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Cultivating a More Intentional Reading Life: 5 Guiding Principles

Reading is a large part of my life. And - as with so many other things - it is a part of my life I now want to refine and sharpen.

While I look back at my 20 Favorite Books from 2020 and am so pleased with the books I deemed favorites, I also remember the struggle I had with intentionality in my reading life last year.

Time is limited, and I want to spend my time reading truly beautiful, worthy books. I also love to escape through reading, but that cannot be an excuse for reading subpar books.

Is my struggle coming into focus?

Cultivating a More Intentional Reading Life

One of my goals for 2021 is to be a more intentional reader. This means choosing books in advance, setting some reading goals, and not falling down so many reading rabbit holes!

This is nothing fancy - just a few guiding principles I hope to follow this year. After I share the principles with you, I’ll share the books I completed last month.

(I’m very proud of my January reading actually!)

Include More NonFiction

I want to have more to show for my reading time.

Searching out interesting nonfiction books is a big goal for 2021.

I don’t have a strategy for finding these books, but I am trying to solicit recommendations from people I know who enjoy nonfiction.

Make Time for Middle-Grade Novels

I always enjoy middle-grade novels when I read them. In my opinion, they are some of the finest pieces of literature out there.

Reading this literature can serve two purposes for me: pure enjoyment and also research for my SQUILT Music Appreciation curriculum. (You’ll see when you look at my January 2020 books how they tied in with music appreciation.)

I will be depending upon a few avid teen readers I know to provide me with recommendations, as well as trolling Instagram and Goodreads.

Give Me All The Historical Fiction

Oh, how I love historical fiction. It’s my go-to genre.

Each month I am striving to include at least one big juicy story that fills my needs!

Over the past few years, I have gravitated to several authors of historical fiction. Visit my bookstagram account or my Goodreads account to see the authors that show up the most in my reading life.

Allow A Little Room for Escape

I do enjoy reading for escape, so I will be choosing one “escape” book each month.

These books will be “just because” books - but I want to be very careful that they are free of foul language, explicit sex scenes, and social agendas.

Piggybacking onto the social agendas… I will largely be avoiding “Best Sellers” and my beloved Book of the Month Subscription (which I have suspended). I’ve found that sometimes the most “popular” books are also the books pushing the biggest agendas. There is too much of that through our news media as it is - I don’t need it in my reading life, too.

Tackle Those Classics

I have also set a goal of reading one “classic” each month.

The definition of a classic can be very broad - but I like this one:

A classic is a book that’s been found valuable generation after generation

There are several classics I’d like to tackle this year and I’m excited now that I have committed to reading one each month.

Quality, Not Quantity

I’m done with book challenges that stress how MANY books you read.

I read 123 books in 2020, but what does it matter if it wasn’t meaningful?

Hopefully the guiding principles I’ve listed here will help me stick to the quality, not quantity mantra.

Cultivating a More Intentional Reading Life

My reading journal from 2020 - I love having a physical record of the books I have read.

January 2021 Books Read

  • Fates & Traitors: A Novel of John Wilkes Booth and The Women Who Loved Him (Jennifer Chiaverini) - I learned a great deal from this piece of historical fiction. Jennifer Chiaverini is a favorite author of mine - and after reading Christmas Bells and loving it, I knew I needed more!

  • Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale (Adam Minter) - This nonfiction book opened my eyes to what happens to all of our “stuff” when we get rid of it. Not only did it inspire me to acquire less and get rid of more, but it also taught me about the entire secondhand economy around the world and how important it is for our global society.

  • That Distant Land: The Collected Stories (Wendell Berry) - This was an audiobook, and I would highly recommend it in audio version. The narrator was wonderful and there is something so soothing about listening to Wendell Berry’s stories read aloud. These collected stories set the stage for his other books (Hannah Coulter and Jayber Crow, for example). They were funny, touching, poignant, and comforting.

  • Crampton Hodnet (Barbara Pym) - British literature has a big appeal for me! After reading Jane Eyre and Pride & Prejudice last year I just wanted MORE. Barbara Pym’s books are farcical and easy to read. I’m looking forward to reading more.

  • I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith) - more British literature from the author of 101 Dalmatians, actually. This book - which I am assuming is a “classic” was written in the 1940s and is the journal of a seventeen-year-old, Cassandra. It was such a delight!

  • It All Comes Back to You (Beth Duke) - This was my escape book for the month. I love Southern Fiction, and this book - which took place in Alabama and Georgia - was the perfect escape.

  • An Elephant in the Garden (Michael Morpurgo) - Middle grades historical fiction - This book will stick with me for a long time! I’ve already gifted it to one young person I know.

  • Riding the Rails to Home: A Newsie Rides the Rails to Home (Cleo Lampas) - This book went along with our month of musicals in SQUILT LIVE! It would be a great read-aloud (or alone) if you are learning about this time period in American history

  • The Journal of Finn Reardon: A Newsie (Susan Bartoletti) - Another book for SQUILT LIVE! - I loved this book, and I’m sure it’s because I love all of the Dear America books.

I’d love to know if you have principles that guide your reading life.

