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The Currently Reading Podcast

Episode 3 - Wherein We Go Wild For Middle Grade Fiction

The Currently Reading Podcast

Meredith Schwartz

Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2018

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Meredith and Kaytee are back in your earbuds for more bookish chat.  

You'll hear a "bookish moment of the week" from each of us – something readerly in our lives that we want to highlight, and a few of the books we've finished reading lately. Then we'll chat about what's next up on the TBR pile.

This episode we truly begin to show our love for middle-grade fiction. We hadn't planned it this way, but we recommend a plethora of fantastic titles for your kids - or for the lover of kit lit in you.

Next, we both divulge our worst bookish habits, and chat a little bit about how we try to "combat" those habits. 

We finish up with A Book (yep, capitalized) that we'd like to put into every reader's hands: something that has consistently ranked on our favorites list or been well-beloved by the people in our lives that we've convinced to read it. Perhaps it will become one of your favorites as well.  

Time-stamped show notes are below with references to every book we mentioned in this episode. If you'd like to listen first and not spoil the surprise, don't scroll down! 

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1:08 – Great Illustrated Classics, especially Robin Hood

2:30 – Robin Hood book giveaway on Instagram 

3:00 – Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

3:09 – Lunch Money by Andrew Clements 

3:30 – Audible subscription 

3:53 – Charlotte's Web by E.B. White 

3:57 – The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary 

4:09 – Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney 

4:38 – Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume 

5:10 – Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great by Judy Blume 

5:59 – The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley 

8:45 – The City Baker's Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller 

9:32 – The Late Bloomer's Club by Louise Miller 

10:04 – The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan 

10:07 – How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry 

10:51 – War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 

12:10 – Jane Austen 

13:34 – Nevermoor: The Tales of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend 

14:50 – Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling 

14:53 – The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis 

15:18 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 

18:52 – These is my Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine by Nancy Turner 

20:25 – Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder 

22:33 – Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist 

24:13 – Jen Hatmaker 

24:24 – The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown 

24:30 – Daring Greatly by Brene Brown 

24:57 – A Mother's Reckoning by Sue Klebold 

25:25 – The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley 

25:30 – So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo 

25:45 – Bahni Turpin narrator 

26:16 – This Could Hurt by Jillian Medoff 

28:52 – Serial Reader App 

30:04 – The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas 

30:08 – The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 

34:20 – Matilda by Roald Dahl 

36:40 – Louise Penny Inspector Gamache Series 

36:58 - Still Life – first in Inspector Gamache series 

37:06 – Deborah Crombie series 

37:49 – Inspector Thanet Series by Dorothy Simpson 

39:03 – The Night She Died – first in Inspector Thanet series 

*Please note that all book titles linked above are Amazon affiliate links. Your cost is the same, but a small portion of your purchase will come back to us to help offset the costs of the show. Thanks for your support!*  

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the Currently Reading Podcast. We're two bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently

0:15.8

And you should know we will not shy away from having strong opinions so be ready. I'm Meredith

0:21.5

Monday Schwartz a mom of four and full-time CEO living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

0:26.4

And books have been my escape since age four.

0:29.4

And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mama four who are all aged eight and under. We live in New Mexico and I read so that my kids don't make me lose my mind every day.

0:38.5

This is episode number three and we're so glad you're here.

0:41.0

All right Katie I am so glad that we are in episode three.

0:45.4

This is getting more and more fun as we go along.

0:48.1

So, okay, let's start with our bookish moment of the week.

0:52.3

Do you have one? What was your your

0:54.0

highlight of this last week? So I was thinking about this earlier this morning and I

0:59.7

was super excited to remember the the amazing gift that one of my husband's old

1:06.1

patience gave to us it is a collection of great illustrated classics books and the reason it was such a special gift for me and the reason it came up

1:15.3

this week is because my son was going through them today trying to pick what book he wanted to take with

1:21.7

us on our road trip that we're leaving for today.

1:24.8

And I remember doing the exact same thing when I was his age with our collection of great

1:32.3

illustrated classics at my parents house.

1:34.1

So it was just a super fun way to like connect his childhood reading experience to mine.

1:40.7

And they're a really fun set of books that are they're abridged so they're easy for like younger readers to get into you and and they have like one of everything seriously.

1:52.0

Oh wow this gift was so special from like one of everything seriously. Oh, wow.

1:52.8

So this gift was so special from my patient,

1:55.7

or my patient, my husband's patient.

...

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