Ever since we switched to morning church last month (we switch back and forth every year), I’ve found that this post is a bit more challenging to get out. Currently, it’s 6:30 a.m., the house is quiet (except for the dog; did I tell y’all that we got a dog? We did. An adorable, if somewhat not-chill, pointer mix. We love her to death.), and I’m trying to remember everything that the girls read this past month.

We’ll see how I do.

M has discovered the Arden Shakespeare editions, and has decided that she adores the text notes and that it makes Shakespeare that much more interesting. It makes her SO VERY happy. (As an aside: I really like it when she sends be bookish texts as well. It’s so much fun to hear what she has to say.)

This one came out a couple weeks ago, and C spent a Saturday afternoon/evening reading it. She stayed up way too late but it was WORTH IT.  She’s a huge fan of Kiera Cass.

E got this for Christmas, but finally got around to starting it yesterday. It’s such a delightful mix of WEIRD and elegant, that she’s in love. She kept reading me passages and is insisting that I need to read it when she’s done. (I think I might opt for the audio version of this one though.)

A picked this one up when she lost a different book she was reading. She said it’s NOTHING like what she usually reads (it’s about a cosmetology student and a fashion contest) but she’s super invested and has opinions about the characters and the plot. It’s great to branch out!

And K has been reading this with Hubby in preparation for Jessica Day George’s visit this week. I used my powers as Children’s Event Coordinator and sent her to K’s school, which has K over the moon excited. She loves the story, she thinks Celie and the family are great, but her favorite “character” is the castle.

What are your kids reading?

We had a very happy Christmas around here. We were extravagantly lazy, ate WAY too much chocolate, played lots of games, and generally don’t want to go back to school on Tuesday.

The girls enjoyed their Christmas presents, but for the blog I thought I’d highlight the books they all got.

M wanted her favorite Bronte book (which she discovered while taking a class on the Brontes this past semester), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and I got Pop Sonnets for her because she’s also discovered that she likes Shakespeare.

C asked for Candor, because I got rid of it a while back and it was one she really loved.

E got Welcome to Night Vale, because she adores the podcast.

A was a hard one to buy for, but we ultimately settled on D’Aulaires’s Norse Myths. We figure if Rick Riordan’s going there, we ought to brush up.

And K got Amulet 1 and 2. We own 3 and 6 and it was bugging her we didn’t have the whole series. So, we’re working on filling that out. We’ll get 4 and 5 before 7 comes out as well. It made her happy.

And I got all the teenage girls (well, A’s not a teenager, yet, but close enough) this one:

M pointed out that we’re not exactly the right demographic, already being feminists around here, but I thought it was a good reminder. It’s definitely one everyone should read.

And Hubby and I got books as well:

I’ll leave you to guess which one’s mine and which one’s his. (He also got the Terry Gilliam memoir for his birthday, which he thoroughly enjoyed.)

Here’s to a bookish New Year!

So there has been the usual stuff going on in our house — school, work, rehearsal, debate — and so not much reading has been going on.

We did have a life change and picked up a dog, primarily for K:

She’s adorable and we all love her.

K had a book report do, and she chose to do it on this one:

Which she enjoyed very much.

I recently brought this one home from work

And A nabbed it for her own. She ADORES these books and can’t read them fast enough.

And that’s about it for the girls this month. What are you reading?

It’s finally (!) fall around here. And all I want to do is curl up with a book and read, mostly because I have a ton of books I’m supposed to be reading for the Cybils. But, I’m busy — at least for the next 2 weeks, and then I have jury duty (which I’ve never done before) — and so I can’t do that.

Thankfully, the girls are reading, so someone in the house is.

A begged for this book

and has spent this month reading and rereading it. She’s SO very happy.

K and Hubby moved on and chose this as their next book:

I’m not sure how much K understands (I had to translate the NacMacFeegle’s dialogue for her when I read while Hubby was out of town), but she’s enjoying it.

I threw this at C after I finished it:

but I don’t think she’s liking it as much as I did. Not a problem.

And E pulled this off my shelf:

I hope she likes it. (She likes the fact that Alsaid is Mexican, so there’s that.)

What are you reading at your house?

I got distracted this morning and forgot to put this up partially because Hubby was gone and I didn’t sleep well and partially because I was busy making cinnamon rolls. Because that’s what you do when your husband is gone.

I did eventually remember… better late than never, right?

Also: it’s October! Which means Cybils time. I’m hoping to hold my own on the Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction category. I think if I read half the books, I’ll be doing good. BUT, we need your nominations!  You don’t have to be a blogger to nominate. You just have to have read a book that was published in the past year (from October 16, 2014 to October 15, 2015). Please take 15 minutes and give us some good books to read!

Onto the kids… K and Hubby started reading this:

Which makes my heart happy. K loves Batty (I knew she would) and even Hubby’s enjoying the story line.

A picked up this on a whim (I think M recommended it to her ages ago):

She loved it. She kept saying it was really hard to explain to all her friends how INTENSE it was. It seems I’ve got another Shannon Hale fan in the house.

