Tuesday, June 23, 2015

What We're Reading

It's been a busy, bookish month in our house. As per usual, really, but there are a few highlights for everybody.

The almost-12 year old has been revisiting her beloved Percy Jacksons, while also reading quite a lot of non-fiction. She's on a history kick at the moment, which has been interesting to see. She's also finished The Last Thirteen series, and, in common with her younger sister, has been reading Doctor Who books.

The 10-year-old has been reading a beautiful book called Evangeline, about the place where toys go when they are no longer played with (Upstairs, with a capital U). She's also madly into Agatha Christie, especially Hercule Poirot at the moment; she and I have enjoyed many a tea-fuelled snuggle and read session. (I also love me some Agatha!) She's been revisiting her My Australian Girl books too, and supplementing Doctor Who watching with Doctor Who reading.

The 6-year-old, whose reading has really turned a corner in the pas three months, is reading - literally - ALL the things. In particular, she's enjoying reading my huge stack of Golden Books aloud to herself, along with our little library of science / animal facts books. She still loves being read to, and we do bedtime reading every night, but having cracked the code, she's enchanted with the wordy world now available to her.

Read-aloud books have been the inimitable, wonderful The Princess Bride (how I love that book, and what a pure pleasure it has been to share it with my girls!) and Terry Pratchett's hilarious and thought-provoking The Wee Free Men. Night-time reading happens most nights, and it's a wonderful constant in our lives.

For me, I have been re-reading books I loved years ago - Thomas Keneally's The Place Where Souls Are Born, the first three Discworld  novels, and Isabel Allende's heartbeaking Paula. With one exception, it hasn't been the month for new books - but that exception, Sofie Laguna's The Eye of the Sheep, blew my mind. (Review coming!) I am gearing up for what will be a major new-book push when the Booker longlist comes out in early August, so I'm cutting myself a bit of slack now.

So that's our literary month ... what was yours like?

2 comments:

  1. I've been rereading Jane Eyre to ready myself to reread Jasper Fforde's series on the school holidays, plus i'm up to Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents as I reread the series.
    The 7 Year old has been enjoying this quest series she got given in a box set http://www.qed-publishing.co.uk/range.php?r=qed-science-quest and a range of Aussie Nibblers.
    The 4 year old has no reading pattern and choses a different picture book every night. Maisy books seems to be popular.

    Our read aloud books this month were pippi long stocking and milly molly mandy. Plus random pictures books for the 4 year old.

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    1. I LOVE the Fforde books. Haven't read them for ages, but really enjoyed them when I did.

      Milly Molly Mandy! My big girls loved her so much when they were younger. The youngest didn't really take to her for some reason though.

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