I can’t believe May has already come and gone. As we’ve continued to settle into our new life in New Jersey, fully closing out the Florida chapter of our lives, books and reading have remained a big part of our day-to-day lives. We don’t yet have our local library card so have been relying on what we can find when we venture into local bookshops but the girls continue to love reading as my boys get more into looking at books every day. We’ve also continued our regular family read alouds and listening to audio books in the car (two of the ways we integrate good literature into our daily lives).
This is the second in a series sharing what we’re all enjoying reading each month.
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Honeybun (9):
(AL) Keeper of the Lost Cities by (AL) Shannon Messenger
The first in the series, (AL) The Keeper of the Lost Cities is about a girl, Sophie, who never quite fit in. She is taken to another world by a boy who is just like her, a telepath who can read people’s minds. Through a journey of self discovery, she must also fight off evil forces who are capable of hurting her.
Honeybun likes that the protagonist is a girl because girls are not very often the main character in adventure stories and is excited to see how Sophie and her mentor’s rocky relationship plays out in the next few books.
Sugarplum(7):
(AL) Epic Zero: Tales of a Not-So-Super 6th Grader by (AL) R.L. Ullman
The first Epic Zero book, the main character, Elliott, is the youngest in a superhero family, and the only one without a super hero power. That is, until he is tasked with helping to stop the villains who are trying to rule the world.
Sugarplum likes this book because Elliott thought he was just a normal, powerless kid but by the end of the story he’d learned that he is capable of doing big things.
Doodle (4):
(AL) What’s Inside Battleship and Aircraft Carriers? by (AL) Peter Mavrikis
Part of the What’s Inside? series, Doodle loves that it’s about old gun ships and he’s enjoyed reading it with airplane obsessed hubby and discussing how aircraft carriers work.
Pipsqueak (2):
(AL) Go Go Trucks! by (AL) Mike Yamada
An early reader, Pipsqueak loves the simple, rhyming text and bright, simple pictures of all the trucks you find in the world.
Family Read Aloud:
(AL) Yours Truly by (AL) Heather Vogel Frederick
We’re still only about halfway through the read-aloud. With Sugarplum’s late practices 4 nights a week, we don’t have a lot of time to read before bed. And though I aspire to read each day before our daily resting time, I don’t always have the patience. So, we’ll probably be reading this book for quite a while longer (good thing we’re all enjoying it!)
The second in the “Pumpkin Falls Mystery” series, Yours Truly follows the adventures of a young girl and her group of friends as they solve small town and family mysteries. We listened to (AL) Absolutely Truly, the first book in the series, as an audio book before left Florida and thought the second book would be perfect for our next family read aloud. The main character moves to a new town in the first book and is still settling into her new life in the sequel which makes the series perfect for our current life situation as we all adjust to life in a completely new place.
Audio Book:
(AL) The Mysterious Benedict Society by (AL) Trenton Lee Stewart
This was our homeschool book club selection for this month and because we don’t have library cards yet and books get really pricey really quickly, we decided to listen to this on Audible (AL: Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks
The audible narrator, Del Roy, is fantastic for the book and, I think, really made the story. There are three other books in the series which my girls are excited to read.