I threw this at E

and she says it’s really good so far. Reminds her of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

And C is inbetween books because of being in the school musical (which is FAME this year. And if you didn’t sing “I’m gonna live forever” I will be sad). But she’s really looking forward to the poetry unit in her language arts class. They started with this slam poem, which she really thought was intriguing.

What are you reading?

School is back in session here, so we’re actually reading again! (It’s funny how that happens.) It really is lovely to see them all curled up with their noses in a book. Warms a geeky mom’s heart.

K signed up to do Battle of the Books, which brought on some raised eyebrows (much to her consternation). But she’s thrown herself into it. Her favorite book so far, which she absolutely LOVES?

A finished the Hunger Games trilogy (there were tears) and C threw this at her:

Of course. A’s been throwing around things like “THIS BOOK” and “IT’S AWESOME”. It’s so wonderful to see a book you think highly of loved by your kids.

C and E are reading this for English right now:

They’re split: C actually likes it, because it’s written like a play and she can get behind that. E is disturbed by it and can’t seem to get past that. I can understand both points of view.

And M texted that she’s reading this:

and we texted back and forth about Mr. Rochester and whether or not he’s as “good” as people make him out to be. I think we’re both Team Jane on that one.

That’s it for us. What are your kids reading?

Amazingly enough, there has been reading done this past month! (Maybe I shamed them into it?)

C’s rehearsal schedule had a lot of down time, so she picked up these to re-read:

She says that she still doesn’t like the last one as much as the first, but that she got the symbolism and what Collins was trying to “say” better this time around.

She also convinced A to read them. (She finished Hunger Games, and is halfway through Catching Fire… which she’s not sure she “gets”. She was asking me the other day what the point of that book was.)  A also started a book group with some friends. Their first book is:

She says that the people in it are super stupid, which is driving her nuts. I tell her that it’s a good discussion point for her book group.

Hubby also took her to a local comic book store, and a very lovely employee (she said she liked helping the girls because she was a geek girl herself) picked up a couple issues of this for her

Which she really liked.

E – that’s what I’m going to call our foster daughter – went to debate camp, and has been spending her time on the internet doing research for this year’s debate season. She picked up this one for her birthday, though, and said it was a lot of fun

And K went to the library, and brought back some graphic novels. Her favorite one (which she won’t let anyone else read) was this:

She REALLY liked it. A lot.

What are your kids reading?

I know kids are supposed to be reading in the summer. And we even signed them up for the summer reading program, and I put it on their list of chores every morning. But these girls here at home are not readers this summer.

I don’t know what I can do about that. Change the wifi password every day? Rewards? (The library program isn’t helping this year.) I lead by example: I read for a good hour or so every evening (when they’re not bugging me). But the lure of the tablets and the TV and the computer is just too strong around here (and it doesn’t help that I’m gone for 7 hours three days a week).

M did text me that she read and really loved this:

And K and Hubby are about halfway through reading this (which K complains is often boring, but is still sticking with it):

But that’s about all that’s being read.

How do you manage summer reading so that it actually gets done?

Summer is upon us, which means library programs — they changed ours this year: everyone tracks time rather than books, which is okay, I think. It encourages the younger ones to read longer books. — and more activity, so less time for reading.

Still, everyone seems to have gotten books in.

M put this up on Facebook:

I knew she would like Uprooted; I’m glad I was right.

C hasn’t read much, mostly because the book she wants to read

I used to have but can’t seem to find now. And she recommended it to a patron at the library last week, so she can’t check it out, either.

We have taken in a foster daughter (long story) (her name also begins with M, so I need to figure out what to call her on here…), and she was interested in reading this

She ended up not liking it terribly much, saying it was trying too hard to be cool. On the other hand, she stayed up until 2:30 one night finishing it.

I gave A a Books on the Nightstand summer bingo card, and she went to the library with it. She checked out a ton of books, and then promptly discarded them all to read this

Which she’s really enjoying. You gotta go with what you love, I guess.

And K picked up a huge pile of graphic novels (of course). The one she’s gone back to a couple of times was this one

She says it’s weird, but she likes it.

What are your kids reading this summer?

Happy May! (Seriously: It’s MAY? School ends in 19 days? WHERE DID THE TIME GO? I could swear it’s still March, although I’m glad it’s not.) On a side note: I just realized that I’ve crossed the 2500 post threshold. I’ve stopped keeping track of blogging milestones (it’s been more than 10 years, people!) but that seems something worth mentioning! (I’m amazed, anyway….)

My kids’ reading has gone down this month. In fact, out of the three that are at home. I can only think of one who actually read something at all. (Not true: I just thought of something K read.) A lot of that is end-of-the-year busy-ness: field trips and event days and projects and plays, but some of that is an uptick in electronic usage. That seriously needs to be curbed, especially with summer coming on. Maybe rewards for books read? Suggestions are always welcome….

So, C got A hooked on this:

 She seriously plowed through it, eating it all up. And for the record, she’s Team Cal (which makes C very happy).

And I picked up an ARC of this in Pasadena, and K discovered it:

It’s a bit “weird” but it’s also pretty cool: a girl magician who has to play basketball to defeat the bad guy. I think she thinks it’s weird because of the art style, but she completely loves the story.

That’s about it. Are your kids reading anything good?