Cabin Creek Coffee in the Pierre Mall (#wwread)

I was really looking forward to this month's entry in Where in the World Are You Reading?, the monthly meme hosted by Trish, Kailana, and myself. This month's theme is "coffee shop or cafe" and I just really couldn't wait to take myself to a coffee shop alone and spend an hour in quiet reading bliss. Pierre only has two coffee shops. We don't have a Starbucks or a Caribou Coffee or even a Dunkin' Donuts.  There's Pier 347 downtown, and it's sister store Cabin Creek Coffee in the Pierre Mall.

The mall location is fairly new, it didn't open until last winter, after the big Christmas rush. It's not a very busy store, in fact I've only ever seen one other customer there. They have a display case of cheesecake and muffins and all the typical coffee selections.  There are only a handful of tables and the boys chose this one by the fireplace. I've only ever met one employee here, a nice friendly older woman (by which I mean, not a hip young 20 something like the other coffee shop). As a bonus, after 5 of the same type of drink, you get one free!

Sadly, for my reading plans, I ended up putting it off until the last minute and then taking the boys with me to the coffee shop. Not a scenario for quiet reading bliss. We headed up after school on Thursday without the Princess and I treated us all to coffee and we split a muffin. (The boys had flavored steamed milk.) Since it seemed unlikely that I was going to get any reading done, I let the Pirate demonstrate the readability of the coffee shop for me.




He was thrilled to read on the Nook and managed to get in all his reading time while the Bug ran in circles around us.

Have you posted about your local cafe or coffee shop? There are already quite a few places I'd love to go visit. Be sure to link yours up over at Love, Laughter, and Insanity.

The Pirate would rather not read.

The Pirate is supposed to read for 100 minutes a week. This works out to 15 a day, or, as we're trying this week, 30 minutes on Monday through Thursday. The Pirate hates it. Yep, I said it, My Second Grader Hates To Read.  As you can imagine, this is horrifying to me.

The problem isn't with the reading itself. He can read. He reads slightly above grade level, officially. He reads Wii instructions easily. He reads Lego descriptions at Amazon.com without issue. But "books are so boring, mom!" The problem is that books for second graders, early reader books, ARE boring. It's like the cartoon "Little Bear" in book form. Yawn.  The problem with chapter books is that he is already huge fans of things like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter- the movies. He wants that in his books too, but Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings both start so slowly, and his comprehension and patience aren't quite there for a long slow buildup. (For a second grader, a long buildup is anything over a couple pages.)

I've spent a lot of time paging through the level three readers finding interesting ones, and I've been compiling a list of potential chapter books for a second grade boy. Here's the list so far:

• The Horrible Harry series by Suzy Kline
• The Mercy Watson series by Kate Dicamillo
• The A to Z Mysteries (our first try here was a no go.)
• Marvin Redpost series by Louis Sacher
• The Geronimo Stilton series by Geronimo Stilton
• Author Daniel Pinkwater (a brief glance makes me think these may be too hard, Second-Grade Ape has potential though)
• Mrs. Noodlekugel, also by Daniel Pinkwater, looks a little young
• The Time Warp Trioby Jon Scieszka
• The Beast Quest series by Adam Blade
• The Secrets of Droon series by Tony Abbott
• The My Weird School Daze series by Dan Gutman 

Suggestions from the comments:

• The Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. I think these will be a little hard for him still.
• The Secret Agent Jack Stalwart Book by Elizabeth Singer Hunt
• Ready, Freddy by Abby Klein
• Dragonbreath
• Roscoe Riley Rules by Katherine Applegate
• The Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective series by Donald J. Sobol (I thought these were for older kids, happy to see they are not.

(Please note, most links go to the first book in the series on Amazon.)

Any other suggestions for action packed books for little boys?  I'm not picky at all (reading is reading is reading, there are no trashy kid's books), but I'd rather it be text in linear form and not cartoon/comic/manga style.  I know there is someone out there who is going to suggest books from their youth. I will not argue that the classics aren't any good, but I will argue that the classics are slow. Slow is our problem. If your classic is slow, especially slow to start, he's not gonna enjoy it.

2011 Reading Goals and 2010 Reading Stats

Last year I only set two reading goals for myself.

- Read 52 books.
- Reduce the TBR.

I failed the first one, topping out the year at 37 books. I did remarkably well on the second though as I gave away a ton of books.

Here's how they broke down:

-7 Non-fiction
-11 Young Adult Titles
-5 Paranormal adult fiction
-3 Fiction
-11 Romance novels

-4 by men
-31 by women
-2 by multiple authors

-31 from the library
-4 that I owned
-2 from the publisher

-15 published in 2011
-11 published in 2010
-3 in 2009
-3 in 2008
-2 in 2007
-2 in 2006
-1 in 2003

15 new-to-me authors.
-Clinton Kelly
-Jenny Han
-Elizabeth Scott
-Kathleen Flinn
-Laurie David
-Dani Shapiro
-Karen Marie Moning
-Kristan Higgins
-Lisa Quinn
-Lenore Skenazy
-Tana French
-Karleen Bliss
-Veronica Roth
-Susan Mallery
-Jonathan Safran Foer

I didn't read any books that were flat out awful. I have some I didn't finish, but none that I just hated. This is probably because I tend to stop reading early when they don't grab me.  I also didn't have many stand out terrific books. It was a long year and I read a lot of books that were easy and pleasant and that I knew I'd like, even if I didn't love them.  Topping the list were Divergent by Veronica Roth and The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks by Kathleen Flinn. I did enjoy both of those tremendously, and had a hard time not talking about them to anyone who would listen. Patricia Briggs's latest (River Marked (Mercy Thompson, Book 6) ) was also good, as was Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. I picked up a Susan Mallery Fool's Gold romance on a whim, and found myself whipping right through 5 of 6 of them (and then waiting forever for the one I hadn't read.) They started out strong, but by the end they felt very repetitive. I also read and enjoyed Nora Robert's latest (The Next Always: Book One of the Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy ) and was predictably charmed. I wish the entire series was already out.


