What I'm reading Wednesday...

Fifty-first challenge finish of the year.

This one has been on my Kindle for exactly ten years (September of 2015).  You've already seen its cover picture a couple times lately on 'What I'm Reading Wednesday' posts.  I took my time reading it, because there were other priorities claiming my time.  

I enjoyed it very much.  The dual timeline was handled in a way that I found much less jarring than many others that I have read.  The characters were such that I would enjoy visiting with them over coffee (or another beverage).  I would happily read others by this author.

Fifty-second challenge finish of the year.

I had never read The Secret Garden.  I have heard a lot about it, but had assumed that it was a children's book.  It would be a good book to read aloud to children; I think a child reading it would have to be a pretty advanced reader to read and understand the Yorkshire accent that a lot of it was written in.  It also had some pretty advanced vocabulary.  Its plot dealt with lack of parental attention, improving health by being out in the sunshine and fresh air, exercise and healthy eating, using self-reflection and the will to change to improve our relationships with others, and treating others with respect.  Reading aloud to a child would be a great opportunity to ask them how they felt about how the characters dealt with these topics and changed through the story.

But it is not just a children's book.  I enjoyed it very, very much.  It was a pretty quick read at 281 pages, and I barely put it down.  I did not own this one, and couldn't find an e-book edition with formatting I liked from the library, so I shelled out a whole 69¢ for it from Amazon.

And that brings me to...

...the end of the challenge.  There have been additional prompts introduced through the year that one can carry on with, but I am happy to have finished the original 52.  There are so many other books I've come across this year that I want to move on to.

Before I heard about the challenge (thanks, Juhli!) my goal was to read 14 books (one per month, and two alternates) that had been lingering on my Kindle unread.  When I decided to do the challenge, I perused the prompts and my Kindle content to match as many prompts as I could with books I already own.  I have cleared at least 22, so exceding my original goal.  :)

Now going forward:

Friedrichsburg: A Novel by Friedrich Armand Strubberg

translated by James C Kearney

This one is a new acquisition at our library.  It is about the German immigrants who colonized the part of Texas we live in (and other parts as well).  So far I am still in the introduction.  The novel itself was published in Germany in 1867 by the first colonial director during the founding of the communities.  It is said to interweave his story with a fictional romance.

We live surrounded by original German settlements.  One church we attended regularly had a German-language service until the 1960s.  One of my favorite things about the area was sitting in the crowd of parents and grandparents (when our kids were younger and involved in community sports) and hearing German, Spanish, and English conversations going on around me.  So I had to be first in line to reserve this new addition to the library.