Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Sarah.
Holly (00:01):
Hi, Sarah. My name is Holly.
April (00:03):
Hi, Sarah. My name is April.
Speaker 4 (00:04):
I’m in Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 5 (00:07):
I have a question about-
Julie Anne (00:09):
My name’s Julie Anne and we live in India.
Speaker 7 (00:11):
I am wondering-
Krystal (00:12):
Hi, Sarah. This is Krystal from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Speaker 9 (00:15):
Can you give me a suggestion for an especially fabulous book?
Sarah Mackenzie (00:23):
Hey there, I’m Sarah Mackenzie. This is the Read-Aloud Revival. And in this short episode, I’m answering one of your questions. I have been asked quite a bit lately about how I find time for my own reading and also, what are my latest favorites? What have I been reading lately that I want to tell you about? So, I thought it was time to revisit the topic here on the show. We’ve talked about it before. We’re going to talk about it again. There was a lovely voicemail I was going to use in this episode from one of you asking if I keep a list of recommendations of my own favorite personal reading, not reading aloud to the kids but just reading on my own for pleasure. And as I was trying to put that lovely message on this podcast, I accidentally deleted it and was unable to recover the file.
(01:14):
So, me and technology man, fun times, but I’m going to answer the question all the same. Whoever it was who left me that message, thank you for leaving it, and the answer is yes. Yes, I do have a list and I wanted to take this opportunity on the show today to share a few favorites from it, but also to give some tips for boosting your own reading life in easy ways. Because a lot of us want to be reading more, we just don’t think we have time. And maybe reading is something that we used to do and loved it and we just think, “Well, this is not the season,” I’m going to challenge that a little bit. I think it is the season. So, depending on what season of life you’re in, it can feel pretty near impossible to cultivate your own reading life. But I think you can do it.
(01:55):
One of the things I used to hate when we had so many little kids, so I’ll back up a little bit for any new listeners who don’t know. We have six kids and at one point, when the fifth and sixth, the fifth and sixth are twins, when they were born, I had six kids all age 12 and under and the three youngest were all age one and under. No, I’m not misspeaking. We had a one-year-old and we had newborn twins. It was a little bit crazy. One of the things I hated back then is when people, I would hear people say, “Oh, it’s just a season,” right? So, you’d go, and this is something that’s true, right, you’re sleep deprived when you have newborns and you’re not getting much sleep. And you have to remind yourself, “It’s just a season.” Because otherwise, you feel like, “I’m never going to sleep another night in my whole life. I’ll never sleep a whole night again ever.” Right?
(02:42):
That’s how it feels when you’ve lots of little kids especially, reminding yourself that this is just a season that you won’t always be having to wipe everybody’s bottoms and doing every single thing for every human in the house, right? And if you have all kids who are under age 10, I am constantly telling homeschooling moms this, you are at the hardest part right now. Because once they can read on their own and do some school on their own and they’re much more self-sufficient and they can stay home on their own, life gets a lot easier when you can run to the store really quick and leave the kids at home or whatever. So, it is true, it is a season. But we had so many babies back to back that at some point I was like, “It doesn’t really feel like a season. It’s like season after season after season, then after a while, it just starts to kind of feel like a life.” Right?
(03:28):
One of the things that I wanted to figure out is how do I read in this season? How do I not put off all of the things that bring me joy and delight until a future season? And that you can do it, you can read in the season. It might look different than you think and you might have to be a little creative in your strategizing like, “How am I going to make this happen?” And I also think it’s important to remember that reading for pleasure is part of the job. If you are a parent, then reading for pleasure, reading something that you love and just for the fun of it, it’s part of your job description. Really. Because if we want our kids to grow up to be lifelong readers, and to enjoy reading, and to seek out books and reading for pleasure, and joy, and information, and delight, and soul expansion, they’ve got to see us doing it too.
(04:17):
So, I see reading for fun, reading for pleasure as part of my job description. And because of that, it’s always been pretty high on my priority list of something that I’m going to make time for even if I don’t always make time to get to the bottom of the laundry pile. I am not here to guilt anybody into making time for reading if they don’t want to, that’s not my job. But if you’re here, I am betting that you want to find more time for reading in your life. You want to make it happen. So, I’m just going to share a few things that have worked for me. Maybe they’ll work for you, maybe they won’t. You’re in a different season than I am, you’ve got different circumstances than I do. I’m just going to throw out what’s worked for me so that just chatting about it might give you some ideas.
(04:59):
It might help you of ways that you could fit more reading into your own life if that’s something you want. All right? First, I want to talk about that book list that I was asked about. Yes, I do have a list of my own personal favorites on the Read-Aloud Revival website. It’s called Sarah’s Favorites: A Booklist for Mama and it’s separated into different categories, Adult Fiction, YA Fiction which is young adult fiction, Non-Fiction, Middle Grade Fiction which are children’s novels. I think that’s it. And oh, and Great on Audio because I’m a huge fan of listening to audiobooks. It’s my favorite way to read, right? There’s lots of different modes for reading. You can read with your eyes, you can read with your ears, and I really love to read with my ears. Anyway, you can find this whole book list at readaloudrevival.com/recommends.
(05:52):
You’ll also find a link to it in the show notes today. And this is episode 197 so the show notes are at readaloudrevival.com/197. Any specific titles that I mentioned today are going to be in the show notes and then a list to that whole book list in the show notes. So, that’s probably the best place to go, readaloudrevival.com/197. My book list is, that’s just a collection of my favorites. Your mileage is going to vary, you’re going to have different taste than I do, right? I’ve just assembled lists of my own favorites so that you can, if you have similar taste to me, find something that might appeal. One book I just added not too long ago to that list of my own favorites is The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin. I’ve read this book on recommendation from RAR Premium members in our forum.
(06:44):
So, we’ve got this forum inside RAR Premium and it is the best place to get book recommendations. Hands down. And at the beginning of this year, we’ve been talking about all of our favorite reads from last year, from 2021. “What are the books that made you think? And what are the books that made you want to reread it again?” Or, “What are the books you were disappointed in?” It’s been such fun conversations. We’ve had great conversations about those. And I noticed in a lot of other people’s comments in the forum that The Last Bookshop in London came up a lot as their favorite it from the year. So, I thought, “What is this book?” I went and just got it and started reading it and it did not disappoint. Oh my goodness. It is a World War II story set in a London bookshop.
(07:32):
There’s reading aloud happening in bomb shelters. I mean, I can’t make this stuff up, guys. When I read it, I thought this book was written for me. There’s a love story, and letters, and pots of tea, and they call each other terms of endearment like Ducky. I just, it’s pretty much everything I could possibly want in a novel. I love World War II novels, big fan of historical fiction. I would say, if you are a fan of Susan Meissner, who’s my own favorite author, Patti Callahan, or if you loved a book we’ve recommended a lot around here, which is A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus, then The Last Bookshop in London should just go on your list. You are totally going to want to read it. It is an adult fiction novel but there is nothing in there to keep your teens from reading it.
(08:21):
I’d hand it to any kid who’s interested in historical fiction, but probably 12 and up as far as reading level goes. They will enjoy it too. And that is one that I mostly listens to. I tend to toggle back and forth when I’m reading a book like that one. I like to listen to it while I’m walking the dog and folding the laundry and stuff so that way, I can get more reading in. Aha, there’s my first tip. If I’m driving somewhere by myself, if I’m walking the dog, if I’m doing the laundry or the dishes, I will often get in a few more minutes listening to an audiobook. But I also like to read on my Kindle in bed. And so, I don’t do that for very long because I fall asleep because I’m very tired at the end of the day. So, this is a great way for me to keep moving forward.
(09:09):
What I do is I’ll get the book usually from my library, I’ll usually borrow it for my Kindle, from my library, along with the audiobook and I will just listen to it during the day and then I just take note of what chapter I left off on and then, I will read, pick up on that chapter when I go into bed on my Kindle and read and then the next morning, I just check and see, “Where did I leave off?” And I pick it up again and keep going. And I’m able to actually finish a few books that way, toggling back and forth between reading with my ears and my eyes. So, that’s one tip that might help you if you like audiobooks. You could do that with your, it doesn’t have to be switching between audiobook and Kindle, of course, it could just be audiobook and your printed book, your regular book.
(09:54):
But being flexible, with being able to read in multiple formats like that, different modes, can really help you get more reading in. You could also just read two different, completely different books, right? Sometimes I do that. I’m listening to one book on audio and the other book I’m reading with my eyes. And so, I’ll switch back and forth. That’s very normal for me as well. Anyway, there’s a couple ideas. The Last Bookshop in London is what I was really trying to recommend there, by Madeline Martin. I’m betting we’re going to make it an RAR Premium Mama Book Club Pick this summer. Last Bookshop in London, I will put a link in the show notes for you so you can go grab it if that sounded like something you would enjoy. According to a study conducted by the University of Sussex, those who read for six minutes, a measly six minutes, exhibit slower heart rates, less muscle tension and reduced stress levels.
(11:01):
Six minutes, that’s all, and we can see physical proof that reading is calming us, relaxing us, helping our bodies chill, right? Six minutes will give us slower heart rates, less muscle tension and reduced stress levels. Sign me up. I don’t know anybody who couldn’t use a little more of that, right? But how, how do we figure out when to do it? How do we figure out to find those six minutes? There are so many things we already have to do in a day. I feel like most of us are already pretty overwhelmed. So, how can you fit reading into your life in this busy season? One of the ways that has worked for me is to remember that I don’t need half an hour to read. I don’t even really need 20 minutes. I just need like 10. Actually, according to that study, you only need six, right?
(11:50):
But generally, I will shoot for 10 minutes. Do you remember in episode 196, we talked about the power of reading aloud for 10 minutes every other day, right? We talked about how, if you read aloud for 10 minutes every other day, that ends up being 40 hours of reading aloud in a year. So, if you apply this to your own personal reading life and you are to get in 10 minutes of reading every other day, you would read for 40 hours in a year. And that’s a lot of reading, right? So, using that same model here, it can be life-changing. You don’t need a huge chunk of time. So, on my daily to-do list, I have a spot that I check off where it is one of my to-dos, just like it is to do the laundry and load up the dishwasher, all of the other, make dinner, all the other things that you have to do, one of the things on my to-do list is to read for fun for 10 minutes.
(12:47):
Because I know this is good for my kids to see. I know I want them to see me reading for pleasure. I know that they’ve got to see me reading for a pleasure if they’re going to believe all the lip service I give to how wonderful reading is, right? And then, I also know it’s 10 minutes built in that’s going to help me do something that’s good for my body. Because if I’m reading and that reduces my heart rate, and reduces my muscle tension, and lowers my stress levels, that’s all good stuff. So, 10 minutes. So, I will put it on my list, to read for 10 minutes. One of the ways I’ve done this is that it’s been really key for me to develop the habit of picking up my book or my Kindle more often than I pick up my phone. So often, I will find that I have picked up my phone, opened it up and started scrolling and I didn’t even mean to.
(13:34):
Or I open my, I pick up my phone to do something on purpose like I’m going to text my husband, or I’m going to call my mother-in-law, or I’m going to order that thing that I need, whatever it is, right, something that I actually have to do. And then, before I know it, I’ve done that thing and I’m also now clicking around and scrolling here and scrolling there. So, to help me with this, I’ve created a wallpaper that lives on my phone. It’s on my lock screen and it says, “Read instead.” And it just reminds me when I pick up my phone that I probably don’t really want to do something on my phone. I probably want to read. I’m going to put that wallpaper in the show notes so you can use it if you like. All you need to do is go to the show notes, readaloudrevival.com/197, save that picture, save that image as a photo on your phone and then you can make it your wallpaper.
(14:26):
And it can be your lock screen on your phone. So, every time you pick up your phone, you see the, “Read instead” and you’ll go, “Oh, that’s right. I didn’t want to get on my phone.” Sometimes you do. But most of the time, I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s not what I wanted to do.” It’s also handy to just get in the habit of carrying your book around with you. Most of us carry our phones around with us for a large part of the day so we’re already in the habit of having something nearby. If you don’t already have your phone near you, you probably know right where it is. Right? So, I try to, with my phone, keep my book. And I’m most often reading on my Kindle these days so I will have my Kindle with my phone and I just carry it around with me.
(15:03):
So, if I have a minute, if I’m waiting for that pot of water to boil, or if I’m sitting outside of Irish dance waiting for my daughter to come out, or if I go and do the grocery pickup and I’m waiting for the pickup, the drop off people, the delivery people to come out and put in my car, I usually accidentally pick up my phone, remember when I see the image, “Oh yeah. I didn’t want to pick up my phone and scroll, I wanted to read.” And then, I have my book right there and I can just start reading. One thing that I have resistance that I’ve just noticed, I noticed it in myself early on and I’ve noticed it in some others, is this idea of like, “Well, I can’t just read in 10 minutes. It takes me that long to get back into the story.” And I would recommend that you try and fight against that resistance and give yourself a chance.
(15:48):
One of the things we know that technology has done is it has changed the way our brains work, right? It’s changed our attention spans and we kind of need to retrain our brains to be able to focus on something that is not scrollable or like TikTok length, not like a really quick Facebook post length but is longer. And here’s how I recommend you do that. If you’re finding that you have a really hard time getting back into your story, I would recommend trying anyway and then just keep rereading the same thing. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re reading The Last Bookshop in London as an example. And you read for your 10 minutes and then you have to go do something else.
(16:27):
And then, the next day, you go to pick up your groceries and you’re sitting in the grocery store parking lot and you’re waiting for the groceries to come out, so you have your 10 minutes or so and you start reading but you’re like, “I don’t even remember what happened yesterday.” Just go back to where you were yesterday and read it again. Remember that all the good happens while you’re reading. It shouldn’t be our goal to finish books. There’s nothing magical that happens when you finish the book. The good things happen during the process of reading. So, shift your focus to, instead of saying, “I’m going to finish books,” say, “I’m going to read.” And then, it doesn’t matter if you read the same 10 minutes every day for a week until you can train your brain to remember what’s happening and to pay attention to longer form content.
(17:11):
It doesn’t matter if you finish the book, it takes long longer to finish the book because you spent the time reading. Make the goal spending time reading every day, not finishing books. Okay, that’s a huge, huge help to you. And that also takes off the pressure of feeling like you need to understand it the first time you read it or you need to be able to remember what you read the night before. A lot of times I find that at nighttime, I forget everything that happened on the last two pages that I was reading because I was starting to fall asleep and trying to keep my eyes open and reading the sentence two or three times. And like, “I just want to read one more page.” And the next day, I could not tell you what happened down those pages. Just read them again. It’s no big deal. The goal is not to finish books, the goal is to spend time reading.
(18:04):
Another thing that I find very motivating, and your own mileage made vary here, but I really like to keep track of what I’ve read and write it down. I don’t really focus on the number of books, I don’t make it a goal to read a certain number of books, again, this goes back to the fact that I know that all the good comes from the reading and not the having read, the actual act of reading. Also because, by nature, if I start trying to finish a certain number of books, I know I’m going to choose shorter books on purpose for that, I know that I’m going to get frustrated when I have to reread something again or I want to reread a chapter again, which happens a lot with non-fiction books where I go, “Man, I want to read that one more time.” I’m just resistant to that if I’m making it a goal to finish a certain number of books.
(18:53):
So, I don’t have any idea, for example, how many books I read in 2021. I don’t know. That’s not an important metric to me. But I do love collecting the titles in a list. And sometimes, I write a snippet or two. I tend to do that especially for my work here at Read-Aloud Revival because I know if I’m reading a book like, I don’t know, The Last Bookshop in London let’s say, and I want to remember some things to tell you about it or maybe I’m going to recommend it for kids so I want to put age recommendations in there or make note of if there’s any bad language or any problematic content or whatever in any book that I’m reading. I will make some notes in my journal about those things. But even when I don’t do that, I just write down the title, and the author, and the month I finished it.
(19:38):
I don’t even write down the exact date I finished it. I just write, “Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin, January 2022.” And I will oftentimes then also make a few bullet point notes of things I don’t want to forget or things that I want to be able to tell you when I’m recommending the book to you. But you can do that if you want and you don’t have to, of course, right? So, if that sounds like something you think you’d like, I’m only surprised at how many books I forgot that I read. At the end of the year, when I go back and I’m thinking about, “Ooh, what was my favorite book of this last year?” And I look at my bullet journal I’m like, “Man, I totally forgot that I read that book in January. Was that this year?” So, I like having that record.
(20:19):
I typically use my bullet journal. But my friend Anne Bogel from Modern Mrs Darcy and also the What Should I Read Next? Podcast, she has a new reading journal that I will put in the show notes because it is fantastic. It is everything you could possibly want in a reading journal. In fact, I have seen a lot of reading journals over the years and I’ve never seen one that I thought was so excellent. It’s called My Reading Life: A Book Journal, and you can see samples online. I’ll put links to it and I’ll put some samples in the show notes, readaloudrevival.com/197, so that you can see what you record on the pages. It’s very flexible. You can put down your favorite quotes and maybe your overall impressions or things you don’t want to forget.
(21:04):
There’s a rating system if you want to rate the of books. And then, there’s some tools inside the book as well to help you track your habit of reading like just, did you read for those 10 minutes every day in throughout the year? There’s little charts that you can use. And it’s beautiful, and it’s practical, and I’m a huge, huge fan. So, I’m going to put a link to that. It’s called My Reading Life: A Book Journal by Anne Bogel. I’m putting a link in the show notes because I highly recommend it. Okay, so I hope these tips help you. They’re very simple, right? This doesn’t need to be rocket science. You don’t need to make a huge life-changing goal. I think you could add a little bit of reading to your life by doing a few of the things I hope, I’m going to say I hope that you can add a little bit of reading time to your life by doing a few of the things I talked about here.
(21:52):
Using audiobooks to help you read during the day while you’re having to do other things, right, remembering that 10 minutes a day goes a long way, even 10 minutes every other day goes a long way. Using a little snatches and pockets of time that you have. You probably have 10 minutes that you might have scrolled on Facebook or used to sweep the floor again when honestly, you could sweep it tomorrow morning after breakfast and it would be fine, right? If it’s important to you and it is, it should be because it’s part of your job, and I know this because you’re here, then you can probably fit it in and you don’t need to have some hour in the middle of your day that’s your reading hour. I don’t have that. That’s a very difficult thing to have that big of a chunk of time in the middle of your day.
(22:42):
So, if you need to in this season of life, be really creative. Just remember, you don’t need some big, huge chunk of time, right? Use that phone wallpaper if you think it will help you stay off your phone. It’s helpful to me. You are not alone. If you’re like, “Why am I an adult who just keeps picking up her phone?” It’s a thing, a lot of us are doing it. So, just sort of try to short circuit that habit by putting up a little wallpaper. Carry a book around with you. I’m usually reading, I didn’t mention this earlier but I should, I’m usually reading a couple of books at a time. I’m always in the middle of at least one fiction and one non-fiction. So, that’s always happening. I’m always reading one.
(23:20):
Because sometimes when I go to bed at night, I’m in the mood to read non-fiction. And sometimes, when I go to bed at night, I’m in the mood to read fiction. Same thing kind of in the daytime, like anytime I’m reading it, I just sort of pick up the one that I feel like reading. So, reading, having a couple of books going, and that can also help because then you don’t have to always have your one book you’re reading with you, right? You might have a book, if you’re reading two different books, a fiction and a non-fiction let’s say, you could have one that just stays by your bed and then the other one can kind of travel with you during the day and be tucked into your purse or your diaper bag or just be carried around the house with you so that while you’re waiting or you have a few snatches of time, you can fit in a little more reading.
(24:05):
One thing I should have mentioned actually earlier, when I said I have a checkable list, that’s something I check off my list to read for 10 minutes in the middle of the day, I actually often also do this at a certain time. So, for years, I did this at 1:00, 1:00 was the quiet reading time in my house. My kids were all required to go to their rooms and read or listen to an audiobook. Those were their two choices, especially for my pre-readers, they’d listen to an audiobook. And it was that or take a nap. So, that was the only choices they had. They can read whatever they want but they would read what they wanted for that time. It’s their quiet reading time. And I would also have quiet reading time and it would be just 10 minutes. But I’m not allowed to do anything else until I’ve done that 10 minutes of reading.
