Books Kids Malone Reese The Beard

Best Reads of 2020—From the Whole HoldaFamily

Well, at least we can say it was a good year for reading. I’ve seen a lot of people say they got more into reading with quarantine and time off and pure boredom. Thank goodness we have reading to help us escape when we can’t get on airplanes or even go outside.

Reading took on a sweet new meaning this year as I watched Reese go from sounding out 3-4 letter words to ending the year with full-blown chapter books. She calls them “no-picture books” and Princess in Black are her favorites. My whole life I’ve wanted to read my favorites with my kids, and this stage has finally arrived!

A friend asked about my top favorite reads this year and I thought “Why not share all of them?” I write a lot about what *I* read, but the bulk of our actual library checkouts are for my kids. Ryan also has an audible account and consumes a lot of audiobooks. So here’s everything we loved this year!

Danica

I read 46 books this year, most of them physical books but a handful of ebooks and audiobooks. In November I shared my 9 favorites and I’m adding some honorable mentions by genre for my peeps below.

Top 9

  • This is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving Where You Live by Melody Warnick. I think about this book a lot. In each chapter she covers a topic of belonging and place attachment with her own anecdotal evidence & experimentation.
  • Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish. I bought this one and already need to re-read it. It was helpful for sibling relations, but also completely changed the way I think about my childhood, my siblings, and my parents—in a good and helpful way. Lil’ shot of therapy in book form.
  • The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints by Jacob Hess. This one came highly recommended (read: commanded) by a close friend and two chapters into the library kindle version I had purchased my own copy. It transformed the way I think about prayer, meditation, revelation, and mental health. SO GOOD.
  • The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World by Melinda Gates. This one goes hand in hand with Sex & World Peace, but this one wins the spot because it’s lighter, easier to read, and much shorter. Both cover the idea that we need to improve the status of women globally if we want the world to be a better place. It had my girl power/feminist adrenaline turned up to 11.
  • The Toll by Neal Shusterman. I don’t only read nonfiction. This freaking series is so good and I cannot wait to reread!!!! This is book three and I waited forEVER to read it. It’s very different from the first two but was the most interesting wrap-up to a series I’ve ever experienced. Incredible.
  • The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn. This book probably had the strongest day-to-day impact on my life. She’s a classically trained chef who realized the huge gap between the foodie world and regular, average Americans in the kitchen. She trains nine women in the basics of cooking in this very readable and uplifting memoir. I feel like a completely different person in the kitchen now.
  • Lovely War by Julie Berry. Weirdest premise of any book I’ve ever read, but essentially all you need to know is it’s WWII historical fiction romance. You dive into the love stories of four people trying to survive the war and it’s beautiful and heartbreaking and hopelessly romantic.
  • The Self-Driven Child:The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives by William Stixrud and Ned Johnson. Kinda wanna make every parent read this. Our generation lives in this weird world of online visibility and increased competition, leading us to parent in a very overprotective and overinvolved way. Instead, science shows that we’d do better to be mindfully hands-off. I’m all about independence, but I am also an insane control freak. I’m glad I read this before my kids enter the decade of public school and organized activities.
  • The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd. This is a historical fiction story about the wife of Jesus and it’s just amazing. Took me a second to get into it but then I was blown away. It provides context and culture for everything you know from the New Testament, while telling an empowering story of feminism and pursuing your dreams and passions. Loved.

Honorable Mentions by Genre

Ryan

Ryan listens to a lot of business/startup/tech world nonfiction, but he’s also gotten really into historical nonfiction and now knows even more random facts. He’ll never lose at Trivial Pursuit (except that one time I beat him at Harry Potter trivia).

He also listened to a lot of Star Wars audiobooks but I just can’t.

Reese

  • First Little Comics by Liza Charlesworth. The library has these in a boxed set and Reese loved them! These were the ones that really allowed Reese to feel like she was reading all on her own.
  • The Princess in Black by Shannon Hale. I started with this one trying to get a read-aloud habit going. It worked great until Reese got tired of waiting and decided she could just read it by herself (I’m sad/proud/in love). These are so freaking good. There’s 7 books and Reese got a box set for Christmas and has already read them all multiple times which is ME. AS. HELL.
  • My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett. My parents cleaned out their bookshelves last year and I couldn’t wait to go through all my childhood books to bring home for my kids. I read this aloud to Reese and it was such a sweet, nostalgic experience.
  • Baloney & Friends by Greg Pizzoli. I put this on hold after reading this post by Everyday Reading and Reese became OBSESSED INSTANTLY. She’s been carrying it around and doing the drawings in the back of the book.
  • Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. We are on our second owned copy and Reese still tries to check it out from the library.

Malone

  • Mustache Baby by Bridget Heos. Reese loves this one too. We checked it out like 4x.
  • No, David by David Shannon. Kids really love to see someone else being told “no” don’t they?
  • Now I Am Big by Stephen Krensky. My brother got this Empowerment series for Loney and I love them so much.
  • Vox Books. We recently discovered Vox books at our library—they have this soundbox attached to the book that will read it to your child. Loney is all about it. We grabbed the two on display and have since put more on hold.

I’ll be back soon with a list of the books I plan to read in 2021. Follow along with my Goodreads—I always keep it updated with what I’m reading!

Tags: , , , , ,
by Author dholdy
Comments Off on Best Reads of 2020—From the Whole HoldaFamily

Post navigation

You May Also Like This