I’ve taken an unexpected blogging sabbatical for most of the month of April, so I’m running a tad late for our first update. While I regularly read/review around 350 to 400 books per year, there isn’t always an absolute plan on what I pick up next. Often it’s what’s available at the moment. So I like to participate in a #MustReadin2021 community where we list titles that we want to make sure to squeeze into our reading rotation throughout the year. In the past I included some books that would be published during the year. However, this year I tried to include a number of titles I already own that haven’t yet made it to my “currently reading” pile. You know — those titles we knew would be good, but they somehow got placed at the bottom of a large pile or on a high shelf where they’re easily overlooked.

Despite us selling our home in April and taking a family vacation just two weeks later, I’m feeling pretty good about what I’ve accomplished behind the scenes in the first third of 2021. So… here’s a visual of the 19 I’ve finished between January and April:

And here they are in list format:

Middle Grade

All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat
Displacement by Kiku Hughes
Root Magic by Eden Royce
Stealing Mt. Rushmore by Daphne Kalmar
Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Gregory Mone
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds, Ibram X. Kendi
Under the Broken Sky by Mariko Nagai
Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang
King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender
Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri
The Sea in Winter by Christine Day
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
The Talk: Conversations about Race, Love & Truth by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson
Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani
The Train of Lost Things by Ammi-Joan Paquette
In the Shadow of the Sun by Anne Sibley O’Brien
Normal: One Kid’s Extraordinary Journey by Magdalena Newman, Nathaniel Newman
A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat
Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk
Show Me a Sign by Ann Clare LeZotte
All of Me by Chris Baron
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
How We Got to the Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity’s Greatest Adventure by John Rocco
Operatic by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler
Class Act by Jerry Craft

Young Adult

Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger and Rovina Cai
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Tigers, Not Daughters by Samantha Mabry
We Are Not Free by Traci Chee
Apple: Skin to the Core by Eric Gansworth
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
This Is My America by Kim Johnson
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Adult

Sisters of the War: Two Remarkable True Stories of Survival and Hope in Syria by Rania Abouzeid
Fortune’s Pawn by Rachel Bach
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, Neil Smith, translator
Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliott Friedman
A Promised Land by Barack Obama

My thanks to Cheriee of Library Matters and Leigh Anne at A Day in the Life for hosting this community (previously created and hosted by Carrie at There’s a Book for That). 

Thank you for visiting, today. If you and I aren’t connected on Goodreads, feel free to friend/follow me HERE.