The Happiest Baby on The Block- Karp (Book #2)

I'm a big Karp fan because I've found that when I instinctively have tried the five S's he advocates in his book, they do work on babies I've held in the past. This book is essentially a book on how to soothe colicky or fussy babies up to three months of age. He has five things called the 5 S's that he says are guarunteed to work each time.

1. Swaddling
2. Sucking
3. Side/stomach holding
4. Swinging
5. Shhing
   

This book should serve as a companion to watching his DVD of the same name where he demonstrates how to actually implement the five S's into the life of your newborn child. This book is good to get the theory behind why these five Ss work so well.

The Help- Stockhard (Book #1)

I have considered reading this book so often but I always put it back in 2009 due to its length. A book club I joined was reading this book and I'm so glad I finally got a chance to sit down and read it. The Help focuses on three women in the south at the cusp of the civil rights movements. Jim Crow laws are still in effect and the south is resisting the changes to come. We follow the lives of two black maids and a white woman Skeeter as they live their lives and slowly decide to undertake a project that could jeopardize their futures but one they can't seem to walk away from. It took me about 30 pages to get into the book and I admit had I not been reading it for a book club I might have just put it away after the first few chapters because the vernacular threw me off and I could not seem to get past it. I'm glad I kept reading because Stockhard has a gift for story telling and her writing keeps you turning the pages and you are sad when you reach the end of this beautiful story.

Reading List for 2010

(Key: bolded: read. italicized: reading. Nothing: to be read)

1. The Help
2. The Art of Happiness
3. The Groom To Have Been
4. The Happiest Baby on The Block
5. It sucked and then I cried
6. Baby Bargains
7. Food Rules: An Eater's Manual
8. The Happiness Project
9. Push
10. The Wasted Vigil
11. Shantaram
12. The Seamstress
13. The Hours
14. The Turn Around
15.

Books I gave up on
1. Middlemarch. Seemed interesting but I couldn't seem to get into it and its 800+ pages so I really did need to love it out of the gate.