This week, or so. Recently. Books that we have been reading in the near enough past that I can recall them. You know.

S has been not quite obsessed but definitely returning to Spot books at every opportunity. A few nights recently, when she should have been asleep because TIRED but hasn’t been able to get to sleep because of sisters (and that horrible phase of the overtired-but-can’t-sleep that I abhor), I have found her sitting in bed, quietly looking through a Spot book before tucking it under the bed and flopping like a felled tree and being apparently instantly asleep. She has also been loving Ruby’s Feelings, one of the books in the Ruby Red Shoes world. I haven’t actually read it to her much so she doesn’t have the words in her brain and it irritates E immensely to hear S chattering/reading her own interpretations of the pictures and what the bunny is doing. 

E has continued to impress me with her diverse picks. We’ve had books from different religions, books from different cultures, books with cross-dressing drag queens and non-binary kids. This week’s school library picks: Camilla the Cupcake Fairy, which I have read at least once a night since it came home – which I quite enjoy and it doesn’t make me groan inwardly or cringe or make editorial comments as we go, so, tick – and Speak Up, a graphic novel with an autistic main character and a non-binary side-kick. Without being able to read (much – although she is cracking the code!), E has worked out most of the storyline with only a little bit of help from me. I am impressed. It is from the big kids’ area, and I thought C might enjoy it.

I was right. She devoured it, and there was a whopping great fisticuffs fight when C had about two pages to go and E snatched the book away. I could see both sides, but oof. That was a tough battle. C was devastated not to be finishing her book that was not really her book but she was really into it – straight away. And then we had a big, big, BIG discussion about neurodiversity and different brains and how different brains can manifest itself in different behaviours. It’s been big. C has also been rereading Gangsta Grannies – and I mean, on repeat like a chainsmoker – as well as a few Geronimo Stilton books that are astronomically late back to the local library. Although part of me is always a bit in the zone of, “Why why why is there so much stuff on your bunk” when I go to change the sheets – a question directed at the walls as she is usually at school when I do this – another bit of me is in the zone of, “BOOKS yay keep as many as you like up there I will not impose any limits”.