Even though I've been pretty much MIA here since June, I have still been participating in my real-life book club. It's been so nice to have one night a month to escape the craziness of my house and talk to adults for a while. These are the books that we read this year.

January - Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin
February - The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
April - A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
May - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
June - A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
July - The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
September - Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
October - News of the World by Paulette Jiles
November - Circling the Sun by Paul McLain

Our Favorite Books: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. A couple of our members were reading it for the first time, and the rest of us loved revisiting this classic. Also The Nightingale. Such a powerful and well-written story.

Not-So-Favorite Book:​ News of the World wasn't quite what we were expecting. It was very well-written, but maybe not as gripping as we thought it would be.

Best Food Served: This is one of the best parts! We always have good food, but at our November meeting, we had warm, fudgy brownies for dessert, topped with peppermint ice cream and chocolate peppermint sauce. We all decided that we could easily eat that every time!

Welcome to another year of the Newbery Reading Challenge! Newbery and Caldecott books are fun to read - whether it's our first time experiencing them, or we're revisiting them from our childhood. If you want to challenge yourself to read more Newbery and Caldecott books this year, then you have found the right place!

Here are the rules:​
Each book you read is worth points. You get:

• 3 points for a Newbery Medal Winner
• 2 points for a Newbery Honor Book
• 1 point for a Caldecott Book (Both Medal winners and Honor books are worth a point.)

In addition to that, you pick a level to aim for:

• L'Engle: 15 - 29 points
• Spinelli: 30 - 44 points
• Avi: 45 - 59 points
• Lowry: 60 - 74 points
• Konigsburg: 75+ points

You can get to this level with any combination of points you want. You can read all Newbery Medal winners. You can throw in a few Honor Books. If you want, you can even read 75 Caldecott Medal winners! How you get to your point level is totally up to you. 

Also, anywhere in the point range for your level counts as completing that level. So for example, if you signed up for the Avi level and read 46 points' worth of books, then you have completed that level!

Challenge Guidelines:

• Rereads count (because you were probably a kid when you read it last, and your perspective on the story just might have changed since then).
• Audiobooks and ebooks count.
• And paper books count, too. :)
• All books must be read between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2019. Books begun before January 1 don’t count.
• Books can be used for other challenges as well.
• Reviews are encouraged, but not necessary.
• Choose your point level. You can always aim for a higher point level, but you can't move to a lower one.

To join the Newbery Reading Challenge:

• Write a post (or a comment) stating your intention to join. Choose your point level. You can find the challenge image above to use in your post.
• Add your link to the Linky at the bottom of this post. Make sure you include the link to your sign-up post, not just your homepage.

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted anything! My daughter arrived in June, and blogging has taken a backseat to figuring out this whole two-kid thing. I hope to start posting occasionally again, and I have some end-of-the-year reading lists and stats coming. And the Newbery Reading Challenge will continue! I'll be getting that post up soon.

In the meantime, I post fairly frequently on the Litsy app with all sorts of bookishness. My name is smilingshelves, and I'd love to connect with you there.

Hope all is going well for all of you in the blogosphere! Happy reading!

I'm participating in Becky's Book Reviews' Middle Grade Reading Challenge this year, but I hadn't actually updated my progress at all this year. Last week, I sat down with the list of middle grade books I had read so far, and was surprised to see that I had read 27! I knew I loved middle grade books, but I didn't expect that they would account for over a third of my reading so far this year. I decided to share some of the awesome books I've read in hopes that someone else might be inspired to try some of these great middle grade titles!

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
This is one of this year's Newbery Honor books. It is incredibly powerful.

Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
​This was just pure bookish, problem-solving, code-breaking fun!

Rebound by Kwame Alexander
​Okay, I haven't read that many books published this year, but I needed some category to get this book on my list, because it is awesome.

The Door in the Alley by Adrienne Kress
I've read seven books this year that are the first book in a series. Many of them were good, but this one definitely has me hooked.

The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser
​This book was just delightful. Can the Vanderbeekers adopt me, please?

I actually went to a bookstore last week and walked out without buying anything!! This is not a common occurrence for sure. It's a really nice used bookstore, but there were at least ten books filed in the Fiction section that were actually nonfiction (like Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt). It was really starting to bug me, but I didn't quite have the courage to say anything to the person at the desk. Sadly, I wasn't really in the mood to buy any books after noticing that. Hopefully the next time I visit will be different, because I've certainly walked out of there with stacks of books before!

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan (Georgette Heyer and James Herriot references?? Yes, please! This book is pure delight for any book lover.)

Birth of the Chess Queen by Marilyn Yalom (I haven't been in the mood to read nonfiction for a long time, so I'm taking advantage of the feeling while it lasts.)
The Pirates! in an Adventure with Communists by Gideon Defoe (This was a library book sale find. It's small and short, so I decided to read it and check it off my list of books to read. It is hilariously satirical so far!)
​The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall (Continuing my audio reread of this series!)

The Pearl Sister by Lucinda Riley (I love Lucinda Riley's books, and I'm so excited to dive into this fourth book in her Seven Sisters series!)

I rarely stop reading a book before I've finished it. I'm someone who likes to finish what I've started, even if I'm not totally enjoying the experience. I know this is kind of silly, because there are so many amazing books out there. Why would I waste my time reading something I didn't like?

But what if I've read other books I've loved by that author? What if everyone raves about the book? That's what I'm running across at this moment, and I can't decide whether to bail or not.

