Today’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl is a little open ended, inviting us to consider books for our younger selves. However, what I want at the end of a long weekend is simple and concrete (although I kept having to expand my parameters to get to 10, so I failed). Here, then, are ten books that were published before I left middle school that I liked as an adult and probably would have loved as a kid:

1. The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper: Adolescent and teen me would have loved the moodiness of this series.
2. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin: This caper is great for any age, but I would have loved it when I was in elementary school.
3. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson: I read Paterson’s teen novels and come up with no reason for why I skipped this one, but I had a penchant for melodramatic death novels as a kid.
4. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende: I liked the movie a lot.
5. The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden: I haven’t read this novel about a Romani orphan with a 21st-century lens and don’t remember enough about it to know whether it would be considered offensive by today’s standards. But when I read it in 2001, I loved it and know my younger self would have as well. (I enjoyed several of her doll books as a kid.)
6. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster with illustrations by Jules Feiffer: I discovered this fantasy novel when I was in college, skivving off from class in the stacks of children’s books housed between my classroom door and the restroom.
7. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg: This is another book I didn’t discover until college, but this time thanks to my friend Rebecca.
8. The Tales of Magic series by Edward Eager: My bff, Karen, gave me the first few novels of this series when I moved away to D.C.
9. The Swallows and the Amazons series by Arthur Ransome: This is a series that just didn’t get the attention in the U.S. that it should have (or maybe it had fallen out of favor, although I don’t see them in used bookstores like I would expect to if that had been the case) until after the first couple Harry Potter books were published.
10. Matilda by Roald Dahl: Charlie made his rounds in my sixth-grade class, but this book-loving, butt-kicking girl arrived just a little too late for us.

How about you? Are there books that were around when you were a kid that you didn’t get to until years later?

Four days in and my shawl is currently about half the size of a washcloth, or roughly the size of a hardcover book. I’m enjoying knitting on it so far.

I’ve got three books on the go at the moment. I started a graphic novel this evening — Maggy Garrisson by Lewis Trondheim with illustrations by Stéphane Oiry. It’s about a scrappy young woman who starts working at a detective agency, only to have the detective beaten up less than a week into her employment. It reminds me of Stumptown. (I haven’t actually read the Stumptown graphic novels, so it just reminds me of the tv adaptation.)

I’ve also got We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry going. It’s set in a New England high school in 1989, where I also could be found that year. I’m finding it very familiar, although I’m hard pressed to believe something set during my lifetime is considered historical fiction.

Speaking of historical, my final read is the audiobook of Agatha Christie’s The Secret Adversary, set in 1920s London. It is full of cartoonish villains and bias, but I find Tommy and Tuppence so utterly charming that I’m not put off the way I have been with similar novels.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are reading and crafting.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic at That Artsy Reader Girl are the top ten books that make me hungry. Ten slots weren’t enough for this week’s list, so here’s a full baker’s dozen:

1. Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu — Adorable graphic novel featuring a gay hockey player who bakes for his team. I haven’t yet read the sequel, but am seriously hoping for end material with scone and pie recipes.
2. Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch — A teen whose mother has recently died is sent to Italy to live with her mom’s BFF. They bond over ice cream.
3. A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd — A girl and her family temporarily move back with her aunt to a hometown with an eccentric ice cream maker who channels feelings into his non-melting ice cream.
4. The entire Lady Sherlock series by Sherry Thomas — Charlotte Holmes, better known by her nom de guerre Sherlock, struggles with a maximum tolerable number of chins. And she is cursed to live with and love people with really great dessert chefs. But you really want to be invited to have tea with her and Mrs. Watson.
5. Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks — On their last night of working at the pumpkin patch their senior year of high school, our two protagonists have vowed to sample every single food stand on the property, from caramel apples to fudge to chili fries. Bonus, there’s a map of the farm inside the graphic novel’s cover with all their stops.
6. The Bandette series by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover — Our masked heroine is a huge fan of chocolate bars. You’d do well to stock up before beginning this graphic novel heist series.
7. The Three Pines series by Louise Penny — Inspector Gamache loves his food, and he will not let crime get in the way of a meal at the bistro (or catered by it) or a delicious dinner with friends (and potential suspects).
8. With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo — Emoni loves to cook, imbuing her food with feeling. When her school overs a culinary course (with a trip to Europe at the end of the semester), she knows she needs to be part of it, even if it means juggling her work, her daughter’s daycare, and her responsibilities to her abuela.
9. Chocolat by Joanne Harris — Opening a chocolate shop in a small French village just before Easter should be a slam-dunk, particularly when the confections are particularly evocative, but maybe not when you’re accused of dabbling in witchcraft by Monsiuer le Maire and the church lackeys he has at his right hand.
10. Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev — A modern take on the Austen classic, but featuring a British-Indian chef as one of our two stubborn protagonists.
11. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery — Okay, so I do not want to eat custard sauce in which a mouse has drowned or cake with liniment in it instead of vanilla. But other than that, I definitely want to sample raspberry cordial and hand-cranked ice cream on a hot day and even a cake that has been shoved into a story to win a writing prize by your BFF.
12. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han — I would love to spend evenings or weekends baking with Lara Jean and frankly the Song girls’ lead-up to Christmas with their cookie baking extravaganzas are the things that dreams are made of.
13. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling — So evocative with her food descriptions they literally made a candy line based on it. However, I could live without Nearly Headless Nick’s deathday feast.

