The Perfect Book for November!

This Fall I put in charge of the younger children's book club at our co-op.  I looked through lists of books and read different recommendations and came up with a list of books we would read over the next 4 months. I just assigned the books to a month without much planning. I am so grateful for those that recommended Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, it really is the perfect book to discuss at Thanksgiving time.

It certainly doesn't look like a Thanksgiving book. There are no pumpkins or pilgrims and such but the theme is all about appreciating what you have and finding happiness.

Grace Lin in her acceptance speech for one of the many awards this book has won says :

"Minli is not perfect, but she tries her best and at every point she learns and grows until finally she realizes that happiness is not a prize that can be bought or won. Happiness is a gift that is cherished, something that one is truly grateful for."

That message comes through loud and clear through this story or I guess I could say stories since this book contains lots of little stories woven together to tell the entire tale.  It is sort of the Chinese Wizard of Oz with Minli traveling through a land and meeting lots of different characters and hearing their stories. In a way you could say Minli and Dorothy learn the same lesson. In the Wizard of Oz the theme is somewhat simplified  into "There is no place like home".  Minli (as well as other characters) learns that good fortune and happiness were already around her, she just needs to recognize and appreciate them.

We listened to the Audio book but am so glad I also got the actual book as well. The illustrations are beautiful! Here are a few.

I haven't quite decided how I am going to approach the book club discussion.  In the past we looked at the themes by discussing the protagonist and what they are trying to do while the antagonist tries to stop them.  That could be interesting to see if the kids could come up with who the antagonist is in this story. Or I could approach it as a discussion of the plot or story sequence and discuss the theme as we define and discuss the rising action, climax and resolution.  Or I could even do something totally different and have the kids actually talk about the similarities and differences to the Wizard of Oz story. I think if I took any of these directions,  I am sure we would discuss the book pretty thoroughly and cover the wonderful theme of the book.

I think I am going to make bookmarks for the kids with the Chinese characters for Thankfulness on them.

I really hope this is what these characters say. I just googled the phrase and this is what came up. It certainly looks good!

And of course some goldfish and a red thread or yarn on the end. Each of these things plays a role in the story.

And no book club meeting would be complete without a snack so we will eat some goldfish crackers as well.
I saw one of the girls in the club today at a different event and she had her book with her. She said she is liking it so much she has been bringing it with her so she can read more when she can fit it in. Coming from a 9 year old girl that is great praise indeed.

It should be a good book discussion.

More Christmas books

I can't say we have been doing a whole lot of school work. We aren't really taking a break but we aren't doing our regular things either.

We get through a good number of Christmas books each week. Here are a few from the last few days.

 The Grinch is always a favorite.  I love the Miracle of Jonathan Toomey (We watched the movie also) And the kids love the story of Rudolph, which is supposed to be the original story. The others were all cute or funny or a retelling of the nativity story. I picked up another 15 Christmas picture books at the library this week so we have plenty more to read through over the coming weeks.

I also finished a great book about Charles Dickens.

This isn't exactly a biography but it certainly made clear what was going on in Dickens's life before and after he wrote A Christmas Carol. Very interesting and a pretty quick read. 

I found an audio book version of A Christmas Carol we are going to listen to next week and I also got the Muppet Christmas Carol movie for the kids to watch sometime after the book is done.

We should have another few weeks of fun Christmas reading.

Print Rich Environment

Today while I was making dinner, Sophie was sitting in the front room telling me all about Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was reading a biography that I had picked up at the library a few days ago. We recently finished Little House on the Prairie and my kids had wanted to know more about Laura and Mary and where they would go next. This week we have been listening to On the Banks of Plum Creek in the car and Farmer Boy has been our read aloud. The kids didn't quite know how Farmer Boy fit in with the other stories but when Sophie read the biography she figured out that Almanzo's last name is Wilder and that he and Laura later get married. She was so excited to tell me she had finally figured it out.  I love it when my kids pick up books and get excited about what they are reading. All I need to do is provide the books and they do the learning! 

Sophie has also really loved looking through The New Way things Work, which is another book I picked up at the library to go along with our history chapter next week. She has been taking it to her room and reading it late into the night. The next day she tells me all about some of the new things she has learned. 

The boys have been so Star Wars crazy it is amazing they pick up anything else in their free time but I picked up Calamity Jack at the library for them. I should have picked up both copies that were on the shelf because these two boys have fought over it ever since it came home. Henry informs me it is a little more scary then Rapunzel's Revenge.  I still haven't read it (My husband has read it to the kids as their bedtime book) but I think I will have to look through it before we return it. I have already been told that we need to buy it. I guess we need a copy to sit next to our Rapunzel book. 

