In the ebb and flow of a year and within that a school year, there are days, weeks, and months that are chill and others that you wish you had an additional few hours or few hands. The balance of personal and professional living is necessary. So is adequate sleep. Yet, my identity is a reader. So reading is always in the background.

Here are some titles that I’ve been reading in that background…

• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
  • A fabulous narrative nonfiction to teach the average citizen about the community of fungi that sustain our world.
• The Leak by Kate Reed Petty
  • This middle grade graphic novel is an adorable mashup of Goldie Vance with the power of Erin Brockovich.
• Smashed by Junji Ito
  • Horror manga? I was scared reading it in broad daylight eating lunch in the school library.
• Allergic by Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter
  • A hopeful middle grade graphic novel that allows those with allergies to be seen.
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
  • As I mentioned in my Goodreads review– I’m already a subscriber to the importance of sleeping well, but this still provided plenty of thought-provoking elements about the evolution of sleep and changes that need to be made in our screen-loving new age.
• Switch by A.S. King
  • The queen of the indirect, King’s new YA novel feels so 2020 it’s scary.
• Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen
  • When I read this, it was what I needed as a mental break because of the humor it possesses, yet it still taught me about the science of getting better, warts and all…
• Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
  • The hype is spot-on. Get ye to the store to buy this new magical middle grade series.
• Having and Being Had by Eula Biss
  • I like a good essay collection and this one had plenty of ponder.