The Long Winter

January is bringing arctic temperatures to western Wisconsin, which always makes me think of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her novel (my favorite) The Long Winter. It’s a survival story: Laura’s family, and the entire town of De Smet in Dakota territory, nearly starved and froze to death. Trains couldn’t get through the snow and ice to deliver supplies.

On February 6, I’m leading a multi-age book club featuring The Long Winter at the Hudson Library. Space is limited, so sign up soon!

Meanwhile, here’s a look at why those trains never made it. Fun times!

My 2017 reading list

I don’t write often enough about the books I’m reading. Time flies, you know. This year, I decided to track what I’m reading in a book journal. Now I can’t find the journal. That’s how I roll.

From memory, I’m recreating the list, which I think is accurate, give or take a few. One or two might be end-of-the-year 2016, and I’m sure I missed a few.

First, I want to highlight a book I finished last night: It Looks Like This by Rafi Mittlefehldt. My 13-year-old daughter handed it to me with a demand to READ IT NOW. So I did. It sounds pretentious to say a book is “profound” and “important,” but damn, this book is a profound and important story about a boy’s sexual awakening and the disturbing events that follow.

When you’re an author, you go through fits of author envy, shaking your head and thinking, I wish I wrote this well. I have a severe case of Mittlefehlt envy. Buy it. Read it. Share it. Read it again. Thank me sometime during the process.

Now, here’s a list of my reading material from 2017, in no particular order, and not including picture books:

It Looks Like This by Rafi Mittlefehldt

Pax by Sara Pennypacker

Rain Reign by Ann Martin

Slider’s Son by Rebecca Fjelland Davis

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

The Giver by Lois Lowry

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 1: 1884-1933 by Blanche Wiesen Cook

Magnus Chase: Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Pioneer Girl by Bich Minh Nguyen

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder

When Madeline Was Young by Jane Hamilton

Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler

Found by S.A. Bodeen

The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer L. Holm

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

Big & Little Questions (According to Wren Jo Byrd) by Julie Bowe

Original Fake by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer

Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer

Land of Stories: A Grimm Warning by Chris Colfer

Heal Your Headache by David Buchholz

The Migraine Miracle Diet by Josh Turnkett

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Lunar Chronicles: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Lunar Chronicles: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

What Came From the Stars by Gary D. Schmidt