I don't know why it surprises me to see how much my kids enjoy books. They really enjoy stories. Then the stories always get incorporated into their artwork, their lego or Knex building and any other play. Tonight for dinner we ate "bandersnatch" (It was actually Salmon) that they had caught somehow. I know a Jabberwocky was involved but I don't know the whole story.  And while they waited for their catch to cook, they drew pictures of Laura's dugout house with an ox falling through the roof. They all thought that part of the story was hilarious. 

Once your kids love stories they just seem to soak up information. It is a good thing too. I can't say I have had much time or energy to do much else recently. School for us, the last few weeks/months, has consisted mainly of reading. Me reading aloud to them or listening to audio books. Sophie also has been good about reading books to the boys and even Ian has started to read a bit too. 

It is a print rich environment in which we live, and we love it! 

Great Christmas Stories.

I admit that we are going rather light on school this week. We have spent a lot of time reading Christmas books. I picked up a bunch (10 of them to be precise. We are only allowed 5 per library card) of them last week and then picked up another 10 books this week. Many of the books are the same ones we have read for the past few years and others are new ones that I just decided to give a try. We have really enjoyed many of them while others are.... well lets just say we aren't going to be keeping them or checking them out again.

Here are two that we really liked from this weeks stash.
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey is a lovely story about how one man is brought out of his gloom by a little boy and a nativity set. It made we want to get out our Nativities. But I am holding out until Monday which is when I told the kids we would get out all the Christmas stuff. We will see if I don't relent and get them out tomorrow.

I also found this one was made into a movie. It is over a hour and a half long so it really fleshes out the story and very beautifully filmed. My kids really loved watching the story come to life in this film version.

The other book we really connected with isn't a particularly spiritual book but it was one we could relate to. It is called My Penguin Osbert. The little boy in the book has his heart set on a penguin and then when he gets it he realizes that it isn't quite so fun to have a penguin and wants Santa to take it back.

I remember one year Sophie told every Santa she came across that she really wanted a stuffed Cheshire cat that she had seen at Costco. It was the only thing she wanted and just knew that Santa would come through. It ended up being by her Stocking Christmas morning and she was thrilled. But when night time came, she didn't want to sleep with it or even have it in her room with her. It had to sleep out in the living room because it was too scary. She continued to have bad dreams about this Cheshire Cat so we ended up getting rid of it.

I remind her of this Cheshire cat whenever she wants something that she feels she just has to have in hopes that she will think about the gift and make sure it is really what she wants.

It is a good thing there are so many Christmas books at the library. We are going through a bunch of them everyday. I think I need to get Ian and Henry library cards so that they too can each check out 5 books. Then we could have 20 Christmas books out at the same time. We have gone through that many this week. Do you have any that you think we really need to try?

Legos leads to Tintin

About a year or so ago I signed up Ian to receive the Lego Magazine. It is a free subscription and comes every other month or so. Ian would love to have it come more often. He asks me almost everyday if a new Lego magazine came for him. Many of the features in the magazine are stories told in a comic book style and little lego men are the characters. They are usually an episode from Star Wars, Indiana Jones or sometimes a story that goes along with the latest lego sets that are out and that they are promoting. (The magazine is really a big advertisement for legos. Which is why it is free! Thanks to Uncle Ryan my boys now have "little legos" and can build ships and have a number of Star Wars guys to fly them. )


My boys love to have these stories from the Lego Magazine read to them and they clamor for more and more. My husband is usually the one reads the magazine with the boys and after finishing the latest magazine he told me that we should see if we could find some other comic books for the boys. I looked for comic books at the library and didn't come up with much more than Calvin and Hobbs or Garfield. Calvin wouldn't be too bad but it wasn't quite what we were looking for. It wasn't comic strips we were looking for but graphic novels as they are now called. We really enjoyed Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale not too long ago so I knew we needed to look for something along those lines.

Most graphic novels are in the Teen section of the library so I was a little leery of them at first. Then shortly after having this discussion with my husband and sort of half heartedly looking at graphic novels my friend Alison posted about some books that her husband read and loved as a kid when he lived in Europe and had just found again at his parents home. I thought they sounded fun so went to our library website to see if they had any of the Tintin series. I love our library system. They seem to have just about everything. They had the series and I quickly put the first two books of The Adventures of Tintin on hold. Each book is a compilation, so actually has 3 stories included.

