Blog Name: Books and Movies
Blog URL: http://booksandmovies.colvilleblogger.com
Twitter Name: @booksandmovies
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/65745

When did you start your blog and why?
I started blogging in January of 2005, at my personal blog, Mommy Brain (http://carrie.homeschooljournal.net). I found blogging by accident while looking for homeschooling info online. What I found was a vibrant, supportive, encouraging community of homeschoolers who were bloggers. I started my blog as a way to connect with other homeschooling moms, and the advice and encouragement I received those first few years were so incredibly valuable.

After a few years, I stopped blogging about homeschooling so much. Not because we weren’t still homeschooling, but because it had simply become such a normal part of our routine that blogging about it would be like blogging about doing laundry. I had always posted about the books I was reading and had started to discover some really amazing book blogs. I decided to make Mommy Brain my personal blog, and start a blog focused on books and movies, two of my favorite things in the world.

I read almost any type of fiction and love to blog about reading, books, buying books, and wishing for books. The book blogging community is amazing, and full of so many smart, funny, and caring people. I still post occasionally on my personal blog, but book blogging has become my passion.

Tell us a little about yourself outside of your interest in books.
Oops, I think I answered some of that in the above question! Let’s see – I’ve been married to Kevin for what will be 15 years in March. We live in Colville, Washington, a little town north of Spokane and south of the Canadian border. My husband is a computer guy and maintains my blog for me. I have four kids: Natalie, age 13; Noah, age 11; Jonathan, age 10; and Josiah, age 8. One of my favorite part of homeschooling is reading aloud to my kids, and I often review the middle grade fiction we’ve been enjoying together. I used to work as a freelance writer, too, although that has pretty much dried up with the economy. Now, most of my writing energies are focused on blogging.

Your favorite book from your youth and the story behind it.
One of my most favorite books growing up was Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink. I must have read it a dozen times! I have three younger sisters who loved me to read aoud to them, and I read it to each one of them in turn as they became old enough to sit still. Baby Island is the story of 12-year-old Mary Wallace and her 10-year-old sister, Jean. They are on an ocean liner bound for Australia, where they will join their father on his ranch. Then spend their time on the ship playing mother to the various toddlers and babies of the other passengers. When the ship wrecks, Mary and Jean are set afloat in a life raft with four babies, and when they run aground on a deserted island, the two girls must find a way to survive and to take care of their four little wards until they are rescued. This book appealed to the wanna-be Mommy in me – and I loved the adventure and the way the two sisters related to each other. I read it aloud to my own daughter a few years ago, and it was a hit with her, too.

“What I love about Carrie (and it goes without saying, her blog too) is that she is such a community builder. Not just as in she knows all the blogs around (because she does), but that she knows most everyone behind those blogs. Even with a hectic schedule taking care of kiddos, homeschooling and anything else that comes up she still manages to reach out to those around her. She cares and she puts that into what she does on the net. I love it!

“Carrie’s site Books and Movies is also fabulous! She has wonderful taste in books…and movies, that keep me coming back for more. I’m always anxious to see how she feels about a certain book or movie she just read or watched. She recently read The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare (one of my favorites) and I was constantly checking back just to see what she thought.

“So, go, look and find a new friend for life! Carrie’s site is not one to be missed!”

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