Notes from the Reading Nook: June 15
Welcome to the newly titled, newly formatted message you receive from me every Tuesday. If you missed it last week, I explain (just a bit) about the changes I’ve made here and what to expect going forward.
What we’re reading
Thanks to your recent feedback about this part of my Tuesday messages, I’ve decided to completely overhaul Ten Titles on Tuesday. Instead of ten titles I am interested in but have not yet experienced, without any context beyond that, I’ll be sharing just a few books my children and I are actually reading each week. This will be a smaller — but hopefully richer and more valuable — list.
The Midsummer Tomte and the Little Rabbits by Ulf Stark (this is part of our Morning Time for June — you can read more about our Morning Time here)
Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall (I reviewed this in my special edition on summer a few weeks ago) and the excellent sequel, Jabari Tries
(Also because you requested it, I will be including links to each title so it’s easier for you to explore them for yourself. Sometimes these links will be from Amazon, sometimes from used sources online, sometimes from Bookshop.org — I am only an affiliate through Bookshop.org so I won’t receive any benefit from your browsing or shopping other places, this is merely for your information. I have not yet decided whether or not I will add links to my full reviews.)
Links of possible interest
I love it when I come across unique booklists — meaning, ones that aren’t full of titles that show up again and again with only a little variation (I see this constantly on Instagram, especially for seasonal and holiday books though ultimately I blame the marketing departments of all the major publishers + Amazon’s algorithm). Melissa from Librarian in the House is one of those people who I follow online because she consistently shares books I’ve never heard of, in the form of booklists that are tailored to her family’s current experiences — her post, Berry Picking Picture Books, is a perfect example of this. Plus, she has great taste — The First Strawberries: A Cherokee Story retold by Joseph Bruchac is one of our enduring summer favorites. She mentions a few others that popped up in my special edition on summer the week before last — The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher by Molly Bang; Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (a classic! The one we read is my own childhood copy); The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood — but there are a couple that are new to me, and that’s exactly what I mean.
Another of Melissa’s booklists that may be of interest this season is Fireflies and Lightning Bugs Books & More, regardless of whether you are Team Firefly or Team Lightning Bug (I am the latter — is this a Wisconsin thing?)
From the archives
Just a random reminder that if you want to see past issues of this newsletter, you can always browse the website. Occasionally I’ll give a shout out to past content that you may have missed, like all my Spotlight On issues:
Stay tuned: at the end of the month I’ll be releasing a Spotlight On: Makers and Making.
(Spotlight On issues feature topics that I dig into once — as opposed to seasonally — so they’re extra special. If you have a topic you’d like to see me cover, reply to this email or leave a comment below — your ideas not only inspire me to keep on keepin’ on, they actively create what ends up in your inbox.)
Thanks for your patience as I iterate on my Tuesdays offerings.
Read good books and take good care 😘
Sarah
@can_we_read
P.S. Speaking of berries: Jolene, writer of one of my new favorite newsletters, Time Travel Kitchen, blew my dang mind the week before last with her coverage of a 1933 recipe for Blueberry Squares. I have told everyone I know, “You can make one giant flat muffin in a square pan. ONE GIANT FLAT MUFFIN! IN A SQUARE PAN!” Time Travel Kitchen, I’m telling you. It’s so good.