Saturday, October 29, 2016

A Return to Blogging and an Update on My Reading of "All the Books"

Even though I haven't blogged for over a year my life still revolves around books. Great books, old books, classic books, and here and there a few I'd like to throw against the wall.

This past fall my one and only child moved on to University. After 18 years of constantly spending time picking up dirty socks and wet towels and responding to requests for a second or third meal, I have found myself at a point of needing to find other ways to fill my free time.

I still live and breathe books, I work in a library and spend much of my free time seeking out books, reading about books, buying books, making lists of books, and often even reading books. I have decided that while my child is away at school that I will read "all of the books". And thus that is what I will return to blogging to write about.

So there...

Initially I have been trying to read all of the Newbery Award and Honor winning books. It's a hefty list and I decided I would return to that goal. Of course I quickly began adding to the goal and soon added other awarded books. Books such as the Printz Award winners (the Printz award is given to "books that exemplify literary excellence in young adult literature" -- some of these have made me realize my idea of "excellence" is very different from others). Also on my list became the Batchelder Awards (awarded for a children's book originally published in a foreign language in a foreign country and translated to English for the U.S.). And lastly the Sibert Award which I really enjoy as it is given to outstanding informational texts for children, meaning non-fiction.

Of course my lists have grown, and I chronicle all that I read and rate on Goodreads. I stumbled upon the New York Review Children's Collection which publishes some long forgotten or out of print titles for children to young adults which is right in my wheelhouse. I have a love of older literature, and have a love of the forgotten.

So far since embarking on my goal of reading "all the books" I have read 70 titles with a goal of 30 more by the end of the year. Summertime proved successful at my finishing almost a book a day, back to school time has made it more difficult. If you have any recommendations for me to add to my reading list, please send! You can follow me on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/58099150-becky

Let me add that I am a touch critic. I see a lot of people star everything 5 stars - excellent! I find very few books to hit that mark, so truly if I've given something 4 stars, it really was quite good to me, and 3 stars are good and I enjoyed them.

After this I will begin to comment more specifically on what I've been reading and what I'd love to suggest to others to read as well.

Happy Reading!


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