With several technology-related problems combining like the perfect storm last month, I wasn’t able to post about my summer reading adventure.

When I was a kid, I would take books up into the woods where I made myself a private place to read. It included a blanket and snacks and the book I was reading that day.

As I turned into a teen, my escape into the woods came to an abrupt end. I was way more comfortable snacking on the couch, and the potential for coming into contact with bugs gave me pause. Plus, I loved staying up late into the night and reading scary stories, and the woods were definitely NOT the place to be.

Now that I’m an adult, I still read just as much. I still get that thrill when I buy a new book. I still get that excited energy when I flip to that first page.

When a reader is born, he or she will never give up that luxury. Ever.

I started volunteering in the elementary school for something called The Book Café—a book club for kids. I was privileged to lead a book discussion with five kids who read the same book I did—Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. (That’s a whole other blog post.)

It got me thinking about instilling that love of reading into children at the earliest ages. I read non-stop with my oldest when she was little. Even though she loved the books, she’s never been my reader. Out of my five kids, two are more like me. I have to beg them to turn the lights off and go to bed. They plead for five more minutes. I shut the door, pretending to be annoyed, but secretly I’m so happy.

They’re like me! ☺

Every summer there are a ton of reading programs for kids. There are even some for adults. My local library was asking adults to read five books during the summer months. I think I covered that. I haven’t given each book a certain amount of stars or rated them in any way. I loved so many of them, but there was only one I didn’t like. But as we well know as readers and writers, books are a personal thing. What one person loves, another hates. What resonates with someone can completely turn another off. So, I won’t judge these books by their covers. I won’t even judge them by their words because words strike different feelings in different readers.

Without further ado, here’s my reading log from this summer:

Sixth Grave on the Edge by Darynda Jones
The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
It’s Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han
We’ll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han
Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg
Waiting on You by Kristan Higgins
The Lonesome Young by Lucy Connors
Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
Six Months Later by Natalie Richards
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

I started the third Outlander book, Voyager, but I’m currently using it as the reward for finishing my own revisions. That plan almost never works, as I was using Darynda’s Sixth Grave as my carrot, and I ate the carrot in one day. The day it arrived. It sat for approximately forty-two minutes on my kitchen table before I decided to read the first chapter as a reward for doing something like fixing one page of dialogue in my WIP. Then I made myself a cup of tea, grabbed a snack and settled in to finish the book.

Of course, that was way more comfortable than trudging through the woods to set up my reading nook.

I’m so glad to be an adult reader…who still continues to keep a summer reading log.  🙂

Anyone have some recommendations for my winter reading log?