Share them with me in the comments below.

Cultivating a More Intentional Reading Life

5 Reasons Why We Chose to Homeschool

Can you remember when you first heard that your children’s school would be going virtual?  

I certainly can!  It was just going to be two weeks, right?  We all wondered how in the world we would make it even that long!  

It was during those early days of the pandemic as educators tried to adjust to a “new normal” of Zoom calls and P.E. consisting of jumping on the trampoline in the backyard that I began to look at the education of my children very differently. 

Although I had always been engaged in my children’s education, I now found myself sitting next to a fourth-grader - solely responsible for all he was learning and asking myself...could there be a better option for their education?

Did they really need to be away from home for 8 hours a day to receive the “best” education?

5 Reasons Why We Chose to Homeschool

As this went well beyond two weeks, my husband and I began to seriously consider ways that we could supplement their education at home. Ultimately this led to our decision to choose homeschooling for the next year.

5 Reasons Why We Chose to Homeschool

  • Uncertainty

    We were chugging along...my 4th grader in public school and my 4-year-old coming to our church preschool with me where she was in Pre-K and I was teaching a three-year-old class when we found out schools would be closing.

    I continually checked my son’s Google Classroom site to see how his teacher would handle this “virtual schooling” and was shocked to find out that all we would receive was a list of assignments to complete online.  No communication...no virtual lessons...no nothing!  

    We never had any communication or instruction from his teacher again. 

    This is what initially led my husband and me to even consider homeschooling as we felt that was what we were having to do in the absence of any given instruction from the public school system.  And much to our surprise...we were all loving it! 

    Fast forward to the end of the summer when no one was sure when school would begin or what it would look like. I couldn’t stand the thought of my ten-year-old spending an entire day away from us, in a mask, isolated at a desk or on a computer.

    I began researching options for curriculum, state standards, and methods of homeschooling. We decided to unenroll him and tackle this year and see where it would lead. I can honestly say now I feel it leads to homeschooling for the long haul!

    I now set the schedule, set the pace, and what makes up our curriculum.

5 Reasons We Chose to Homeschool

  • Content Control

    We all know that no one, not even the best-intentioned teacher, is going to care for and know your children as you do.  I wanted to be able to research and investigate various options for curriculum and methods of instruction that would resonate best with my child’s learning style.  

    I also know that as our children spend more and more time away from home, they are influenced by world views that do not necessarily align with the Christian beliefs we as a family hold.  

    By choosing to homeschool, I was able to tailor his learning so that it aligned with these beliefs and no longer had to worry that he was going to be taught something or exposed to something in public school that we didn’t agree with or that he wasn’t yet able to understand. 

  • Religious Instruction

    As I began talking to others and examining curriculum options, the thought of beginning our day with devotions and Bible reading was very appealing. 

     It has allowed us to have deeper level conversations about faith while allowing us to share some very rewarding time together.  

    I’ve also grown in my understanding of the Bible now reading it as a “teacher” trying to help my son understand and not just reading for my own understanding.  

    We have also been able to memorize scripture together which has proved challenging and rewarding for us both.  This is giving him a knowledge he would never have received in public school.

  • Reading Exposure

    We are a family of avid readers.  It’s what we do!  I realized I was able to incorporate novels, articles, picture books, and more into our days that enriched our learning in ways that allowed us to bond over this shared love of reading.  

    Due to our mutual love of reading, we have chosen a reading heavy curriculum that has allowed us to read more widely both together and independently.  

    He is thriving and we have created many wonderful memories around shared stories.  It’s allowed him much more time to read independently as well, noticeably increasing his reading fluency and vocabulary. 

Five Reasons We Chose to Homeschool

(Taking advantage of a SQUILT LIVE! lesson - we are enjoying incorporating things like music appreciation into his education now!)


  • Impressive Homeschoolers and Parents

    I’ll admit I had preconceived notions about homeschool families.  

    Having grown up as a public school student, I assumed homeschoolers were strange kids from strange families who just didn’t fit in with the norm of school.  

    More and more, however, over the past few years, I’ve met homeschool moms and students who proved me totally wrong.  

    They are impressive, they are people I respect and want my child to emulate. They are knowledgeable, thoughtful, well-spoken people who simply chose a different way of educating their children. 

    ( I’m not sure where they’ve been hiding all this time!)

    They chose what they felt was best for their family and I can now see the merits of this choice. 


    The wake of the events of the past year has left a lot of changes in our world. One change that I will forever be thankful for is the opportunity it provided for me to take more direct involvement in my children’s education and to discover the numerous options available for moving my children from traditional public education to an environment of education at home.

I’m curious - what made YOU decide to homeschool?

Let me know in the comments below!

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This is post is from Homegrown Learners contributor, Allison. She is a wife and mother with a passion for reading. With a background in Early Childhood Education as well as experience working in Corporate America, the events of the past year exposed her to the rewards of teaching her own children at home. She hopes to encourage anyone who has ever been anxious about taking this leap with her own personal successes and failures of her family's first year homeschooling.

5 Reasons We Chose to Homeschool