The book I'm reading is Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Her Grisha trilogy was five-star reads for me. I enjoyed The Language of Thorns, her collection of folk tales. Six of Crows takes place in the same world, although with completely different characters than the Grisha trilogy. Well, the world she created was one of the things I loved, so why wouldn't I like another book set in that same world? Not to mention that everyone seems to love this book. It has a 4.46 rating on Goodreads. That's crazy high. I've read many raving reviews. It seems like this would be a surefire win for me.

All of those are reasons why I'm struggling to give up on this one. I'm 150 pages in, and I just don't care about the characters. I knew it was a book about criminals and a heist going in, but I'm not finding enough redeeming qualities to make me feel attached to any of the characters. And I like heist stories (I've watched Ocean's 11 several times), but this one is just not hooking me.

So do I walk away from the book? There are still 300+ pages to go, and even though it's a fast read, I'm having trouble forcing myself to even pick the book up.

I'm curious about how everyone else makes this decision. What criteria do you use when you decide to DNF a book?

My wonderful husband took care of our two-year-old on Saturday so that I could have one last day to myself before the baby arrives. I read a book and a half and went out to lunch. It was glorious!

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (Our book club book for June. I've never read one of our selections so far in advance, but I wanted to make sure I had it done before baby arrived!)
Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman (This was the book that I read in entirety on Saturday. It was so good and so much fun!!)

It Happened at the Fair by Deeanne Gist (Christian fiction set at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. There's original photographs and everything, so I'm learning a lot!)
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall (I'm loving revisiting this series through audio!)

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (I loved her Grisha trilogy, so I'm excited to try this series.)

Several months ago, I had never heard of the author Robin Hobb. And then came Litsy (which is an awesome bookish app that you should be on, if you're not already). All sorts of people were posting about loving her books, people with widely different tastes in books. And every post or review just raved about her. This definitely caught my attention.

But I hesitated for a couple of reasons. She writes fantasy, which is a genre I devoured in high school but have only dabbled with since. And she has several different series, so it was confusing to know where to start. And the main character appeared to be an assassin, which is not a profession I prefer to read about.

But how could I resist, when so many people said they loved her books so much? So I did my research, figured out where to start, and gave her a try.

And now I understand all the raving. They aren't fast-paced books (even though there is an assassin involved). But you are pulled so deeply into the world that you find yourself living in it even when you aren't reading. The plot and characters are human and complex. The dilemmas are to be wrestled with and are not easily solved. Even a whole day after finishing it, I can't stop thinking about this book.

I just placed my first Book Depository order, so that I could own the entire Farseer Trilogy because I need to read the rest of it right now. Library books are not enough. And because I fell in love with the U.K. covers, and I must own these versions. Aren't they amazing?

So add me to the list of Robin Hobb lovers and ravers. Even if fantasy isn't your thing, you should give her a try. Really, her books are about humanity. She writes in trilogies, so you can jump in anywhere, but the Farseer trilogy was the first and starts Fitz's story from the beginning. I recommend starting there.

Now I just need to wait impatiently for my Book Depository order to arrive so that I can dive back into the world of the Six Duchies.

I really didn't mean to go AWOL for the past couple of weeks. I've even started writing posts a couple of times, but never had a chance to finish them. We've got less than a month until baby's arrival, and blogging has apparently taken a backseat to other preparations. I'll try to get a few posts up before baby arrives, but if I don't, I think I'm okay with that. Blogging is supposed to be fun, not stressful, right? So that's my goal! I hope everyone had a good long weekend and that your weather is summery (although maybe not the 90 degrees we've been having)!

Thread of Gold Beads by Nike Campbell-Fatoki (Four out of six countries complete for my Litsy Passport Challenge!)
The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui Sutherland (I can see why kids love this series. I plan to continue it, hopefully getting a couple more read over the summer.)
​The Door in the Alley by Adrienne Kress (This book was so much fun. I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel!)

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb (I have heard so much love for this author, especially on Litsy, that I had to give her a try. And now I understand! This is a world you can just live in, even when you're not reading at the moment. I know I'll be seeking out more of her books!)
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall (The last book in the series just came out, and I'm rereading the first books - or rather, listening to them - before I read the last one. If you haven't read the Penderwicks books yet, you most definitely should!)

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (Book club book for June.)

I hope everyone who celebrated Mother's Day yesterday had a wonderful time. I'm blessed to live close enough to my family that we could spend lunch with my mother and supper with my husband's mother. And my husband surprised me with a collage of pictures of me and my little guy (he said it's proof that he does take pictures of me because I always say that he doesn't). It was a nice, relaxing day.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (This was my first reread in about twenty years, and I still absolutely loved it. It was fun to discuss it with my book club, too!)
Can't Help Falling by Kara Isaac (This was such a fun Christian romance, especially with all of the Narnia references thrown in!)
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (Wow, was this a powerful book. I grew up in Flint, Michigan - although in a much safer neighborhood than this book depicts - but it's easy for me to imagine people living this sort of life. And just, wow.)

Thread of Gold Beads by Nike Campbell-Fatoki (A book set in Benin for my Passport Litsy challenge.)
Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui Sutherland (We just bought this series for the school library I volunteer in, so I thought I'd see what it's all about. Plus, I like dragons.)

The Door in the Alley by Adrienne Kress (Yup, more middle grade fiction, because it's just the best!)