{"id":39888,"date":"2021-08-24T23:50:12","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T03:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=39888"},"modified":"2021-08-24T23:50:12","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T03:50:12","slug":"celebrating-20-years-of-sonderbooks-favorites-from-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=39888","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating 20 Years of Sonderbooks: Favorites from 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As of this month, I’ve been writing Sonderbooks for 20 years<\/a>!<\/p>\n

To celebrate, I’ve been writing posts highlighting some favorites from each year of reading.<\/p>\n

This has taken longer than I anticipated. I thought I’d be able to focus on just a few outstanding books from each year — but there are just too many good ones. It’s also making me a little crazy that I can’t get away with spending the next couple years rereading! These are some outstanding books! If you missed them, let me encourage you to take another look.<\/p>\n

Today I’m going to look at outstanding books from 2013<\/a>. I thought I’d whip off a post, and then I looked at what wonderful books I read that year, and this may take a little extra time.<\/p>\n

For Grown-ups<\/p>\n

The Golem and the Jinni<\/a><\/em>, by Helene Wecker<\/strong><\/p>\n

As it happens, I was recently thinking about this book because a sequel finally came out, The Hidden Palace<\/a><\/em>. The books feel like rich historical novels, but they are about magical creatures living among humans and making lives for themselves in New York City of the past.<\/p>\n

Living and Loving After Betrayal: How to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Deceit, Infidelity, and Chronic Resentment<\/a><\/em>, by Steven Stosny<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wish this book had been written when I was in the thick of it, but I still found this book so helpful for healing and restoring my heart.<\/p>\n

Runaway Husbands: The Abandoned Wife’s Guide to Recovery and Renewal<\/a><\/em>, by Vikki Stark<\/strong><\/p>\n

And I wish I’d known about this one sooner, but again, even reading it years after my husband left helped me make sense of that time.<\/p>\n

For Teens<\/p>\n

Across a Star-Swept Sea<\/a><\/em>, by Diana Peterfreund<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another amazing science-fiction retelling by Diana Peterfreund, this time a retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel<\/a><\/em>, by Baroness Orczy, an old favorite of mine, with genders swapped.<\/p>\n

Eleanor & Park<\/a><\/em>, by Rainbow Rowell<\/strong><\/p>\n

A love story between two teens with very different backgrounds, paralleling Romeo & Juliet<\/em>, but not ending as tragically.<\/p>\n

Dark Triumph<\/a><\/em>, by Robin LaFevers<\/strong><\/p>\n

The second amazing novel set in medieval Brittany about assassin nuns, daughters of the god of death.<\/p>\n

Every Day<\/a><\/em>, by David Levithan<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the story of a kid named “A.” Every day, A wakes up in the body of a different kid. They will be somewhere near the last body they inhabited and they will be roughly the same age. A borrows other people’s lives for a day at a time. So what happens when A falls in love?<\/p>\n

For Children<\/p>\n

The Screaming Staircase<\/a><\/em>, by Jonathan Stroud<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the first of the amazing and wonderful Lockwood & Co.<\/em> series. The series is set in alternate-reality London, where for years ghosts have become a problem. These ghosts kill you if they touch you — but only children can see them. Lucy Carlyle joins the only agency run by children themselves, headed by Anthony Lockwood. After accidentally burning down a building, they take on an especially dangerous case to try to keep their agency from ruin.<\/p>\n

Jinx<\/a><\/em>, by Sage Blackwood<\/strong><\/p>\n

The magical story of a kid living in the Urwald who’s good at listening — even to trees. He can see the shape and color of other people’s thoughts, and doesn’t realize that’s not something everyone can do.<\/p>\n

That’s a Possibility! A Book About What Might Happen<\/a><\/em>, by Bruce Goldstone<\/strong><\/p>\n

This photo-illustrated book explaining probability to children makes my heart happy. Everything is colorfully and clearly explained.<\/p>\n

The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erd\u00f6s<\/a><\/em>, by Deborah Heiligman, pictures by LeUyen Pham<\/strong><\/p>\n

A picture book about an eccentric mathematician! What could be better?<\/p>\n

Bedtime Math: A Fun Excuse to Stay Up Late<\/a><\/em>, by Laura Overdeck, illustrated by Jim Paillot<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was the year I discovered bedtimemath.org<\/a> — a wonderful organization that promotes doing math problems with your kids at bedtime. I was delighted someone is promoting this, because I have many happy memories doing this with my own kid at bedtime — he discovered he could prolong bedtime indefinitely with the words, “Just one more math problem, Mommy, please.” Later, they also began promoting Crazy 8s Math Club<\/a> — they send supplies and program plans to libraries and schools for after-school math clubs. The organization is all about showing kids how much fun is found in math.<\/p>\n

Sophie’s Squash<\/a><\/em>, by Pat Zietlow Miller, illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf<\/strong><\/p>\n

This picture book caught my heart. Sophie adopts a new best friend, a squash. Unfortunately, her friend isn’t going to stay fresh forever.<\/p>\n

Tiny Little Fly<\/a><\/em>, by Michael Rosen, pictures by Kevin Waldron<\/strong><\/p>\n

This has become a story time staple for me. You’ve got a tiny little fly buzzing around big African animals, but they don’t manage to stop him. My, oh my! Tiny little fly!<\/p>\n

And there are more! Take a look at all my 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-outs<\/a> and read about anything that catches your eye — they’re all heartily recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As of this month, I’ve been writing Sonderbooks for 20 years! To celebrate, I’ve been writing posts highlighting some favorites from each year of reading. This has taken longer than I anticipated. I thought I’d be able to focus on just a few outstanding books from each year — but there are just too many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[411],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39888"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39921,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39888\/revisions\/39921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}