong and powerful. Running can throw your body image a bit off. I'm glad I have other things to help put things back in perspective. I appreciated them discussing that topic and giving it the attention it deserves, especially for a short book like this.

• The Sunday Lunch Club by Juliet Ashton- I've had this on my to-read list for a while, but our library didn't have it and I couldn't get it through Mobius either. So when I got money for my birthday, I ordered it. The cover was pretty and just looking at it made me happy so I decided it was worth owning. It was different than I expected but quite good and I enjoyed it.

eBooks:

• Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton- I've been itching to see some National Parks ever since we started our State Park challenge. This book made me want to visit them all even more!
  

• Wolf Hollow- My library app recommended this book for me, I'm assuming for Carter, but I was intrigued by the title and cover so I decided to read it. I also felt like a children's book would be perfect for the mood I was in. I wanted something with a happy ending and I sure didn't get that with this one! It was good though.

• Books for Living by Will Schwalbe- I saw this on a library's Facebook page a while back and immediately added it to my list because I really liked The End of Your Life Book Club. I loved this book so much. I was excited by how many of the books he mentioned I had read. This book also allowed him to bring up some big topics and his chapter discussing AIDs in the 80's was very meaningful. One chapter was on Wonder which is the best children's chapter book I've ever read. I loved that he included a quote from The Little White Bird that Auggie's principal used in his speech at the end of the book, "Shall we make a new rule of life... always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?" I remember the speech and being really touched by everything he said and by how powerful it was. I was glad to be reminded of this quote. It is perfect for the situation we find ourselves in and I wrote it on a notecard to remind myself of it daily. Not just for strangers, but with my own children. We are going on 7 months of me as their primary caretaker day in and day out with virtual learning thrown in the mix, so I need little reminders to be extra kind. This isn't just hard for me, it's hard for them too. 

Audiobooks:

• This Tender Land by William Kent Kruger- When I saw Kruger had written a book that wasn't a sequel to Ordinary Grace but somewhat of a companion novel I was all in. At first I didn't like this one quite as much but ended up liking it even more. He did a great job highlighting some of the terrible treatment of Native Americans throughout his book. I loved the way he wound Odie's storytelling all throughout the book and then came back to it at the end. It reminded me a little bit of Huckleberry Finn. He writes such beautiful novels.
  

• Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes- This was a cute one and I enjoyed it. Nothing special, but enjoyable. It was really good as an audiobook.

• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle- This is one I never read and felt like I should. It was definitely different but I didn't really see what the big fuss was about. I'm interested to read the next books in the series to see if it's more of a series thing than this book being so special on its own.
  
  
  

• When We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton- This was a book club book. We read Last Year in Havana and decided to read this companion novel. I liked this one so much more than Last Year in Havana. It was really good and I enjoyed it as an audiobook quite a bit.

• Benediction by Kent Haruf- I wanted a shorter audiobook because I saw the one I had on hold would be available soon. I was excited when I found the 3rd book in the Plainsong series was available and under 10 hours long. I was a bit surprised that all the previous characters weren't in this one and the brothers who were main characters in the first 2 books were only mentioned in passing at one point. I was hoping to find out what happened with the children who ended up in foster care toward the end of the 2nd book, but they were never mentioned. I was a little sad about that, but otherwise this book was great. The narrator was amazing and was honestly exactly what I imagined for the voices of the men in the other books. The cover of the book was so beautiful and at times when I was listening to the audiobook on a run, I'd look at the clouds in the sky and think how much it looked like the cover of the book.