Today, I will be sending out a new issue of the Growing Bookworms email newsletter. (If you would like to subscribe, you can find a sign-up form here.) The Growing Bookworms newsletter contains content from my blog focused on growing joyful learners, mainly bookworms, but also mathematicians and learners of all types. The newsletter is sent out every three to four weeks.
Newsletter Update: In this issue I have three short posts about my daughter's recent reading and writing experiences. In the first, I share a simple moment that made me happy as a bookworm parent. In the second, I share my daughter's fascination with fonts and formats. In the third, I share photographic evidence of my commitment to reading choice (from a library visit). As I was traveling for a couple of weeks, I only have two posts with the literacy and reading-related links that I shared on Twitter, but one of them is quite extensive.
Reading Update: In the last four weeks I finished one middle grade title and six adult titles (five fiction and one nonfiction). I read/listened to:
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Ransom Riggs: A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children. Dutton Books. Middle Grade Speculative Fiction. Completed July 9, 2019, on MP3. I found this an intriguing new installment in the Peculiar Children series. The ending promises additional titles, which pleases me.
- Jim Geraghty: Between Two Scorpions. Discus Books. Adult Thriller. Completed June 29, 2019, on Kindle. This was one of those books that interested me enough to finish, but not enough to read avidly, and thus slowed down my reading overall.
- Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness: Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education. Oxford University Press. Adult Nonfiction. Completed July 5, 2019, on Kindle. This non-partisan book is about structural issues (such as poor incentive structures) that create problems in our system of higher education. I found it interesting, because this is an interest of mine, but it was also a bit slow for me. The combination of this and the previous book really cut down my reading significantly. Fortunately, Todd Borg helped me get my groove back.
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Todd Borg: Tahoe Deathfall (Owen McKenna, No. 1). Thriller Press. Adult Mystery. Completed June 30, 2019, on Kindle. I quite like these books, about a Tahoe-area private investigator (former SF cop). I do have some quibbles over the writing. Borg includes regular information dumps on various topics via conversation, not my favorite technique. But he is also very good at creating perilous situations and keeping the reader turning the pages. I also like the characters, especially Owen's spotted Great Dane, Spot. It's also fun that the books (so far) are set in the early 2000s. I got a kick out of Owen whipping out a zip drive, for instance.
- Todd Borg: Tahoe Blowup (Owen McKenna, No. 2). Thriller Press. Adult Mystery. Completed July 7, 2019, on Kindle.
- Todd Borg: Tahoe Ice Grave (Owen McKenna, No. 3). Thriller Press. Adult Mystery. Completed July 12, 2019, on Kindle.
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Bruce Holsinger: The Gifted School. Riverhead Books. Adult Fiction. Completed July 15, 2019, on Kindle. This book completely hooked me, and I highly recommend it. It's a fiction title that is freakishly apt for the moment, despite having been started 15 years ago. It's about a tight-knit group of four families who all have 11 year olds. When four local school districts around their upscale, progressive Colorado town band together to create a public magnet school for gifted kids, some of the parents go a bit crazy trying to get their kids admitted. I didn't like all (many?) of the characters, but I still couldn't put it down.
I'm reading the fourth Owen McKenna book, Tahoe Killshot. I'm listening to the latest Mike Bowditch mystery by Paul Doiron, Almost Midnight. My daughter and I have stopped reading the sixth Harry Potter book. It think it was just too dark for her, especially for summer. We may try to get back into it on a long car ride later in the summer. She has been listening to The Swiss Family Robinson on her own. She loves the old Disney movie and picked up a used copy of the book at the library bookstore recently. She needed an audio while doing a boring chore (shredding) and asked for that one. I'll be surprised if she gets all the way through it, but you never know. She's also reading Better You Than Me by Jessica Brody (a fresh take on Freaky Friday). She's reading it a bit at a time, stopping to read various graphic novels and picture books. She especially liked the first Benny Breakiron book by Peyo: The Red Taxi. We'll be looking for the others, I suppose.
Yesterday a friend passed on four Disney Descendants books to her. She read the first one (Mal's Spell Book) in a single sitting after dinner. She particularly appreciated one of the fonts, and wants to try writing that way. She is eagerly awaiting a number of sequels/series installments, but seems to be fine dabbling in the meantime. She's also writing a lot, which I love. She's working on a story and has created little sketches and bios of each of the characters, as well as a diagram that shows how they are connected. I'm enjoying it all very much. Summer reading and summer writing are beautiful things!
Thanks for reading, and for growing bookworms!
© 2019 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage.