When I was younger,  I would religiously write down everything I read in my little black notebook:

readingrecord
(Note how well read I was at 18; I am quite surprised myself! This must have been, unconsciously, my summer of betterment)

Family life and the Internet seem to have got in the way of doing this regularly and I find myself having neglected my beloved notebook for quite a while. I have nonetheless encouraged both my children to keep a reading record as I have. My daughter does, my son, well …
Anyway, no one is getting any younger and I have been finding myself forgetting some of the books I have read. But then I read fellow blogger Jake Hayes’ wonderful post  50 Children’s Books to Save My Life, which was inspired by Andy Miller’s fabulous The Year of Reading Dangerously, which I went on to read and loved. It made me think of all the books I had read, those I remembered and those I’d forgotten (including it seems many of the ones I had read in summer 1993!). So I decided to attempt to start again, and resume keeping a reading record, though trying something new and keep  a photographic record instead. I decided to do so this after reading  Melanie Fuemmeller’s really interesting post on Nerdy Book Club: A Reader’s Notebook: Letting Books Live.

As the post was published half-way through July, the below is possibly not a true representation of what I read last month, at least on the picturebook front.

julyreading

 

You see, the other think is I am not a really fast reader, so while some of my lovely bookish friends, bloggers and others, might read several books a week, I sometimes struggle to go through one. That’s not a confession by the way, I don’t feel ashamed of this. I think however that some people (and all my students it seems) think that being a book lover equals to reading a lot of books. I often tell those of my students who struggle that sometimes I hardly read at all, because I simply don’t feel like it. It is a bit like eating chocolate really; sometimes I will turn down offers of chocolate, and yet I am definitely a chocolate lover.
Anyway, I digress again! My other (mid-year) resolution is to read two picturebooks a day so I can keep on top the TBR pile.  So hopefully this will become a monthly post. *Hopefully*

July 2015 Reading

* Marie-Aude Murail ~ 3000 façons de dire je t’aime (L’école des loisirs)
* Michelle Magorian & Sam Usher ~ The Smile (Barrington Stoke)
* Emily Gravett ~ Where’s Bear? (Macmillan Children’s Books)
* Emily Gravett ~ Go Fishing (Macmillan Children’s Books)
* Polly Faber & Clara Vulliamy ~ Mango & Bambang: The Not-a-Pig (Walker Books)
* Rachel Cohn & David Levithan ~ Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares (Mira Ink)
* Alex T Smith ~ Claude: Lights! Camera! Action! (Hodder Children’s Books)
* Jenny Downham ~ Unbecoming (David Fickling Books)
* Andy Miller ~ The Year of Reading Dangerously (4th estate)
* Rose Lagercrantz & Eva Eriksson (translation: Julia Marshall) ~ When I Am Happiest (Gecko Press)
* Timothée de Fombelle ~ Le livre de Perle (Gallimard Jeunesse)
* Chris Gorman ~ Indi Surfs (POW!)
* Karma Wilson & Jane Chapman ~ Bear Counts (Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)
* Bob Staake ~ My Pet Book (Andersen Press)
* Sarah Garland ~ Eddie’s Tent (Frances Lincoln)
* Yasmeen Ismail ~ I’m a Girl! (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
* Tom McLaughlin ~ The Cloudspotter (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
* Emily Hughes ~ The Little Gardener (Flying Eye Books)
* Marc Martin ~ Max (Templar)
* Anna McQuinn & Rosalind Beardshaw ~ Lulu Loves Flowers (Alanna Books)
* Gemma Merino ~ The Cow Who Climbed a Tree (Macmillan Children’s Books)
* Emma Carlisle ~ Lion Practice (Macmillan Children’s Books)
* Simona Ciraolo ~ Whatever Happened to My Sister? (Flying Eye Books)
* Kes Grey & Nikki Dyson ~ Zippo the Super Hippo (Macmillan Children’s Books)
* Beatrice Alemagna ~ The 5 Misfits (Frances Lincoln)
* Beatrice Alemagna ~ Fluffy Squishy Itty Bitty (Thames & Hudson)
* Davide Cali &  Raphaëlle Barbanègre ~ Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs (Tundra Books)
* Courtney Dicmas ~ Home Tweet Home (Templar)
* Michael Foreman ~ The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army! (Andersen Press)
* Britta Teckentrup ~ Get Out of My Bath! (Nosy Crow)
* Kay Maguire & Danielle Kroll ~ Nature’s Day (Wide Eyed Books)