Author: Erin @ Cracker Crumb Life

I try to create a culture of celebration in our home. For life, for the little things, for wonder and for whimsy. I try to find the beauty around us and teach my son Wyatt to find it, and appreciate it and love it as well. We are a homeschool family, and we love it. We love the freedom it gives us to explore a topic or idea more deeply, and I like that I can adjust our schedule around Wyatt’s other needs. Wyatt has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and his week often has therapy, doctor’s appointments, naps peppered throughout which would make a traditional school schedule difficult. He is also an asynchronous learner, and I love that I can tailor learning to where Wyatt is at that moment. We have a house full of animals and will probably add more because we like a zoo. We have one cat, Miso, who is a rescue. She is 14 years old and my little floofy girl. We also have one leopard gecko, Luna, a pictus gecko named Harlow, a pacman frog named Freddy, and two crested geckos, Applejack and Oliver. We love all of our little friends! My husband Billy, Wyatt, and I are all curious, creative, stubborn humans which makes for some fun times around here. We love the outdoors, except we are not made for high temps so we retreat inside when the temps start to soar. We are nature lovers through and through. We are trying to downsize our lives too, to live more simply, to buy things that last and eat real food from small local farmers. (and of course Goldfish crackers) We live seasonally and are always up for adventure. We love books and reading, and can be found at the library at least once a week!

My Sunday-Monday Post

On January 26, 2020January 26, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized32 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links for books, where I will make a small commission if you were to make a purchase, at no extra cost to you.

Last week went sideways fast. Wyatt had a million appointments, Billy had to work late every single night, and I spent countless hours on the phone with insurance and doctors. We did have “book club” last week though, which I desperately needed by the time it came. Sometimes you just need those few hours to unwind, to recharge so that you can get back to work again right? And Michigan is so ugly right now guys. All mud and gray. Yuck. I miss the snow that we usually have – and now I sound so whiny! I apologize for sounding like a gloomy Gus, I guess I am feeling a bit of the January blues! I feel encouraged though, everyday brings us closer to spring and more light and new life in our world. We are going to start a calendar of firsts in a few weeks, where we look for these signs of the earth waking up from winter (the silly winter that we have had!), the first buds we see, etc. I think it will be so hopeful! This week in our Exploring Nature with Children program, we are going to be studying winter ponds. I am pretty excited to do this one! We are going to start by slipping on our muck boots this afternoon and hiking around the pond we have chosen to observe.

Read Last Week:

Good news, I broke my reading slump!

The Hand on the Wall: I was super excited to see that this was out! I downloaded it and immediately started reading it. Such a great series!!

Reading This Week:

One thing I miss about working my old job in the elementary school library is the excuse to read all those middle grade and younger books. Now I have no excuse, I just still like them at times. I really think I am going to buy a whole collection of Jean Craighead George for our house – I think Wyatt will enjoy them when he is older. Right now I am enjoying the Seasons of the Moon series.

Love Begins at Willow Tree Hall: I also was in the mood for something lighthearted as well – and Valentine’s Day is right around the corner so… romance it is. I thought this looked like such an inviting cover.

Watching:

The Ranch, WinterWatch on Britbox, some Rachel Khoo in London cooking show whose name eludes me but I love. She made a Black Forest Gateaux in one episode that looked insanely delicious! That show is also on Britbox. We might start Frankie and Grace pretty soon – I love those ladies. When I grow up I want to be Lily Tomlin.

How about you guys? What is going on in your neighborhood?

My Sunday-Monday Post

On January 19, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized29 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Last week was just a week, living the everyday life. Meetings, appointments, dinners, errands. Not bad but nothing special. It does seem like winter has arrived full force in Michigan, with freezing temperatures and snow. We did play outside in the snow for a few minutes yesterday, not too long as it was sort of sleeting outside, so not the most fun, but we still got outside for a little bit in the snow. We are going to be talking about winter trees this week with the Exploring Nature with Children homeschool curriculum (Wyatt goes to school, but I do a little supplementing) and I am looking forward to this week! We already had a little bit of discussion and play having to do with trees last week, with our book and activity, which you can see in my Puddles and Pinecones post. As for what else we are doing, that is up in the air too! I guess we are totally flexible this week and open to anything!

Read Last Week/This Week:

Things are not going well here with reading. I seem to be in a…. slump. I pick stuff up and I am just meh, not interested. And these are books I know I will probably like! So this week I am just going to give myself some freedom to read whatever, and explore my stacks and see what pulls me, hopefully, from my reading slump. I do have some contenders, from my nonfiction reading stack, that I am going to try. So this week is all up in the air!

Posted Last Week:

Puddles and Pinecones – Scout and the Gumboot Kids

1000 Hours Outside Challenge

Last Week in Photos

Watching:

We started watching The Ranch again, what a great show. I love the addition of Dax Shepherd! We finished up His Dark Materials, which was amazing, and also finished Anne with an “E”, which I loved and was so sad when the season ended! We are also watching The Elliot Homestead YouTube videos, and have a list of shows to watch, although we are not sure what is next. I kind of want to watch Troop Zero on Amazon, so that might be what we watch.

What about all of you? What is going on in your neighborhood?

Puddles and Pinecones

On January 16, 2020January 15, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn book review, books and reading, day in the life, DIY craft, family, special needs parenting8 Comments

Over the weekend the weatherman predicted torrential rain storms, flooding, and then to top it all off, ice. Well, it did rain, a very drizzly cold rain that did do a little flooding, and raised the rivers and creeks a little bit higher. We had plans to stay inside and do fun things there for most of the day and night, but..we couldn’t resist a little splashing in puddles first!

Wyatt wears AFO’s – braces for his feet to help him stand stronger when he is working on walking and standing. We love his braces, they are great tools to help him. But they also make it hard to buy shoes and boots, boots especially, as we can’t really manipulate his foot into one with the stiff braces. But we found that Butler boots have enough give in them that they slide fairly easily right over the braces – so we ordered him a pair of bright cheery yellow boots, his favorite color, and perfect for adding some sunshine to a dreary day. Then it rained and we got our wish to go stomp around in the puddles!

The cutest little stomp and splash ever!

While we are all excited that we found boots that work with his needs, Wyatt is more excited about the fact that he now has gumboots like the character and kids on one of his favorite shows, Scout and the Gumboot Kids! This very morning while we were watching one before school (they are short and perfect for a moment like this!) Wyatt went and got his boots out and started putting them on, just like Scout and the Gumboot Kids. Gumboots are another name for rain boots, or wellies, whatever you want to call them, and this show is adorable, with nature mysteries presented by a felt mouse in his own little cardigan and gumboots. The episodes are short, with a quick mystery that includes clues, and a mindful moment, which I am hoping to incorporate more of into our lives. The talented Jessie Farrell also provides the music and song for these episodes, with lovely lilting tunes that are so catchy that kids don’t even realize they are learning as they are singing along. As a companion to the Scout series, there is also Daisy and the Gumboot Kids, and Daisy is a crafty little mouse full of ideas for nature crafts. We love these shows and I love the inspiration they provide, while teaching Wyatt about all sorts of things – caterpillars and butterflies, space, agates, trees, dinosaurs are some of our favorites!

Not only is this series on television, they are now a series of books published by Firefly Books! We were lucky enough to receive a set of four signed books before Christmas, and now that the holidays are over, we really have time to spend looking through them together and talking about what we read. These books are beautiful, with full page artwork that captures the eye and attention, as page-size photos of the characters that Wyatt loves, solving the mysteries on paper within a book! Each book also contains two pages of field notes that relate to the mystery, mindful moments, and a nature craft. There is so much within the pages to inspire creativity and learning! We have been having a lot of fun with them. We also received a cute little coloring and activity book, a signed CD of Jessie Farrell’s music for the show, and stickers!

Today we spent some time reading through the books a little after school – Wyatt likes to “read” them to me too.

After we read about bird feeders and butterflies, I had a book and craft set up in the other room waiting for us.

We read the book, The Wooden Timekeeper, and talked about conifer trees, pincones, and the rings on trees, and how when you count them you can find the age of the tree. Wyatt really liked playing with the pinecones and petrified wood the best.

I showed him the pictures in the book of the craft, and let him choose whether we made an owl, bear, or mouse. My sweet boy chose to make an owl, my favorite! It was a group effort, with him doing the gluing while I helped out with the placement and cutting. We had a great time reading and making this little owl together! And look how cute!

Scout and the Gumboot Kids and the series, both on television and the books by Firefly Books are such a great resource for kids to learn, and entertaining and cute to boot! (yeah, see what I did there..)

Thanks to Firefly Books for the wonderful gift of the books, CD and extra little fun things!

1000 Hours Outside Challenge

On January 15, 2020January 15, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn environment, family, nature, Uncategorized18 Comments

We love to be outdoors – we always did, but since we had Wyatt, we have increased the amount of time that we are outside. We learned that it is so good for your brain and vision and just your whole health and body and healing to be in nature, and we were determined to take every available route to aid him in his journey. Sometime last year I learned about the 1000 hours outside challenge, but it was too late for us to attempt to make the 1000 hours. So, this year we are trying. I don’t think we will get there – we have our own challenges that we have workarounds for. But, I am curious as to how much time we WILL spend outdoors. I think just by trying we will achieve more outdoor time than if we hadn’t attempted this challenge.

The 1000 Hours Outside Challenge was the brainchild of a couple, Josh and Ginny, from the state of Michigan, actually even my own part of the state. We love the outdoors here in Michigan! They had read that the average child spends 1200 hours a year on a screen, which is crazy when you think about it. They hope to balance some of that screen time with time outside, and aim for about twenty hours a week. Right now, we are nowhere near that, but we hope to increase our time as the weather improves.

So this January, we were off and running, and have done three different hikes, and a small little walk in the snow. Our time spent isn’t much added all up, but the time spent meant more than just the minutes themselves – we had all that time together, soaking up the fresh air, the snow, the birds and trees, and all the goodness that lives outside. And all that family time!

We hiked through a lonely, cold marsh, where we were the only humans. When we stood silently, we could hear the wind rattling the bones of these marsh grasses and trees, and the din of the waterbirds, which lined the rails of the decking and dotted the gray waters. We were surprised to see no real ice, it was all open water pretty much still – it’s been such a mild winter!

We took a quick snowy walk around our neighborhood, and then another short jaunt through another marshy area. The pond here was just starting to gain a skim of ice, but it was utterly silent there, except for the lapping of the water onto the shoreline. This is where I found my turtle shell!

Then this past weekend we visited yet another more marshy type spot, which was weirdly snowy, icy, and muddy. We tried to be more observant of the small things we could spot here, and I found some air-breathing freshwater snails, while Billy spotted some bits of green and icy swirls. There is something to be said for being the only people in a cold woods – everything feels different, the quiet is just so big!

So, while we have not racked up lots of actual time on the clock, we have had many family adventures already. I can’t wait to see where the rest of the year takes us! And, it looks like my son is ready for whatever it brings!

Last week in photos

On January 14, 2020January 14, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn day in the life, family, Uncategorized9 Comments

We had such a busy week last week! Honestly, parts of it were pretty rough. Wyatt had some arm spasm that we had never seen before and that scared us; then later in the week hit his head which further sent me into my own anxiety. Then we had a heavy duty weather storm warning that caused me to worry about my mom, alone in her house 10 miles away. I did not want her to be stranded without power because I knew it would upset her so my husband went and picked her up to have her stay with us, just in case. The weather never actually got bad but we had fun all of us anyway, munching on giant family size nachos, having a dance party, and finding our animal personas. I wrote a bunch of animals on popsicle sticks, and some fun qualities like joyful, curious, strong, etc and then we pulled to see what we were. I was Quick Owl, whatever that means lol, Wyatt is my little Bold Badger, Billy is a Strong Wolf, and my mom is a Fearless Rabbit. It was fun! So aside from my worries, we did have our fun times.

So this old turtle shell. On Tuesday after therapy where we asked Wyatt’s PT about his arm spasm, we took a little hike, and spotted this turtle shell. I couldn’t get it out of my mind after seeing it, and knew I couldn’t leave it there in case someone found it and destroyed it, dishonoring this turtle’s life. So, Wyatt and I took a trip back on Thursday and retrieved it, bringing it here to keep safe. I don’t know what to do with it exactly, but I know it is safe at least.

Then on Thursday night, I actually got out of the woods and mud and dressed up, did my hair, and went somewhere that served adult drinks with my best friends! We reserved these cool igloos at a restaurant near us, and it was so neat to be in them. It would have been prettier had it been snowing, as it should be in Michigan in the winter, but it was raining. Not as pretty, but the gentle rain sounds on the igloo were enjoyable. It was a seriously much needed time with my tribe, we laughed so much our faces hurt, ate so much food, and exchanged our Christmas gifts for each other. I had made everyone hand painted by me ring dishes (made the dish too!), Chrissy made everyone lavender soap that smells amazing, Mary bought everyone the softest plaid blankets, Kelly gifted us all the cutest cat shaped cheese boards, and Jill bought us all wine based on our personalities/likes. Mine is called The Woodlands, so very perfect- and I am drinking a glass right now!

On Friday we celebrated the Full Wolf Moon, with wolf paw cookies, and chili. Lol. Wolves might eat chili right? My hungry wolves did at least. My mom made these delicious butter wolf paw cookies, which we ate the heck out of. Then we had a collective “howl” at 7:30, where my mom went to the window at her house and we went to ours and howled, which Wyatt of course thought was awesome. His favorite song is Howl by the Okee Dokee Brothers, so we followed our howl up with the song version. We calmed things down by turning off the lights and reading picture books in the tent by lantern light. My dad bought us that battery powered lantern and Wyatt loves it.

So although my week had its anxiety ridden moments, it also had some pretty darn good ones.

My Sunday-Monday Post

On January 12, 2020January 12, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized42 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Last week was back to school! I have to admit it was hard for me to even get up and moving – I had gotten used to our slow starts again. But we managed, although I did keep him home one day as he had hit his head the night before and I wanted to keep an eye on him. We ended up having an impromptu adventure that day so it worked out! I also had a few gatherings that were just for me! On Monday I met with my sister-in-law and we did some garden planning, and then Thursday my friends and I had dinner and drinks in an “igloo” at a local restaurant for our holiday book club. We had such a fantastic time! I laughed so much that night.

Read Last Week:

I have been reading an old favorite, Stitches in Time, here and there for two weeks now and finished it again the other night. And then I spotted The Bookshop on the Shore at the library and snatched it up- I love Jenny Colgan!! And this book might be my very favorite by her to date. I simply could not stop reading it, even reading way past my bedtime last night. I loved it. I was supposed to read Robin Carr’s new book but couldn’t get into it for some reason! I will try again soon, because I do love her books.

Reading This Week:

The Cozy Minimalist Home – I am so excited about this one because I like both cozy and minimalist – so it will be interesting to see how to combine these seemingly different styles! And then I have The Dilemma, which is a totally different read. I loved Paris’ book The Breakdown and I am looking forward to this one as well.

Posted Last Week:

Planning a Garden

Book Review: Alone in the Wild

Watching:

We finished up Lost in Space and have started His Dark Materials, which I am loving. We are also watching Season 3 of Anne with an E, which I also adore.

What about you all? What is going on in your neighborhood?

Planning a garden

On January 8, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn day in the life13 Comments

We woke up this morning to snow, which was beautiful until I got onto the road to take the kiddo to school. Apparently Michigan has become too complacent this year, with our mild winter, and has forgotten it needs to salt its roads! The drive was one of those steering wheel clutching drives, nervous and slow down the winding road to his school. My brakes locked up, I saw another car hit a stop sign – the driver was ok though thank goodness. These are the parts of winter I don’t like. I love the walks in a gentle snow, I love being inside, huddled against the cold with a book and my family, but I don’t like the idea of driving in it, or any of my loved ones driving in it either. It made what I did on Monday seem even better. I planned my garden.

