A fellow homeschooling mom asked me a few weeks ago if I had ever considered compiling lists of book recommendations for different age groups. I hadn't, until then, but it's such a compelling idea that I'm doing it! I'm starting with junior fiction because it's what Sam is reading right now, so a LOT of it is flowing through my house. I intend to do lists of picture books, early readers, middle-grade fiction, and YA in the future.
By "Junior Fiction" I mean longer chapter books aimed at kids around ages 8-12. Obviously, some kids might be ready for this level before age 8, and continue to enjoy these after they're older than 12. I mean, I still enjoy them now, and I'm almost 3x12. But this is the age group I think of them as geared for. I do read books from this list aloud to my daughters, who are 4 and 6 right now, and they very much enjoy them too.
This is entirely based on my own reading experience and what Sam is attracted to right now -- he's 8, and an avid reader. Most of these I love so much, we own a copy.
All-of-a-Kind-Family by Sydney Taylor (I liked the whole series)
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond (and the rest of the series is great too)
Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace (I haven't read the rest of the series yet, but I expect it's good)
Big Red by Jim Kjelgaard (and the sequels are good too, as well as his other dog books)
The Black Stallion by Walter Farley (my favorite book for many years -- the sequels are okay, but not as lovely as the first)
The Borrowers by Mary Norton (and the rest of the series is dear to my heart)
The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner (and the whole series is good fun)
By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman
The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz
Caddie Woodlawn and Magical Melons by Carol Ryrie Brink
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
A Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
The Four-Story Mistake and the rest of the Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
Gone-Away Lake and Return to Gone-Away by Elizabeth Enright
Half Magic by Edward Eager (and his other books are good too)
The Happy Hollisters and the resultant series by Jerry West
Henry and the Clubhouse and the rest of the Henry books by Beverly Cleary
Henry Reed, Inc by Keith Robertson (the sequels are fun too)
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Homer Price and Centerburg Tales by Robert McCloskey
Jingo Django by Sid Fleischman
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
The Key to Extraordinary by Natalie Lloyd
King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry (really, all her horse books are delightful)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (Sam's just starting them and really liking them!)
Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars by Ellen MacGregor (and the rest of the series is fun)
Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry (the sequels are good too)
The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary (and the two follow-ups are good too)
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald (and the rest of the series is great fun too)
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren (the two sequels are also enjoyable)
The Railway Children by E. Nesbit
Ramona the Pest and the rest of the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary
Rascal by Sterling North
Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan (the rest of the series is nice too)
Smoky the Cow Horse by Will James
A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd
Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski (I like all her books, but this one especially much)
Stuart Little by E. B. White
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
There are other books in this age range I really dig, but that I'm either forgetting now, or don't like well enough to recommend them to everyone. This is a good start, anyway.
Do you have any recommendations for this age group? We're always looking for new books!
Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic, via The Broke and the Bookish as usual, is Top Ten Books on My Spring TBR List. So here are the ten books I'm looking the most forward to reading this season!
The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King -- the latest novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes gets released next month! Just in time for my birthday...
Anne of Windy Poplars by L. M. Montgomery, which I'll be reading next month for the Anne of Green Gables Reading Challenge.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, which I'll be hosting a read-along for starting in late May.
The Shadow on the Mesa by Jackson Gregory, which I just bought on Etsy, and which I don't think is going to have anything to do with the movie by the same title, but I'm eager to find out what it really is about!
Surgeon in Blue: Jonathon Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care by Scott McGaugh, which I'll be reading for research.
Much Ado About Anne by Heather Vogel Frederick, because since I'm reading all the Anne books this year, I thought now would be a good time to read the next book in the Mother-Daughter Book Club.
For Elise by Hayden Wand, which I just got a Kindle copy of and will start soon.
Code of the West by Zane Grey, because it looks awesome.
The Cherokee Trail by Louis L'Amour, which was the inspiration for one of my favorite TV shows ever, Five Mile Creek.
The Dragon Turn by Shane Peacock, the next-to-last book in the Boy Sherlock Holmes series I've been slowly reading my way through.
We'll see how many of these I actually manage to read this spring :-)
I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I've decided to just go ahead and do it. I am going to host a Poetry Month Celebration here all during April, which is National Poetry Month in the US (and in Canada, I believe). I love poetry, but for many years I did not -- I thought poetry was scary and difficult and unapproachable. I think a lot of people still feel that way, so with this event, I want you to help me by spreading the poetry love, or trying to feel some poetry love, or even getting your first taste of poetry.
What will this celebration involve? Well, seeing that this is me, you won't be at all surprised to hear that I'm going to host a giveaway during the first week, giving away some little books of poetry. And I'll be posting something myself about poetry each week. I'll also create a poetry-related blog tag that you can fill out on your own blog, and do a link-up thing for that when April gets here. But I also need contributions from YOU!
What sorts of contributions? Anything poetry-related! You can do as many or as few posts as you like. You can declare ahead of time what you want to write about, or you can stop by during the month and say, "Hey, I just posted this poetry thing..." I have created a new page to hold the ideas for (and eventually links to) all the posts, and you can comment either there or here with ideas, suggestions, and post links :-) It'll basically be like a month-long blogathon.
Some ideas to get you started: you could post about a specific poem, some info on a particular poet, a review of a poetry collection, your own original poetry, or something else you dream up!
And if you're excited about this event, do please share one of the buttons on your blog :-)
Does it ever happen to you that you're in the middle of a book (or four), and then another book arrives at your house, and you're like, "Oh, I'll just read the first page to see what it's like, and then I'll read the rest after I finish the book (or four) I'm working on right now." And two days later, you've finished the whole new book.
Well, that's what happened to me with Archie Meets Nero Wolfe, which bears the entirely unneeded subtitle A Prequel to Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Mysteries. I mean, what else could it possibly be?
You know by now that I love Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries. They're one of my happy places. I've never read a Wolfe pastiche before, though, and I was a leeetle nervous going into this. I've read enough Sherlock Holmes and Jane Austen pastiches to know that sometimes you find someone golden who can write those characters they way they ought to be written, but most of the time you get all miserable because it's sort of bad fanfiction written by someone with a tin ear.
Happily, Goldsborough is good. His pacing is sound, and he plots well. His dialog for Wolfe was excellent -- I could really feel like yes, this was Wolfe. Same for Inspector Cramer. The 'teers, Saul and Fred and Orrie, were good too. But of course, the quality of any Nero Wolfe pastiche is going to hinge on the portrayal of Archie Goodwin. He's the narrator of the originals, the real heart of the stories, and by far my favorite character in them. Archie is make or break.
And here too, Goldsborough made it work. Not quite so perfectly as Wolfe -- it wasn't until the last third of the story that I really started feel like yup, this is my Archie Goodwin. But that's actually okay, and may have been intentional, because the book begins with Archie at 19, freshly arrived in NYC and trying to find his niche in the big city. He's still zesty and charming, but feels a little unformed, and I've decided that Goldsborough did that on purpose, because Archie at 19 obviously wouldn't have yet acquired the flair he has as a grown man. It's by hanging out with Saul Panzer and Nero Wolfe that he can learn to be more than just brash and brave.
After I'd finished reading this, I did a little internet sleuthing of my own and discovered that Goldsborough had previously written several Nero Wolfe mysteries, so I'm kind of thinking I'll try to find some of those now too. Not like I've run out of actual Nero Wolfe books, because I have half a shelf of them I haven't read yet, but... the more, the merrier, huh?
The actual plot of Archie Meets Nero Wolfe revolves around a kidnapping case that Wolfe solves with the help of his go-to independent operatives, Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, and Orrie Cather, as well as someone who pops up in a couple of the originals, Del Bascom. And Del Bascom brings along a bright young fellow he's taken on as an assistant, one Archie Goodwin. By the end of the book, Wolfe has come to appreciate Goodwin's detecting instincts, ability to recall entire conversations verbatim, and energetic inability to sit around and do nothing. He offers him the job of assistant, warning him he'll need to be part secretary, part clue hound, and part pants-kicker. And, well... we all know how that turns out.
Particularly Good Bits:
"False humility is a transparent plea for praise and recognition, neither of which I find worth the price of the pretense" (p. 138).
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some violence, a child in peril, and a little bad language here and there (the same kind you'd run into in the original books).
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?
As you might be able to tell from the cover, in Johnston McCulley's second serialized Zorro story, Zorro takes to the high seas. Because what could possibly be more exciting than the first Zorro story? Why, Zorro plus pirates, of course!
On the eve of Don Diego Vega's wedding to Senorita Lolita Pulido, a band of pirates attacks Los Angeles, looting and pillaging. The presidio just happens to be empty of soldiers at the moment because Captain Ramon sent them on a fool's errand so the pirates could have free rein. His reward? They kidnap Lolita Pulido for him. Back in the first Zorro story (originally titled The Curse of Capistrano), Captain Ramon had tried unsuccessfully to woo the senorita, but of course lost out to Diego/Zorro. Now Ramon is determined to ruin his rival, claim the girl as his own, and make people think he's a hero. If he has to make -- and break -- a few pacts with some pirates, oh well.
Naturally, Diego dons his Zorro persona once again and sets off to rescue his lady love. If you're not used to reading serialized adventures like this (think the swashbucklers of Alexandre Dumas), then you might get a bit weary of the long string of escapes, captures, failed rescues, and so on. I thought it was a very fun story, and I liked that the damsel in distress did some plotting of her own, involving several bids for freedom and a successful trick to free Zorro.
This is not great literature. However, this is highly entertaining literature, and I'm so glad it's available in e-book form and not lost to the world. I read this with the Kindle app on my phone, and while it had numerous typos, still... I'd rather have to decipher a word here and there than not get to read it at all!
Particularly Good Bits:
"If a thief, be a thief! If a pirate, be a pirate! But do not play at being an honest man and try to be a thief and pirate at the same time."
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for lots of swashbuckling violence and Captain Ramon intending to have his way with Senorita Pulido if she does not consent to marry him.
This is my 34th book read and reviewed for The Classics Club.
I just posted about this over on my other blog too, but I know there are people here who don't follow that one, so I'll post about it here too because I am celebrating. You can read the official announcement here :-D
Yes, I wrote a western retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story. Because it's me. Westerns, westerns everywhere. They're all I write anymore (aside from the occasional bit of Combat! fanfic, of course), and I love them dearly. Thanks to lots of advice and encouragement from my writing friends, especially from my endlessly patient mentor, DKoren, I turned in a story I was really proud of, and I figured that even if I didn't win this contest, I would be able to find a home for my story somewhere. But I won! Yippee-ki-yay!
I've got quite a bit of editing to do in the next few months, of course, but this summer, people will be able to buy a book containing a story I wrote, and that is an absolute dream come true. Here's what it will look like:
Isn't it lovely? I love the fall-like color scheme. There will be an audio version too, which is so groovy. Anyway, I will probably post more about this in the future, but mostly over on Hamlette's Soliloquy, so if you want updates and such, please follow that blog too.
