Year 3, week 24: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

This week's book:
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
By Fred Rogers

This week's book is a book of poetry written by Mr. Rogers. I checked out the audio book from the library thinking I would like to hear some of the poems written by such a special place in my heart from my childhood. Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood were my favorite two television shows as a child, and I have tried to share them with our kids. Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood have both been hits with our babies, thank goodness!

A few days ago on the ride to school I asked the kids if they wanted to listen to the audio book, and they agreed. It was a nice calm way to drive to school and decompress from getting ready for the day. Our oldest has struggled hard this year; second grade has been very difficult for him. We have had to add yet another medicine that can hopefully bring him closer to being more like an average second grader, on top of all the things he has to take for eczema, allergies, and asthma. It had been a year of realizing that yet another thing that makes our little guy different and difficult. I have struggled hard with the fact that there is another issue he is going to face in his life.

This book is very amazing. It reminds us that we are all different in special ways, even when we don't think we are. We all have a voice, and that voice is important. I have had a hard few days of feeling like a crap mom and not seeing my children as amazing individual snowflakes… just jerks that make me cry. This is the first audio book that my son asked to restart when it was done, and he requested for me not to listen to it when he wasn't in the van. I really think I might need to get a copy of the audio book to calm us on the way to school.

I highly recommend this book, it's such a light and positive ray of sunshine in these dark times of negatively. Mr. Rogers was truly one of a kind man.

Year 3, week 23: Interview With the Vampire

This week's book:
Interview With the Vampire
By Anne Rice

There are a few times in your formative years that you can pinpoint what kind of person you might find attractive. I can say that there are three different movies that told me I was going to like boys when I grew up. Not until this exact moment did I figure it out that Tom Cruise was in all three films; Cocktail, The Outsiders, and Interview With the Vampire. Don't worry, my love for Tommy isn't still there; it greatly fell off about the time he started jumping on Oprah's sofa and it came out he's a truly sucky dad.

I went through a little bit of a goth/emo/wannabe dark period, except truly committing to any of those ways of life seemed like too much work. Who has the time to wear that much black, and  makeup and do your hair in weird ways? I thought vampires were romantic way before Twilight (I've never read any of those books actually). I loved the film adaptation of Interview With the Vampire with Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Christian Slater, and Kirsten Dunst. Louis (Brad Pitt) is so torn and emotional about being a vampire; he doesn't want to kill/feed on people to remain alive. He was so deep and sexy, my little teenage heart couldn't take it.

I bought the book at a used bookstore in middle school if I remember correctly. Do you know why it has taken me so long to get around to reading it? It's literally an interview, as there are no chapters. Everytime i would pick up the book it was lose where I was in the story. I finally just checked it out as an audio book and that worked much better. I'm going to be honest that the film adaptation is pretty close to its source material, except better. The film takes out a lot of the boring bits of the book. While a deep poetic brooding Brad Pitt was super attractive to a preteen Emily, I now found him whiney and boring. I should have probably read the book, before I was a tired Mama of three. I struggled with the two main male characters turning a little five year old into a vampire and talking about her passion; I have a four-year-old now and it just disturbed me.

The book is definitely a very interesting take on vampires and the film adaptation will always have a special place in my heart, but again I might have read it at the wrong time in my life, or at least I should have read it around Halloween.

Year 3, week 22: Roald Dahl

This week's books (four for the price of one!):
The Giraffe, and Pelly and Me
The Magic Finger
The Enormous Crocodile
Esio Trot
By Roald Dahl

This past weekend our middle baby came down with the stomach flu on the way home from my in-laws’ house. The hubs and I were going to go on a date, but instead we had a four and a half year old getting sick all over the back of our fairly new cookie monster blue van. People say that marriage is flowers and dates and romance, but sometimes it's giving a pathetic little one a bath while your husband is disassembly two car seats and Clorox/Lysoling our van. I married a good man that I am insanely lucky to have.

Since little lady has been sick, I decided to read to her some books while she tried to rest. She loves Roald Dahl's shorter novels, so I read the ones we have in the house. The Giraffe, and Pelly and Me, The Magic Finger, The Enormous Crocodile, and Esio Trot were the ones we have. I'll be honest I have a love/hate relationship with the books of Dahl. Some of his books are amazing and I have read and re-read so many times, but some (The Witches, I'm talking about you) still give me nightmares to this day. But the four short novellas that our little girl and I have read together are just fun.

The Giraffe, and Pelly and Me is the story of a boy who befriends a giraffe, monkey and a pecan that wash windows. It's okay, but not my favorite. It kinda seems like too many ideas all slammed into one story.

The Magic Finger, is the story of a girl with a magic finger who gets mad at her next door neighbors for hunting and teaches them a lesson. I vaguely remember hearing this story as a child. I really enjoyed this book with it's anti hunting stance. Definitely should read it.

The Enormous Crocodile, a story of a naughty croc that makes all the other animals mad so they ruin the chances of him eating little kids. I liked this one too, just not as much as The Magic finger.

Esio Trot, is the story of a man that is in love with the woman that lives in the same apartment building as him. She loves her pet turtle and is dumb as a box of rocks, so the main character uses these facts to get the women to fall in love with him. It's an okay story, but just not my favorite.

So those are the books for this week, now let's hope the rest of us don't get this flu.

Year 3, week 21: Crazy Rich Asians

This week's book:
Crazy Rich Asians
By Kevin Kwan

Hello, first book of 2020 is done! I had been meaning to read this book last year, but I kept reading other things to either finish my reading list or reading books for my book group, so this kept being pushed aside. I first realized this was a book that had been made into a movie when I had seen it on one of the shelves at one of our local libraries when I used to only check out audiobooks on cd verses how I stream books on my phone now.

Crazy Rich Asians is the story of a few extremely rich people in Singapore. It mostly tells the story of a woman from America who comes home with her boyfriend to Singapore for his best friend's wedding. She doesn't really understand or know the level of wealth that his family has until she meets them. His family doesn't approve of her due to her being born from a poor single mother from mainland China. The normal Romeo and Juliet with a new backdrop and no death. The film was highly regarded due to its all Asian cast, which is a breath of fresh air for the film industry.

I had fun learning about a whole culture I knew nothing about. I had no idea that there was a whole Methodist sect in Singapore, but I found the romantic story a little bit over done. I should say that I don't normally go out of my way for romantic comedies. I was going to watch the film adaptation on HBO when I finished the book but of course they took it off the streaming service before I finished it. I knew the book was the first in the series, but the book is very open ended and I don't know if I'm going to read the next few books, there are just so many books I want to read. I would recommend it if you want to learn about extremely rich people or a little romantic comedy.

Year 3, week 20: From Cradle to Stage

This week's book:
From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars
By Virginia Grohl

This week's book was read to our little one and I by my sweet hubby at night while I was nursing her. We have read different books to our babies at night while nursing them to sleep. This week's book was written by the mother of one of my favorite rock stars of all time. Dave Grohl is the lead singer of the Foo Fighters, and former drummer of Nirvana, and I love him.

Grohl's mama interviewed many moms who had famous musical children, from many different genres of music. It was very interesting to hear all the different mothers explaining their path to becoming the mothers to all of these amazing artists. The thing that is so cool was there wasn't one same path for all of these people. A lot of the future musicians did horrible in school and couldn't focus, but they were brilliant at the same time, which sounds a lot like our little guy. It gave me hope that maybe we are raising a future rock star. But let's be honest, as much as I learned about all of these people that I have listened to for years, I absolutely loved learning so much about Dave Grohl. He sounds even more amazing than I could have imagined. He's a Mama's boy who sounds like a great son, husband, father, and of course flipping rock star!

I would definitely recommend the book if you love music as much as I do. If you are a Foo Fighters or Grohl's go, run and pick it up now.

Year 3, week 19: Wrapped Up in Christmas

This week's book:
Wrapped up in Christmas
Janice Lynn

Disclaimer, this post is about a week late. Sorry, had a busy couple of weeks for the holidays.

Did you that Hallmark has a publishing company? Well, they do.

Are you one of those people who are obsessed with those cheesy Christmas romances on Hallmark, Lifetime, ABC Family, or even Netflix? Well, this week's book is for you. This book checks all the boxes of one of those movies in book form. Even our church's minister talked about those types of movies last year and he hit the nail right on the head. He said they were always set in a small town, in a church, there is normally a war veteran, someone fixing up an inn or old house, an innocent young woman who is too good to be true, a dog, and a lot of meddling old ladies,someone is probably rebuilding an inn or B-and-B, and the whole story is set around Christmas.

I'm going to be honest here, I have never watched a Hallmark Christmas movie, and I probably won't start soon, there are just too many classic Christmas movies that I love to add some other cheesy romances that are all pretty much the same. I literally never get to watch what I want on TV anymore, and when I do I fall asleep in no time flat, so I actually haven't even gotten to stay awake for my favorite Christmas movies this year. The reason I ended up reading this book was looking for some kind of audiobook that I could be listening to while the kids were home for Christmas break that would be kid friendly.

If you love those cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies, then this is the book for you.