What I Read: September 2022
An accidental-ish deep dive into middle-grade/YA.
September has been glorious here in Wisconsin — truly fantastic fall weather, abundant sunshine, crisp air… it’s everything I could hope for and then some. So while a lot of the days have been spent outside lately, I’ve manage to read a good handful of books purely because they were short and aimed at a middle-grade audience—and were, therefore—compulsively readable to my middle-aged mom brain.
Here’s What I Read (or Listened to!) in September:
The Lazy Genius Kitchen: Have What You Need, Use What You Have, and Enjoy It Like Never Before
by Kendra Adachi
I’ve been a listener of Kendra’s podcast since it’s inception — 6? 7 years? Back when it was all interviews with people and I didn’t even have children. Over those years, I’ve absorbed a lot of Kendra’s main ideas, so much so that when I finally got to reading this book long after it released in March, I felt like I didn’t really need it. Our kitchen is (mostly) under control over here. Still, the book is enjoyable: it’s beautiful, it’s funny, it’s got great reminders that your kitchen can’t be everything — it needs to pick a lane. The most helpful tip I came away with is that if we are committed to mostly cooking from scratch using mostly local ingredients, it’s going to be mostly a time-consuming and thought-consuming endeavor — I cannot make it easy and brainless, too. And that’s worth remembering when I get frustrated that meal planning and grocery list-making consume so much of my life: it’s what we have chosen in this season.
Because of Winn-Dixie
by Kate DiCamillo
In my last newsletter, I let you all know that I am on a journey through Kate DiCamillo’s entire body of work. I went backwards and picked up her first novel — how have I never read it? — and read it in one sitting, which was perfect. Opal adopts a stray dog when she finds him wreaking havoc on the local Winn-Dixie grocery store, and their friendship is instant—and Opal needs a friend. She is in a new town as her dad takes over pastoring a new church. Her mother left many years ago, and Opal says of her father: “he’s too distracted by prayers and sermons and suffering people to go grocery shopping.” This is a short middle-grade novel that touches on love and loss and friendship and belonging… it really packs a punch. You can see why DiCamillo received a Newberry Honor for it, and why more books from her were sure to come.
The Tiger Rising
by Kate DiCamillo
DiCamillo’s second novel, The Tiger Rising, is even shorter than her first, and actually left me wanting more to the story. It’s about a boy named Rob, who has recently lost his mother (a lot of lost parent’s in DiCamillo’s fiction, which mirros her own story) and relocated with his father to a new town (also a pattern in DiCamillo’s fiction). He meets an odd girl named Sistine (also without a parent, also new in town) and the two of them learn to deal with their feelings and grief with the help of a maid at the motel and a tiger in a cage in the woods. DiCamillo does not shy away from hard and sad things, and I think that is the magic of her fiction (aside from it being ridiculously well written).
Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures
by Kate DiCamillo
This is a book about a girl, a squirrel, and what it means to be a superhero. Flora is a self-described cynic, even at age 10. But then something truly unexpected happens… and then another thing, and then another, and then Flora can’t help but believe just a little that the world is alright after all. It’s a sweet and silly story, full of DiCamillo’s trademark lines that make you open your eyes a little wider and your heart a little more fully.
The Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster
The kids and I listened to this on our way to visit a friend last week and I remembered all over again why it might just be my favorite book. It’s a book about a bored boy named Milo, and his travels to a strange and faraway land one afternoon. The word play and inventiveness is astonishingly good. If you’ve never read it, I suggest starting with a paper copy so you can take in the simple line drawings that add just enough to the story, but don’t over-explain your own imagination out of a job. I’m excited to read it again with Arthur in a couple of years when the literalness of the text comes more alive for him.
Goodreads | Bookshelf | Libro.fm
A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeline L’Engle
Another classic re-read (re-listen?) for our drive! Listening to this book after having read it so many times was a treat. Meg and her little brother, Charles Wallace, along with their neighbor, Calvin, get swept up in an intergalactic journey to save Meg’s father from an evil force on another planet. When Scott asked me why I liked it so much as a kid, I settled on the fact that it is so different from all other literature that they hand young girls — where else could you find sci-fi, fantasy, discussions of faith and physics, family dynamics, and more all in one slim pink paperback? L’Engle had a hard time publishing it in the 50s and 60s, and you can see why — it was decades ahead of its time.
