Happy Birthday to ME!

This is 46! 

Here's to another trip around the sun! 🌞

 

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Wishes

 This week's topic is book wishes - books we wish Santa would leave under the tree for me.

These will all be books coming out next year:

The upcoming ones from Meg Cabot:

No cover yet: Detective Baby: Dance Team Drama

Lauren Castillo's Hedgehog Book #3 (no cover yet)

Falling Like Snow by Misty Wilson (no cover yet)

Any of these on your TBR too?

Middle Grade Review: The Taylors

 

Four girls meet in middle school (5th grade). Each of them is named Taylor - named our course after the greatest singer ever! Three of them have nicknames: Teffy, Tay-Tay, and TS. They bond over their love for their namesake. 

Soon, they start hanging out and quickly become a foursome. They desperately want to attend the ERAS tour when it comes to town, but the tickets are outrageously expensive. They start a friendship bracelet making business in hopes to raise enough money. The Taylors make a pact to go tother or not at all. Will their biggest wish come true?

My Thoughts: This is the first in a new series about these four best friends. I love how they came together in their own little meet-cute. I love how they start connecting and supporting each other. They help each other become better. There are some mean girl moments, lots of friendship drama, lots of Taylor Swift references, and many school moments. I love how everything tuned out for these friends. 

And the books continue with the girls four years later as they start high school:

Cover Thoughts: Adorable!

Source: My Library

Why I Read This: Taylor Swift and friendship and Jen Calonita 

Give this to: Readers who love Taylor Swift and friendship drama

Library Recommendation: A must have book in your school and public library for all our Swiftie Readers!

Picture Book Review: Winter Solstice Wish

 

It's officially winter now!

On the shortest day of the year, people come together to celebrate and make a wish. 

This is a lovely story with great illustrations.

Do you have a wish for the solstice?

TBR Check-in: Fall Books

Read:

Currently Reading:

Not Read Yet, but Checked out from the Library:

 

 

How did you do with your TBR list? 

In the Footsteps of Jane Austen

I spent a semester in Bath England, during which I got to see some amazing sights:

In Bath: 

1. The Assembly Rooms where Jane Austen danced (top right) and the fashion museum

2. The Pump Room where people would go to "drink" the water and be seen

3. The streets where she would walk and shop

4. The Roman Baths

5. The Jane Austen Museum

6. The Royal Crescent and the Circus 

7. Bath Abbey 

8. Sally Lunn's Buns

I wasn't as adventurous as I should have been and I'm hoping to travel back there soon.

There was also an outbreak of foot and mouth while I was there, so some places were off limits. 

Chawton Cottage (bottom left)

I saw the famous small desk and chair where she wrote

2. The Gardens (middle right)

Winchester:

The outside of the house where she died (see pictured above bottom right). It's a private home.

The Cathedral where she's buried and where there's a floor slab dedicated to her

First Edition:

The middle picture happened a few years later, that's a first edition of Pride and Prejudice. 

Places to see before I die:

Chatsworth 

Lyme-Regis and that staircase

The Peak District 

Steventon 

Top Ten: Jane Austen Books I Want to Read

Happy 250th Birthday Jane Austen!

 Here are 10 retellings that I want to read:

Time travel back to Jane Austen's time - adult

YA Pride and Prejudice: with Georgiana Darcy

YA retelling of Sense and Sensibility 

Modern Adult Pride and Prejudice

YA retelling of Pride and Prejudice 

Modern Adult Persuasion 

Modern Emma retelling  

Historical mystery with Pride and Prejudice 

Nonfiction: celebrating her life

Authors who influenced Jane Austen

Places in Jane Austen's world

A bit older, but a travel guide to Jane Austen's England. 

Have you read any of these? Do you have other suggestions for me?