Last month when I wrote my two posts on my favorite books and audio books of 2019, I decided perhaps it was time to resume a regular (or at least semi regular post) on reading. (You can read those previous posts here and here.) So this is the first installment of a monthly (?) post to share what I am reading in print, listening to on audio and sharing with my kids.
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Reading
My first print finish of 2020 was Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. And hello, late nights! This book is the kind of book that people don’t just recommend. They make sure that it ends up in your hands.
In the fall, I was talking to another English teacher and she asked me if I had read Where the Crawdads Sing. She was nearly finished and could not say enough good words about how riveting she was finding it. In fact, she didn’t give me a choice about reading it. She said, “When I am done. I will return it to the library and check it out to you.” (You can do that when you work in a school.) So it sat on my TBR (to be read) pile while a slogged through another book.
Once I was finally able to start it, I flew through it. (Maybe it helped that it was break.) There were several nights when I thought to myself, “I want to stay up and just finish this tonight.” Two nights in a row, I read over 75 pages. Yes, it was that good.
the story
Owens write with a descriptive beauty that makes a language lover sing. But even if that is not your thing, the story is also interesting and fast paced. It starts with Kya as a little girl. On a day that seems like any other, her family has breakfast. They clean up. Then her mother takes a suitcase and just walks out the door. Kya is left with her four older siblings and her abusive father.
Eventually, all of her siblings (who are quite a bit older) also just leave. And, Kya is left with only her father. That is, when he is there. Often, he just disappears for days on end, leaving eight-year-old Kya to fend for herself. Kya doesn’t attend school (her one day there is a disaster), but she becomes a master of the ecology in the marsh where she lives. People in the town even call her “Marsh Girl.”
This is a story that goes back and forth in time. The past takes us through Kya’s childhood. In the present (which is the late 60’s), a body is found at a fire tower not far from Kya’s shack. The sheriff suspects murder, but murder cannot be confirmed. And, of course, the stories overlap.
A friend put this book literally into my hands. I did the same for another teacher who has also finished it. (And stayed up late to do so. Midnight! On a school night! Unheard of in the teacher world.)
Listening
Upon the suggestion of Anne Bogel (see my post here about my virtual “friendship” with What Should I Read Next podcast creator), I grabbed the audio book of Faithful Place by Tana French. I swear it was in an episode of her short form podcast called One Great Book. But, it turns out that she did recommend a Tana French book in that podcast, but it was The Likeness. Maybe it was serendipity.
Faithful Place is part of a detective series that takes place in or around Dublin. It looks like (from book descriptions) they each have different detectives, who may or may not be linked. At least the detectives/characters in Faithful Place (#3) and Broken Harbor (#4–just started it today) are linked to each other. Faithful Place is apparently number 3, but unlike some series, you do not need to read these in order.
the story
Faithful Place is the neighborhood that our protagonist and detective grew up in. It was a poor neighborhood made up of working class families. Francis “Frank” Mackey grew up in a family with two brother, one older, one younger and two sisters, one older, one younger. His dad was an abusive drunk who didn’t work very often and when he did, he usually spent the money down at the pub.
Frank manages to escape from Faithful Place one night. As it turns out, it was the night his girlfriend, Rosie, (who he was supposed to escape with) also disappears. Everyone thinks they have gone together. Except Frank who knew she never turned up that night. He thinks she went without him.
The mystery ensues when Frank’s youngest sister, Jackie, calls him one evening. A company is stripping a house that has long been abandoned and they found a hidden suitcase that clearly belonged to Rosie. This starts the question, what really happened to Rosie? And it’s not long before there is a body.
The story deals not only with the murder, but also the difficulty that family relationships can produce. Frank is estranged from his family (except his youngest sister), divorced from his wife and must give up his weekend with his daughter to respond to the call from Jackie. Frank is such a likeable character, it is hard not to feel for him all along the way.
PG-13 warning. There is a fair amount of swearing in this.
Sharing
Read aloud time is pretty much part of everyday in our house. And as our kids have gotten older, we have moved on to the kind of chapter books that everyone can appreciate. Right now, we are reading The Wild Robot by Peter Brown.
This is a book that Sunshine read first for her reading trivia club/ competition called Page Turners. She enjoyed the book enough that she started reading it to her younger brother. At some point in the process, we started taking turns, and now I am pretty much doing most of the reading (and she is off reading her own books 😂).
the story
Roz is a robot who is the victim of a shipping accident that leaves her stranded on an island. She seems to be the only robot not completely damaged in the accident. And, as she learns to survive, she must also win the trust of the animals on the island who think she is a monster.
Roz suddenly finds herself in possession of a goose egg that has been orphaned as a result of a different accident, one caused by Roz. No one is willing to foster the egg and soon to be born gosling, so Roz does. As a result, she begins to make friends with the other animals.
It’s a lovely little story that has a sequel called The Wild Robot Escapes which Sunshine has just finished for the next Page Turners competition at the end of the month.
What are you reading, hearing or sharing?
Well, that’s it for our (hopefully) recurring post on what we are reading, listening to and sharing in the world of books. I would love to know if you have read any of this month’s selections, and what you have been reading since the start of the new year.
