Saving the World in Cute Socks
Hi wonderful everyone!
The Wings of Fire dragons don’t have the fancy technology that our world does, and for the most part I think they’re doing OK without it — but one thing I know Starflight would LOVE, if he could get his talons on them, is audiobooks.
(Instead he has Fatespeaker, who is pretty happy reading scrolls to him all day! The downside of that is she’s totally the kind of dragon who’ll stop every five minutes to be like, “I know what’s going to happen next! I bet this guy is the murderer! He’s going to steal all the owls and burn down Hogwarts! I FORESEE IT! Don’t trust him, Harry!” and then Starflight has to be like, “Fatespeaker, that’s Ron, literally Harry’s best friend for the entire series,” and then she’ll be like, “WELL. WE SHALL SEE. I think he’s VERY SUSPICIOUS.”)
And if Starflight did have audiobooks, he would use Libro.fm, where every audiobook you buy supports the independent bookstore of your choice. Right now they are having a Virtual Bookstore Party all week, including a really cute fundraiser called #SocksforBINC where artists have created 10 different adorable sock designs for book lovers, and buying a pair will send the profits to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation.
I’m absolutely getting all of them, so if you get any, chances are high that we’ll find each other wearing matching socks at an event one day! 🙂 (There will be events again one day! In-person events where we can admire our feet and hug and say “remember that time when we were all stuck at home for months and we had to save the world by buying cute socks?” This will totally happen.) 🙂
Today I wanted to mention one of our favorite series: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales!
Written and illustrated by Nathan Hale, these are funny, action-packed, often gruesome true tales from history retold in graphic novel form. I must admit we started with Donner Dinner Party (which the kids and I read together) and couldn’t put it down, and now that is probably the one piece of American history my children will always remember! But all of the books in the series are great, and bonus, you can totally count reading these as the history part of homeschooling. 🙂 🙂 🙂
The other book wouldn’t fit any official curriculum (except the Tui Says Reading Awesome Books Is The Best Way to Learn Stuff, Such As For Instance How to Be a Kind Person curriculum), but it is absolutely hilarious, warm, joyful, and one of the smartest reworkings of the “kid is spirited off to fantasy land/magic school” story I’ve ever seen.
In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan
It is a YA book and has scandalous bits in it, so please don’t buy it for your 7-year-old and then yell at me 🙂 but the love triangle is so unique and lovely, and every character is so GREAT and they all develop and grow and are really good people and I just love them! The kind of book that will give you some faith in humanity (and elves) and also a great escape from the world we’re in now, even while it has a lot of thoughtful things to say about it.
And here are just two of the many lovely indie bookstores where you could get these books right now:
The Reading Bug, in San Carlos, CA — we also subscribe to their Reading Bug Box, which means a box of lovely books shows up once a month for my littler bear, and it’s always wonderful! I was also on their podcast a couple of months ago (look for the Feb. 11 episode), if you’d like to hear my voice yammering on a bit. 🙂
The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, UT
Things Making Us Happy Right Now: Yesterday was my littler bear’s 8th birthday (HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!) and he was so so sad about not being able to have a party — but then we had a few of our dearest friends appear on our doorstep to drop off presents and wave from the street, and we were able to Zoom in friends and family from further away (the bear did a full performance of “You’ll Be Back”, his favorite song from Hamilton, for the family call — lucky them!), and we got an escape room in a box, and we made an Amazing Race for him to do around the neighborhood, and he ended up having the best day. Everyone is so lovely and kind and I love you all so much.
Hope you’re all doing OK! More soon!