Category Archives: discussions

discussions, miscellaneous 'bookish' things, personal life

birthdays, cookies, & ida b

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Hey, guys! There’s so much to talk about, so many things to think about… ugh, and when I just caught settled on the couch to type everything out, I realized I need my phone and it’s all the way in my room…. *sigh.* Is it lazy to not want to get up and go to the other room for my phone? Especially when I just ate myself full of pizza and cookies? Aye, aye, aye…. okay, I’m back. I got off the couch, went to my room, looked around for my phone… and found it in my back pocket.

Several things happened/are happening this week…

1.) Yesterday was my mom’s birthday! We went to Best Buy to get her a new phone, then to Chick-Fil-A for lunch, and for dinner we went to a Japanese/Hibachi place with my cousins. =) I also tried out a new hair style yesterday – I did a ‘milkmaid braid’ (here’s the tutorial I used – I love Cute Girls Hairstyles!) and I loved it! I took a picture to send to my cousin, and I had a photo-bomber…

emily

2.) I baked home-made chocolate chip cookies! I was going to do a recipe from a MDBC book, but since my cousin is borrowing my copy of the 1st book, I didn’t use one from the books. (And I didn’t find a recipe I had the ingredients for in the other books.) But I did find a recipe on Pinterest (you can find that here). I made the cookies kind of small, so I had a good bit of dough left. The recipe said it could be frozen for up to 3 months, so I froze the dough and I’m going to make some more today!

emily

3.) Later today my family and I are going to the movies to see Do You Believe, and I’m so, so, so excited to see it! It looks super good!

4.) I finished Ida B by Katherine Hannigan this week! It was so cute and really good. I’ll probably be posting the review in a few weeks. (All of my reviews are posted at least a week after I’ve finished it.) Ungifted by Gordon Korman and One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullay Hunt are coming your way soon!

emily

5.) For the Bookish is turning ONE in twelve days! I’m still figuring what to do to celebrate. (A celebration is in order, of course.) At first, I was going to twelve posts everyday for twelve months of blogging. But I don’t know if I would be able to pull it off, and it was very last-minute. There WILL be some really cool posts, though, including an interview with my little sister, a guest post from one of my favorite blogger (Audrey @ The Measure of a Book), my very own tag, a year of bookish-ness in review, and TWO 5-star reviews! So get ready for some of that headed your way!

How was your week? Are you looking forward to For the Bookish’s one-year blogoversary celebration? Tell me below!

Emily

 

discussions, miscellaneous 'bookish' things

do you re-read books?

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I am a total re-reader. I go back to books time and again. That’s partly why I have a shelf dedicated my to my favorite books on my bookshelf – so I can easily find my old friends and read them again. But lately, I’ve been so focused on reading new books to reach a certain goal or post a review, I haven’t re-read a book in a long time.

Every time I re-read a book, my family always asks me why I re-read them. My little sister once told me re-reading books was a waste of time unless you really love the book. “Of course, Anna,” I told her. “That’s why I re-read books.” Because I really love them. After all, if a book isn’t worth the re-read, was it worth the read?

emily

Sometimes, though, I re-read books when I’m in between books I’m currently reading. If I don’t have a book I want to read or haven’t read, I pick out a book to re-read. This way while I figure out book I haven’t read I’m going to read next (there are sooo many to choose from! I never know what to read next!), I can still re-visit an old friend I haven’t read in a while.

I like to re-read books because I notice things I didn’t before. I realize “Ohhh, that’s what she meant in the prologue!” or “What? That character actually appeared as a minor character in the beginning??” And I feel like I get a better appreciation for the author, especially being a writer, and wanna-be-author (haha!) myself. It’s like re-watching favorite Disney movies. You notice Rapunzel and Flynn at Elsa’s coronation, or a wanted poster for Hans in Big Hero 6, and it’s really exciting because it’s the little things you notice the second time around.

emily

For me, books hold memories as well. When I think of The Babysitters’ Club books, I think of the summer my family and I went to Charleston, South Carolina, and I read four books in one weekend. When I think of Interrupted by Rachel Coker, I think of my first year of middle school and how nervous I was the first couple of weeks, holding my copy of Interrupted by me as I walked down the halls or got off the bus. When I think of The Main Street series, I think of the third grade and tearing up in class and my teacher asking me what was wrong and I told her about the two girls who had just become orphans and how sad it made me. So re-reading books, for me, at least, is almost a little nostalgic.

Do any of you re-read books? Why or why not? =)

Emily

discussions, miscellaneous 'bookish' things

why my favorite books are my favorites

15 Comments

Hey, everyone! First of all, I apologize for not posting the past couple of days, and this post being sort of late in the day. Wanna know why I’ve done this weekend/in the past few days I haven’t posted? SQUAT. I’ve been really lazy lately, and procrastinating nearly everything, but today was actually pretty productive.

Anyway, today I thought I’d talk about my favorite books, but a little differently. I thought I’d talk about why my favorite books are my favorite books. (Because if I shared all of my favorite books, this post would be a five part series, ha!)

emily

You see, I’ve loved books since I didn’t even know how to read. In fact, there’s a whole page in my baby album with pictures of me reading books – with my parents, grandparents, by myself. When I got older, I’d make up the story to go along with the pictures in books and “read” them to my parents and stuffed animals! I’ve been a story teller even before I could read words. You could say I was born with a passion for stories.

emily

I especially love stories about people. That doesn’t mean I don’t read the occasional book about an animal every now and then… (Like Janette Oke’s Animal Friends books or Charlotte’s Web, and my all-time favorite, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?) But I love reading books about young girls like me, or their grandmothers and great-grandmothers. I like books where a person goes on a long journey or adventure – not like outer space adventure, like a personal, deep adventure to find out who they are. Books like Coutdown, Out of my Mind, Counting by 7’s, Interrupted, Waiting for Normal. I know I sound rather dramatic, but I yearn for books like those.

emily

I also know this sounds silly, but I LOVE, love, love books that make me cry. Because life is full of tears. (When your friend hurts your feelings, or when you get an unfortunate white elephant gift and you have a meltdown over not getting chocolate… lol!)

I love reading about experiences and people I haven’t met or experienced. Of course, I still hope to experience new things and travel to new places and meet new people. Like Benjamin Franklin says, “Either write things worth the reading or do things worth the writing.” 😉

Here’s a list of my favorite books! I definitely recommend them all!

  1. Interrupted by Rachel Coker
  2. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield
  3. Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards
  4. The Family Tree series by Ann M. Martin
  5. A Corner of the Universe by Ann M. Martin
  6. A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff
  7. Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson
  8. Penny From Heaven by Jennifer L. Holm
  9. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  10. The Giver by Lois Lowry
  11. Countdown by Deborah Wiles
  12. Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor
  13. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  14. The Mother/Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick
  15. The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine
  16. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
  17. The Candy Makers by Wendy Mass
  18. The Fences Between Us by Kirby Larson
  19. Faith, Hope, & Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
  20. The Main Street series by Ann M. Martin

Emily