Although meant for a very different audience and in a different decade, I drew many parallels to The Sparrow that I read and reviewed in July.
Goodreads | Bookshelf | Libro.fm
A Ring of Endless Light
by Madeline L’Engle
Another L’Engle, another favorite from junior high — although I’ve never read any of the rest of the series, for reasons entirely unknown. Vicky Austin is the non-scientist in a family full of them, and feels out of place as her fifteenth summer is spent on an island visiting her grandfather at the end of his life. She is navigating death and life and faith and friendship, all alongside the attentions of three very different young men vying for her attention in very different ways. L’Engle’s trademark blend of science + faith + provocative thinking is on full display here, and it was a joy to revisit.
Raymie Nightingale
by Kate DiCamillo
The first of three books that follow “The Three Rancheros,” Raymie Nightingale follows a young girl through the first days after her father has walked out on her family and left town with another woman. The book introduces Raymie and her best friends, Louisiana Elefante and Beverly Tapinski, who appear each in their own novel later. They meet at twirling lessons, where Raymie intends to learn to be a champion baton twirler, win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition, and get her picture in the paper—so that her father will see it and come back. Her plan falls apart—as most grand plans at age 10 do—but Raymie finds friendship and belonging along the way. A great setup to a heart-mending trilogy.
Louisiana’s Way Home
by Kate DiCamillo
The second book of the trilogy takes place two years after Raymie’s novel. It follows Louisiana as she and her grandmother take off in the middle of the night, running from something Louisiana isn’t quite sure exists anymore. The story is beautiful and heartbreaking, full of good people and ones who make some poor choices, but ultimately it is a story of choosing to love even when it is a beyond hard choice. After meeting her in the first book, I was worried I would find a book focused on Louisiana to be too flighty, but this ended up being my favorite of the three.
Beverly, Right Here
by Kate DiCamillo
I was curious how DiCamillo would situate rough-and-tumble Beverly in her story after reading the other two, but I needn’t have worried: Beverly gets the exact story she needs. Set two years after Louisiana’s book, 14-year-old Beverly takes the opportunity to leave home—something she’s been planning to do ever since she could remember. Beverly thinks she doesn’t need anybody, but can’t help collecting new friends every turn she takes. It’s a wonderful and warm conclusion to the stories of the Three Rancheros—even if I would read another whole trilogy following them into adulthood if I could.
I promised a full review of The Life We're Looking for: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World by Andy Crouch, but I’m still not quite done with it yet — I’m trying not to rush through the end. Next month!
What I’ve Been Reading with the Kids:
More Kate DiCamillo! Seriously: we’re just immersed in her over here. We read the entire Mercy Watson series, which is about a pig who loves “warm toast with a great deal of butter on it.” The hijinks Mercy gets in as she tracks down a buttery smell are usually pretty hilarious. We listened to two of the books on audio — Mercy Watson Fights Crime & Mercy Watson Princess in Disguise — and it was a delightful listen as we ran our errands one day. These are perfect for an early-ish reader — lots of repetition and short chapters and sentence structure, without at all being boring.
We’ve also been reading books about apples (of course) and dove into exploring the ocean for our first Kindergarten-at-Home unit in preparation to visit the Shedd Aquarium with the kids next week!
What I’m Reading Next:
I’ve got The Magician’s Elephant and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane still left in my DiCamillo saga, and I’ve also got the urge to read the rest of the Austin Family Chronicles by L’Engle. At some point I’ll have to pull myself out of a middle-grade/young adult deep dive, but I’m not ready to quite yet. ;)
What about you: what’s your favorite middle grade/young adult read that you haven’t thought about in a while? Or maybe you’ve read it recently!
Hit “reply” and tell me all about why you love it.
A Ring of Endless Light is a treasure from younger me as well, though I have read the rest of the series. Even bought the whole series (or asked for them from my mom) for Christmas because I love them so much. Sometimes middle-grade fiction is what we all need. So much wrestling with what’s true about humans happens there.
I’ve been thinking about rereading Inkheart. I read it so many times when I was younger, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately!