Books,  Mama

Books I Read in June

Last week I talked about the board books my son has been loving lately, but this week I want to share the what I read in June! These are the sort of posts that make me so glad I decided to move away from this being a food blog and to focus on motherhood instead. (Don’t get me wrong though–the recipes are still here and in my husband’s opinion, they’re still good! I think this sparkling blueberry lemonade might be just the right treat to accompany your summer reading.) Not every book I share will be directly related to motherhood, but some will be!

June was a bit of a slow reading month for me. At the beginning of the month I abandoned A Prayer for Owen Meany, and I think I lost some reading momentum because of it. I really wanted to like that one because I’ve heard so many wonderful things about it, but ultimately it just wasn’t for me. If I don’t enjoy reading a book, I’m typically pretty quick to put it down and move on to something I do enjoy.

Here’s what I read in June! I only own one of these books and borrowed the other two from the library. If you’re interested in buying any of these and Amazon is the most feasible option for you, know that any book you purchase through the Amazon Associate links below will give me a small percentage of sales at no added cost to you.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small percentage from purchases from the links in this blog post. This comes at no added cost to you, but it helps support me at Learning Mamahood.

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

This book has been on my to-be-read list for a nearly a year now, but it took me a while to pick it up. I’ve taken a few breaks from fiction in the last year so it wasn’t until this month that I got around to reading it. I honestly did not love the writing itself in this book, but I did like the story. For probably the first 75% of this book I expected it to be a 3-star read for me (I go by Goodreads stars, in which 3 stars means “I liked it.”), but by the end of the book I had landed on 4 stars! (In Goodreads, that’s “I really liked it.” 5 stars means “It was amazing” so I don’t just give 5 stars to any book I liked. Call me stingy with my stars, but that’s my system. I guess you couldn’t exactly call me “The Giver of Stars”… see what I did there?) The Giver of Stars is set in 1930s Kentucky and centers on a fictionalized story of the Pack Horse Librarians, a real New Deal initiative. This isn’t a setting or a subject I’ve read much about so far, which made this a fun read for me!

Caroline: Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller

I was a huge fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books as a kid, so I was very excited about this one! This novel is a fictionalized account of Caroline Ingalls’ (or Ma’s) journey with her family to the Kansas frontier in 1870. If you’re familiar with Little House on the Prairie, you’ll recognize the majority of the stories in this book. I have always admired the character of Caroline Ingalls, and this novel brought her to life in a way that I’d never experienced with the original book series and gave me a deeper appreciation for her strength, her hard work, and her care for her family. It added so much depth to her character, offering a woman’s perspective on the pioneer life and her experiences of loneliness, anxiety, and fear of the unknown. I loved the opportunity to read this story re-imagined through the eyes of the mother and to see her tenderness and concern for her children. Sarah Miller noted that she strove to explore the mindset of the Ingalls family in regards to the Osage people native to the area they settled in, pointing out their prejudices and fears, their conflicted feelings, and even Caroline’s feeling of deep heaviness over the removal of the Osage people from the territory. I don’t read the author’s note and essays in the back of every book, but I felt that the brief ones at the end of this book added a great deal of value. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads, but in reality it might have been closer to a 4.5 for me.

Satisfied by Alyssa Joy Bethke

I preordered this book earlier this spring, and it was released a couple weeks ago. Satisfied is sort of a coffee table book meets devotional book meets cookbook. (Note: It has fourteen recipes, so it’s definitely not a full on cookbook, but that’s not its primary purpose.) It’s filled with beautiful pictures and reflections on finding satisfaction, joy, and hope in God. The writing style is gentle and comforting while still speaking to some tough subjects and giving words to what my heart needed to hear. I’m subscribed to Alyssa’s email list, and while she was preparing for the book’s release, she mentioned that she hoped reading this book would feel like sitting down for coffee with a friend and talking about the Lord. After reading it, I think she accomplished exactly that!

Those are all the books I read in June! I tend to average four or five books a month on average, but as I said before, this was a bit of a slow month for me. I’m looking forward to more summer reading in the next couple months!

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