Are you the kind of person who starts the year off with a reading goal? Maybe you want to read more books. Do you have a number? Maybe you want to read more of a certain genre or read more diversely. No matter what your reading goal (if you even have one) organizing your reading throughout the year is a beneficial habit for us all, yet it is one not many people do.
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A huge part of my being a voracious reader is always having a book to read no matter what. This is complicated when I add in the details that I’m not a huge fan of ebooks and cannot stay focused through audiobooks. (I have no problem with either medium; ebooks sometimes hurt my eyes, and my mind wanders during audiobooks—I don’t process and retain things I only hear. I do try to have one ebook going at all times, though in case ofnemergencies.) As a result, I must always have books to read somewhere around the house.
I first read Rainbow Rowell’s novel Eleanor and Park a little less than a year ago when I had a student request the novel for my classroom. I genuinely enjoyed reading the novel and quickly ordered Fangirl and Carry On to enjoy.
Last year I read 84 books. Some good, some mediocre, and some were so incredibly amazing works of prose that I was telling everyone to go and read them right now! Following I have included those eight books that I could hardly put down and want to share all the book love for. (For the record, these are in order of completion and not in order of which ones I liked most—that decision is much too challenging.)
Before this year I’d never read a John Green book...cue the gasp!
I never really thought they were especially for me, so I continued to plug away through my ever growing pile of books and left John Green to his huge fan base. I’m finishing up my week of writing about March. I set this goal for myself to read all three volumes in one week because I thought it would present me with the perfect opportunity to learn more about the Civil Rights Movement and reflect on the importance of the freedoms we have in this country, including the ones people have had to fight for.
Earlier this week I posted about March: Book One which described how Lewis became involved in the Civil Rights Movement through the SNCC. I quickly began March: Book Two and quickly finished the second installment. Lewis shares his experience as a freedom rider and how all of those experiences brought him to the Chairman position in the SNCC which is what brought him to Washington D.C. on that fateful day when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
In March: Book One John Lewis explains to two young boys why he became involved in the civil rights movement which led to him speaking at the rally in Washington DC with Martin Luther King Jr. Though he does not get into those details in the first installment, I am hopeful he will cover this in the second and third parts.
Everyone wants to be special. Right?
We all want our quirks to seem normal-ish or at least so unique that people want to be around us for who we are. At least that’s what I’m finding in many of the YA books I have read recently. The trend seems to be that there is a character who has been a social outcast or is a social outcast at some point in the book. That person feels separated from his or her peers because he or she is unique in some defined way (genius, prodigy, writer, etc.). The book usually introduces some sort of friend who pulls the outcast out of his or her she’ll eventually resulting in the outcast not feeling like an outcast anymore. Every night we snuggle up on our rocking chair in our living room and read books with our two girls before bedtime. Between the two of them they have a pretty decent collection of books, so we usually have a ton of variety.
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