Getting started

Why Confessions of a Mother Who Reads Too Much?

I always thought it would be a great column name. I would read books and write about them. I'd share how I liked it or didn't. I'd pull out a nugget of wisdom from it to share with the reader. So that's what I hope to do here as well as share about family life and friends.

My reading frenzy began with motherhood. I started reading anything I could find about parenting because being a caring mother was important to me. Our Babies Ourselves by Meredith Small and The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff introduced me to how culture influences how we parent. When my first child turned out to be very spirited I found solace in Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurchinka. But my most favorite parenting book to date is Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn because he supports what I truly believe and what I find most difficult to manifest some days. What our children need most of all is our uncoated love, our unconditional regard even when they do things we don't like, maybe especially when they are doing things we don't like.

I got more books to read when someone at the park was talking about homeschooling their kids, I thought "Huh? Homeschooling what's that?" I read Dumbing Us Down : The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto, Learning All the Time by John Holt, The Hurried Child by David Elkind, and Homeschooling for Excellence by David Colfax, Micki Colfax

When anger got the better of me I read Dance of Anger and Dance of Intimacy by Hariet Learner to learn how to communicate better. My all time favorite communication book is Nonviolent Communication: a language of life by Marshall Rosenberg.

In between the self improvement books I read fiction. I have enjoyed authors: Daniel Quinn, Octavia Butler, and Barbara Kingsolver. Recently I have been enjoying books by Elizabeth Berg when I want to cry and the Stephanie Plum Series by Jean Evanovich when I need a good laugh. And there are the craft books I check out to find activities to do with my kids and the books I read to learn how to crochet, spin, and bead.

What can I say? I like to read and learn new things. I like books. So this blog will be my musings about books I have read in the past and books I will read soon. And how I can keep up with reading and homeschooling two kids who love to learn and at least one of them likes books too.


Categories: books, unschooling