Taking stock of 2020
It’s the quiet time between Christmas and New Year’s, when we are supposed to reflect on the year past and make plans for the year to come. I’ll do my best.
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays! Thank you for spending another year with us here at Caterpickles. May this holiday season bring some measure of peace and joy to you and yours.
Book Reviews: I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen and A Bedtime for Bear by Bonny Becker
The more targeted approach to tackling my To-Read pile inspired by the folks at The OcTBR Challenge has resulted in me reading a ton of great books this month. In today’s post, I’ll tell you about four of them.
“What was it like to get a mortgage in 1875?”
About 20 years ago, my grandparents gave me a set of old family journals from 1871-1952. Mixed in with all sheep, pig, apple, and pork accounts are surprisingly interesting narratives of daily life in upstate New York in the late 1800s. This week, my great-great-grandfather goes to Rochester for a second mortgage, and comes away feeling a bit… swindled.
Hello, world!
What I’ve been doing this month instead of blogging: participating in NaNoWriMo, orchestrating a veggie-free Thanksgiving, and booting up the Christmas spirit.
What I’ve been reading in between bouts of doom-scrolling the news
The world is a bit of a dumpster fire today, so let’s distract ourselves by talking about books, shall we? In today’s post, I’ll tell you about three great middle grade books and my very exciting shout-out on today’s episode of the Terrible Lizards podcast.
My OcTBR Reading Challenge – Update
The more targeted approach to tackling my To-Read pile inspired by the folks at The OcTBR Challenge has resulted in me reading a ton of great books this month. In today’s post, I’ll tell you about four of them.
Introducing the Caterpickles Bookstore and a word about affiliate links on Caterpickles
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it came to my attention that while Amazon continues to be fine, independent booksellers are suffering. That’s why I decided to become a Bookshop.org affiliate. Starting today, my book reviews may contain affiliate links to Bookshop.org, an online bookstore that provides financial support to independent bookstores nationwide. I’ve also added a new Caterpickles Bookstore Learn more about Bookshop.org, affiliate links on Caterpickles, and the new Caterpickles Bookstore.
What are we going to do about Halloween?
Last week our local public health office released official guidance for how to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19 during Halloween and Día de Los Muertos celebrations. I wanted to share it with you here, in case your family is also trying to figure out what those celebrations will look like this year.
My OcTBR Reading Challenge
Eighty-seven years ago, I decided that my resolution for 2020 would be to deal with my 45-book high Currently Reading tower. Good news? I’ve gotten the pile down to a mere 28 books. Bad news? It’s October. Time to kick it into high gear. Enter the #OcTBRChallenge.
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