The RAHM Report for 1/8/18

What My Kids Are Reading

Friday's RAHK Report covers my four-year-old's recent enjoyment of Amahl and the Night Visitors and Carolyn Haywood, my two-year-old's love for Richard Scarry, and the baby's new indestructible book.

What I Finished Reading

• The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
  I started this when I learned about #TheDarkisReading on Twitter, and I really loved it. My review, which focuses a lot on the Christian themes I see in the book, and on the character of Hawkin in particular will publish to the blog tomorrow (Tuesday).
• The Box of Delights by John Masefield
  My husband recommended this book to me, and though it had a lot in common with The Dark is Rising, I found it more difficult to follow. My review is not yet scheduled, but I expect it to be in a week or two. 
• Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky
  I had mixed feelings about my first adult book of the year. My review is on Goodreads. 

What I'm Currently Reading 

• The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
  I had this book out of the library for six weeks total, and never made it past the Introduction. Now it's gone back to the library and I'm about a third of the way through the first edition of the book, which I found on Open Library. It's really good, and I'm looking forward to my book club's discussion coming up in mid-January. 
• By Your Side by Kasie West
  I was in the mood for something light and quick to balance out the longer and more demanding books I've been reading to start the year. I've been meaning to try Kasie West, and when I saw that this book was about two teens being stuck in a library together, I was sold. I'm approaching the halfway point, and so far I'm a fan. There has already been an unexpected turn of events that took me totally by surprise and I'm eager to see how all the threads of the story are resolved. 
• Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs
  I have been carrying this around all week, but have only read a few chapters. So far I am excited to learn more about Tempe's childhood and I'm so curious as to how her lost childhood friend will figure into the plot. 
• Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene
  I'm reading this for the Family Tree Challenge, where the goal is to read books published in the year of family members' births. There wasn't much published in 1933 (when my grandma was born) that interested me, but then I found this on OpenLibrary and decided it was perfect. I've only just started it, but I'm pretty sure I will like it more than the original Hardy Boys book I read this fall. 

Challenge Progress

I haven't made an official post about all the challenges I'm doing yet (it's coming next week), but I have individual posts for each one linked in the sidebar. This week, I have already made some progress on a few of them:

• For the A to Z Reading Challenge, I've covered A (Amahl and the Night Visitors), B (The Box of Delights), and D (The Dark is Rising). These same three books are my first three reads for Old School Kidlit 2018. 
• For the Alphabet Soup Challenge, I completed I (Indemnity Only). Indemnity Only is also my first book for the Cloak and Dagger Challenge, the Library Love Challenge, the Family Tree Challenge (1982, the year of my own birth!), and the Writing Reviews challenge 
• I've also crossed three items off the checklist for the Linz the Bookworm Challenge: a book under 300 pages (The Box of Delights), a book that takes place around a holiday (The Dark is Rising), and A children's book  (Amahl and the Night Visitors). 

Readathons

Finally, I'm participating in two read-a-thons this month. Winter's Respite is new to me, and it runs for the entire month. Bout of Books, which I participate in every time it is offered, starts tomorrow and runs all week. For the first time, I've decided to post my Bout of Books progress to Twitter instead of making a daily blog post. I'll summarize what I read for the readathon in next Monday's post!

I'll be linking up today with Unleashing Readers/Teach Mentor Texts and Book Date for It's Monday! What Are You Reading?