May Books

I’m sure you all have been waiting with bated breath for my list of May reads, so here they are!  I read Go Set a Watchman, sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird in one day. It was excellent!  Better than TKM, dare I say. I could say much more, but I won’t!

The boys and I listened to Little Men in the evenings. Josiah mostly fell asleep, but Caleb really seemed to enjoy it. (I remember him taking this book to 3rd grade to read himself, but I don’t know that he ever made it through.)

This book was fun and a little different from my usual. Watch out for bad words. 

I picked this audiobook to listen to with the boys based on the cute title and cover (and it was available, unlike most books I look for on my library app!), but unfortunately it was horrible. 95% depressing and 5% happy.  It’s not even very interesting, it’s quite dull. And it’s not even based on a true story?  Who makes up a story like that for children?  Why did we listen to the whole thing?  That is my biggest question. Bizarre. Avoid. 

Heather let me borrow this one, and it was painfully beautiful (borrowed that from the cover).  Oh-so-good. Read it today. 


I read these to the kids while we played school each day. I was surprised how much I remembered from reading them as a kid. Caleb took the AR tests on these and more American Girl books that he read himself this month, but Josiah was too embarrassed. Haha. I’ll take this moment to let you know that Caleb was the top AR reader at our school this year with almost 7 million words read, and Josiah was the first in our school to join the millionaires’ club back in August and he finished the year with almost 4 million words. 

I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls back in April and it was so very sad, but I loved it!  And I loved these next two by her as well!  The Glass Castle is based on the author’s life, and Half Broke Horses is based on her grandmother’s.  The two that I read in May might have been slightly less sad, but we are still not talking jolly here. Great books, nonetheless. 



Eleonora and I listened to Pippi Longstocking (oops, I see I have the wrong cover) and enjoyed it very much. It was published in 1945 and it is very amusing to me how very much children’s literature has changed over time especially the humor. 

The boys and I also listened to this James Herriot book. An earlier book from the series would have been better for them, but what do you know, this is the one that was available. 

I will also record for posterity, that Chris finished reading Little House in the Big Woods to Eleonora this month. It was the first time for both of them - what a treat!  

Now what to read for June?  That is the question!  I am simultaneously reading a bit of The Count of Monte Cristo, A Passage to India, The Boys in the Boat, Uncommon Type, and Corrie ten Boom’s Prison Letters, and I’m sorry to say, none of them are really pulling me in. (Not that someone’s prison letters are supposed to be written for my personal amusement, don’t worry, I’ll finish that one.)  So send your suggestions in a stamped envelope to Zoom, Z, double O, M, Box 3-5-O, Boston, Mass. O-2-1-3-4.