How about you? Do you have favorite books that you just want to invite yourself to a meal in?

I had the afternoon off today and swore to myself that I would not work for any of it. I packed a bag of supplies (bug spray, long sleeve layer, headphones, several books, and, it turns out, not my knitting), swung by the farmers market for snacks, and took myself up to the park. I did not grab my chair because I had a plan — I was going to use our hammock.

Last summer, I’d tried to use our hammock at the park, but couldn’t find trees that were close enough for the length of straps we have. However, I hadn’t given any thought a handful of smaller trees by the fence, and this summer I have seen several people with hammocks using them. Today was my day.

First, I pulled out Eoin Colfer’s Highfire. It started with a chapter about an anti-social dragon, which boded particularly well, but then switched focus to a teen boy and then a crooked cop. I’m sure it’ll be great when they all get on the same page, but until then I just wanted more dragon.

So I switched to The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart. I think this middle-grade novel might be the next right read.

On the knitting front, my sock hasn’t had a lot of work done on it this week, but I will wrap it up in the next few days. (See forgetting to pack it above.) The Tour de France kicks off next weekend, so I’d like to go in with a recent FO under my belt. I haven’t decided what I’d like to knit, but I do think it will be a fresh cast-on, rather than the resumption of a project. I’m looking forward to it.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others have been reading and crafting lately!

Bout of Books 29 kicked off at the start of the week, and I’m intending to take part again.

The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01 a.m. Monday, August 17, and runs through Sunday, August 23, in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. All reading-in-place times, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges are completely optional. For Bout of Books 29 information and updates, visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

Yesterday, I started off the week by finishing Oona Out of Order shortly after midnight. Now I can get it back to the library.

Last night, I read the first chapter of Undercover Bromance, which succeeded in pissing me off by having the main character be remarkably attractive and rich and successful, but unlucky in love. I’m going to give it until the main female character is introduced to see if it has any redeeming qualities, but I’m not holding my breath.

This evening, because I was reminded about it in raidergirl3’s blog post earlier, I started When We Were Vikings. The start of the story makes me uneasy and I’m not sure I want to keep reading it if it’s going to leave me stressed out all the time.

My rest of the plan for the week involves reading the first chapter or two of each of the library books I currently have out to see which can be returned to the library. Including the two above, I’ve started nine, none of which has captured my fancy (but also none of which, so far, has made me want to give up).

I have (ahem) 15 out that I haven’t yet given a shot. If you’ve read any of them and recommend I start there, let me know:

• Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
• Homerooms and Hall Passes by Tom O’Donnell
• The Night Country by Melissa Albert
• Each Tiny Spark by Pablo Cartaya
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• Another Word for Home by Jasmine Warga
• The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
• Don’t Date Rosa Santos by Nina Moreno
• The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi
• The First Dinosaur by Ian Lendler
• Highfire by Eoin Colfer
• Adequate Yearly Progress by Roxanna Elden
• Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell (I really want to find my copy of the first book in the series and reread it before starting this one)
• Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer
• The Travelers by Regina Porter

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic at That Artsy Reader Girl is Top Ten Books That Should be Adapted into Netflix Shows/Movies.

With one glaring exception, I am opting not to include anything that, to my knowledge, has already been adapted, even if I haven’t yet seen it (the Cormoran Strike series and The Last Dragonslayer, for instance). By and large, I’ve also excluded novels I absolutely adore, because they’ll just never be done well enough to suit me (the Lady Sherlock series, The Night Circus, Thursday Next, and others).

1. Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks (imagine how adorable this graphic novel would be as a Halloween romance!)
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (because as much as I love the BBC version and like the other versions, there is always room for another adaptation)
3. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan (sweet but also serious — think of all the famous gay people they could get to be the chorus!)
4. The Marvels by Brian Selznick (of his three illustrated novels, I think this is the one that would scale best to the small screen)
5. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (a documentary obviously)
6. The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser (this and its sequels are just begging to be turned into an ongoing family tv series)
7. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu (I think someone (Reese Witherspoon, maybe?) is adapting this feminist YA novel to film and I want it NOW)
8. The Port Chicago 50 by Steve Sheinkin (another documentary — I don’t know why I think that nonfiction that makes me furious should be adapted, except that I guess I want more people to be angry, too)
9. The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson (a multicultural middle-grade caper — this is just waiting for someone to option it)
10. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (how has Masterpiece not grabbed this gothic mystery as an adaptation already?)

Come back another day and I could probably give you a completely different list. I could probably give you a week’s worth of Christmas books that should be adapted…

How about you? What books would you like to see come to the small screen near you?