{"id":47093,"date":"2026-10-12T22:56:01","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T02:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=47093"},"modified":"2026-10-12T23:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T03:02:12","slug":"sonderbooks25-2009-coming-into-my-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=47093","title":{"rendered":"#Sonderbooks25 – 2009 – Coming into My Own"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’ve been celebrating #Sonderbooks25<\/a> – 25 years of writing Sonderbooks – for quite some time now.<\/p>\n

It’s my own fault. My original idea was to choose one book to reread from each year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs. That led to revising the Stand-outs page to fit the new phone-friendly format. That led to rereading each review of the Stand-outs. That led to deciding to reread all the reviews I’d written, beginning in 2001. That led to wanting to reread a lot more than one book per year. Once I got to the years I added blogs, it also led to rereading all my Sonderquotes<\/a> and Sonderjourneys<\/a> posts. And I’d already been reading the Project 52<\/a> posts about the years I was writing Sonderbooks.<\/p>\n

So – things have gotten out of hand! But the truth is, I’m having a lot of fun revisiting my old writings and wonderful books I’d recommended. I will probably stop calling it #Sonderbooks25 when I hit my 26th anniversary next August, but whether I’ve finished or not (I hope I will have!), I will probably want to keep going, because this is a treat.<\/p>\n

So now for my report on 2009 with its fresh Sonderbooks Stand-outs<\/a> page.<\/p>\n

This time, I really did reread one of the books before I posted this – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society<\/a><\/em>, and it was every bit as wonderful as I’d remembered. I’ve also been rereading some of the books from earlier Stand-outs, like Enchantment<\/a><\/em>, by Orson Scott Card, from 2007, and I enjoyed both of those so much – in audio form this time – that I’m tempted not to place holds for any new audiobooks and just keep rereading.<\/p>\n

But I think the biggest treat when revisiting 2009 was remembering what I was going through. The Sonderquotes posts from that year<\/a> were about letting go, forgiveness, and finding joy. Sonderjourneys posts<\/a> reminded me that things were not going well with my husband. He continued to tell me I was a horrible person, and negotiations about a divorce settlement were not going well. I was slowly coming to terms with the idea that it would be okay – maybe a good thing – to file for divorce myself.<\/p>\n

And at the same time, I was indeed coming into my own! 2009 was my first full year working as a full-fledged librarian, and I was loving it. 2009 was when I discovered other kidlit blogs and did my first 48-Hour Book Challenge<\/a> and attended my first KidLitCon<\/a>. Also, my obsession with the Newbery Medal had started, and I took an online class about it<\/a>. I applied to attend the Morris seminar and to be a CYBILS judge and did not get either one, but did not give up. I was completely loving having found my calling as a librarian.<\/p>\n

At the same time, budget cuts were looming – but they didn’t hit my job until 2010. I hadn’t realized until I reread these blogs that this was the year my father had his first heart attack and<\/em> my mother got her first dementia diagnosis (at only 68 years old). (They passed away within two months of each other ten years later, my father from a heart attack, my mother from Alzheimer’s.)<\/p>\n

But most of the posts are about learning to live on my own as a single mom (with one kid at home in 9th grade) and as a librarian. My sense looking back is that life had opened up and I was thriving.<\/p>\n

And my goodness, I read some wonderful books! As I read the reviews I jotted down way too many that I’d like to reread. Instead of listing them all out, let me encourage you to take a look at the list of 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs<\/a>. Read some reviews and see what calls out to you! It turns out that for the most part, good books are still good books.<\/p>\n

Happy Reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been celebrating #Sonderbooks25 – 25 years of writing Sonderbooks – for quite some time now. It’s my own fault. My original idea was to choose one book to reread from each year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs. That led to revising the Stand-outs page to fit the new phone-friendly format. That led to rereading each review of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[426],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sonderbooks25"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47093","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=47093"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47097,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47093\/revisions\/47097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}