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Julienne DesJardins's avatar

We were listening to These Happy Golden Years in the car, and I had to stop and ugly cry in the driveway at the ending. I was completely overcome. That's never happened to me before, but you're right - these books are so different as adults. I tackled Prairie Fires last spring, b/c we did an Laura Ingalls road trip last summer. (WI, MN, and SD!) It isn't super complimentary of her, but it isn't terrible to get through.

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Abbigail Kriebs's avatar

That is good to hear! I struggled hearing in The First Four Years how often Laura tried to ignore her (rightfully placed!) anxiousness about the debt they were taking on… and then to see tragedy after tragedy hit them and then not have an out from the life that’s just about breaking you. Especially when your parents are 4 miles away! Why aren’t you sharing machinery?!? Sigh.

Is this where I share that I live in WI and have never been to Pepin? 🤪

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Julienne DesJardins's avatar

Ha! That's easily fixed. Homeschooling tends to take care of those overlooked things for us lol -- Absolutely agree about the ignoring yourself. It comes up in Prairie Fires - how she really handled it as they aged.

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Lisa Hensley's avatar

I'm reading this awesome book I found at the library called The Elements of Marie Curie. I'm only a few chapters in but it's well written and says it's going to focus on how her work paved the way for other women in science.

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Laura Rennie's avatar

Meena sounds like a great match for my almost-9-year-old! Too sweet that your friend’s son thought of you.

I’m listening to Ina Garten’s memoir and reading Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty.

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Ashley Brooks's avatar

My kids loved One Grain of Rice! Good reminder for me to get it from the library again because I don't think I've read it to Nessa yet. We have a beautiful picture book edition of Mary Poppins that the kids love (abridged of course), but they're actively afraid of the audiobook and refused to finish it because "she's so mean." Ha!

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Abbigail Kriebs's avatar

Ha! That’s hilarious. I imagine my kids are thinking “hmm… sounds like mom when she’s crabby.” 🤣🤣🤣

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Catie Joyce-Bulay's avatar

Oof, felt the same way about The First Four Years, but we loved listening to the earlier stories on car rides. I just finished Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll, which I snagged in the donations book bin at the grocery store and was just the fast-passed read I didn't know I was looking for to get out of my own March reading slump! For pic books we're (especially me) loving How to Party Like a Snail and An Eye for Color: The Story of Josef Albers. Love reading these posts and especially look forward to your pic book and early chapter book recs, we've enjoyed a lot of them!

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Abbigail Kriebs's avatar

Just now seeing this comment... a month behind! Sorry, Catie. Both of those picture books sound so cute! I'm requesting them right now...

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