Well, a rough plan at least. My sister-in-law Chrissy and I got together Monday morning with coffee, and strudel and seed catalogs with our little helper, my niece . And her Care Bear. And we got to talking and planning and the room just seemed warmer and more full of life just discussing what we hope to grow. I had Chrissy’s houseplants behind me, adding to to the ambiance.

We discovered we have both been watching or following The Elliot Homestead on YouTube and Instagram. And while we are planning nothing like they have, although dreams there, we have both been inspired by their gardens. I love the idea of a potager garden! I love the look of an informal garden, with vegetables and herbs and flowers all packed in together, spilling out and spilling over with color and goodness. So when I picked my seeds, I divided my garden into three different distinct areas – our front garden, Wyatt’s little garden, a potager garden, and then special features like a strawberry garden and an arch covered in squash and beans. We decided to order the seeds that we felt essential first, the ones that neither of us could live without, and combine forces growing. We ordered carrots (Tonda di piragi), Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, and Easter Egg radishes that grow in all the pretty shades of spring; we ordered Ice Queen lettuce, arugula, and all sort of peas and peppers and squash. We threw in a few flowers for good measure, dahlias and strawflower and sunflowers. I can see them all growing and reaching for the sun, when it finally returns stronger in the spring and summer, not this weak little half light we have been getting. We have another order ready to go, and that one is more flowers than vegetables – a flower called strawberry fields, some apricot lemon cosmos that my niece picked out, nasturtium and phlox, hummingbird mint and pumpkins and marshmallow flower. I am super excited about something called a Mexican Sour Gherkin, that is going in Wyatt’s garden – they look like teeny tiny watermelons but taste like a lemony cucumber. I can’t wait to get started! Then in a month we have one final order, one that will have strawberries, a lemon tree for Chrissy, a cherry tree for us.

This feels really ambitious for us right now. We haven’t had a real garden in more than 6 years probably, and our backyard has turned feral, so before we do anything we need to get it under control. But what better motivation than a garden, in my opinion, to get us out there again? Last year we loved our front garden, where we grew flowers and salad greens and lettuce and basil, and a tiny pumpkin grew all on its like magic. The amount of insect diversity grew last year in our front yard – funnel spiders and caterpillars and praying mantis and snails; flying insects like bees of all sorts, and butterflies. We had a magical summer out there, and hope that this one will be even bigger and better.

One thing Billy and I love is our front yard apple tree. It builds such a sense of community for us. The neighbor kids love to pick the apples and eat them as they play outside, and while they are not the prettiest all the time since we don’t spray them and they get attacked by squirrels and birds (the apples , not the kids) they taste amazing. My family comes over and picks them to take home, to enjoy in pies or just on their own. We eat them, and we feed the less attractive ones to our snail. We used to feed those to the local deer but then learned that we are not supposed to do that, so I might find another place to donate them too, perhaps a farm animal sanctuary I heard about nearby. This is something else we want to encourage – we are planting our strawberries next to our house, not in our backyard, and we hope that the neighbor kids and Wyatt can just go out there and grab a handful and eat them. I love the idea of growing enough so that we can share, although growing enough for us is also important. It’s been a long time since I canned or made jam, and I hope to do that again this year as well.

So we have a few goals, and we always start with a big picture, and work our way through it slowly, bit by bit, area by area. And planning a garden in winter is one of my favorite things to do.

Book Review: Alone in the Wild

On January 7, 2020January 5, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn book review8 Comments

Goodreads Summary:

Every season in Rockton seems to bring a new challenge. At least that’s what Detective Casey Duncan has felt since she decided to call this place home. Between all the secretive residents, the sometimes-hostile settlers outside, and the surrounding wilderness, there’s always something to worry about.

While on a much needed camping vacation with her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, Casey hears a baby crying in the woods. The sound leads them to a tragic scene: a woman buried under the snow, murdered, a baby still alive in her arms.

A town that doesn’t let anyone in under the age of eighteen, Rockton must take care of its youngest resident yet while solving another murder and finding out where the baby came from – and whether she’s better off where she is.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong again delivers an engaging, tense thriller set in perhaps the most interesting town in all of contemporary crime fiction.

