When I set my book a day goal at the beginning of the year I knew I had to add in some days that would fit in with family life, so I decided to okay movies based on books (preferably ones I read or planned to read). We’re closing in on the halfway point of the year and this week I watched movies 6 & 7. Hopefully, I’ll get a comparison of one of them done next week.

For July, I’ve signed up for Thyme for Tea’s Paris in July event. I hope to add as much reading and movie watching set in Paris as I possibly can. I’ll even see if I can find some pics from our France trip 10 years ago.

This week I watched 2 movies, read 2 non-fiction, 1 fiction, 1 kids nonfiction, 1 picture book fiction, 1 picture book nonfiction. Here they are listed in the order I liked them best. I’ve already read and reviewed Indestructible: The Hidden Gift of Trauma by Krista Nerestant here.

Starr (played by Amandla Stenberg) has a loving family and lives in a neighborhood riddled with violence. At ten she watched her best friend get gunned down and she’s about to witness the same thing, only this time it’s a policeman who does the shooting.

It was a great book and a good movie, written before George Floyd changed the protest landscape. This one is worth reading and watching. I loved watching Russell Hornsby as Mav the most.

The movie starred Jane Fonda and Robert Redford as two lonely neighbors who tried something scandalous to get through the nights. It was pretty faithful to the book until close to the end and I thought the changes they made actually made more sense! It’s a quiet movie and nice to see a story featuring older folks.

The celebrated author and illustrator Ashley Bryan, came into possession of a bill of sale, where slaves were listed (not by name) alongside cattle and crop. He imagined the lives of each of these 11 slaves and what their hopes and dreams may have looked like. A powerful picture book.

I finally read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I need to take some time to process. As many of you know Gage is on the spectrum, so my feelings are mixed. I recognized so many Gage behaviors, but am not sure the author was doing justice to the main character, 15 year old Christopher. It was nice to have autism front and center, but I hope all who read it understand that it’s fiction and not representative.

Told in the first person, Christopher lives with his father after his mother died and goes to a special school with an aide during the day. When a neighbor’s dog is murdered Christopher decides to find the killer. What he finds is much more than that, of course.

So You Want To Be A Knight?, 2021, 96 pages, 4 stars

The good stuff- ➕everything your kid would want to know about how to become a knight is in here. ➕each spread of the 90 pages book is a different topic. ❤️ the instructions on making your own coat of arms. ❤️ the quiz on which order you should seek out based on your personality (I got Order of the Round Table)

The stuff I didn’t love 🤪 there was a lot to take in visually and the first few pages were confusing. It got better as the book went on. 😩 also there were some violently drawn cartoons that I could have done without even though I know knights are violent.

Gage didn’t want to read this straight through, but he did enjoy exploring the pages a few at time. I did read it straight through and liked all of the details. I feel so much smarter 😁

Johnson wrote this song in 1900 to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and it has become known as the African American national anthem. Collier put beautiful artwork to the words.

Note: There is a second edition with additional chapters.

I met David Petrovic when he came to talk at Gage’s school a few years ago. He’s local, he has Aspergers, and he’s thriving. I just read a recent article that he’s now earned a Master’s Degree, is working as a middle school teacher, and living in his own.. This journey toward success is painstakingly detailed in this book by his mother and David from the time he was a baby through his second year of college.

Sandy breaks up the years and tells of each of his challenges, what interventions they used, and what insight she gained. Then David took his turn giving his perspective.

This isn’t a how-to or even a true memoir, but instead a true look at what goes into the day to day of helping a person living on the spectrum shine. Some of it was repetitive, but it was inspirational. Both mom and son worked tirelessly and optimistically so that David could live his best life. Hats off to both of them.

Have you read any of these?

I’ve read 8 books since the last update; 2 romantic suspense, 2 kids non-fiction, 2 non-fiction picture books, 1 fiction and and 1 thriller. Drumroll for the winner… it’s the thriller! This has been a thriller/mystery heavy month for me. The good thing about this week’s reading is that there isn’t a stinker in the bunch. They’re all great or at least solid reads.

Listed in the order I liked best with a few sentences of thoughts and description. If you want the daily updates with more details you can follow me on Instagram.

This one is about those girls who are the only survivors of a mass murder, final girls. Quincy was partying at Pine Cottage with her friends when the unthinkable happens. Quincy managed to escape with only 3 stab wounds, a Xanax prescription, and a need for a perfectly controlled life. One day, another final girl shows up in her life and suddenly her perfect life turns inside out.

I loved this one.

Lucy is a physic who is learning the extent of her skills. She has a loving and unruly family, best friends for life, a collection of animals, and a live-in boyfriend whom she’s madly in love with. The mystery was good, relatable, and complicated.

I’m sorry to see the end of the series with this fifth and final book.

This is great southern fiction set in the 1970’s. Ora Lee is an old woman setting the story straight about what really happened back in the day. Racism, rape, and murder kept the story moving, but it’s Ora, a good Christian woman with nothing but love in her heart, realizing her own prejudices that are the moral of the story.

I thought the audio performance was perfection and highly recommend it.

I always love reading about bold, passionate women who didn’t/ haven’t let expectations (or even sexist rules) stop them in pursuit of their dreams. A few of the women I’d heard of, like Sacajawea and Nelly Bly, but the most I hadn’t. I loved learning about these 13 women from around the world!

I love this series. I love the choices of people and the illustrations. Zaha Hadid was the first woman and the first Muslim to be awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor.

A cult-like, ritualistic murder brings together Amy from the Florida state police and Hunter from the FBI. Hunter, having escaped a cult as a child, has first hand knowledge of the people who have taken over a small Florida town, abusing religion for power (sound familiar?). The ending has me thinking that we’ll be seeing more of this crime fighting duo.

I found the story of American Beach, a beach for all people to come together during the time of segregation an enlightening read. It mentioned that elsewhere a rope in the ocean divided the whites and blacks. It made me incredibly sad that the ugliness of racism could try to ruin something as magnificent as the ocean.

MaVynee’s grandfather purchased the beach and after mother got sick she went home and tried to save the land from development. She became known as the Beach Lady and managed to save the tallest sand dune in Florida. One person CAN make a difference.

Of all the books of this series that we’ve read this has been my least favorite so far. It’s all about cars! 😂. This has to be one of my least favorite topics so getting to the end felt like an accomplishment and it’s only 105 pages.

What have you read lately that I should add to my list?