April 2022 Reads

Okay, so the end of April means the end of one third of 2022. Isn't that bonkers?! I'm trying not to stress about meeting my goal of reading 150 books this year, knowing I wanted to be sitting pretty well before this baby comes and I'm not quite as far along as I'd like. Regardless of the goal, I've read some pretty great books this month.

1. The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth. I kicked the month off with some pretty lengthy solo-drive time, and this audiobook was perfect for that. It had saucy family drama and cool narration that filled me with questions and eagerness to read from the very beginning.

2. Confess by Colleen Hoover. Again, everyone loves Colleen Hoover, and I haven't found something by her that I won't finish and enjoy. This one had a unique storyline but felt somewhat predictable at times.

3. The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More by Bruce Feiler. I loved how this book looked at family life and gave practical techniques for keeping/making things functional and enjoyable. It made me so excited to navigate life as a family. One major message was empowering parents to run their families how they want and prioritize what matters most to them.

4. Born Behind Bars by Padma Venkatraman. I haven't really been in the mood for middle grade novels lately, but I enjoyed this one. It's about Kabir, a boy who was born in jail, after his mom was arrested for a crime she didn't commit. He reached the age where he was sent to live outside of the jail and had to navigate life and many tribulations alone. It was a great story with a unique setting.

5. The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Eugene Yelchin. This was an easily-digestible autobiography of life in Cold War Russia. I thoroughly enjoyed it and think many of my students will too.

6. If You Could Live Anywhere: The Surprising Importance of Place in a Work-from-Anywhere World by Melody Warnick. I love the other book I read by Melody Warnick, This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live, but this one kind of fell short for me. It dove into how remote workers can make decisions about where to live and the things that impact where we choose to live. I don't know what I hoped it would focus on, but it seemed to not focus on what I thought it would?

7. Sisters in Arms by Kaia Alderson. This is a historical fiction book about the only all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps during World War II. I was super excited about it but found myself feeling pretty bored throughout reading; maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it.

8. Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca. I listened to this novel in verse in one night. It was a fantastic story about a girl whose mom is sick, navigating friendships and growing up Indian in the United States.

9. How to be Well: The Six Keys to a Happy and Healthy Life by Frank Lipman. Okay, I did not like this book. It earned two stars from me on Goodreads. Someone recommended it, and I was intrigued, wanting to read a book that might inspire new habits. So much of the things mentioned in this book seemed unattainable, unless health and wellness could be your full time job. Despite claiming it would cover six elements of health (eat, sleep, move, protect, unwind, and connect), the author seemed focused on the food element of health to the point where it was mentioned at length in each other element.

10. Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman. I loved this one. Ever since I started it, poor Ben has had to hear me say, "The French do..." pretty much nonstop. Pamela Druckerman is raising her children in France and sets out to figure out why her kids don't act like the French kids around her, why the French parents are so much more relaxed and joyful than the American parents, and how she can improve her parenting. Everything she discovers seems to just make sense. I loved it and the foundation it'll lay for me as a parent and educator.

April was a bit of a quieter month for me reading-wise, and that's okay. Half of what I read was nonfiction, which of course takes me longer. I also made the switch from reading on my Kindle to reading paper books again (or at least currently), and that's really changed my reading motivation. It's great to have the progress information that the Kindle gives, but there's nothing more motivating than seeing the visual progress of a bookmark moving through a good book.

-J