For 2012 I'd like to add a couple goals back into the list.  I hope to:
-read 52 books (hope springs eternal)
-read at least one really great book that hits my mental Best Of Forever list.
-participate in one very personal reading swap with a couple friends (I'll post about it, it's just not open to the general blogging public.)
-read all of the books on Janssen's best of 2011 list. Though Room scares me to death. I might give myself an out on that one.
-read at least one book from several on-going series (JD Robb's In Death series, Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden, Rachel Caine's Weather Wardens, and Kim Harrison's witch series.)
-get back to reviewing what I read



What about you? What are your goals for 2012? Were you happy with what you read in 2011?

I have a couple more retrospective posts for 2011 that I'd like to get done in the next week or so- some more sewing, some more reading stuff, a handful of reviews. I'm pretty excited by a fresh new year and can't wait to get going on it.

Mother's Day

I'd love to be one of those people who are all eh about holidays, but I'm not. I love them all - birthdays, Valentine's, Christmas, Mother's Day. We had a terrific Mother's Day at my house yesterday, hopefully you did at yours?

We started with lunch out on Saturday, in order to beat the crowds. The Pirate was perfectly behaved and almost stayed in his seat the entire meal! The Bug had to be moved from a booster to a high chair with a seat belt due to an apparently overwhelming desire to climb out. We followed that up with a trip to The Children's Place to try to buy these adorable shoes, but our local store did not carry them. The Bug throught racing through the mall was fun, so we did not stay long. Buggy and I went home while Mike and the Pirate went grocery shopping, where the Pirate was similarly well behaved. They brought home a giant bouquet of flowers.

Sunday morning the boys (all three of them) were awake by 6am. This is not unusual, but I had hoped to sleep in a bit. Mike rounded them up about 6:30 and they went to Starbucks, in their pajamas!, to get mommy a nice fancy coffee for Mother's Day. Buggy carefully carried it back to me and was very excited to give it to me, "Mama! Coffee!"  Mike made breakfast (leftover shish kabobs- steak, zuchinni, onion, peppers, potatoes, and mushrooms cooked into eggs) and we lazed around. Mike smoked some ribs for lunch and we ate them with corn on the cob and pretended that summer was here.

In the afternoon I bailed on what I should be doing (sewing!) in favor of reading and actually read two entire books! In one day! Had to stay up until 11 to do so, but I can't remember the last time I did that. First I read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead and then followed up with Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, Book 5) by Patricia Briggs. Both good with nice pacing that kept me from wanting to put the books down.  Full reviews to come, I hope, along with my reviews of  Cast Member Confidential: A Disneyfied Memoir by Chris Mitchell, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and Savor the Moment (The Bride Quartet, Book 3) by Nora Roberts. It's already been so long for poor Henrietta that I'm sure my review won't do it justice.

It was a terrific day and I couldn't bring myself to get online and blog about it, for fear it'd just feel like an ordinary day. I hope your Mother's Day was just as lovely.


I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks.

2009 Reading Recap, part two- the Best of 2009.

I've been putting off making a list of my favorite books because I feel a self-imposed pressure to do something fun with my list.  I wanted to be like the cool people and break it up into categories, but as it turns out I really didn't read enough books to do that. So, here's my top 8 favorites for the year in no particular order.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg (my review)
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (my review)
The Truth about Forever by Sarah Dessen (my review)
Boy's Life by Robert McCammon (my review)
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D Schmidt (my review)
Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols (my review)
The Lace Reader: A Novel by Brunonia Barry (my review)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.) by Barbara Kingsolver (no review)

You can see the full list here.

What were your favorites for 2009? Did any one book stand out above others?





I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks.

2009 Reading Recap, part one

I had several reading goals for 2009, but in the end the only thing I cared about was hitting my goal of 52 books. I realized I was close a couple days before the 31st and I pushed myself to read the last two so that I could check that off.  I still have quite a few to review, but you can see the complete list of 52 books here. Here's how it breaks down-

Of the 52 books:

41 were written by women
11 were written by men

16 were young adult novels
12 were non-fiction
9 were romance novels
9 were paranormal/ futuristic/ urban fantasy
2 were chick lit
2 were novels
1 was a classic
1 was a mystery

18 were written in 2009
11 were written in 2008
8 were written in 2007
no other year had more than 2

There were 30 different publishers.

I read 16,468 pages.

I read 27 new to me authors with the following books.
Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Enchanted, Inc. (Katie Chandler, Book 1) by Shanna Swendson
The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) by Peter Sagal
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
Bloom by Elizabeth Scott
Gimme Shelter by Mary Elizabeth Williams
A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg
Wake (Wake Series, Book 1) by Lisa McMann
This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average  by Joseph Hallinan
Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James
If I Stay by Gayle Foreman
Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham
Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture by Daniel Radosh
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D Schmidt
The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections by Amanda Blake Soule
Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway
Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols
The Missing Ink: A Tattoo Shop Mystery by Karen E Olson
Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves by Crystal Renn with Marjorie Ingall
American Roulette: How I Turned the Odds Upside Down---My Wild Twenty-Five-Year Ride Ripping Off the World's Casinos (Thomas Dunne Books) by Richard Marcus
The Lace Reader: A Novel by Brunonia Barry
Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry by Todd Farley


Coming soon:
My Top Ten Choices for 2009 and My goals for 2010!





I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks.