What I've Been Reading
Oooh, I've been reading a lot lately. Isn't it odd how urges take us over for certain periods of time? For weeks, I'll crave new music, and I'll buy and download everything I can get my hands on. I'll binge on music blogs, throwing songs into my iTunes as fast as it can gobble them. Or I'll spend weeks dreaming about lace, fantasizing about watching the patterns grow (who knew THAT would ever happen? Sheesh). Or I'll spin and knit and spin and knit until I can clothe the whole household, right down to tiny Miss Idaho.
I'm always reading, but lately I've been tearing through books like the Great Book Famine is coming. (It's not, by the way. There is SO much good stuff out there that even that whole pesky Mayan apocalypse thing won't get in the way.) I like to tell you about the books I LOVE (not the ones I merely like -- who has the time for that?), so here you go.
1. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle. Of course, I read this approximately one billionty times when I was a kid (I read all of them, over and over again. I wrote a fan letter to ML'E, and SHE WROTE BACK.) But I reread this because I wanted to read the second book on this list and everyone said to brush up on Wrinkle before I did. And I'm so glad I did. It was wonderful, falling back into the book, and I was Meg, all over again.
2. When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead. This is the story of a girl finding out what friendship means while figuring out the very nature of time (I thought figuring out the time between bells at high school was bad enough). The novel repeatedly references A Wrinkle In Time -- the main character loves the book as much as I did when I was her age, and there was something so endearing about that, the way her book was tattered as much as mine was. I'm not surprised this won the Newberry in 2010. (How lovely that must be, to follow in L'Engle's footsteps like that. Can you imagine? Loving a book that much, and being able to honor it that way? Oh, it gives me goosebumps.) Also, it was fun reading a book set when I was growing up -- it was so firmly grounded in that time period I could almost smell the plastic on the unicorn decals.
3. Learning to Swim, Sara J. Henry. I'm not quite finished with this, but I'm adoring it. Premise (without spoilers -- this all happens within the first few pages): The main character witnesses a little boy tossed off the end of a ferry. 
She swims to save him, and then tries to figure out who would throw away a child. Henry writes so well, and I'm almost done and I haven't yet figured out how it will end. Delicious.
(Thanks to all of you who suggested books HERE, and feel free to leave me more suggestions for your most recent favorite.)
* Amazon links for convenience -- feel free to email your local indie bookstore, though! They'll even mail them to you, just like Amazon does!
