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Or, Babes and Books

Reader,

There's nothing I love more than bookish content featuring kids. Photos of children reading books or magazines, bookish content made by kids, babies reading or a parent introducing their child to the joy of libraries so this note from a kid to their school librarian melted my heart. There’s something incredibly powerful about young readers “in the wild” and the alchemy of matching them with books will never cease to amaze me.

As a reader, I hope to have a reader for a child but there's only so much one can do in that regard. One of the things YB pointed out is that I've slowly been building up a collection of books for The Child, as we've taken to calling the young one we hope to welcome into our family. I read one last week - The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata (illustrated by Julia Kuo) - and I can't wait for them to read it. It's a beautiful middle grade coming of age story about a girl whose family is going through a tough time. Finding out the author has also written a book featuring an adoptee (which The Child would be) made me want to pick up even more of her books.

Related: I have read and watched so much about adoption in Kenya, created book lists that I'm even willing to pay Jeff for, and I sincerely hope that this is the month where I go past my trepidation and start the process. Not just because it would be nice to share kid lit with another child in my family (there's no shortage of library company in my extended family) but mostly because sometimes this almost over-consumption of literature is a way to postpone the hard thing (the legal process, for instance) and there's something to be said for starting.

Two titles from last week make me think it was one for families, on the book front - The Thing About Luck and The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder and read by Cassandra Campbell), which was a quick delight. The found family and the tenderness of the story was beautiful. I lent it to Mama Mike as soon as I was done and I can't wait to hear her thoughts. The work it did in terms of labour relations, love, and sports was wonderful.

I hope to start writing weekly round-ups (and maybe making videos before Q2 ends) so I'll hold off on talking about the other titles I finished: How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk: The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind by John Van Epp (narrated by Alexander Cendese), Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney (narrated by Jordan Cobb), Black Love Matters: Real Talk on Romance, Being Seen, and Happily Ever Afters by Jessica P. Pryde (Ed) (narrated by Jessica P. Pryde, Gina Daniels, Julienne Irons, Angel Pean, André Santana & Tashi Thomas) and Abundance by Jakob Guanzon (narrated by George Newbern).

I managed to lose and find Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid last week so I'll continue reading that this week. I started The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (narrated by George Guidall) this morning during my walk and Sheets by Brenna Thummler (which promises to be beautifully heartbreaking) as I had breakfast and these should keep me company for the rest of the week. I made the mistake of borrowing Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde when it was released and all signs point to me not reading it soon so I think I'll return it and read it when I read it.

In non-bookish news: Corpus came out of hiatus with a new episode last week (you can listen to it here). It's very heavy on vibes, which you're probably into if you're here so I hope you enjoy it.

I hope you have a great week and a lovely time reading. Talk to you soon!