What to Read: June

One thing I couldn’t wait to do after turning in my thesis was go to the library and look for books to read JUST BECAUSE.  I feel a major YA binge coming on. Maybe some Sarah Dessen chased with some E. Lockhart.  I think that will pair nicely with the TV series “One Tree Hill” that I’m ridiculously involved in.

Now that we’ve moved, we are literally a hop, skip, and a jump to the library and since Harper and I finished school before Hadley, we made several trips already for home decorating magazines and books and Mo Willems’ pigeon books. Harper LOVES that pigeon.

As you step into summer, here are some books the girls and I recommend that we like to pair with trips to the beach, the ball park, or over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the kitchen table.

Hadley says Bink and Gollie by  Kate DiCamillo and Allison McGhee is a great book for summer because, “they do rollerskating and outdoor activities.” Here is Hadley showing you one of her favorite pages with Bink and Gollie hanging out on a park bench – definitely something one could do in the summer time.

Harper thinks Poem Runs by Douglas Florian  is an appropriate book because, “it is fun to watch baseball games in the summer.”  Indeed, it is.

This is Harper’s favorite page because “the threads of the baseball turned into different words.”  She said looking at that picture makes her want to draw.

I’m not sure A Door In The Ocean by David McGlynn would be considered a beach read, but it is one of those books that allows you to lose track of time, which is the best sort of summer past time, don’t you think? I love the book for the swimming scenes and the way McGlynn describes the intensity of practicing and training for meets.  It reminds me of high school. I also love the parallels he makes with faith and swimming. McGlynn’s book along with Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead served as inspiration for one of the essays I wrote for my thesis.  Also, A Door In The Ocean is the home of one of my all time favorite paragraphs. I think I will probably spend the rest of my writing career trying to write a paragraph as awesome as the one in that book.

Hope you lose yourself in lots of stories this month!