We are joined this week by the hosts of the delightful podcast, Family Looking Up, Camille, Beth and Andrea! Their podcast, now in its third year, explores all aspects of motherhood, something that they know plenty about themselves with a gaggle of children distributed among the three of them. They joined us to share some of the wisdom they have gained through the years, reading, and more specifically finding books to read, with their kids of all ages.

In this episode we talk about:

1. These three women are all very well-read, but their styles, their tastes, their methods and their searching habits differ, so we spent some time chatting about how they find books for themselves!

2. Recommendations. Firstly, from friends. Find which friends you have similar tastes and opinions about books with and they will be a rich source of book suggestions. Then, once you find your golden source of recommendations, keep track of the suggestions you get somehow!

3. Goodreads. This is a well-known site to many, but if you have not checked it out yet, take a look! It is a website and an app and it has reviews of most any book you could be curious about.

4. How do all these ladies do their reading? It depends! One likes to mix it up with hard copies and e-books on her phone while another almost exclusively listens to audio books. Find what works for you!

5. Saying to find the friends who share your taste in books is all find a good, but how do you go about that in real life? Just start talking about it! Ask anyone for recommendations and over time you will find the ones who 

6. Finding audiobooks. How? Where? For those of us lucky enough to live in a country where they are available, the apps Overdrive and Libby are wonderful resources. They are where your local public library’s e-book and audio book collections live. You can check books out right there on the app! The downside of these apps are that you are limited as to how many books you can check out and have on hold and the more popular books will be on hold with longer waits. Audible is a service through Amazon that will give you instant access to the books you want (no waits!), but it costs. Once again, all the ladies have different ways of making these services work best for them and their families. 

7. Along with their own reading habits, these women are also doing their best to raise their kids as readers. They have found several sources that have helped them along the way. As their kids read more, they cannot keep up and read every book their kids are reading, so they rely on research from Google or sites like Common Sense Media and Goodreads to be informed about what their kids are reading.

8. As we have talked about before, and will continue to talk about on our podcast, do not underestimate the listening level of your children! It will broaden their horizons and help them get over fear of bigger books and other forms of literature.

These lovely ladies each left us with a great idea of how to get started on putting these great ideas into practice this week. Andrea invited us to let our children have a say in what they are reading (hashtag let them read!). Beth suggested rediscovering the joy of reading making it fun with things like movie parties or cousin/friend kid book clubs. Camille invited us as adults to branch out from our norm and try something we wouldn’t normally pick or use a different book format than you usually do. There are some surprises waiting out there for us if we look in different places!

We are so grateful to Camille, Beth and Andrea for taking the time to talk with us!