The 5 best books of The Nine-Year-Old’s year (so far)

This weekend, I found The Nine-Year-Old in her reading nook puzzling over a stack of books. Every once in a while she’d put one in her mini steamer trunk. The rest she scattered over the sides of couches, across the floor, and next to her bean bag. In a valiant attempt not to derail whatever magic was going on in her brain with an untimely shriek of “Are you going to pick those up?”, I asked her what she was doing.

“Picking out my five favorite books of the year,” she replied. Now that was a project I could get behind.

This week’s book chat, in which The 9YO and I talk about censorship

I still get a little thrill whenever I see my daughter walk into the house with a Judy Blume book. Back in the before times, when I was just a young kid in Texas, there was a bit of a dust-up about Judy Blume’s book, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, which resulted in my school librarian banning all Judy Blume books. It was my earliest experience of censorship (and its limitations), but it wouldn’t be my last.

What’s The Nine-Year-Old reading this week?

Our mostly-weekly survey of the tidbits that cross The Nine-Year-Old’s desk. This week, The Nine-Year-Old reviews Missy Piggle-wiggle and the Whatever Cure by Ann M Martin, Mammoths and Mastodons by Cheryl Bardoe, and Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar.

What’s The Nine-Year-Old reading this week?

This week, the 9 year-old shares her three favorite books of the summer. Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods by Rick Riordan, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien, and Going Solo by Roald Dahl.

It’s hot

The Nine-Year-Old just ran into my Office-away-from-the-Office with this horrifying heat wave update: “Mommyo, I can’t alliterate! It’s so hot I’ve actually lost the ability to alliterate anything!” Truly, heat waves are harder on the young. But as is usually the case, Shel Silverstein has the best words to describe our day.

What’s The Nine-Year-Old reading this week?

This summer, the 9 year old has been participating in Rahm’s Readers, a particularly enticing summer reading program in Chicago that gives out tons of free books. Her books this week, Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld and Smile by Raina Telgemeier, both came from this program.

What’s The Nine-Year-Old reading this week?

This week, The Nine-Year-Old reads Terry Pratchett’s The Carpet People and convinces Mommyo to read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett with her.

Your Friday Construction Update: Gaslights

This week, while swapping out the cloth-bound electrical writing in our new bathroom for something a bit newer, my contractor paused just long enough to show me the piping for the even older gaslights that used to illuminate the master bathroom.

What’s The Nine-Year-Old reading this week?

The 9YO’s been reading every Roald Dahl book she can get her hands on lately. She also watched the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice for the very first time this week.

“What’s The Nine-Year-Old reading this week?”

A short and sweet, we want to get back to reading because it’s summer but we have to tell you about these two great books first sort of post. This week, we’re loving A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass and The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan.