CorporetteMoms

Updated: Sep 28, 2023 92 Comments · by

Make My Life Easier Thursday: Heavyweight Recycled Waterhog Doormat

Recent Recs

This post may contain affiliate links and CorporetteMoms may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

A blue with a printed letter B doormat

I bought an older version of this doormat when we bought our first house back in the mid-2000s. It’s since moved with us to our current place and is still going strong!

This dirt-trapping rug can hold up to a gallon and a half of water per square yard. It’s made from at least 90% recycled polyester, and you can vacuum, sweep, or just hose it off. Use it indoors or out in your busiest areas. While this rug comes in many patterns and sizes, I especially like this version for the front door — you can personalize it with a letter of your choice.

L.L.Bean’s Heavyweight Recycled Waterhog Doormat is $59.95 for a medium size and $79.95 for a large size. It comes in five dirt-camouflaging colors.

Sales of note for 9.10.24

(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)

Kid/Family Sales

  • Carter’s – Birthday sale, 40-50% off & extra 20% off select styles
  • Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off all baby; up to 40% off all Halloween
  • J.Crew Crewcuts – Extra 30% off sale styles
  • Old Navy – 40% off everything
  • Target – BOGO 25% off select haircare, up to 25% off floor care items; up to 30% off indoor furniture up to 20% off TVs

About Ann

Ann is a working mom, a longtime reader of Corporette and CorporetteMoms, and has been writing our morning fashion advice for working moms since November 2020! She has a daughter (born winter 2014) and a son (born fall 2019) and is a public interest lawyer in Washington, D.C.

Comments

  1. Anon says

    Anyone want to hold each other accountable for lower spending in the coming months? Q4 is always really tough on our budget and I’m trying to rein it in this year.

    • Cb says

      Ugh, I’m with you. We just found out our shower was a few months from falling through to our ground floor… with an estimated replacement cost of £3-5k. I am dying…
      I’m glad I had already paid for the new bike I picked up today, otherwise I might have wavered… but my bike is my main form of transport.

    • Anon says

      I’m definitely up for a financial inspiration convo today. We bought a house a little less than a year ago in the NYC burbs, did some planned upgrades and had a lot of unexpected work (including two leaking bathrooms and a fallen tree!). Add to that general moving/furnishing costs and the life expenses of three growing kids and we need a strict budget heading into next year.

      • Anonymous says

        Yes, we just overhauled our HVAC system for $20k (100 year old house with a 15 year old addition meant a mishmash of systems that needed replacing). It’s going to be a lot of home cooking and free activities for us this fall.

        • Anon says

          Yah, when we bought the house we knew the boiler was 50 years old (!) and there was no AC, so we replaced that and added a heat pump/HVAC system for the first floor (we’ll suffer through with window fans until we save up for the second floor). Those were a hefty chunk of change but we had savings and planned for it. It’s the additional like $15K in unexpected stuff (the first time I turned on the ancient washing machine it dumped water straight through to the floor — which it didn’t do during the inspection! — etc)

    • Anonymous says

      Yes. Any tips for how to make Christmas memorable without buying a ton of junk? We cut our own Christmas tree, but beyond that we don’t have many traditions.

      • NLD in NYC says

        Going to see Christmas lights and/or window displays in your area? Cocoa and Christmas movie nights? Restricting gifts to only three (that’s what Jesus got :) ). Going to see the Nutcracker? Caroling or going to see a concert? Overall, can you lean into cheap/free experiences in your area?

      • Anon says

        what junk do you buy? how old are your kids? i celebrate Chanukah and not Christmas, but it’s funny, i literally have such fond holiday memories from being a kid and literally not one memory involves a gift i received. i realize Chanukah is different than Christmas in that it isn’t as major of a holiday, and it’s become this gift giving thing thanks to marketing/stores, but you dont need to buy your kids tons of stuff to make it memorable. plus depending on your kids’ ages, half the times their favorite gift is something random/small

        • Cerulean says

          I celebrate Christmas, and I completely agree. Aside from one or two really memorable gifts, my memories are all about the experiences. Baking cookies with my mom, helping put up the tree, watching Christmas movies, listening to music, driving around to see lights…

          • Mary Moo Cow says

            Same! I remember getting my American Girl dolls, but when I think of Christmas memories, it is experiences, and when I think about what I want my kids to remember, it is those same experiences you’ve named.

      • Anonymous says

        One of my kids favorite traditions is making treat bags for our neighbors! We make a few different kinds of cookies, put them in little bags, and then the kids put on a santa hat and an elf hat and hand them out with our christmas card. They’ve already asked me about doing it again this year.

      • Clementine says

        Yes!

        I put my kids in their pajamas, give them cups of warm milk or hot chocolate, strap them in their car seats and we go ‘oohing and aahing’. We drive around neighborhoods looking at lights. We do an advent calendar, make cookies and deliver them to our local homeless action group with a couple gallons of milk, listen to tons of music, put up allll the decorations and spend a lot of time making cards and gifts.

        (In order to do this I take random Wednesday’s off and half day fridays in December.)

      • Anonymous says

        Sure! Listen to Christmas music, we put it on at dinner every night. Light advent candles. Bake cookies. Go to church- it’s free and totes Christmas themed! Drive around and look at lights.

        • Anonymous says

          My absolute favorite Christmas tradition is going to church on Christmas Eve and singing “Silent Night” in the dark with candles.

      • Anon says

        We’re also Jewish and Chanukah is not the gift-giving occasion that Christmas is, but some free and low cost things we love to do in December that aren’t Chanukah-specific:
        -hanging holiday lights at home
        -holiday baking
        -gingerbread house and cocoa event at our parks and rec center
        -walking around the neighborhood looking at lights
        -Nutcracker (not free, but at least in our city cheap compared to Broadway type shows, ~$30 per ticket)
        We don’t do Santa but there are lots of free or affordable Santa things in our area.

      • anonM says

        Idea dump. cookie decorating, ice skating (we actually do this on NYE early during the day – still very festive, decor is still up, but way less crowds! Now it is a tradition and we meet friends there), light shows (one near us you walk through a path that has great light designs, not free but much more of experience spending!), special Christmas books that we pull out in December, we always try to do one winter walk (hike might be strong a word for walking for 20 minutes in the woods after spending 30 min getting kids all geared up!) somewhere beyond our typical places/neighborhood. Kids also love buying gifts for us parents/each other. Not a large budget or anything, but it’s become a nice way to involve them and get them to think of others! We also do one visit to santa at a place where they turn an apple orchard into santaland basically, and then you get pictures taken, get hot cocoa, etc. To me, much better than the mall (especially if trying to avoid buying junk!), but of course YMMV. I think really small things that you do every year leave an impression on kids. If you don’t have this in your family yet, maybe go thrift a gaudy glass bowl to put Christmas candies in every year. It sounds so silly, but I have my grandma’s old bowl and now my kids remember it every year. It’s a few bucks in candy but is special to us. Also for limiting junk – we’ve cut back on who we buy gifts for. My siblings-in-law and DH and I just don’t buy for each other anymore, and it is great to cut back (large family, so it really cut back on the holiday clutter/costs). Oh, another newish-tradition. With the same group of friends/family, we decorate porch pots every year. We do this for cheapppppp, and it is so fun. (Save old plant pots, clip greenery from someone’s yard for free, stick it in potts. Add decor like ribbons and fake berries, lights, etc. We buy after christmas on clearance. It’s maybe $5 for a night of fun and then get to look at it all season). Just get some supplies and invite a few friends.

      • Anonymous says

        I love driving around at night and looking at Christmas lights. I focus on consumable/experience gifts for the adults in my family (cooking classes, restaurant gift cards, sports tickets, prepaying for excursions/tours for upcoming travel people have). For my 4 year old, I keep a list and Amazon wishlist throughout the year of gift options/ideas and then actually talk with my mom and MIL about what they are each thinking of getting their grandchild (I realize not everyone has this ability). I don’t control what they buy, but we talk about what my child has mentioned a lot, what he could really have a lot of fun with. Also, near me there are a lot of “free” pictures with Santa. I think people tip the Santa and you use your own camera, so that’s another option to make the season memorable at a low cost.

      • Anonymous says

        – but things you’d be buying anyway- craft supplies, new outfits.
        – outsource all $$$ presents to eager relatives
        – talk with adult/extended family members about a non present exchange, or something like a Secret Santa.
        – non spendy gifts I’ve gotten include: babysitting, homemade treats (fudge, granola, jams, curated gift basket of all y fave snacks, homemade cookie mix in mason jars, etc)
        – go for drives with hot cocoa to see the lights, ice skate on public places, go sledding
        – volunteer

    • NLD in NYC says

      Do you have savings account earmarked for the winter holidays? One thing that I found helpful was to create a separate account at an online bank (think Capital One or Ally) and start saving a set amount. Yes, October is a few days away but having something set aside is always better than nothing. Also, it might help you to think about what you truly want to spend your money on in Q4.

      • Anon says

        Similarly, I’m trying to plan out the gifts and split it between Oct, Nov and Dec (and some gifts were already purchased during Prime Day sales). That way these items get folded into our normal monthly budget for a couple months and our Dec statement isn’t quite a shock.

        For October, I’m focusing on stocking stuff, which adds up and I seem to always forget about. Tree ornaments, Pokémon cards, matchbox cars, Schleich figurines, etc.

    • octagon says

      Yes, please. I have an unexpected $1000 car repair plus when I was doing laundry yesterday I noticed a leak from the bathroom above. Ugh.

      Q4 is always really tough for me because DH’s love language is gifts, and he goes overboard on presents every year even though he tries to agree to a budget. He’s lost all his remaining relatives in recent years and I feel like a miser if I try to get him to rein in the one thing that he really looks forward to, but I’d be perfectly happy with like, one gift plus stockings.

    • Anon says

      Our spending is about to go up due to me being pregnant with our first, but I’m eager to save where we can. I’m hoping we can use credit card points for a few big purchases, which is always SO satisfying.

      I sometimes feel bad that we don’t own a home and don’t have specific plans to (VHCOL area), but we’re actually coming out ahead financially and I need to remember that on the days when I miss the idea of it all.

      • NLD in NYC says

        Congrats! But don’t feel bad about renting. It’s tough living in VHCOL (hello from NYC!). I can feel bad too sometimes, like I missed the boat now that interest rates are insane. But hold on to the fact that you’re coming out ahead financially. We might get our picket fences someday…

    • Mary Moo Cow says

      I’m on board! Around this time of year, I start tracking my spending on a Google doc (one for each month) and comb old bank statements and credit card statements to get a rough idea of how much I’ve spent on extras so far this year. It is usually appalling, so that shakes me into buckling down. I tend to start buying Christmas gifts in September, and spreading out purchasing; I also have slowly trained myself to buy only a few desired gifts for each kid instead of buying their whole wish list.

  2. Anonymous says

    We’re doing a full neuropsych evaluation tomorrow for my preschooler. Does anyone know what we should expect? The doctor said it would be about 2 hours and to bring a snack, but that’s about it.

    • octagon says

      Two hours is short for a full eval – they are usually a full day. Can you find out more about what tests they are doing? If it’s cognitive tests, it’s more like games and puzzles for your kid to do, they won’t feel like they are getting “tested” if that makes sense. Plan for some down time afterwards, though, it’s exhausting for the kiddo.

    • Anon says

      Wishing you a peacful eval! I’ve heard actual onsite Neuropsych evals are pretty well run. I follow PedsDocTalk (she’s a developmental neuro) on IG and she kind of walks through some of what she does at work – super interesting. It looks like a lot of observing them play and asking them to do various exercises, and all the items are of course provided.

      Not the same thing — I had the full ECI eval when DS #2 was 1.5 years, and I still get annoyed and agitated when I think about it – they didn’t send me any prep in advance and then I was running around the house getting things together last minute, e.g. an empty water bottle (yes, for the stupid cheerios exercise), etc. In hindsight I realize the place where he scored on the cusp/lower was probably in part because of the frantic nature of the eval.

    • TheElms says

      We just went through this for my 4 year old. I don’t actually know what the doctor asked of my 4 year old specifically but she had a bunch of manipulatives in the room, a bunch of pictures and activities in a spiral bound book, and then some things she did via iPad and computer (according to my 4 year old). We split our evaluation over 2 days and each day was about 2 hours with one or two breaks plus about 30 minutes each day for her to settle in to the space / feel comfortable. We brought a snack and water for her. It seemed like she did an activity for anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 minutes and then got about a 5 minute break to run around / draw. We also had to send questionnaires to her teachers and there was one for us to complete.

    • HSAL says

      I think the length can vary. When my son got his at just over 5, it took about 3 hours, but they originally had me scheduled for all day. They had snacks available. I was most surprised that I didn’t have to be there for it, but I think that makes sense.

  3. Anonymous says

    One of my kids favorite traditions is making treat bags for our neighbors! We make a few different kinds of cookies, put them in little bags, and then the kids put on a santa hat and an elf hat and hand them out with our christmas card. They’ve already asked me about doing it again this year.

    • Anon says

      +1

      I kind of wish they made indoor versions since my door opens onto a hardwood floor, and my indoor mat is just… inferior… in comparison.

  5. Anon says

    Adding to the financial woes above — we had unexpected home repairs that I had to put on a credit card. Awesome. I have the funds to cover it, but they are in an index fund. Unfortunately, ANOTHER home repair had depleted our emergency fund, which is held in a money market fund. We can either take the funds out of the index fund and pay it off today, or divert the funds we are putting aside to rebuild our money market emergency savings and chip away at the credit card debt for the next three months. What would you do?

    • Anonymous says

      What the rate of return you’re getting on the money market fund, how much in taxes would have you to pay if you withdraw it, and how does that compare to the interest rate on the credit card?

    • octagon says

      If you take out your funds today, you are locking in losses since the market has had a rough week. I’d probably work on aggressively paying down the CC debt. Can you do a 0% interest balance transfer so you’re not paying interest at least?

    • Boston Legal Eagle says

      I’d probably use the savings you were going to use to rebuild home fund to pay off the credit card debt. The CC has a higher interest rate than the market, but the index fund will just keep growing (hopefully!) Or look into transferring to a 0% introductory credit card and then just pay that off within the time allotted.

      • Anonymous says

        +1 to looking for a 0% interest credit card offer. We financed a majorly overbudget renovation that way and were able to pay it off before the interest spiked. If you just need a few months, you should be fine.

        • Anonymous says

          I’d look into a balance transfer offer on one of your existing cards.

    • Anon says

      Take the funds out and pay off the cc. You will likely end up paying more in interest that you would earn on that money for many years. Then, divert your extra funds 50% into mm emergency fund and 50% back to the index fund (or whatever percentage you like).

      And I feel you…I’m new house poster upthread who got hit with a ton of unexpected repairs and we are living on borrowed time with our master bathroom. We have a chunk in an ETF and are doing everything we can to keep it there for the long-term.

      I agree with looking into a HELOC for future – that’s our plan.

      • Spirograph says

        This. The CC almost certainly has the highest interest rate, so I’d focus on paying that off ASAP.
        I’ve heard (but have never tried it myself) that you can roll over CC debt to a new card or a repayment scheme with a 0% introductory rate. If you can pay it off before that introductory rate expires, that might be something to consider, too. Of course, a new line of credit could impact your credit score, so I would probably only do this if it’s a pretty high balance.

