Yep, this is me still playing catch up. Plain Simple Useful is what happens when I wander aimlessly through the new non-fiction shelves waiting for TW.
A home decor book. Conran Style — which, if you know who Conran is, tells you everything you need to know.
Love/hate, love/hate.
And, with that — I think I’m caught up. I know you’re thrilled.
Plain Simple Useful Read More »
I’m playing catch up with the non-fictions now. Homesteading. A lot of books about homesteading. Some were good. Some weren’t. Let’s start with the one I didn’t finish.
Rural Renaissance — dry as I don’t even know. I won’t say burnt toast because I effing like burnt toast, (I know. I’m weird. Blame my mother.) I couldn’t finish it. There are not enough reading hours in one lifetime for me to have wanted to finish it. TW tried to warn me, she didn’t finish it either, but I didn’t listen. I should have listened. I wasted half an evening on that.
The Practical Homestead — Hoo boy. This book could scare you off the idea of homesteading, lol. So much to think about. And it’s all very serious. And they do warn you off of trying x,y & z quite a lot. At first glance, the layouts for various farm sizes seem cool but then you realize it’s really not what you personally are interested in. Unless you win the lottery or come into some inheritance because no, all we really want is a kitchen garden, some fruit trees, some chickens and a big ass yard for the damn dogs. Cool book. I might read it again in a couple of years. Seriously.
The Weekend Homesteader was interesting. I liked the way it was laid out — a few assignments each month. Cool way to start slow and keep encouraging people to make small changes and take on small projects.
Back to Basics: Traditional Kitchen Wisdom was a pretty cool book. I skimmed a lot because I don’t particularly need to digest all of that kitchen wisdom at once. It’s a good book to just have on the shelf.
I believe this is the last of the homesteading books. I hope. I kind of also hope I don’t read anymore of these for at least a year. I’m homesteaded out.
All About Homesteading Read More »
I’m going to get caught up today, even if it kills me. I’m going to schedule and stagger the posts so I don’t kill the people in my streams with these posts because I’m thoughtful like that.
I hope to goodness I never fall this far behind again. Someone remind me of this the next time JMP comes for an extended visit…
The Bear’s Song is cute and it’s on the Cybil shortlist. It has a Where’s Waldo sort of thing going on and I liked it but young children are going to have some trouble finding the little bear. Heck, I think there was a page where I never did find him.
Wild Animals is one of those touch and feel board books and not a Cybils book. JMP liked it. Because animals and touch and feel stuff. Obviously.
Thomas’ Milkshake Muddle was the very first Thomas book I’ve ever read and obviously not on the Cybils list. I KNOW, RIGHT? It was… fine. Don’t tell JMP but I don’t really understand the Thomas thing. I understand why a two year old loves trains but the books and TV shows creep me out a little. So anyway. This book. It was fine. JMP liked it.
Love Is In the Air was cute and a Cybil. A kite and a helium balloon. Yea, I liked it.
The Bag I’m Taking to Grandma’s House was not a Cybil — it was on a shelf at the library for Grandparents’ Day. JMP and I liked it. JMP doesn’t have to bring all the things in his bag because grandma will buy all the things, though.
If You Want to See a Whale is from the Cybils list and I apparently read it so long ago that I can barely remember it. I gave it four stars on goodreads and to be honest, I have no idea why. I assume this means JMP liked it since I can barely remember what I might have liked about it.
Journey was fabulous and obviously from the Cybils list. JMP loved it. I loved it. I will have to read it to him again next year to see if he still likes it.
Urgency Emergency is from the Cybils list and I liked it more than JMP did. Probably because JMP is not super familiar with the tale of the Red Riding Hood. Don’t worry, we’re going to change that this Christmas…
Punk Farm was a present for JMP from Aunt Michelle and I could have sworn I blogged this but either I didn’t or my search feature is worse than, well, worse than it should be. Anyway. The animals on the farm are punk musicians. They put on a show after the farmer goes to sleep. It’s a great punk show. I loved it. JMP was amused by my screaming of the lyrics. Next year I’m gonna get Michelle and RJ and Chris to PERFORM as I read. JMP’s gonna love that. Don’t worry, we’ll take video.
