As I recall, my local library when I was a kid (shout-out to the Thornhill Branch of the St. Louis County Public Library!) had a summer reading program for youth for which the goal was reading fifty books. Can this be right? You’d add a metallic star sticker to a big public chart each time you read one, and you’d get […]
Author Archives: Lynne Nugent
April
14
Children’s Books I Hate (And My Son Loves)
posted by Lynne Nugent
When we visit the children’s room of the library, I gravitate toward the shelf of Caldecott winners: those inventively written and gorgeously illustrated books that I often remember from my own childhood. But ever since he’s had the power to move around independently, my son has toddled elsewhere. I know nothing about children’s book publishing, but there’s a class of […]
March
16
Continuing Ed
posted by Lynne Nugent
When I graduated with my PhD, I vowed never again to take any more classes in my life, except in yoga or perhaps felting. Soon enough, however, I found myself hearing about friends’ syllabi and thinking, “That sounds like an amazing class!” and feeling a twinge of nostalgia for my student days. And now I’ve […]
January
29
Lettered Ladies Book Club: Tolstoy and the Purple Chair
posted by Lynne Nugent
Although I have yet to deliver an unqualified rave of a book in this blog (except for the occasional children’s book), I swear I’m not a book snob. To prove this, I will now make a confession that could forever destroy my credibility in certain circles: I enjoyed Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. Though it’s been […]
January
16
Speechless
posted by Lynne Nugent
Sometimes, when I’m reading aloud to my three-year-old, especially if it’s something I’ve read ten thousand times before, I’ll go the teeniest, tiniest bit into autopilot. So while I’m saying this— I would not like them here or there. I would not like them anywhere. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do […]
November
29
Base and Superstructure in Bringing Up Bébé
posted by Lynne Nugent
I swear, I really do read Serious Literature from time to time. But lately I can’t seem to get enough of well-to-do ladies giving me life tips (hello, Lean In). The latest of this hybrid genre of self-help/memoir/journalism/ gossip/aspirational lifestyle manuals to cross my nightstand is Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers […]
October
25
Little Free Library Find: Marry Him
posted by Lynne Nugent
So I stopped at my nearest Little Free Library (do you have these where you live? They are fantastic) while on a walk with my son, and while there were no children’s books that day, there was a battered ex-library copy of the 2010 book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, […]
September
23
Beatrix Potter: Adorable Woodland Creatures or Stuff of Lifelong Nightmares?
posted by Lynne Nugent
When I was young, I was given The Tale of Peter Rabbit as part of an Easter basket, and that was basically all I knew of Beatrix Potter for most of my life. I kept Peter with my other books from childhood for decades, only rediscovering it when I was searching for something new to […]
September
03
Leaning In without Falling Over
posted by Lynne Nugent
The only thing that stuck in my head from the media chatter that surrounded the release of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead earlier this year was the tidbit that Sandberg refuses to disclose the details of her childcare arrangements. Oh sure, I thought, this millionaire lady encourages ordinary […]
August
16
Verklempt
posted by Lynne Nugent
Herewith, three picture books that have made me, an emotional new-ish mother, secretly choke up a little while reading them aloud to my son. Not because they make me sad, but because they make me happy. Yep, it’s like that around here. And in the case of the first of them, I get misty every […]
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