My Thoughts:

I can’t say enough how much I love these series! I think the whole concept is brilliant, and in every book, Armstrong keeps growing this idea, adding in more layers and considerations. I love the characters, the setting, the overall idea and plot arcs – and this book was no exception.

This book begins with finding a baby in the snow, wailing away tucked in the arms of a murdered woman. A horrifying situation anywhere you go, but in the middle of the Yukon it takes on a whole new meaning, a place with little to no services other than what you can do for your own survival outside of your chosen town or community. Because that is the other big thing that happens in this book; we finally get to visit all the neighbors, and you find that Rockton isn’t really as completely isolated as one might think. There are a lot of people roaming about that wilderness, despite all the isolation.

Casey of course knows that she needs to find where this baby comes from, and she and Dalton embark on many excursions into the wild, visiting the few neighboring villages and encampments. I will say, that was the only kind of slow part in this book, all the repetitiveness of them going out again and slogging through the snow and woods. It made sense, but I guess I felt I was too much a part of that part of the journey. But we meet so many new characters – in fact in this book, we see far less of the Rockton residents as Casey and Dalton trek all over the Yukon practically solving the mystery behind the baby. The story that unfolds is fascinating and keeps you guessing. We also learn a few new things about Casey, and about Casey and Dalton as a couple in this book, as we watch them evolve.

I loved this book and I am really looking forward to the next one already!!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance copy in return for an honest review!

My Sunday-Monday Post!

On January 5, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized31 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Phew, it was a a busy two weeks! I had a good time but I am so ready to finally get totally back into our normal routine. I love the holidays but they are also exhausting lol. I am not a go-go-go person and I had a very go-go-go two weeks. We did get a hike in Saturday morning, which was very chilly after the warm weather we have been having but it was great to get outside together. New Year’s Eve my brother’s family came over for a low key celebration and it was so nice – we had soup and bread and cake, the kids played, we listened to music and chatted. It was a good time. The in between days we had little get togethers with people which were fun as well. But tomorrow, we go back to our normal lives – school, work, chores, etc. However, I am getting together with my sister-in-law Chrissy to have coffee and strudel and look at seed catalogs together. I am very excited to get planning!

Read Last Week:

I didn’t manage to finish anything! I did start three books though – I was a bit scattered and all over the place. I am halfway through both of these though, and will be done with The Secret Life of the Owl today, and probably will finish Winterwood tomorrow. So I am counting them in last week, since I won’t really be reading them this week.

Reading This Week:

I am keeping it light and easy this week, just what I need.

Watching:

We were in a funk after finishing Shetland, but thank goodness Netflix came through! We have been watching Lost in Space Season 2 and starting last night, Anne with an E.

Posted Last Week:

Currently…January

Hello, January!

2020 Nonfiction Reader Challenge

How about you guys? What is going on in your world?

2020 Nonfiction Reader Challenge

On January 4, 2020 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized16 Comments

I am so excited to be signing up with Book’d Out’s Nonfiction Reading Challenge! Last year I started to read a bit more nonfiction and this year I would like to read more. I struggled with which level to choose though, but in the end I have decided to try for the Nonfiction Nibbler level, which is 6 books from any category, Since one of the categories is Nature, and I am joining a nature reading book club this month, I hope to more than reach that goal, although I am aiming to read from more than just that one particular category. I am also going to begin tracking my nonfiction reading for the year, and this will be a big help!

If you are interested, here are the details!

Select, read and review a book from the categories listed below during the year for a total of up to 12 books. A book may be in print, electronic or audio format.

Choose a goal:

Nonfiction Nipper : Read 3 books, from any category

Nonfiction Nibbler : Read 6 books, from any category

Nonfiction Know-It-All : Read 12 books, one for each category

* You can choose your books as you go or create a list in advance. You may combine this challenge with others if you wish. Use your best good faith judgement as to whether a book fits the category or not.

* Where a book is identified by more than one category, it may only count for one, not both.

* You can read your chosen titles in any order, at any pace, just complete the challenge by December 31st 2020