Books On the Horizon

In the past few days, I have obtained or been given three books that I'm really looking forward to reading:

1)  Tell Me, by Aidan Chambers.  I felt like a kid opening a Christmas present yesterday when I opened my amazon order and found this book inside.  Thanks to Jackie, my faithful blog reader/commenter/suggestion-maker/helper-with-Seth, I've had this book sitting in my amazon cart for a couple of months already and I was so glad to finally order and receive it.  It's the first one on my reading list...in fact, I'll likely start it tonight.  As I understand it, this book is about teaching me to help a child talk about a book, make sense of a string of facts, and understand complicated ideas.  I suspect this will be a helpful tool with all three of my kids.  Here's the link to this book at amazon, in case you're interested (I receive no money for this promotion, or for the sale of any book):  Tell Me, by Aidan Chambers

2) The Whole Brain Child:  Twelve Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind, by Daniel Siegel.  I've been hearing about this book for what seems like a year, and it's been recommended to me by various people.  I've watched a few promotional clips for the book and have intended to purchase it for a while.  But it was my lovely friend Joanne who, having recently attended a conference by the author of this book, thought about me (and my middle child in particular) and bought it for me as a Christmas gift.  She gave it to me last week and I'm really looking forward to reading this one as well.  Here's the link to check out:  The Whole Brain Child, by Daniel Siegel

3)  Give Them Grace, by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson.  This is another book I received in my recent amazon order and one that was newly placed in my amazon shopping cart.  This is a parenting book, but I'm hoping it has more to do with me than it does my kids.  I have been struggling, of late, with giving my kids grace.  Because my two youngest have required more rules and structure than I've historically been used to giving, I've found myself a little caught between where to end the rules and when/how to administer grace.  I'm feeling a little more rigid than I'm comfortable with and need help finding that fine line.  Being a big believer in grace, I'm hoping that this books helps me clarify matters a little.  Here's the link: Give them Grace, by Elyse Fitzpatrick

I've been trying to read a little fiction again of late, but I confess that my urge for fiction has waned a little since Seth and Lizzie came home - first, because of sheer lack of time and energy, but lately more because I'm out of the groove of reading good fiction.  I've read a chunk of Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, which I've been enjoying but just can't seem to finish; and after completing half of The Red Tent a few days ago (by Anita Diamant), a book I've been wanting to read for about two years, I ended up returning it to the library - I just couldn't get into it.

It's hard to believe that this avid book reader has taken a vacation somewhere because I'm reading about 10% of what I used to in any given month.  I'm in a season of life, I guess...though I sure hope that I get back to the book-reading season at some point!