My boys, including my husband, have thoroughly enjoyed them. Tintin goes everywhere. He started in America and had adventures with indians (Native Americans, the books are from the 30's and 40's and aren't PC) and then in the next one he is in Egypt and exploring the pyramids, and then in the next he is in China and then on to Scotland. They are looking forward to when Tintin goes to the moon and under the ocean. The boys can't tell me which story is their favorite so far, they just love them all. I think they have now finished 6 and are on their 7th book in the series.

There is some violence. Some bad guys have to get their just rewards and Tintin and his trusty dog snowy are there to make sure they do. Or at least so I am told. I haven't actually read any of these myself. I just know my kids, including Sophie love them. No it may not be great literature but when quiet reading time comes each day the boys will revisit the stories and Sophie steals the books whenever she can. Each night my husband has to go and find the latest book in Sophie's room, where she was up late reading them.

So, no, it isn't shakespeare but my kids are reading and having a good time doing it. I love to hear them all laugh and laugh at some of the slapstick humor that is prevalent in the books. They are always bringing me the book so I can see the funny parts. My husband enjoys his daily dose of Tintin too. So if you have any boys, or girls for that matter, that would enjoys some graphic novel type stories these are very fun. And I am sure we will have to revisit them in a number of years so the boys we get some of the satire and political commentaries that Herge put into his stories. This is what my husband enjoys about them. The kids just like to see the bad guys get their just rewards and Tintin to somehow always get out of the scrapes he finds himself in.

Meet Addy

I have been reading the American Girl books to Sophie each night as her Good Night book. We are them in historical order. We recently started the next American Girl which is Addy. She is the African American Slave girl living on a plantation in South Carolina. I read the first two chapters a few nights ago and Sophie was a little scared by the descriptions of slave life and then especially by Addy's family being split up and part sold to another owner.
I admit it is hard to read such things. And we discussed a little more about slavery and remembered our studies about the underground railroad we did with our FIAR unit on "Follow the Drinking Gourd" . But last night I read the next two chapters and I almost couldn't make it through the last few paragraphs. I don't know if it was just the emotion causing hormones that course through my body right now, but I was choked up. The Mother having to leave her one year old daughter on the plantation when Addy and her Mother run away to head north just struck an emotional cord. The baby would be heavy to carry and may make noise so they had to leave her behind. My voice got all shaky as I read the mother tell Addy this is what the plan was. I had to pause often in order to maintain composure while the story went on to describe Addy and her Mom sleeping for the last time with the little sister knowing they were going to leave her behind the next day.

I have never had this problem reading any of other American Girl books. I am sure it is because I am a mom and hate to think of ever having to leave any my children. Sophie didn't seem to be bothered by it at all. At least she didn't seemed to be. she didn't even comment about my reading.

The stories are usually pretty simple and episodic and not so emotionally charged. I hope I can make it through the rest of this book and the rest of the series.

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies

Last week at the library I picked up Good Masters! Sweet Ladies for our medieval studies. I was really lucky to also pick up the audio CD of this book which was on the Library shelves. It must be brand new, just released, because Amazon doesn't even have the audio book listed. Or at least I couldn't find it. They do have an audio download. But getting the CD was so perfect. We had attempted to sit down and read these short little monologs a few weeks ago and didn't really get anywhere. I returned the book eventually and thought I would get it again later.

Listening to the different actors read the parts was wonderful. When the author says they are plays she means it and plays are meant to be performed. My kids loved them. Sophie sat with the book in front of her and listened while she followed along and looked at the illustrations. Ian requested to listen to it again and then also wanted us to take it out to the car so we could listen to it as we drive around. So if you can find the Audio CD of this book it is well worth it. Great little stories that really bring to life the different people in a medieval village.

Weather Art Book

Today we sat down to read some books. Today is library day and I usually try to read our library books at least once before returning them. I had a few that have been on my shelf for a long time.

We are finishing up our study of weather and storms so most of the books were something related to this topic. We finally got to a great one today. The book is How Artists See The Weather. It is part of a whole series of books that take a topic such as the weather, people, play, feelings and such like that. This is the first one I have picked up.

At first I just had Sophie sitting with me as we looked at the first picture which is the Van Gogh piece that is on the cover and with the text we explored the painting and looked at it compared to another also by Van Gogh. It really took us for a tour through these paintings and we saw how artists show the different elements of weather through color, stroke or subject. After a few pages of paintings and discussions about them. The boys wanted to join in on the fun and point out the things they saw in the paintings as well. I totally recommend the book and I will be picking up others from the library. It fit in so nicely with our study of weather. It if fun to look at paintings from all sorts of different artists and styles but that are all related to a subject like this.

Borrowers

We have officially finished The Borrowers Series by Mary Norton. It has taken us about 3 months to read all 5 books. But we only read a chapter or two each night before bed. I mostly read the books to Sophie but Ian would sometimes listen. He also knows the stories because we found a movie version at the library that closely follows the books. There is also a sequel, which follows the rest of the books, but it isn't at our library. I had thought I would just buy it but it is only on VHS and not DVD. We have also watched a more recent borrowers movie but it doesn't follow the books at all. Just some of the names of the characters are the same. My kids still liked it.

Today my kids are busy acting out the story. Sophie of course is Arrietty. Ian decided he was Spiller (that way he could carry his plastic dagger around with him.) And they couldn't decide if Henry should be Peagreen or Timmus. I personally think he is more like Timmus then Peagreen. But I think they just like saying Peagreen better. They have piled up pillows and blankets to make forts for the borrowers to hide in and they seem to be running around a lot. Sometime I am forced to be Homily and at other times I have been Miss Menzies or even Mrs. Driver. I am glad they have such great imaginations, and that they play so well together. They don't always so it is refreshing for today.


Of course we aren't done with Mary Norton yet. Sophie wants me to read Bedknob and Broomstick by the same author next. Evidently she has been reading it already and it doesn't follow the movie at all.

More Borrowers!

Yesterday I found a book called Sea Star by Marguerite Henry which is a sequal to the Misty books we had read earlier this year. Sophie was all excited about it when I showed it to her yesterday at the library. Last night I finished the book I was reading to her at bedtime, The Borrowers Afield. When I left her room I asked her if she wanted to read the Sea Star book next. She said "Oh no.... we have to read more Borrowers. I guess it is a good thing we also have The Borrowers Afloat sitting on the shelf waiting to be read as well. It is wonderful to have such a dilemma.

The Red Poppy

Yesterday at the library I picked up a great book. I saw the title on the shelf and thought since we were seeing so many poppies about, it would a fun read. So I took it home. The book is just called "The Red Poppy" by Irmgard Lucht.
This morning we read a bunch of books about gardening and Vegetables to go along with our FIAR book, Peter Rabbit. I went to the library shelf (we have one cube in our large shelf where the library books go) and saw this book there and thought it too would kinda go along. We we all piled into the story telling chair to read through this one. I hadn't even opened it yet, which is kinda strange of me to take a book home without at least glancing through it first. But I guess even from the cover you can get at least a feel for the type of book and pictures that you will find inside.
The artwork is beautiful. And the story is lovely. We had so much fun looking for the insects and animals hidden in the grasses or even in the flowers. The story explains the whole life cycle of the poppy through words and pictures. It is a great resource for teaching about plants I think. And the close up look into the parts of the poppy were great! My kids don't always love all the non fiction books and since this one is really a picture/story book they loved it.
It appears to be out of print. Amazon isn't selling it new. So see if you Library has it. It is well worth a read.

A few fun books

I had gotten into the habit of going to the library and just getting the books we needed for school and the kids would add one or two that they wanted and that was it. The last few trips to the library I have purposely just picked a few books that either I remember as a child or that just looked like fun when I glanced through the shelf while the kids are at story time. We have had a few really fun books recently that we have enjoyed.

I picked up this one because of the knights. Ian has loved his castle and knights so much since Christmas so some books on Knights sounded good. He loved this one and I guess the author, Ulf Lofgren, has written a few more Alvin books where he visits pirates and such. I will have to see if the library has any of these other ones. I am sure they will be a hit.

We just picked this one up today at the libray. Sophie found it on the library shelf. The colors must have caught her attention. All three kids couldn't wait to get home so we could read it. They even fought over how got to hold it as we walked out of the library and in the car ride home. It is very cute. I don't think Sophie will ever have a case of stripes. She is far too opinionated and doesn't care what anyone else has to say. She does her own thing no matter what. She doesn't care what others are doing or saying. But it is a fun book and the illustrations are very funny.

Leo Lionni books have been a favorite for some time. We love Frederick and Fish is Fish. We pick up a book called Frederick's Fables from the library every once in awhile. It has a bunch of Lionni's books in it. My kids will sit as we read through the complete book of fables. Sophie often reads these to herself. The book ends up in her room on her little bookshelf by her bed for early morning reading.

Cynthia Rylant's Poppleton books are a new favorite. We have read through a few of them a number of times. I can't believe I forgot to grab a few new ones today when we were at the library. Oh.... well... there is always next week.

Book Club Today - Children's books

Today was book club day (Our book club is just a group of Moms from church and we get together once a month, and bring our kids with us, and we discuss a book) and for December instead of reading a book to discuss we always bring some of our favorite children's books. This is the 3rd time we have done this so it was a little more difficult to pick some favorites. But this is what we ended up bringing with us.

Sophie brought Alice in Wonderland of course, but she was also decided to bring Sagwa, The chinese Siamese Cat by Amy Tan. We got this book a few weeks ago when we were studying China. Sophie has read through this book several times since. The artwork is very beautiful.

I had Henry bring Stop That Ball by Mike McClintock, which is one that have read so many times. We started getting it from the library when Sophie was little and each of the kids has just loved it.

For Ian I brought The Construction Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta. We have checked this out out of the library many many times. Ian loves diggers and big trucks so this one has been a favorite. We have also checked out many of Pallotta's other alphabet books. They are all very well done. I also brought Fred and Ted go Camping by Peter Eastmen. Ian always seems to find the Fred and Ted books at the library so we take them home a lot as well.

Books that I brought to share were:
Crinkleroot's guide to knowing the birds by Jim Arnosky.
An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston
Our Picture Atlas of the World illustrated by Brian Delf (We use this book all the time)
Nate the Great and the Crunchy Christmas by Marjorie Sharmat (We love Nate the Great!)
Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter by Cindy Neuschwander

I can't say these are my absolute favorite Children's books but they were good books that we found recently or that we have used a lot.

I can't wait to get the list of books that the host always collects and sends out. Some of the books that others brought sound so good!

Book of a Thousand Days

I just finished the book, Book of a Thousand Days over the weekend. It is the 4th book I have read by Shannon Hale recently. I really enjoy her retellings of fairy tales. As I pondered why I think it is because her of characters. I grew to really like each of the heroines in her tales. One of the things that I thought about was how in each of the tales the magic that happens isn't really magic but just a person that is more attune to the natural forces. I guess that is what the x-men or other super heros do but it didn't really make me stop and think until reading these books. I delight in that the goose girl can talk to the wind, and therefore use it to do her bidding or that Enna learns to collect heat from living things around her and therefore can create fire. But I really enjoyed how Dashti was able to heal by singing. Her songs were able to help the body remember what it was like to be whole. The song itself didn't actually do the healing it was the person himself that did the healing the song just helped it remember. The person also had to be willing to let the song heal before it would work. I loved that idea. This is a superpower that I wouldn't mind having.
So for anyone that hasn't read these great books, head over to your library and look in the children's fiction section under Hale and you should find a few there. I hope to find River Secrets or Princess Academy there next time. I haven't read those ones yet.

Halloween books

Today at the library I picked out some Halloween books. Our library pulls out all the Halloween books and has a special section of them all through the month of October. Last week I had picked out a few without reading them first, just a quick glance through and I was very disappointed in them. They were promptly returned this week. I don't like books that get too into the evilness of halloween. Why would anyone make that kind of Children's book? One was just a halloween alphabet book and I didn't make it past letter D before stopping. I just couldn't read it my children any more. So today I picked out a few books that I remember getting last year. We own a few good Halloween books because it is Sophie's favorite holiday so, trick-or-treat books seem to make it to our house a lot. Just before bed tonight Sophie was quietly reading Cranberry Halloween. We love these Cranberry books. FIAR intoduced Cranberry Thanksgiving to us and we have now read many of the other Cranberry books. We really like them and I look forward to reading each of them for the different holidays. The recipes at the end are also fun to make.

My kids love Berenstain Bears books and we have their Trick-or-Treat book which is fun for Halloween. Teaches a good lesson too.

We enjoyed Gail Gibbons Halloween book today. It was a fair overview of the history of Halloween without going into too much detail.

There are a few others that we read but none of them are that exciting. Nothing that really stan out as great books. Does anyone have any Halloween books that they like? My kids love this holiday but I am having trouble finding good books. I would love some ideas!