(24:53):
So, if you’re anything like me, you’ll sit down to do your 10 minutes and you’ll go, “Oh shoot, I forgot that to move the wash from the washer to the dryer. I’d better go do that.” And then, when you do that, you notice that the bathroom garbage is overflowing so you’re just going to take that really quick. And then, the phone rings, and then the door ding bells, and then the baby wakes up from his nap and your reading time is gone, right? So, I don’t let myself do anything else. My assignment for those 10 minutes is to read. I am not allowed to move the wash from the washer to the dryer, I’m not allowed to do a single dish, I’m not allowed to answer the phone, I’m not allowed to do anything for 10 minutes until I’ve done my 10 minutes of reading.
(25:30):
And of course, what would naturally happen many, many times is I would just keep reading. Because the biggest resistance is always just sitting down with the book. You have to overcome that guilt you feel that there’s 15 other things that you should be doing. So, instead, remind yourself, “This is the job. This is a hugely important part of the job of parenting, is being a reader. And I’m only going to be sitting here for 10 or 15 minutes. And I can do that today.” Okay. I hope this has been helpful to you. I’m going to wrap this for today. I definitely want to hear from the kids. So, let’s go over to them and find out what they’re enjoying reading right now. Everything I talked about today is in the show notes, readaloudrevival.com/197. All right kids, take it away.
Leo (26:21):
Hi, my name is Leo, and I just done eight, and I live in Louisville, Kentucky. And one of my favorite books is Swiss Family Robinson. And I like it because they build two tree houses and dig and find a [inaudible 00:26:37] which they live in as a cave.
Amethyst (26:40):
Hello, my name is Amethyst, and I’m seven years old, and I live in San Antonio, Texas. And my favorite book is Our Friend Hedgehog: The Story of Us by Lauren [Causco 00:26:50]. I like the part where Hedgehog is determined to find her friend, Mutty, and she meets friends along the way named Owl, Mole, Beaver, Hedgehog, Chicks, and Hen, and Annika May. I like the part, another part where Beaver is stubborn like Edmund is stubborn and Owl is a leader like William is a leader in A Place to Hang the Moon.
Speaker 13 (27:21):
Hello, my name is [Sarah Sico 00:27:22] and I’m from Bunnell, Florida and I’m seven years old. And my favorite book is Officer Buckle and Gloria. What I like is Gloria is a dog and we really want to get a dog, so.
Laura (27:42):
Hi, I’m Laura. I’m nine years old and I live in North Carolina. My favorite series is The Wing Feather Saga because it’s action and I like adventure series.
Sarah Mackenzie (27:55):
Thanks for listening. If you’ve got a question for an upcoming episode, leave me a voicemail at readaloudrevival.com/message. Until next time, go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books. So many of us feel overwhelmed in our homeschool. There’s a lot to do and it feels like every child needs something a little different. The good news is, you are the best person on the planet to help your kids learn and grow, and home is the best place to fall in love with books. I’m Sarah Mackenzie, I’m a homeschooling mother of six, the author of Teaching from Rest and The Read-Aloud Family. And I’m the host here on the Read-Aloud Revival Podcast.
(28:54):
This podcast has been downloaded over eight million times. And you know, I think it’s because so many of us want the same things. We want our kids to be readers, to love reading. We want our homes to be warm and happy havens of learning and connection. We know that raising our kids is the most important work of our lives. That’s kind of overwhelming, right? You are not alone. In Read-Aloud Revival Premium, we offer Family Book Clubs, a vibrant community and Circle With Sarah coaching for you, the homeschooling mom, so you can teach from rest, homeschool with confidence, and raise kids who love to read. Our Family Book Clubs are a game-changer for your kids’ relationship with books.
(29:49):
We provide you with a Family Book Club Guide and an opportunity for your kids to meet the author or illustrator live on screen. So, all you have to do is get the book, read it with your kids, and make those meaningful and lasting connections. They work for all ages, from your youngest kids to your teens. Every month, our community also gathers online for a Circle With Sarah to get ideas and encouragement around creating the homeschooling life you crave. They’re the most effective way I know to teach from rest and build a homeschool life you love. We want to help your kids fall in love with books and we want to help you fall in love with homeschooling. Join us today at rarpremium.com.
