What books are you and your kids really enjoying right now?

SOME PITHY INTRO

I almost always put some placeholder text at the beginning of my posts when I’m drafting them, because it’s both easier to get started when the page isn’t blank, and I often craft them so far in advance, if I write something at the top, it will likely be irrelevant by the time you actually receive it.

But today I’m leaving my placeholder text, because perhaps it offers a glimpse into my mind if not my process. I endeavor here to write from my heart — I really can’t do otherwise, though I’ve tried and tried (and tried and tried) — but I also want to brighten your day and make you laugh or just assure you that whatever you’re going through, whatever’s happening in your life, you’re not alone in your struggles or your joy. Life can be a lot of things at once — my life is basically always a lot of things at once, and it not only takes too much energy to pretend otherwise, I’ve never been good at pretending anyway.

I am not good at pretending for or even to my children, either. There are days when I cannot hide my worry or my grief — they can tell even if I am working hard to shield them from it — but I’m comforted by the routine of our daily lives, even when I don’t always know how to get through this one day I’m living in, itself.

Which brings me to reading, the thing that’s always there, no matter how we’re feeling, no matter what’s going on within or without. We have a deep, rich reading life that underpins everything. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s also no small thing — a foundation that brings sweetness and solace in equal measure, whatever we most need.

To that end, here’s what my children and I have been enjoying lately. (If I’ve reviewed any of these in the past, I’ve linked that here.)

• A Day With No Words by Tiffany Hammons

• Built to Last by Dan Santat

• The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors by Adam Rex

• How Elegant the Elephant: Poems About Animals and Insects by Mary Ann Hoberman (current poetry at breakfast)

• The Bear Out There by Jess Hannigan

• The Chicken in the Kitchen by Nnedi Okorafor

• Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains by Anita Yasuda

• Babe: The Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith (recent chapter book at bedtime)

  

• Willowdeen by Katherine Applegate (current chapter book at bedtime)

• Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga (audio novel in verse)

• Marty McGuire and Marty McGuire Digs Worms! by Kate Messner (both audio)

• Moo by Sharon Creech (audio novel in verse)

• Something Special by David McPhail

• The Man Who Didn’t Like Animals by Deborah Underwood

  

I am also, for my own purposes, reading as many middle-grade and YA novels in verse as I can get my hands on, some with my children (as noted) but most without. To date (well, I’m writing this on May 8th), I’ve read 31 thus far this year. Here are some of the standouts:

• It’s All or Nothing, Vale by Andrea Beatriz Arango (highly recommend all of Arango’s books)

• Deer Run Home by Ann Clare LeZott

• Blood Moon by Lucy Cuthew

• And Then, BOOM! by Lisa Fipps

• Thirty Talks Weird Love by Alessandra Narváez Varela

• Swing by Kwame Alexander (audio)

Your turn! What are you reading with the children in your life?

(Board books, picture books, graphic novels, middle-grade titles, nonfiction, audiobooks, seek-and-finds — we’ve got all ages and no judgment here.)