summer reading

Ella and I recently read the charming
Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

A tender, sarcastic (that's not an oxymoron) young girl

befriends a super hero squirrel.
Sounds odd, but it worked!

We are now working our way through The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall.
This is the first in a series of five books about four sisters, ages 4-12,
their father and their dog, Hound (their mother died of cancer).
The series is contemporary, but the feel of the book
is that of Little Women.
It's mostly about the mishaps the sisters get into,
and their sweet relationships with each other.

Our latest library haul:

Nancy Drew mysteries (by Carolyn Keene)

David McCullough's 1776 and Mornings on Horseback on audio CDs

Toy Time! a history of toys

a few books in the Harry Potter series (by J,K. Rowling)

a couple of books in the Misty of Chincoteague series (by Marguerite Henry)

a couple books in the Pippi Longstocking series (by Astrid Lindgren)

Dick King-Smith animal books (he wrote Babe)

Bad Kitty books (by Nick Bruel) ~ obnoxious and funny, the kids laugh a lot!

Audio books have been extra fun for Roone this summer.

Here he is reading along as the CD plays 

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

by Roald Dahl.

He also listened/read along to Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

as well as the How to Train Your Dragon books (11 in the series).

All these books he's listened to have been fun for me to catch snipits of

as I wander around the house working on my To Do list.

Usually I have a stack of summer reading

or at least one thick book that I'm wading through.

This summer? Nothing!

It's taken me until mid-July to become enraptured,

but now I have two new favorite authors so I'm good for a while. 

I came across a recommendation for Susan Branch and Gladys Taber.

I quickly put in my library request, and last weekend could be found

slumped on the couch or sitting at the pool READING!

Gardening, cooking and laundry happened somewhere in there, too.

I first read Gladys Taber's Stillmeadow Road.

She's written a few books about Stillmeadow, her home,

and this was a sweet memoir detailing a year there.

I enjoy blogs for the reason I enjoy memoirs:

it's a slice of  a person's life, 

and usually the types of blogs and books I enjoy 

are those about home, gardening, nature and food.

Taber writes about all these things!

She has a gentle and observant writer's voice. 

It's like an old-school blog in book form. Wonderful.

I also began reading Susan Branch who is a fan of Taber.

Her current book is A Fine Romance detailing her two-month vacation 

driving around England. 

She also writes about home, gardening, nature and food

and since this book was a diary of her time in England

it was also something of an old-school blog in book form.

Now, if only more of the books I have on hold come in at the library

I'll be good to go for the Summer.