In 2014, I made a list of books that I wanted to read. And then I mostly forgot about it. While I was updating some things on the blog, I came across my list (this is why I blog, it helps me remember things that I would otherwise forget). Luckily for me, I still have a few brain cells and have been working on it despite forgetting about it. So I thought I’d update it again with what I’ve managed to check off. Books in italics are titles I’ve read before.
Junior Fiction
1. Anne of Green Gables
2. Bridge to Terebithia
3. A Wrinkle in Time
4. Jacob Have I Loved
5. Daughter of Smoke & Bone
6. The Secret Garden
7. The Wind in the Willows (I can’t finish this, I’ve started it three times, and I just can’t)
8. Where the Red Fern Grows
9. Treasure Island
10. The Chocolate War
On the Shelves
11. Cloud Atlas
12. Lit
13. So Much for That
14. Skippy Dies
15. A Confederacy of Dunces
16. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
17. A Widow for One Year
18. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls
19.The Jungle
20. The Bean Trees
Classics
21. Tess of D’Ubervilles
22. Wuthering Heights
23. Mansfield Park
24.The Woman in White
25. Gone with the Wind
26. Frankenstein
27. The Grapes of Wrath
28. Rebecca
29. The Hobbit
30. The Awakening
Recently Published
31. We are Water
32. The Goldfinch
33. The Luminaries
34. And the Mountains Echoed
35. The Husband’s Secret
36. The Light Between Oceans
37. Defending Jacob
38. Shotgun Lovesongs
39. This is How You Lose Her
40. Something Like Normal
Nonfiction
41. Lean In
42. Carry On, Warrior
43. Bad Mother
44. I Am Malala
45. Stitches
46. Jesus Feminist
47. Rose Kennedy: The Life & Times of a Political Matriarch
48. Reading in the Wild:
49. Real Food: What to Eat and Why
50.A Long Way Gone
I seem to have made the most progress on recently published books. Perhaps because when I created this list I already had many of them on my e-reader? Perhaps I should download some of those nonfiction as well as the push I need?
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a junior fiction reading list 🙂
I read The Wind in the Willows to my ten year-old several months ago, and was rather amazed he wanted me to keep going with it; I found it an odd story, one of those way-too-wordy classics that don't exactly pull you along, and leave you wondering "why exactly did I bother" at the end …
Loved Anne of Green Gables (read as an adult, alongside (not to) our daughter).
Many years ago, a mom told me she always "read up" to her children at night (in other words, books that were much harder/longer than her children would read on their own). I started doing that too, and our evenings were happily spent reading books I always felt I "should have" read as a child, ones my kids would probably never have chosen to slog through on their own (because let's face it, it's a rare child nowadays who's going to push through Pinocchio when Captain Underpants is available!)
In the last few years I've started to think that some of the best themes and writing are in junior fiction. Anne of Green Gables is a favorite in my family – my mom loved the character of Matthew and I loved Marilla.
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who may have struggled with Wind in the Willows. I think I'll put it away and just accept the fact that there are more books than I have life and I should spend my time on ones I truly enjoy not ones I think I "should" read.