Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I love that my tween still wants me to read aloud with her, you know? We snuggle up together and enjoy both the story and the time together, and I’m selfishly hoping that she just keeps on wanting it. We finished reading The Stars of Summer together over the weekend–with two sessions in one day because she was absolutely going to DIE if we didn’t find out what happened–and it was a ton of fun. Picking up where All Four Stars leaves off, The Stars of Summer sees Gladys trying to balance her secret career as a food critic with summer camp and getting to know another kid author. Both her swimming and her relationship with her parents improve drastically, but wait–she must also foil a nefarious plot against her AND her editor!

Tara Dairman’s Gladys books are just FUN, folks. We laugh, we wince, and we enjoy the time together; who could ask for anything more? I imagine my tween is super anxious to get the next one, but the rest of us are in various stages of sick at the moment, and so I’m not as excited to read aloud as I usually am. Yesterday I was crazy exhausted and my whole body hurt; my almost 10-year-old son lay down to take a nap today, and my husband’s voice has dropped at LEAST an octave below normal. Thank goodness for cold medicine and Kleenexes! Whether it’s Covid or a miserable summer cold I don’t know, but it stinks. Whichever it is, I hope your household escapes it.