Cover to Cover

We refer to things going back to normal - normal being pre-COVID, right? But there are some aspects of 2019 that hopefully will not return (racial injustice, one can hope) and some things from 2020 that I hope are here to stay (normalizing wearing a mask as you run to the store to grab cold and flu medicine). One thing I have done this past year that I hope to not repeat, is left the house in my slippers because I'm so used to how they feel on my feet. It's only when I've already driven 5 minutes away that I realize, and it's too late to turn back. I'd like to keep my slippers at home.

After the birth of my daughter, it was a little while until I had my focus back in order to enjoy a book cover to cover. Then the pandemic hit shortly after, and my focus was shot, again. The idea of a "middle grade" book is kind of new to me, but I have always found that I read more "beach reads" in summer and saved the deeper books for winter time. I love the idea of a middle grade book, especially as I work to get my focus back. 

A middle grade book I read in 2020 (slowly, through most of 2020) was Little Women. Which, I had technically read before, but it had been so long that I wanted to revisit it after really enjoying the recent film by Greta Gerwig. As a mother of a daughter, it was more charming this time to read a book about sisters and their relationship with their parents, and with each other. One of my favorite things about this book was the setting and the time period. Reading about a simple home, in nature, with absolutely no technology. Sometimes I read a contemporary novel and the mention of a cell phone or text messages, computers, etc zaps me right out of the story. I enjoy picking up a book, a real live paper made book, to escape the constant technology that our generation is subjected to. I don't want to read about technology, too. 

I've been using Good Reads to track my reading again. I started tracking sometime in high school. I haven't made any goals for myself, but I like to look back on the books I've read and it helps me determine what I might enjoy next. I also find that I can really trust the reviews of the Good Reads community (versus the reviews of Amazon or big book stores). Anything rated over 4 stars on Good Reads I tend to enjoy, as well.