Good Reads: Books & Blogs

I have some fun books to share with you today.  I'm not the kind of girl that reads a book a week, is super current with best sellers or devotes a ton of time to reading.  But I have read a handful of good books recently that I'm excited to share with you.  One of my goals is to start using my library more and buying less books.  I really only read books once so the library option is a good one for most books.  I've currently got The Best of Me, A Man Called Ove and Made to Crave checked out.

Best Books:
The Life Giving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming
By: Sally & Sarah Clarkson
This book was such a motivating book to read!  I loved that the authors were inspiring readers on every page to make their houses a home and to establish family traditions to cherish.  The mother and daughter authors shared unique perspectives on family life.  I loved going back and forth with each chapter to hear their different voiced on homemaking.  You get the perspective of homemaking from different generations and can easily figure out how those things would work right now for your family.  They address everything from holiday celebrations, seasons, raising children, biblical hospitality, welcoming people into your home and enjoying the outdoors.  I felt so encouraged, capable and ready to identify family norms and family traditions.  This book is so inspiring as a mom to be in charge of making our home our happy place.  My husband and I had some really fun conversations about our family and the norms we want to set in place as I was reading this book.  This book would be great for wives and moms who are seeking to establish and encourage their own households.

Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage
By Hugh Brewster
I've mentioned several times that I'm a huge fan of anything related to The Titanic.  I find the whole thing fascinating and just love learning about it.  I always have.  I've read many books, taught Titanic units to my students and been to the Titanic museum in Las Vegas.  A friend recently recommended this book and I loved it!  I learned new facts, learned new stories about passengers and for the first time, really felt like I could put myself in the shoes of the victims and survivors of this terrible tragedy.  There are tons of historical references, tons of famous personalities mentioned and just a lot of great details about the lives of various 1st, 2nd and 3rd class passengers.  There were interesting stories about roosters, fancy jewels, scandals and family drama.  I enjoyed learning more about the ship - church services, the fact that the ship was not full, missing binoculars and the elite lives of the rich and famous.  I loved finding out that the ship photographers last name was Fletcher.  Definitely would recommend this book if you enjoy The Titanic.

Best Kid Books:
We've been checking out library books almost weekly all Summer.  We found lots of new ones to love.  We even loved some enough to buy a copy for our home library.  Here are a few of our very favorites:

A Search-And-Find Alphabet of Alphabets
by Allan Sanders
This book is DARLING.  It's a wonderful way to practice letters, identify so many things on the themed pages and the books offers a great platform for discussion.  There is so much to talk about on every single page.  My kids (3 & 6) both LOVE this book.  They read it independently and we read it together.  The art work is so detailed and really interesting.  Each letter of the alphabet has its own theme and the pages are so much fun.  There's an illustrated alphabet on every page.  It's amazing!

Bear Came Along
By Richard T Morris
We added Bear Came Along to our library this year.  It's such a cute book about finding friends in unlikely places.  The animals all come together to have the best time on their river adventures.  The illustrations are amazing.  It's such a pretty book.  My kids love reading it and looking for the animals on every page. 

Unicorn Day
By Diana Murray
We love unicorns over here so it's no surprise that we'd enjoy a book called Unicorn Day.  The book is filled with everything magical - rainbows, unicorns, glitter and fairies - and teaches a great lesson about including others as you're making new friends.  The unicorns have so much fun together and then they realize that they'd have even more fun when the include all their friends.

We Don't Eat Our Classmates
By Ryan T Higgins
Kevin picked this book up for the kids last year and it's definitely one of our back to school favorites.  Penelope Rex has a lot to learn about making new friends in her classroom.  She shows us plenty of things not to do and how she slowly, but surely earns the trust of her new friends.  She's funny, silly and this book is sure to get lots of laughs as you learn about what it takes to be a good friend.

Best Blogs:

Carolina Charm's Hawaiian Ham Sliders Two Ways sound amazing

Andrea at Momfessionals shared these Reese's Cookies and I can't wait to make them!

Veronika shared some really fun DIY Sensory Kits.  I think my kids would love these.


My Amazon (*affiliate) links: