Time for another monthly celebration of Libraries! Yay! Thanks again to Bookish Beck for hosting this monthly meme.
Our library re-opened! We are very excited around here. Our local library has been closed since a flood after a large snowfall in January. While they had a pop-up location in the local mall and we were able to still place and pick-up holds, we had really been missing the simple act of browsing shelves and shelves of books. As I mentioned in my last Love Your Library post, this has been especially hard on my kids who are developing their reading tastes and don’t necessarily know the books they might want to request the way I do. Rose really became an independent reader over Spring Break so the library has been closed since before she started reading on her own.
It was wonderful to watch the girls browse the shelves and choose their own books out. Rose picked out a Mercy Watson book and an early reader but she’s also reading and really enjoying The Heartwood Hotel series by Kallie George. Pearl took out Dogtown and The One and Only Ivan both by Katherine Applegate. She also took my suggestion and borrowed the first in Anna James’ Pages & Co. series and she read it in two days so we went back and got the next book.
Both kids are signed up for the library’s summer reading program and have been diligently checking off their reading every night.
As for me, I found a copy of The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo on a display, which I’m excited to read since I loved her Night Tiger. I also started using the Inter-Library Loan system again and borrowed Max Porter’s Grief is the Thing with Feathers which was beautiful and tragic and I read in about one afternoon.
Karissa Reads Books 
I love summer reading programs. I’m a little bitter that they make us adults use a website to track our reading. I want a little form I can put on a clipboard like kids used to do! Are your kids reading any of the “girl classics,” like Judy Moody or Junie B. Jones? There are SO MANY new series and books for girls today that I’m not sure they need to read all the old classics….they were classic because they appealed to girls at that time. It might be better if they read newer books that speak to life as it is around your kids.
You could make your own form! I mean, I keep a notebook where I track all my reading and find that deeply satisfying. You’re making me realize it’s essentially a grown-up reading program I’ve created for myself!
They haven’t delved into Judy Moody or Junie B. Jones though they did really like Beverly Cleary’s books. We did a few of them on audio last year. Honestly, we’re still leaning heavily on books that I read when I was their age and I never got into a lot of those “girl classics”. Aside from L.M. Montgomery’s books which Pearl has not really loved. I think Rose will when she’s older.
I don’t necessarily vet their reading but they still mostly rely on me to help them pick their books so I find myself naturally steering them to series I’ve liked.
I saw the updated Baby-sitter’s Club show on Netflix, and I was so glad to see that they brought it out of the 80s and made it more modern. Plus, they talk about things like first periods, which I love.
I feel like when we were kids it was still pretty scandalous to take about periods etc. I’m glad that seems to be changing a little bit.