And that’s it for the kids’ books I feel behind on. I think. Maybe. Hah.
The last of the August/September Children’s Books Read More »
Let’s see…
JMP loved Joe and Sparky Go to School. The book was in the back seat of my car and he read it many times all by himself. I didn’t read it until last night and it’s very cute.
I read most of Sophie’s Squash to JMP and while he was not impressed, I was. It’s a very cute story. I’m going to read it to him again next year, I think he just wasn’t in the mood to read the night we tried it.
When Thunder Comes was excellent. Very well done with a wide range of civil rights leaders represented.
What the Heart Knows is a beautiful book. The illustrations. The charms, chants and blessings. The little red ribbon. I might have to buy this one.
Pug and Other Animal Poems was ok. The illustrations were better than the poetry. I was fascinated by the poem about the mouse. That’s not something you see very often in children’s poetry. What? Go read it for yourself.
The Meanest Birthday Girl was my least favorite. In fact, I hated it. Which is too bad because there’s a big white elephant in the book. There’s enough meanness in the world that we really don’t need it in a children’s book — not like this.
Six Children’s Books From the Cybils Shortlist Read More »
Hell.
It was a children’s books/non-fiction kind of month. Which makes sense. A total of 24 books which sounds better than it really was.
3 audiobooks (all for children)
5 from the Cybils shortlist
11 Non-fiction.
1 adult fiction (which is not something I usually mention because duh but in this case, have to mention it since I really read so little this month.
I’m also still catching up a bit from the books I read with JMP while he was here. Since I haven’t been able to blog them, I’m going to count them in October even though we read them in September. It would be too complicated to do otherwise.
I really need to catch up on the book blogging… that’s my real October goal, I think?
Reading In September Read More »
I’m fascinated by tiny houses and the people who live in them. I’d like a tiny house except I wouldn’t because gah, tiny! I enjoyed The Big Tiny and I was all the sad there at the end. Sniff.
Maybe we could build a tiny house and let people come and stay in it and we could stay in it occasionally, but we aren’t carrying any damn dogs up to the loft to sleep. That’s just nuts.
We didn’t really love the audio version of The Water Castle and I hated the way it ended but overall, it was a fairly good story. I liked the kids, mostly. I liked the premise, a lot. It just could have been better but I am glad it made the Cybils shortlist.
More books about perennials and perennial vegetables — leftover from when TW and I were talking about gardens and perennials and well, umm, vegetables.
I really liked both of these books — much better than the others I read last month (or was it July?) Perennial Companions was supper pretty and had lots of interesting ideas for garden designs. All the pretty gardens. And, How to Grow Perennial Vegetables was awesome because it had a lot of ideas for plants that would grow well together, tons of charts about the types of root systems and the plants that are good for the soil or good for bees etc. I liked those charts a lot.
I think I’m done reading about perennials now.
Again with the Perennials Read More »
Here are four books we read while JMP was here. All four were winners.
My Big Truck Book is a very big board book with a lot of trucks. Which means it was obviously a hit with JMP. Rough & Tough Tractors is a cute little book in the shape of a tractor wheel. Jenn ad-libbed when she read this one which means you always have to talk about the poop and the shovel and the bugs on the grill when you read it. Heh.
Because ThatGrandma’s dance party was such a big hit, I decided we needed some books about grandmas dancing — I ordered Dancing with Grandma and
Let’s Dance, Grandma. He liked them both.
4 Children’s Books Read More »
Another book I started but didn’t finish while JMP was here. Another book Michelle belle should have looked at while she was here. Chris too, actually. Craftivism: The Art of Craft and Activism Read More »