Favorite Books

Ben has discovered reading in a big way and both reads to me and asks me to read to him throughout the day. We plow through 30+ books a week generally

A recent favorite is The Wolf Who Cried Boy which manages to be both funny and teach several lessons at the same time. I had to love that the boy wolf was a picky eater and complained every night about what his mother was serving. "Lamburgers, again?" Truly funny.

We also loved The Story of Ruby Bridges which is the marvelous true story of the first black child to attend an all-white school in New Orleans. The Civil Rights movement holds some amazing examples of non-violent protests but this 6-year old who went to school by herself for months (because the bigoted parents of other children wouldn't have them attend with a black child) and prayed for her enemies is an amazing one. We had some great discussions after we read this together.

The mom has been reading Ralph McInerny's Notre Dame mystery series. My friend Connie introduced me to his novels at the beginning of the summer and I have to work hard not to read one of these every day. I love that McInerny (who died this year) was a philosophy professor with the sense of humor to write murder mysteries set on the campus of his university and use friends and colleagues in minor roles. I've also realized that part of the appeal of murder mysteries is that they employ my mind and not my heart. My heart gets great workouts as a mom but my mind would like more than trying to keep a 3-year old from evil and plotting the year for a 1st grader. I'm fortunate McInerny wrote more than 80 novels and some great non-fiction as well. I have a ways to go before I've read them all.

And yes, I'm absolutely playing with Amazon's monetizing offer.