    • NLD in NYC says

      I think it depends. What’s the purpose of the index fund? If it’s remotely retirement related, I’d hesitate to take money out. If it’s another savings bucket, my next question is what, if any, fees or taxes would be triggered by taking that money out? If it’s less than the CC interest rate over 3 months, they maybe the index fund is better. Disclaimer: personal money nerd but not an accountant, FP, etc.

    • Anon says

      Thanks all — I will probably leave it in there. Just, ugh, I hate debt. I also feel like I’m pushing off rebuilding the emergency fund b/c I have to pay the credit card for three months until excess cash can go back into the emergency fund. A HELOC is a good idea, and I will definitely look into it. The index fund is not retirement related, just a random index fund that we had funneled extra cash into a few years ago before we had two daycare tuitions to pay.

      • Boston Legal Eagle says

        What are the current rates on HELOCs? I feel like they’re pretty high now, if mortgage rates are any indication. Not as high as CC debt, but still, you’d then have some high interest rate date, likely equivalent to the index fund returns.

      • anon says

        What sum of money are we talking about here? That would skew my answer tbh. A few thousand or tens of thousands? I would not pursue a HELOC for a few thousand.

  6. anon says

    My 9-yr-old daughter is asking for maxi skirts or dresses for her bday. Any tips on where to find some? Seems like mini is the trend, but she marches to the beat of her own drum.

    • Anon says

      i find that kids maxi dresses are usually more available in the summer? usually Target has some, Old Navy, J Crew, Mini Boden and more boutique brands like Mila and Rose. she could wear them with a shirt underneath? but i think it would be hard to find one this time of year that is seasonally appropriate

  7. AwayEmily says

    Anyone have slipper recommendations for elementary kids? Easy on/off, not too expensive, not too hot.

    • Anonymous says

      I always like the kids’ slippers at Old Navy. For older kids the LL Bean Wicked Good slippers are nice, but those are a little more expensive.

    • CCLA says

      anything with an elastic ankle. we used to have estamico ones from ama3on, they didn’t always hold up through both kids but they lasted until they outgrew them. recently we switched to lands end ones since they offer unicorns and they seem slightly better made. but the elastic seems key.

  8. Anon says

    Anyone have any idea how to make a Princess in Black Halloween costume? I’m ok gluing or sewing felt cutouts onto a dress for the flower, but I’m not going to be sewing a dress or shirt from scratch which is what most of the DYI tutorials seem to do. Is just getting a generic black dress (plus cape, mask, tiara, etc) too lazy? I don’t really see any dresses or tunics that closely resemble the character’s outfit

    • Anonymous says

      I am that mom who has sewn multiple fancy cosplay-style costumes for my kid, and for this I would totally start with a purchased black dress.

    • HSAL says

      I did a costume for “dress like your favorite book character” day a couple years ago. It was super easy. Black pants, black long sleeved tunic, pinned a felt flower on, black eye mask, made a tiara out of silver pipe cleaners, and made the little staff thing she carries out of markers that I wrapped in electrical tape, with a black flower on top.

    • Anonymous says

      Oh man, I am here for this convo. One of my kids wrote and is redirecting a “princess in black” play with my family as the cast.

      Me: duchess wig tower
      Husband: goat boy
      10 year old: monster that eat eats goats
      7 year old: princess in black
      5 year old: princess magnolia

      Frimplepants & Blackie will be played by our two hobby horses, in costume. We have a goat puppet.

      PIB’s costume is black dance leo and leggings, black cape (it’s a towel), black eye mask.

      Magnolia’s costume is a Rapunzel-esq pink dress
      Up costume.

      I am wearing a dress and curlers to make my hair look tall. DH is wearing lederhosen. 10 y/o is wearing a dragon costume / cape thing that’s been in our closet since she wore it for Halloween in like 2014.

      I CANNOT WAIT for this show guys. My 7 y/o has been working on the script for weeks. There were even auditions!

  9. Anon4this says

    On the Halloween theme, any ideas on how to make a Star Dragon costume from the Dragon Masters series? I was thinking silver wings and tail (which is sort of hard to find ones that are not scary since this is for a preschooler) and a silver bodysuit and sew on felt stars. Seems like a lot of work, but I can’t think of a better way. Any suggestions?

  10. Anonymous says

    For those of you who live in the South, my twins are size 3T and I’ve sort of forgotten what we need for winter. They’re all set on shirts, pants and rain jackets, but should I buy a fleece or full on jacket for winter? Or both? My oldest just wears athletic leggings under athletic shorts (and never wears a jacket) so I’m not remembering what he needed when he was smaller.

    • Mary Moo Cow says

      How far South are you? Upper south/almost mid-Atlantic, where I am, I buy a fleece and a light down coat (Patagonia down sweater, land end packable puffer, or primary), and a down vest. (3T down jackets were pretty easy to find second hand, but ymmv.) I don’t buy snow boots, but do buy warm boot socks they can wear with rain boots, and buy snow pants second hand only if there’s a prediction of a snowy winter. Lower south, I think you can get away with a fleece and a vest, and layer the vest over the fleece. I do buy cute winter hats and tons of gloves/mittens because they got lost over the season.

    • Anon says

      i live in Houston and also have twins. for the years we did not plan on going to visit family in the north east i got away with the North Face Denali Fleece for my twins and would layer underneath for our few particularly cold days. they also have fake ugg type boots from target. this year we are taking them on a ski trip so will probably also get them full on winter jackets, but have not done that the past few years

  11. Anonymous says

    Looking for reading suggestions for my 4th grader- ideally things your own child has read and loved. We’ve asked the librarian and her teacher, just casting a wider net. She’s a strong reader but I want to make sure she likes what she reads and the content stays appropriate.

    • Anonymous says

      Harry Potter series and related books
      Land of Stories series
      National Geographic books about animals
      Daughters of the Deep by Rick Riordan (Harry Potter but underwater and an all girls school is how my daughter summarizes it)

      • Anonymous says

        adding that watching Anne of Green Gables on Netflix got my daughter into reading the books.

    • FVNC says

      My daughter is in 5th grade but just turned 10, so the same age as many 4th graders. Her current favorite books are the Wings of Fire series, and she’s also into Dork Diaries and lots of nonfiction like the “Who was…” or “What was…” series.

    • Mary Moo Cow says

      Kate DiCamillo (Beatrice prophesy, because of Winn Dixie, magician’s elephant, Louisiana, etc.); The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Ann of Green Gables, Harriet The Spy series, the I Survived Series, American Girl Mysteries, old school Nancy Drew.

    • Anonymous says

      The Secret Garden
      The Thing About Jellyfish
      Out of My Mind
      Little Women

      • Anonymous says

        OP here. You have a 10 year old that recently loved and read little women and secret garden?

        I read those as a kid and hated them. :)

        We’ve done HP, dork diaries she blew through in 3rd grade. She read a bunch of the i surviveds and is over them.

        • Anon says

          I hated those as a kid too and I was an advanced and voracious reader. They’re boring imo!

          TBH and I know this won’t work for all families, but my parents’ solution was letting me start reading adult fiction around this age. They were much more concerned with things that might scare me than s3x and language. I don’t think they would have let me read Stephen King or anything like that (not that I wanted to) but otherwise they didn’t screen too carefully, and I’m sure I learned some s3x-related things from books. Although a lot of the more adult content probably went above my head.

          • Anon says

            My kids (ages 6 and 9 yo) both enjoyed the Secret Garden. We read it to the younger one and the older one read it on her own.

          • Anon. says

            Same, I was a strong reader and that was the age my mom let me start reading adult stuff. I read a lot of the stuff my mom was reading from the library: Michael Crichton, Dick Frances, John Grisham, Tom Clancy. I specifically remember reading Watership Down at that age. I have a crystal clear memory of going to the school library in 5th grade at a new to me school and being very very disappointed because it was only kid books and I was well past Babysitters Club at that point.

        • Anonymous says

          Yes, but she watched a good movie version of The Secret Garden and watched the Winona Ryder movie of Little Women and listened to the audiobooks before she read the books. I also hated these books as a kid and enjoyed them as an adult, but I think I’d have liked them as a kid if I’d seen those movies first.

    • Anon says

      My 4th grader was a pretty prolific reader, so she had read many common series by 4th, so some of these may be a bit mature for 4th.

      Gregor the Underlander series
      Holes series
      Treasure Island
      From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler
      Redwall series
      The Secret Garden
      The Little Princess (with discussions from me on the racist bits)
      I Survived series
      My America diary series
      The Green Glass Sea
      Percy Jackson series
      First Test series
      The Stars Beneath our Feet
      The Green Ember

      • Anonymous says

        This is a great list. She’s read a couple of these, and I’m vetoing a few but they are all comfortably at her reading level. She didn’t like Percy Jackson but did like my america and I survived, though after a while got tired of them. Holes will be great.

        She read wonder recently and liked it, and just cycled through the tween rom com books so I’m looking for something a little different (less summer camp / tween fights/ first kiss/ first day of middle school). Those are fine but we have tons of those ;).

    • An.On. says

      These are from my childhood, so they’re older:

      Where the Red Fern Grows
      Westing Game
      L.M. Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables -> Emily of New Moon
      Horrible Histories series by Terry Deary
      Roald Dahl in general
      Lois Lenski’s Indian Captive
      Phantom Tollbooth
      Witch of Blackbird Pond
      Island of the Blue Dolphins
      Julie of the Wolves
      Bridge to Terabithia
      Maniac Magee
      Betsy-Tacy-Tib (these age up with the characters)
      Encyclopedia Brown series
      Mr. Popper’s Penguins
      Dear America/Royal Diaries series
      Redwall series
      The Enormous Egg
      The Egypt Game
      Ella Enchanted

      • Anonymous says

        Thanks, I was specifically hoping for some modem titles because my own list looks like yours ;).

        • An.On. says

          LOL, they’re classics for a reason!

          For newer stuff, maybe Katherine Arden’s Small Spaces series? She just came out with the fourth and last book in the set, and the first is set in the fall, so it’s perfect timing.

        • Mary Moo Cow says

          Has she read the young Amelia Bedelia and Amelia Bedelia & Friends books? Good stuff about friends; less tween/middle school nonsense.)

          • Anonymous says

            My kindergartener is really into Amelia Bedelia- is there a separate series for big kids?

          • Anonymous says

            Is there a series that is appropriate for someone reading at the middle school level? I’m the OP and my kids read AB in 1st grade…but maybe I’m thinking of a watered down version?

    • Anonymous says

      Third grade boy with higher than fourth grade reading capabilities really enjoyed the Melendy Family books by Elizabeth Enright (which are maybe more stereotypically “girl” books). Also From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler.

    • Anonymous says

      Emily Windsnap series
      Animal Ark series
      Both big hits, and animal ark has something like 100 books.

    • DLC says

      The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz (and anything else by him)
      Miss Rapscott’s Girls and the sequel Making Mistakes on Purpose
      Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
      Keeper of the Lost Cities series (my daughter loooves these, though I personally didn’t love them- i thought the writing kind of pedestrian)
      Aru Shah series
      The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (older title, but we loved it.)
      Prairie Lotus (kind of an Asian Little House on thr Prarie)
      A Rover’s Story- about a Mars Rover

      There was a thread on the Ask A Manager weekend thread this past weekend with a bunch of really great reading suggestions for an 11 year old- I would check that out too.

  12. Anon says

    I had a job interview yesterday, where I did not do well – I just got the rejection. The weird thing is I’m not even sad – the job sounded like way too much stress. This is the first time in my career I’ve never just wanted the more stressful, “bigger” thing.

    Also, DH had a big internal interview for a promotion today. He said it went as well as it could have gone. Please send all good vibes our way!

ABOUT

WORK WITH US

SERIOUS STUFF