At the start of this month, I set a goal for Wyatt and I for a summer reading challenge. I counted all books, whether he read them, I read them to him, or we read them together. For some reason, I felt like 20 was an appropriate number. I must have been crazy, because the challenge has already been completed and he received his first reward today, which was the Ghosts in the Attic Game from Peaceable Kingdom, his pick. The last week or so we haven’t really been able to do much outside, it has either been raining or like today, the air quality is too bad to leave the house for any length of time. We have been filling our time indoors with board games, and books, and of course, painting. However, this post is about books, so let’s get back to those. I can get carried away.

It was a pretty good month! So many insect books, I love it! There were some standout favorites out of this bunch, of course. Wyatt absolutely loved, loved, loved Snake’s Big Mistake, for many reasons. One thing we love to do is find characters in wheelchairs in books, and we were excited to spot a little hedgehog in a wheelchair in this one. But Wyatt also loved this book because it was about art and pottery. He loves art, and his grandma is a potter, with her own wheel and kiln and everything. I rarely read the author blurb to Wyatt in these books, but this one caught my eye. The author Sarah Kurpiel is herself a wheelchair user, and get this, a LIBRARIAN and an ARTIST. Wyatt’s two big loves, art and the library! It was very exciting. I saw that she also has a book, Lone Wolf, which of course Wyatt and wolves, so I will make sure we pick that up for him.

He also really loved Are Pirates Polite?, which was super cute, and now when he does something I can say “Is that how pirates act?” or “Do pirates interrupt?” Interrupting is such a thing for him right now. He is finding his words and adding to his speech everyday and is in a hurry to say them all to us, at all times. We have not had to address interrupting until this point so it is a new struggle for us all. Hopefully pirates help us. And finally, his final favorite of the month, What About Worms? This was a cute book, where the tiger was afraid of worms and worms were afraid of spiders and Wyatt found it absolutely hysterical.

As for my favorites, let’s start with the book that made me teary. Does this happen to anyone else? We were reading “Love Makes a Garden Grow” and ugh, it was so beautiful and sentimental I started to tear up and cry. Wyatt stuck his little face in mine, and asked me if I was sad. I had to tell him not really, but I was more just overcome with emotions over the story. Garden books that get sentimental will probably forever make me cry; my uncle Art and I had a special bond over gardening and now he is gone and you know how these things sneak up on you and hit you in the heart. It was a very beautiful book, especially for those who garden with family. I also really enjoyed The Red Tin Box. It is about a little girl who buries her treasures in a little red tin box, and goes back years and years later with her granddaughter and digs it up. It was just very sweet and I loved the whole idea of it. We loved reading Evergreen together too! It is a longer picture book, with little chapters almost, and is about the adventures of Evergreen the squirrel and her quest to get her acorn full of restorative soup to a sick family member. It was really well done! Firefly Hollow is actually our current read aloud, so we are not done with it yet. It just seemed perfect for the summer. We read a chapter before bedtime every night, and I probably look forward to it as much as Wyatt.

And that just about wraps up June for what Wyatt and I have been reading! Every book we read was amazing and special, it was a great month spent with great books.