"Misty of Chincoteague" by Marguerite Henry

I reread Misty of Chincoteague and King of the Wind because I decided to use them both for the literature classes I teach at our homeschool co-op.  I read all four of the Misty books as a kid (Misty of Chincoteague; Stormy, Misty's Foal; Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague; and Misty's Twilight), and this one and Sea Star are the two I remember best.  Will I reread the other three in the near future?  Possibly.  They are charming, uplifting, wholesome, and educational -- what more could a horse-loving bibilophile want?

Misty of Chincoteague is about a brother and sister, Paul and Maureen Beebe, who live on Chincoteague Island off the coast of Virginia.  They hope to buy a wild Assateague pony called Phantom and her little foal Misty during the Pony Penning Days that take place each July.  Together, they do extra jobs for months and months to earn the $100 they figure Phantom will cost.  (That's about $1800 today...)  It's a lovely story about siblings cooperating, people who love horses, and the friendship and joy that a horse can bring to a child.

Because I was teaching this book for a literature class, I looked up the real history behind this book.  Misty was a real Chincoteague pony, and really belonged to the Beebe family, but the story in the book is largely made up.  Marguerite Henry actually bought Misty from Clarence and Ida Beebe, and they helped her with a lot of research about the wild ponies on Assateague Island in return for her writing their grandkids, Paul and Maureen, as the hero and heroine of her new book.  Although the books about Misty are fiction, they are grounded in fact about Chincoteague and Assateague, and about the people and animals that live there.  You can learn more about Misty, Marguerite Henry, and this book on this fansite, as well as on other sites such as Wikipedia.

I've had the pleasure of visiting Chincoteague and Assateague myself, back in my late teens.  We weren't there for Pony Penning Days, but I did get to see a few of the wild ponies!

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Good, clean family fun for all ages!

This is my 32nd book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.

My Book "Jane Eyre: A Christian Reader's Guide" Releases Today!

My nonfiction audiobook has released today!  I'm so excited to finally get to share this project with the world.

Jane Eyre: A Christian Reader's Guide helps readers explore and understand Charlotte Bronte's classic novel.  In it, I provide a breakdown and analysis of each chapter, discussion prompts, and historical notes on the book and its author. This audiobook will be a great resource for teaching literature or your own personal study.  It would be particularly helpful for homeschoolers and literature classes, and works for book clubs, too.  It works equally well whether you're hoping to understand this classic better yourself or looking for something to help you teach it to others.

You can buy my book from Amazon Audible here, from Barnes and Noble Audiobooks here, or straight from publisher One Audiobooks here.  You can also find it on Goodreads.

My audiobook is part of a new series of literature guides that One Audiobooks is producing.  Their aim is to help modern readers understand and appreciate classic books from a Christian perspective.  Mine is the first guide for a more adult book, and probably works better for teens and adults, but the others would be great for all ages.

Currently, these guides are only available as audiobooks, but there is a possibility that the publisher might release them as ebooks as well.  If that interests you, please let the publisher know!

"The Convivial Homeschool" by Mystie Winckler -- Guest Review

I reviewed The Convivial Homeschool for the homeschool blog Blest the House this week -- you can read my full review here.  Overall, I found it very helpful and encouraging.

I want to share my favorite parts here with you so you can get a taste of how good this book is.  And so I can refer to them whenever I need them.

Particularly Good Bits:

Our job isn't to figure out how to make everything go smoothly and easily; it's how to glorify God in all things (p. 14).

Tears are a normal response to difficulty.  However, we don't want to shelter our children from encountering difficulty.  Experiencing and overcoming hard work and natural consequences at home is a vital training ground for adult life when they will not have a mom smoothing their path for them (p. 22).

Our goal is to walk in step with the Holy Spirit, not to make each and every homeschool day conflict-free.  The goal needs to be handling inevitable conflict with the fruit of the Spirit (p. 24-25).

Sometimes homeschooling becomes not just our pet project but the core of our identity, causing us to take situations personally.  As Christians, our real identity is in Christ... Homeschooling is one way we serve God; it is not a part of who we are as people (p. 42).

...we think that choosing to homeschool means we are assuming control of and responsibility for how our children turn out (p. 47).

Being merry and festive is not the same thing as being lazy or carefree.  It is being cheerful and enjoying life while doing the work of life (p. 60).

Homeschooling is no solution to sin.  It does not prevent sin in any way.  It just changes the setting and the temptations (p. 76).

Even as we disciple our children through the phases of growing up, we, too, are being shepherded through our own idealistic, stubborn, or discouraged seasons by a Good Shepherd who knows exactly what we need and where we're going (p. 103).

It turns out that homeschooling is work.  It's much more than teaching; it is providing the structure that allows our children to build their work ethic and responsibility muscles (p. 109).

Not a single one of us is patient enough to homeschool (p. 159).

Kindness is love in little things, in our entire way of life with one another (p. 166).

Most of what we, as mothers, do all day is mundane: read a book, correct a child, make a meal, sweep a floor, change a diaper.  Our days are full of small tasks, but their smallness does not mean they are insignificant.  It is in these ways that we faithfully love our families; by loving them, we also faithfully love and glorify and enjoy God (p. 183).

Our role is not to impart everything they need to know... Our role is to see them, hear them, train them, love them, and hold them accountable (p. 194).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  No objectionable content here.

This was the 48th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"Black Heroes of the Wild West" by James Otis Smith

This is a fantastic book!  It tells the stories of three Black Americans and their real-life adventures in the Wild West.  And it does it in a graphic-novel-like style that is engaging and fun.  I found it at the library and might just have to pick up a copy to add to my homeschooling history shelves.

The three heroes it features are "Stagecoach Mary" Fields, Bass Reeves, and Bob Lemmons.  I actually got this from the library because I'm working on an article about Mary Fields for my next Prairie Times column, and I thought this was going to be just a standard biography, text and maybe a few illustrations.  But nope!  Full-color, fully illustrated little biographies.  AND it has real photographs here and there of actual Black cowboys and pioneers.  AND it has a six pages at the end about other famous Black westerners.  Yup, I really think I'm going to need a copy of my own.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG because it does include some violence and a tense moment or two, albeit non-gory and brief.

"Marsalis on Music" by Wynton Marsalis

I bought this book on Ebay on a whim while looking for something completely unrelated for my kids for school.  I've been a fan of Wynton Marsalis ever since we watched Ken Burns' documentary Jazz (2001) years and years ago.  I'm a sucker for a good trumpet player, and Marsalis is all that and more.  So I thought hey, this might be a cool book to use for my kids.  The seller said it came with the companion CD with listening cues, which sounded cool.

What the seller didn't say?  This book is autographed by Wynton Marsalis himself.  You should have heard me shriek when I got it in the mail and discovered that little fact!!!

I started to flip through this over the weekend, to see how I could use it for school, and which of my kids it would work for.  And guess what?  I ended up reading the whole thing, cover to cover.  It is fantastic!  What's more, it taught me a whole lot of things.  I've been playing the piano since I was six years old, I've played flute in a college band, I've sung in college choirs and college musicals, and I've loved music for longer than I can actually remember.  I've taken courses on it, I've taught my kids to play piano, and I consider myself a more-than-averagely musical person.  But brother, did I ever learn stuff from this book!  Like, I never knew that a sonata and a symphony are the same musical form, it's just that if an orchestra plays it, it's a symphony, but if only one or two instruments play it, it's a sonata.  Say what?  I did not know that.  Wow.

Anyway.  In this book, Marsalis explains in kid-friendly ways the concepts of rhythm and form, the history of band music in America, and tips and tricks to make practicing really work for you.  He also has biographies of notable composers whose music he describes and discusses.  This is a companion to a PBS series of the same name, and man, would I like to see that!  Unfortunately, it's kind of expensive now, so I'll have to keep my eye out for a reasonable used copy, I suppose.  Meanwhile, I will be using this book and its CD with all of my kids later this month, as a fun break from some of our more textbook-based subjects as Christmas approaches.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Meant for and suitable for kids, but good reading for adults too.

This is my 46th book read for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020.

"The Princess Bride" by William Goldman (again)

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned here before that I teach literature and creative writing to some of my homeschooled nieces and nephews for high school.  I teach them over the internet because they live so far away, and I love it.  I'm working on converting our studies together into a format I could share with other parents too, so watch the "Lit and Writing Resources for Homeschoolers" page here on this blog for that to show up this spring.

Anyway!  This year, I'm teaching a nephew who is in tenth grade.  He's good friends with my son, who is in sixth grade, but who reads like a high-schooler as long as the subject matter isn't too intense for him.  So my son has been doing the same lit course with my nephew, which lets them discuss books together instead of it just being me and the nephew, and gives them stuff to talk about when they're together once a year too.  (We started this last year when my nephew asked to read The Lord of the Rings for lit, and my son had been begging to read that too, and they asked if they could read it together, and I said yes, and they had so much fun doing so that they wanted to continue studying together.)

This month, we spent two weeks reading and discussing The Princess Bride by William Goldman.  And my mommy-heart is SO full and happy because my son LOVED IT!  I think he read it four full times in two weeks.  He goes around quoting it now.  He'd seen the movie before -- my brother and I actually took him to see it on the big screen a couple of years ago, one of those TCM + Fathom Events showings.  But he was about 10 when he saw the movie and didn't really get the wonderfulness.  Now he gets it :-D

I don't always reread the books that we're studying together, especially if I've read them within the last few years.  But I hadn't read this since 2013, so I decided I was due for a reread.  And I loved it all over again.  The witty dialog, the sarcasm, the send-up of so many fairy tale and adventure story tropes, the wonderful characters, the delicious authorial asides... it's just a delight for beginning to end.  

(I suppose I should mention that this is a humorous fantasy story about a beautiful girl and a handsome boy who fall in love, are parted by pirates and princes, find each other again, lose each other again, and everything turns out pretty happily in the end.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for violence, torture, and some bad language.  Also a little extremely veiled suggestive material.  But yes, I let my 12-yr-old read it anyway.

When Do You Read?

People ask me that a lot.  I read about a book a week, which is not a lot compared to some people I know, but for a homeschooling mom of three who also writes books, blogs, co-leads a homeschool co-op, teaches Sunday school, etc... it feels like a goodly bit of reading.

So anyway, a bookstagram friend of mine, Beth Anne @bookworm_baggins (a fellow homeschooling mom) gets this question too.  In her stories on Instagram last week, she shared pictures of how she fits reading into her busy life.  Inspired by her, I did the same -- for four days in a row, I took a picture of every time and every place I read.  And now I'm sharing those pictures here too because... I can.

Thursday

Two minutes reading a book while I re-braid my hair before breakfast.  Three minutes reading my devotions while I floss and brush my teeth.

Five minutes reading while I wait for my kids to be ready to eat breakfast.  Fifteen minutes reading while at the library, waiting for them to find books to check out.

Twenty minutes while doing cardio after supper.  Five minutes reading aloud to my kids.  

Twenty minutes while my kids Skype with their grandparents before bed.

Thursday total: 65 minutes

Friday

Three minutes reading devotions while I floss and brush my teeth, plus two minutes while I rebraid my hair.

Twenty minutes reading aloud to my daughter during school as part of her history class.  (The other two totally listen in most of the time.)

Friday total:  25 minutes

Saturday

Three minutes of devotions while flossing and brushing teeth.  Fifty minutes reading aloud to my kids before supper.

Don't know why I took two pictures of reading The Hobbit.  Ten minutes reading after my shower.

Twenty minutes while the kids Skype their grandparents before bed.  Three minutes while I brush and rebraid my hair.

Saturday total: 86 minutes

Sunday

Three minutes reading devotions while brushing and flossing teeth.  Thirty-five minutes reading in the car on the way to church.

Fifteen minutes reading in the car on the way home.  Would have been more, but my book ended too soon!  Twenty minutes reading while doing cardio.

Twenty minutes while my kids Skype with their grandparents.

Sunday total: 93 minutes

All of which is just here to tell you that, if you can handle reading in little dribs and drabs, you can squeeze at least thirty minutes of reading into even really busy days.  I know not everyone can do that, because I have friends who require more concentration to read.  But if you can read a little here and there, it adds up fast!

So now, tell me -- when do YOU read?

"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding

I read this back in high school, like so many of you probably have.  I hated it.  Hated it in the, "Why does this exist, why did I have to read it, and how soon can I forget it?" way I hated Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.  

But I've been wondering about Lord of the Flies lately.  During my thirties, I've re-read and re-watched books and movies I disliked in my teens and early twenties and discovered that I now like a lot of them.  Even love some of them.  So I wondered if this had also suffered the "I'm not ready for this book" problems that had plagued my initial readings of The Old Man and the Sea and The Great Gatsby, which I now very much enjoy.

Also, I'm a big fan of Lost, and I knew that the writers had credited this book as being an inspiration for the show.  I mean, my beloved Sawyer even mentions it at least once within the show itself.  So... I decided it was time to give it another go.

I still hate it.

Actually, maybe I don't hate it.  Maybe I just... find it heavy-handed.  I read it this month for the 9th-grade literature course I'm teaching at our homeschool co-op, and during our discussion for this book, I realized what is probably the main reason I don't care for this book.  It's supposed to make you all shocked and startled that oh my goodness, these boys are acting like savages -- are people inherently evil or something? And... thanks to my Biblical understanding of human nature, that's not a shocker.  That's something I already knew.  Romans 3:10 reminds us, "There is no one who is righteous; no, not one."  Psalm 51:5 says, "Surely I am sinful from birth; sinful from the time my mother conceived me."  So Golding spends lots and lots of time convincing us of something I didn't need convincing of.

Plus, it's so loaded with Important Symbols.  I really don't like obvious or heavy-handed symbolism in my books.  Give me instead writers like Tolkien, whose symbols function perfectly within the story whether you see them as symbolic or not.

So, yeah.  Like with Of Mice and Men, I'm agreeing with my teenage self that this book is not one I enjoy, like, or want to spend any more time thinking about.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: a hard PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, mild bad language, and creepy scenes.

This is my 29th book read and reviewed for my second time through with the Classics Club.

"The Four-Story Mistake" by Elizabeth Enright

I know I read this as a kid, but I really didn't remember much of it, except that they had a cupola on their house.  I was kinda obsessed with cupolas as a kid, mostly thanks to the Samantha books from American Girl.  Truth be told, I'd still like one. 

Anyway, this is an utterly charming book.  I chose it for my 3rd-6th graders to read for our homeschool co-op this month, so of course, I had to reread it myself.  And I'm so happy I did.  I read one of the later Melendy books, Spiderweb for Two, a few years ago, and found it delightful too.

In this one, Mr. Melendy sells their home in the city and moves his four children, their housekeeper Cuffy, and the furnace man Willy out to a great big house in the countryside.  It has three actual stories and a cupola on top to be the fourth story, and it is full of surprises and secrets and joy. 

The four kids spend the book having all sorts of adventures.  This takes place during WWII, and they spend a good deal of time and energy thinking up ways to earn money to buy war stamps and war bonds.  They put on a play, one person finds a treasure, two of them get jobs... this is a slice-of-life story at its finest.  And I love that sort of book that just has people living out their ordinary lives in an interesting way.

Particularly Good Bits:

None of them wanted to leave their house.  None of them, that is, except seven-year-old Oliver who always greeted the future as a friend and never gave a hang about anything in the past (p. 6).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Good, clean, wholesome fun.

This is my 27th book read and reviewed for my second time around with the Classics Club.

"Mr. Popper's Penguins" by Richard and Florence Atwater

I'm afraid I liked this book better as a kid.  It's still cute and fun, but my suspension of disbelief got stretched a little too far for me to totally enjoy it.  Not that it was a huge favorite of mine as a kid either -- I remember reading it and wishing my parents would let us have snow in the house, but that's about all I recall, so I must have only read it once or twice.

I read it now because my 8-yr-old loves penguins.  This is the last book we'll be reading this semester for our homeschool co-op lit course, and I chose it because she would enjoy it.  And she did.  So that's a win, really.  And it only took me a couple of hours to read, so it's not like I was stuck with a book I didn't thoroughly enjoy for very long.

Mr. Popper's Penguins involves a very nice man who wishes he was an explorer instead of a house painter.  Imagine George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life if he was even poorer.  In fact, James Stewart likely would have made a very effective Mr. Popper if they'd made a movie of this sixty or seventy years ago.

Anyway, Mr. Popper is given a penguin most unexpectedly.  Most of the book involves his family adjusting to life with a penguin.  And then life with many penguins.  They aren't rich, but they never really begrudge those penguins the money they have to pour into keeping them, though Mrs. Popper frets now and then.  Eventually, they find a way for the penguins to earn their keep.  And Mr. Popper's dearest wish comes true -- it's a very, very happy ending.  And I definitely liked that.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Squeaky clean.

This is my 11th and, presumably, final book read for the Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge.  Don't think I'll have time for another junior fiction book before the end of the year.

"The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin

This is one of my favorite books.  I have a strict rule of not allowing myself to read it more than once every 5+ years because that way, I won't fully remember it, and every re-read will still have a bit of surprise to it.

I'm having my 3rd-6th graders read this for our homeschool co-op, which gave me a great reason to re-read it myself.  Neither of my kids in that group had read it before, and it's been so much fun watching them experience this mystery.  My almost-11-yr-old read the whole thing in one day, then re-read his favorite parts endlessly for the next week.  My 8-yr-old finished it this afternoon, and I think she's found a new heroine in Turtle Wexler.

The Westing Game is called a "puzzle mystery" because all the major characters have to work together to solve a strange puzzle set forth by a man named Sam Westing.  They all live in an apartment building Westing owned, and when he dies, they're all named in his will.  But they have to play this game to inherit their share of his millions.  

Initially, they all think they're strangers, but it turns out many of them are connected in ways they're not aware of, which is another part of what makes this book fun.  But what really makes me love it is Turtle Wexler, the main character.  She's a wildly intelligent girl with a passion for the stock market and for kicking anyone who annoys her in any way.  She's very good at both.  In fact, she's very good at everything except understanding adults, and since she's just a middle-schooler, who can blame her there.  (To be honest, I don't understand adults much myself.)

I really don't want to say much more about this book because it's full of so many delicious surprises, I don't want to spoil any of them!  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some danger and spookiness and mild violence (mostly kicking people in the shin).  No bad words or dodgy content.

This is my 7th book read and reviewed for the Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge and my first for the Reams of Rereads event.

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl

I hadn't read this book in more than twenty years.  Man, is it ever still really funny.

I'm teaching literature for our local homeschool group this year.  Three different age groups: preschool through first grade, third through sixth grade, and high school.  It's been GREAT so far!  I teach twice a month, and we have been having a blast.  Yesterday, the third-through-sixth-graders discussed this book, and their enthusiasm was awesome!  And I'm not just saying that because two of the kids are mine :-)  They loved talking about the candy, of course, but I was impressed by how well they understood the characters.  We talked about motivations, whether anybody in the book was always bad or always good, and how Charlie changes by the end of the story.  Good stuff.

I actually read this book out loud to my kids over the past couple of weeks because I knew my first-grader would enjoy it too.  I did this crazy, high, squeaky voice for Willy Wonka that I regretted after like one chapter with him because it killed my vocal chords... but they got such a kick out of it, I kept doing it for the rest of the book.  My third-grader later told me her favorite thing about the book was Willy Wonka's funny voice, hee.

I think my favorite part of this book is just how very, very poor Charlie Bucket gets rewarded for being a sensible, kind, obedient boy in a super-fantastic way.  I remember as a kid making up all these stories about poor orphans getting adopted by rich people, or rich people going around buying up hotels and then letting homeless people live in them, and I know this book played into those stories in a big way.

Would anybody be interested in me doing a post about how I teach lit to our homeschool group, what books we're reading this semester, and so on?

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Good, clean, silly fun.

This is my 21st book read and reviewed for the Classics Club and my 6th for the Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge.

"Christmas in Williamsburg" by K. M. Kostyal and Lori Epstein

I picked this book up earlier this month when I was in Colonial Williamsburg with my kids to see all the Christmas decorations.  I spent all day looking in various shops there for some kind of cool Christmasy book and not finding one.  The last place we went was the big bookstore over in Merchants Square, and I spotted this book right when we walked in.  Exactly what I was looking for!

This book explains what Christmas celebrations were like in the colonial era, that they were really much more subdued than our own.  It talks about where our own various decorating and celebrating customs come from too, and then about how old and new are combined in Colonial Williamsburg now.

The book is chock-full of great photos.  It also has a bunch of recipes for things like hot chocolate and Twelfth Night Cake and a non-alcoholic version of syllabub.  And it has some ideas for Christmastime crafts too, like decorating wreaths and making cool gingerbread houses.

On a whole, the book is a little bit aimed at school children, but I learned a lot from it too.  I'll definitely be trying some of the recipes out.  And I'll probably use this book to teach my kids some history at some point.

This is my second book read and reviewed for the Literary Christmas link-up hosted In the Bookshelf.  I signed up to read at least two books, so I've hit that mark now, but I'm hoping to get another Christmas-oriented book or two in before the end of the month.  Here's hoping!

Meanwhile, Merry Christmas!

"Bookworm Journal: A Reading Log for Kids... and Their Parents"

Here's a book I thought some of my friends who are parents might be interested in, especially with school being done (or almost done) and people looking for something fun to help their kids keep reading during the summer.  

I bought the Bookworm Journal from Amazon last year to help encourage Sarah as she learned to read.  We used it all through first grade, about once a week.  She would read a book aloud with me, later on to me, and we'd fill out the journal together.  Sam thought it looked fun and asked for one too, so I got him his own to use for book reports.

Every page has a little tear-off corner at the bottom that says something cute about books.  You finish the entry for a book, you tear off the corner, and you can see the bookworm chomp his way through the journal.

It starts out with a little question-and-answer section, a page for info about the reader, and then a page for info you make up about the bookworm.  Here's what Sarah answered for hers:

That's my handwriting above, not hers, but she drew the picture.

Here's how Sam filled out the pages about his reading habits.  I made him use cursive in his book because I have a hard time getting him to practice his cursive, so this was a fun thing for him to practice in instead of just copying words in a workbook.

Here's one of Sam's reviews.  You can see that for each book, you get a page to fill out about the book, and then a page of something creative.  Sometimes it's drawing, like this one:

Sometimes it asks you to list new words you encountered in the book, or explain who your favorite character was in it, or put down your ideas for what happens next after the book you read, like here:

They even provide a couple of sturdy bookmarks at the back:

We're all done with school, but I'll be using these journals again this fall to help encourage both Sam and Sarah to think about what they read, not just passively let the words flow in and out of their brains.

What My Kids are Reading #7

I feel like sharing what my kids have been reading lately, so I'm starting this series up again :-)

Sam (9)

The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett -- He enjoyed The Dragons of Crumbling Castle so much, I got him this, and he's now read it probably six or seven times.  It makes him laugh.

Physics:  Why Matter Matters! by Dan Green -- We're studying basic physics in third grade science this year, and he's relaly been enjoying seeing various concepts from school pop up in this book.

Queen Red Riding Hood's Guide to Royalty by Chris Colfer -- I've been wanting to try the Land of Stories series for a while now, and Sam enjoyed this spin-off book so much, I'm pretty sure we'll be getting the first book in the series soon.

Sarah (6) and Eggnog (4) (Eggnog used to call herself Tootie, but she's renamed herself Eggnog, and also says she's a middle-aged man who is uncle to her toy cat, because that's what life is like when you're four.  One minute a little girl, next a cat's uncle.)

Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban -- Young badger Frances likes to eat bread and jam, and not much else.  So her parents let her eat all the bread and jam she wants, until she tires of it.  We love the whole Frances series!

Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein -- This is such a funny book.  I giggle every time I read it.  A daddy rooster tries to read bedtime stories to his little chicken, but the chicken keeps interrupting and messing up the stories.

The Plot Chickens by Mary Jane and Herm Auch -- a chicken who loves to read tries to write a book herself, with eggciting results :-)


Aloud to All of Them

Knight's Castle by Edward Eager -- I read Half Magic to them earlier this year, and they adored it, so we're delving into Eager's second book now.  It's so whimsical and fun -- who wouldn't want to get magically transported to the world of Ivanhoe, right?  And I love all the little references to classic literature.  Lines like, "Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery" make me laugh and not them, just because I know it's Austen.  Trust me, this is a not-to-be-missed delight.

What My Kids are Reading #6

Man, it's been a long time since I posted one of these.  We finished school a little over a week ago, so now I finally have a bit more time for posts again.  (We usually finish off mid-May and then start again mid-July because May and June are lovely weather here, but by mid-July it's so hot and sticky outside we're all just staying inside most of the day anyway, so might as well be doing school.)

Here are some of the books my kids have been enjoying lately!  My mother-in-law brought the first Traction Man book along with her when she visited last week, and my girls loved it so much that we found the sequels at the library.

Sarah (6) and Tootie (4)

Traction Man is Here written and illustrated by Mini Grey -- a little boy gets a new action figure for Christmas and takes him on imaginative adventures all around the house.  It reminds me a little of Toy Story and my own childhood.

Traction Man Meets TurboDog "" -- the little boy's parents decide that Traction Man's trusty "dog" pal, Scrubbing Brush, is germy, so they secretly throw him away and replace him with a "better" toy.

Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey "" -- the little boy takes Traction Man and Scrubbing Brush to the beach, where an overenthusiastic dog sends Traction Man on an epic journey.  This one is my favorite, but they're all such fun to read.

Sam (8)

Gone-Away Lake and Return to Gone-Away by Elizabeth Enright -- I got Gone-Away Lake as a birthday present when I was about Sam's age, and read it over and over.  I didn't know there was a sequel until Sam found it at the used book store a while back.  I need to read both of them one of these days.  From what I recall of the first book, two kids find an abandoned town or something?  

Coding with Scratch Workbook by Dr. Jon Woodcock -- I got this for Sam to use while school is out because he really wants to learn to code, but I don't know much about it.  Two of Cowboy's brothers are computer coder dudes, and they both highly praise Scratch for teaching kids about it, but I didn't know enough to really help Sam do cool stuff.  He LOVES this book, and did all the projects in it in less than a week.  I got him another book in the same series that does games on Scratch, and he's starting that one now.


I'm not reading anything longer aloud to them all just now because we're still trying to figure out our summer days and when a good time for that would be.  I'm working on creating our summer reading program, and hope to have that done later this week, at which time I'll probably haul out a longer book to begin with them all.  If my summer reading program idea works out the way I want it to, I might post about it, we'll see :-)

Mailbox Monday (Sort Of)

I'm linking up with Mailbox Monday again this week!  I didn't get any of the following books in my mailbox, though.  Our library has used book sales four times a year, and one was this past weekend.  And I bought a stack of books, which kind of is what usually happens.

The light's really glaring here, and the titles are hard to read, so here's the list of what I got (and why), from the top down:

101 Things You Didn't Know About Shakespeare by Janet Ware with Al Davis (looks cute and funny, and I can never know too much about Shakespeare)

The Mystery of the Empty Room by August Huell Seaman (bought solely because it's all '50s cool)

Romeo and Juliet & West Side Story (yup, both plays in one volume, from 1965)

The Dark Tower 1:  The Gunslinger by Stephen King (I don't like King's fiction much, because I can't deal with horror, but I keep hearing good things about this series and... a gunslinger.  I'm hooked by that word, bigtime.)

Bear Island by Alistair MacLean (because I haven't read it yet)

The Jane Austen Guide to Life by Lori Smith (looks fun, and it's a gorgeously clean copy)

A Memoir of Jane Austen by J.E. Austen-Leigh (because I keep meaning to read this, so now maybe I will)

All Things New by Lynn Austin (I read lots of praise of Austin's novels, and this one is about a Virginia plantation during Reconstruction, so yes please!)

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (I have never heard of this, but it's a retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," which is one of my favorite fairy tales.)

Cowboy Curmudgeon and Other Poems by Wallace McRae (I'm thinking of doing Something Interesting for National Poetry Month, which is April.  Stay tuned for details.)

And then there are allllllllllllllllllll those green books on the bottom.  Those are all 14 volumes of a set called Great Writers of the English Language.  It looks amazing.  Like, I can't wait to delve into them myself, and I think in about 7 years, they're going to be a great curriculum for high school English and Lit classes for my kids.  Here's a closer look at them:

Uh-huh.  Sooooooooooooooooooooooo cool.

Have you read any of these?  Did you get any new (or new-to-you) books in your mailbox, on your doorstep, or *gasp* from a store this week?

"Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze" by Elizabeth Enright

My seven-year-old son, Sam, loves this book.  And by 'loves' I mean he's read it probably six or seven times through since we first got it from the library.  We just keep renewing it so he can read it again.  But I'd never read this book before.  I know I read a couple of the others in the Melendy Quartet when I was a kid, namely The Four-Story Mistake and The Saturdays.  But I definitely never read this, which is a shame, because I would have loved it so much.  Perhaps the library system simply didn't have it.

Since Sam loves this series so much, I decided to read one of the books myself.  I asked him which one he thought I should read, and he said this one.  I liked it so well, I plan to read the other three books too, as I have the time.  They are enchanting.

Spiderweb for Two is about two siblings, Oliver and Miranda "Randy" Melendy, who spend many months following little clues on a treasure hunt.  Their older siblings have all gone away to school, and at the beginning of the book, Randy and Oliver think they're going to have a terrible year because they're the only ones left at home.  Randy thinks Oliver is childish, and Oliver thinks Randy is boring.  Over the course of the book, thanks to having to work together to solve riddles and find more clues, they grow to truly like and appreciate each other, which was my favorite aspect of the whole book.

First Line:  Randy was certain that this was going to be the worst winter of her life.

Particularly Good Bits:

The truth was that the young Melendys were acquiring a taste for old cemeteries.  There was something very peaceful, they thought, about the quiet places; the tilted stones patched with lichens, standing in a bee-humming tangle of myrtle and wild asters (p. 48).

Oliver slept late and no one woke him as it was Sunday.  He came down at nine fifteen, hungry as a wolf, and indulged in a waffle orgy (p. 111).

"When you were what?" said Father, setting down his coffee cup.  "I wonder if everyone's children act like this;  I always thought children just lived normal lives:  eating, playing baseball, reading books... not taking waterfalls apart and mislaying their parent's mail." (p. 137)

The children sat on the floor, breathing steamily, utterly absorbed in these different distant people who had been themselves (p. 146).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G for good, clean fun.

This is my 17th book read and reviewed for the Classics Club, and my 18th book for the I Love Library Books challenge, which means I've completed that challenge too!