What I Read: December 2023
Seasonal reads... and apocalyptic speculative fiction about the end of the world.
Just when we think we’ve gotten through all the celebratory excitement, we remember that our daughter’s birthday is a few days into the new year and it’s time to get ready for yet another special day and shop for a few more special groceries and wrap another handful of special presents. I love celebrations! But this mom is tired. (And was supposed to have a mid-to-end of January baby, not an early January one. My rising blood pressure during pregnancy had no respect for celebration timelines.)
Here’s the few books I managed to squeeze into the month of December. I hope you read some good ones, too.
Here’s What I Read in December:
The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas
by Madeleine L’Engle
This is a super short novella that predates the Austen family chronicles featuring Vicki Austen and her family. Vicki is seven in this book, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Christmas and of a new baby sibling. She’s also supposed to be an angel in her church’s pageant this year, a daunting task. She details how her family does something each day of December leading up to the holiday, and how she worries that the baby will come early — keeping her mom away for Christmas. It’s a sweet read (less than an hour total, for sure), and one I’d never picked up before. I’ll definitely read it with the kids next Christmas season.
Bright Evening Star: Mystery of the Incarnation
by Madeleine L’Engle
An accidental theme this year was apparently reading L’Engle at Christmastime. I chose this as my Advent read this year, since by the time our church’s Advent devotional was printed and handed out, I had already read it about 8 times (I proofread it and did design & layout). I think I meant to read this book, but I’m glad I ordered Bright Evening Star instead. The main theme is Jesus coming to earth as a baby, as wholly human, and how that mattered to the rest of the story, too. The book collects stories and essays and ponderings of L’Engle all surrounding the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ; it’s not a cohesive narrative all the way through. As someone who often moves through the world as a brain completely disconnected from her body, the reminder of the human-ness, the body-having miracle of Christ, was a profound reminder in this season.
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The Christmasaurus: A Novel
by Tom Fletcher
Technically this is one I read with the kids, but it’s 350+ pages and I read aloud every word, so it earned a spot up here, too. This was a delightful read, full of fun and magic. Some North Pole Mining Elves find a long-frozen egg while digging for presents (a fun detail you’ll have to read about!). When it hatches on Christmas Eve, it’s a dinosaur! Back in the U.K., William Trundle is a small boy who loves dinosaurs, and man is he having a sad go of it these days. When Santa receives his Christmas letter asking for a dinosaur, a wild adventure for William and the Christmasaurus ensures. The author wrote one of our favorite early picture books, There’s a Monster In Your Book (and many, many companion books), and he’s got a great handle on humor. He does, however, also use the word “fat” very liberally, in a way that Americans tend to shy away from, so if that’s a no-go for you, skip this one (I left out a lot of the not-so-necessary descriptors as I read aloud). And there’s a bad guy in this one called the Hunter who has a rifle and (surprise!) would like to shoot and keep the Christmasaurus for himself. I have a feeling this one would be fabulous on audio with slightly older kids, a.k.a. not so easily unsettled by a bit of tension, so if you have some driving to do next year at Christmas with an 8-12 year old, queue this one up!
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The Parable of the Sower: A Novel {Earthseed #1}
by Octavia Butler
Fair Warning: This is a dark book. It’s about a society breaking down, and all the evils that come with it.
I received this as a Christmas gift… in 2022. I finally picked it up to read it alongside Ashley Brooks over her winter break from grad school.
Butler was the first Black woman to really break into the science fiction genre, and the first science fiction author ever to win a MacArthur Fellowship, a.k.a. a “Genius Grant.” This novel is speculative climate fiction, written in 1993 but set in 2024 (it’s starts on my birthdate in 2024… which is eerie). Protagonist Lauren Olamina is Black and lives in a gated community in southern California, but it’s not gated because her family is rich; it’s gated because the world has become so dangerous that it’s the only way to stay safe from robbers, arsonists, and the street poor who will do anything to gain their next meal. There’s been no rain for years, water is more expensive than food, and the fire department only comes to stop your house from burning down if you can pay their fee. When Lauren is forced to leave that community, she has to learn to survive in a world where she can trust no one, and no one trusts her.
Butler planned this novel as the first of a series of six, but only completed this first novel and a sequel, Parable of the Talents, before her death. You can feel her doing a lot of setup in this first book, and it moves a bit slow at the beginning, which is to be expected. Butler’s writing discusses racial discrimination, climate change, and social inequality, all through powerful stories with Black women as protagonists. If Parable sounds like too much for you, an easier entry into Butler might be Kindred, a historical fiction/slave narrative with a time travel element. And I also recommend N.K. Jemison’s The Fifth Season, the first of her award-winning Broken Earth Trilogy.
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What I’m Reading with the Kids:
The Christmasaurus took up most of December.
We’ve also read the latest Tales from Deckawoo Drive book, Mercy Watson is Missing. As they always are, a delight. Next up, we need to finish Heartwood Hotel #2: The Greatest Gift, and then we’ve promised Arthur to start The Wild Robot #3 after that as a read aloud.
We’ve also been reading their new books they got for Christmas (link to the list in last month’s newsletter), as well as a bunch of our favorite Christmas-themed picture books.
What I’m Reading Next:
I’ll finish Parable of the Sower, and maybe decide if I want to read the next one in the series. Then, I get to dive into the new-to-me reads. For Christmas, I received:
Every Season Sacred by Kayla Craig (This one will get read throughout the year.)
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (I’ve heard only good things! Plus, it won the Pulitzer last year.)
The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker (Our church’s theme this year is “Holy Community” and it just so happens that this is one of the group reads they want to work through!)
And I gifted to Scott:
The Nordic Theory of Everything by Anu Partanen
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemison
A Dad-Joke-A-Day Calendar (because his TBR shelf is starting to overwhelm him)
The Art of Gathering is in my top 10 books of all time. It's so good.
Love your newsletter Abbie! As always, thank you for the book recs!