2011 Reading List

The weather has been cold.  It’s been snowy and it makes me want to snuggle down under a blanket with a cup of tea and a good book.  It seems like a great time to post my book list for the year. 

Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt.  I just finished this one and loved it.  This is something that will spark a passion in you for reading to your children, and I love that it has an up to date book list broken down into ages and genres.  We are definitely marking lots of books in there to read aloud to the kids this year. 

The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education by Leigh A. Bortins

The well-educated mind : a guide to the classical education you never had by Susan Wise Bauer. (okay, I’m partway through this and I can tell I’ll be adding more challenging works to this list.  But I’ve challenged to read a bit more intellectually.  I’m up for that challenged.)

Don Quixote (first up from that last book I mentioned)

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Dreams:  A Biblical Model for Interpretation

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Lord of the Rings (I don’t expect to get through the whole trilogy this year but I really want to at least start)

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

and I’m a little late to the party, but I’d like to start the Harry Potter series

Swiss Family Robinson

and I’m sure I’ll throw some fun books in there, just for entertainment purposes.  I usually grab these impulsively from the best seller /new release rack at the library.  Sometimes I’m horribly disappointed, sometimes I finish the book and want to kiss it it’s that good.  Love Walked In was one of those.  You should read it, it’s good. 

and of course The Bible.  Daily.  Often.  Repetitively.

Sometimes I hate that I don’t always have enough time to read for myself, for fun or for my own enrichment.  It’s frustrating actually.  But then I remember that life is made of seasons, and right now this is my season for sowing in the lives of my kids.  A large chunk of my reading will be reading with them, reading aloud with them and reading alongside them.  That’s okay because it is a season.  As they grow I won’t be reading to them as much, I might not even be homeschooling them.  I just don’t know.  I do know that someday they will be healthy, balanced, and independent adults.  Meaning they’ll be out of my house and building a life of their own.  I have a feeling my schedule will allow for more reading then.  For now I’m making a choice to be content with what reading time I have, even if it’s just ten minutes in bed before I fall asleep and the book hits me in the face.

I’ll take whatever I can get. 

So what are you reading right now?