What I Read: June 2023
"Wash your brain of it." - my 6 year old
I committed to too much work in the same month that Scott and I had four nights away without the kids which was… not my best move. Add in a week-long visit from my dad, covering childcare for a couple of days for a friend, and the need to water our garden almost constantly in this lack of rain… and this introvert is dragging herself over the finish line of June.
When I told the kids that July starts tomorrow and I hope they are thinking up extra-cool surprises for my birthday (in total jest), Arthur proceeded to think out loud what he wants to make for me. Once he landed on the perfect-to-him idea, he told me to “wash my brain of it” so that I could still be surprised.
Wouldn’t that be handy? I’d like to wash my brain of some of the things I don’t need to make more room for things like books.
Here’s What I Read in June:
Our Missing Hearts: A Novel
by Celeste Ng
I knew nothing before I opened this book, just that I liked both of Ng’s previous novels. This one was no different, and maybe her best yet. The story follows Bird, a Chinese-American boy who lives in a post-crisis America that has instituted a law called PACT that allows the government to crack down on anything seen as anti-patriotic. This includes separating children from parents who are seen as less than perfectly supportive of PACT itself. The novel unfolds slowly and then all once, and there was so much I would have underlined if it wasn’t a library book. It’s impressive and prescient and also a really good read.
Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club: A Novel
by J. Ryan Stradal
I saved J. Ryan Stradal’s newest release for our kid-free trip to Door County this month and I’m so glad I did. I actually ended up reading the whole thing in a single day, something I haven’t done in a very long time. The story follows four generations of women in a family (as well as their partners) whose lives revolve around the Lakeside Supper Club — two who love it, and two who do not. Their stories are woven together over a few decades, exploring what it is to be a part of a family and a part of a family business. Reading it feels like a Midwestern summer spent on a lake, which is exactly what I needed that day.
Content warning: the book handles infertility, miscarriage, and the loss of a child.
I heartily recommend Stradal’s other novels: Kitchens of the Great Midwest and The Lager Queen of Minnesota.
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette {The Penderwicks #3 | Audio}
by Jeanne Birdsall
In listening to the third of the Penderwicks series, we are over halfway through it and that makes me sad. It’s so good! This book focuses much more on Skye Penderwick than the previous one, although all the Penderwicks make an appearance. It follows three of the four girls on vacation with their Aunt Claire in Maine, where OAP Skye must navigate some medium-sized crises as their newly remarried father is away on his honeymoon. Skye might be my favorite Penderwick, so I loved it, but I will note that because it focuses more on Skye there is more name-calling here (one of her specialties) — and I think Arthur may have picked up on it a bit. There’s also a bit more talk of love and romance, but at a completely age-appropriate level. I had no qualms with Arthur listening at age 6, especially since the characters surrounding Jane, the ooey-gooey lovey-dovey one, talk very plainly about how silly some of her actions are. All in all, a great third installment of the series, with an excellent (if somewhat predictable) twist buried inside.
Goodreads | Bookshop | Libro.FM
That’s it! Although, I am also in the process of beta-reading a friend’s murder mystery novel and I am partway through Self-Reg (it’s good info, but the writing is a bit stilted and hard to stick with). Maybe I’ll be able to talk about it next month!
What I’m Reading with the Kids:
Arthur is plowing through the BOB books as he learns to read, and we’ve been referring to The Kid’s Guide to Birds of Wisconsin every day as we watch the traffic at our bird feeder. The kids also request Berenstain Bear books whenever possible — we got a whole stack saved over from Scott’s childhood when we visited his parents last month. We learned so much about honeybees in this one (the audiobook is on sale for .99 for a few more hours)!
Our read-aloud right now is The Girl who Stole an Elephant by Nizrana Farook as we slowly continue our elephant unit. (Did you know the matriarch of an elephant herd can smell water up to 12 miles away?!? Woah!)
We’ve also been flipping through a nonfiction butterfly library book that I can’t find online, and one about cheetahs vs. leopards which is not worth linking to but Tennyson loves. She just found another title in the same series at the library today, so I’m about to learn a lot about identifying toads vs. frogs. I’ll report back.
What I’m Reading Next:
I may have placed some overly ambitious library holds for summer. These are all on my nightstand and, fast reader that I am, I may need to prioritize before they are due back:
The Wild + Free Book Club (might be a little old for my crew yet)
Stay True by Hua Hsu (a Pulitzer winner!)
Stories of my Life by Katherine Patterson (author of Bridge to Terabithia)
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (middle-grade fantasy I’ve missed!)
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (my book club’s pick this month)
You know, in addition to the several dozen books on a shelf that also periodically cry out for attention. Ha!
I was planning to save Lakeside Supperclub for our trip to the lake in August and your review strengthened my conviction. Finally read Lessons In Chemistry in March and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Almost skipped it just because it was SO HYPED but I definitely think the hype was deserved.
My holds on lessons in chemistry have lapsed twice now but I'll be reading it this month too!