Growing Bookworms Newsletter: January 6: Happy New Year Edition

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 about once a month, depending on how frequently I'm able to post on my blog. 

Newsletter Update: Happy New Year, readers! I realize that it's been a while since I sent out the newsletter (since November 13th). It was a very busy end of the year for me. I'm getting back on track now, but with some changes coming for the blog (see below). In this issue I have a post about my "one word" for 2020, a new "Bookworm Moment" for my daughter, and a post about "introvert streamers" for World Introvert Day. One thing that I have continued to do throughout my busyness is share links regarding literacy, schools, and the joy of reading. I've included the most recent roundup of those links here. The others can be found on my blog. 

Reading Update:  Since my last update, I read two middle grade and ten adult titles (eight fiction and two nonfiction). I read/listened to: 

• Janet Tashjian: My Life As A Cartoonist. Square Fish. Middle Grade Fiction. Completed November 14, 2019, read aloud to my daughter.
• Janet Tashjian: My Life As A Joke. Square Fish. Middle Grade Fiction. Completed December 13, 2019, read aloud to my daughter.
• Michael Connelly: The Night Fire (Bosch and Ballard, Book 2). Little, Brown and Co. Adult Mystery. Completed November 14, 2019, on MP3. Both main characters did things that made me cringe in this book (crossing lines). I still enjoyed it, but ... didn't like the gray areas. 
• Scott Adams: Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America. Portfolio. Adult Nonfiction. Completed November 19, 2019, on MP3. I've enjoyed Adams' other books, but found this one tough to focus on  in audio. I might have preferred it in print. I'm not sure. 
• Deborah Crombie: A Bitter Feast (Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James series). William Morrow. Adult Mystery. Completed November 28, 2019, on Kindle. These I still love. 
• Margaret Mizushima: Tracking Game. Crooked Lane Books. Adult Mystery. Completed December 3, 2019, on MP3. This newer series I also love. 
• Dervla McTiernan: The Ruin (Cormac Reilly, Book 1). Penguin Books. Adult Mystery. Completed December 14, 2019, on MP3. This is the first of a new police procedural series set in Galway that I enjoyed enough to give as a gift for Christmas. 
• William Kent Krueger: Desolation Mountain (Cork O'Connor, No. 17). Atria Books. Adult Mystery. Completed December 21, 2019, on MP3. I'm now caught up with this series, and will have to look for a new one to start on audio. 
• Lee Goldberg: Lost Hills (Eve Ronin, Book 1). Thomas & Mercer. Adult Mystery. Completed December 26, 2019, on Kindle. This is kind of a popcorn book, but I liked it. Also the first of a new series. 
• Dervla McTiernan: The Scholar (Cormac Reilly, Book 2). Penguin Books. Adult Mystery. Completed December 30, 2019, on MP3.
• Eve Rodsky: Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live). G.P. Putnam's Sons. Adult Nonfiction. Completed January 3, 2020, on Kindle. This book aligned with my "One Word" selection for 2020. I very much like the author's main point, which is that family responsibilities can only be divided equitably between spouses if each partner takes full responsibility for conception, planning  and execution of their "cards." I don't see following her process in detail, but I am going to take her advice in broader ways. 
• Janet Evanovich: Twisted Twenty-Six G. P. Putnam's Sons. Adult Mystery. Completed January 3, 2020, on MP3. I have a sense that Evanovich might be taking baby steps toward closing out this series, but I could be wrong... 

My total number of books read for the year was 123: 28 middle grade, 7 young adult, and 88 adult titles. I don't set numeric reading goals, but I will note that this is a bit lower than my usual total, which has floated closer to 150. This is a reflection of a larger number of adult titles in the mix and a bit less time for reading. My daughter ended the year with 407 books logged as read. This is very much a lower bound on her actual reading. I don't try very hard to keep up with her re-reads of her favorites, though I do try to log each new title at least once. She also sits on her own sometimes and reads picture books. I only log those if I happen to find the stack before it's put away. This is a significant drop from her total for previous years, but she is reading much longer books now. The important thing, of course, is that she is reading, not the number of books. Even more important is the fact that she is enjoying reading. That's what I care about. 

I'm reading Tiny Habits by B. J. Fogg and Past Perfect Life by Elizabeth Eulberg. and listening to Past Tense by Lee Child. I'm reading My Life As A Gamer (My Life Series, Book 5) by Janet Tashjian and Jake Tashjian aloud to my daughter. We continue to enjoy these, but we took a break over her Christmas vacation. 

On her own, she remains obsessed with the Big Nate series. She got a few new (to her) titles for Christmas, and she re-reads those constantly. She is also tackling The Wild Queen: The Days and Nights of Mary Queen of Scots, from Carolyn Meyer's Young Royals series. This YA title is a giant leap from the Big Nate books in reading level (and theme, print density, length, etc.). But she found it in my office and was captivated. She's about a quarter of the way through and finding it tough going (sad things happening, plus challenges following the plot). But she is fascinated  and determined. I offered to read the book myself, so that I could discuss it with her, but she refused. She wants to read this big book that I haven't even read. I will report back. 

I also picked out a few graphic novels for her for Christmas that she hadn't read yet. She enjoyed them reasonably well, but hasn't found any new favorites. She read Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell for school, and enjoyed that one very much. She keeps talking about it. She's also reading the first Spirit Animals book by Brandon Mull for school. She says that she likes it, and asked me to get the next one from the public library, but she hasn't picked up her current title once over vacation. I asked her about that, and she said that she likes The Wild Queen better. 

Wishing you all a healthy, happy, productive 2020, full of people and books that you love. Thanks for reading, and for growing bookworms! 

© 2020 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage.