November was a lean month for reading. The first half of the month was extra busy because we were getting ready to travel, and then the latter half of the month was spent on the road. Unfortunately, that didn’t serve well for my reading habits.
Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig I read this aloud to Joe after just handing it to Ben when he was in AO Year 7. I understand why it’s on the reading list, but I’m not sure how impressed I was. I have a love-hate relationship with her father’s work, the latest of which I finished last month. I recently came across a book by her brother, Frank Schaeffer, called Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back that I am dying to read. There are a lot of good ideas here, but it also drags on a lot. I managed to survive the teen years without reading such a thing, so I don’t know if I will assign it to my next student or not.
Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature this year. A kid who grew up in the US but has family back in the Philippines returns to his homeland to investigate how his cousin died after he hears it was a result of President Duterte’s war on drugs. I enjoyed learning more about life in the Philippines, but the plot wasn’t as gripping as it may sound.
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft One of the best books on writing I’ve ever read!
Pam Munoz Ryan, Esperanza Rising This was a read-aloud with the kids this fall. I loved it! A well-to-do Mexican girl’s father dies so she and her mother emigrate to America to get away from her father’s two brothers. It is set in the same time period as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath [September 2019 Reads] which made it an especially interesting read.
Louisa May Alcott, Eight Cousins Another read-aloud this fall. Written in Alcott’s signature style, an orphan goes to live with her wealthy aunts under her uncle’s guardianship with her seven cousins (all boys) who live nearby. A great coming-of-age story.
David McCullough, The Wright Brothers We listened to this on the way to Washington, DC, where we got to see one of their planes in the Air & Space Museum. I’ve heard about their first flight many times, but I never really thought about all that went into making that flight happen nor of the fame it brought them as a result. A well-written biography of the two brothers.
J.R.R. Tolkien, Tales from the Perilous Realm Several faery tales written by Tolkien. One of them, “Leaf by Niggle,” was the Well Read Mom selection for November. I thought this would be a good change of flavor after McCullough’s history tale. Derek Jacobi’s narration is excellent.
And that, literally, is all of the books I finished in November. We did get a chance to visit the famed Politics and Prose while we were in Washington, DC. When I visit Barnes & Noble, they usually have only a couple of the books I am reading. Politics and Prose, on the other hand, had almost all of them. When I saw some of them in person, I realized why it is taking me so long to read them – they are very long books! I hope to finish several of the long ones and a few short ones in December in order to wrap up the year with 240 books read. Wish me luck!