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Book List: May-August 2025

We're 2/3 of the way through the year! Leaves in Minnesota are just starting to change color! Just four months and one day till Christmas! Okay, I'll stop. I, for one, am never sorry to see summer go. But I did read a lot in the past four months! Books marked with an asterisk (*) I listened to on audio.


Adult Nonfiction
*Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator (some adult language)
*When Strivings Cease (Ruth Chou Simons)
Before We Gather: Devotions for Worship Leaders (for Sunday mornings...took me 18 months to finish the 52 weeks...)
*The Day the World Came to Town (stories from a Newfoundland airport on 9/11)


Adult Fiction
Tress of the Emerald Sea
Morning and Evening (Fosse)
Authentically, Izzy (Christian author = safe and sweet, maybe too sweet for me)
The Miracle Man
*Lady Sherlock books 3-5
*As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow (hard but good)
The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
*Never (Follett)
The Nightingale (historical fiction, WWII)


Teen/Tween Lit
Once a Castle (sequel to Once a Queen)
Kareem Between
Preacher's Boy
Tangleroot (in our house, this would be 16+)
In the Tunnel (historical fiction, Korean War)
Starfish
All We Have Left (historical fiction, 9/11, heavy on the teen angst)
The Rock and the River (historical fiction; Civil Rights movement/Black Panthers)
In the Shadow of the Moon (nonfiction, space race)
A Forgery of Fate (Beauty and the Beast through Asian mythology...loved it)


Middle Grade Fiction
The Silver Chair (we always try do at least one Narnia book every summer)
the Wilderking Trilogy (highly recommended for boys especially, ages 10-14)
Impossible Creatures (recommended from everyone in my house)
the Dragon Lord Saga books 1-3 (graphic novels, Christian author)
the Princess and Curdie (MacDonald; sequel to the Princess and the Goblin)
*The Little Prince
Beyond the Swirling Sky (and sequel below)
Between Flowers and Bones (Restorationists series 1-2, recommended by our household)
*The Eyes and the Impossible (SO funny, but one excessive paragraph using OMG on repeat)
*Punch with Judy (Avi)
*Beyond Mulberry Glen
The Sherlock Society (not spectacular, but good for the 9-12yo crowd)
Once for Yes (not as good as Olivetti by the same author, but close)
The Little White Horse (my first Goudge! can't wait to read this with Tessa in a year or two)
*Holes
*The Bletchley Riddle (WWII historical fiction)
The Golden Key (MacDonald)
*The Last Mapmaker (solid middle grade adventure)
Hope in the Valley
The Legend of the Last Library
*Majestica
*My Own Lightning (sequel to Wolf Hollow)
Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody (some sneaky worldview issues, but overall funny and poignant)
Sidekicked (Storyline is fine, but I despise middle school "romance," and it's all throughout. My boys were so irritated by it.)
Torch (third in trilogy by R.J. Anderson, for the upper end of middle grade)
The Saturdays (Enright)
The Railway Children (Nesbit, fine for younger grades)


Middle Grade Nonfiction
the Bard and the Book (history of Shakespeare's folios)
The Wild River and the Great Dam (construction of Hoover Dam)
When Clouds Touch Us (memoir, Vietnam War, sequel to Inside Out and Back Again)


Elementary Books
A Long Road on a Short Day (5 stars from me)
Lost Words (picture book of poetry)
Wildflower Emily (picture book bio of Emily Dickinson)
How Do You Spell Unfair? (true story of the integration of spelling bees)

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