Currently :: January 2021

I always seem to come back to these currently types of posts when I return to the blog after a long absence. Seems like a good way to dip my fingers back into typing and a catch-all of sorts of what's happening right now. And I just plain enjoy them!

Feeling: the chill in the air from outside the house. It was in the low 60s yesterday and it's raining and 36 outside right now. There is the sliiiiiightest chance that this might turn to snow, but I'm not holding my breath.

Listening: to the sounds of Ethan on his gaming headset behind me playing something with his Dad. The TV in the other room where one of the girls is chilling after school with National Treasure. I know we're not the only family whose screen time has ramped up in the months of just being home.

Watching: nothing. I've realized (over the the last 10 months of being home so much), that I really don't watch or like much TV. I have favorite movies that I will watch again and again, and that's about it. Every now and then the rare TV show will come along that I get sucked into. Lately it was the Mandalorian and I loved that it only gave us one episode a week, just like the "old days." We are eagerly waiting on season 3!

Reading: January has been a good reading month. I just finished The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and it was very good! It is a YA story about a girl who inherits a crazy amount of money and she has never heard of the person who left her the money. The book is a suspenseful and very interesting story on uncovering the riddle left for her and the members of the family cut out of the will. If you are a fan of Knives Out, you would definitely like this book, but with less language. (I'd rate it PG-13 for language and a little romantic interest, but I'd let my 15 year old read it).

Cooking: all the soups. Last fall I started (in my head, it's not like a club or anything!) Soup Sunday. Not every week, but on most Sunday nights I have been making a big pot of soup for dinner and then eating on it throughout the week. It's become one of my favorite things. Favorite soups that have made it into the rotation, some several times, are:

Egg Roll Soup from Gimme Some Oven

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili from Whatever blog

Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup from Skinny Taste's One and Done Cookbook

Whole 30 Zuppa Toscana

Lasagna Soup (no link)

Podcasting: this year, for my read-through-the-Bible plan, I decided to do the chronological plan that goes along with The Bible Recap Podcast. In general, I'm not a podcast person. It's hard for me to stay focused and listen without taking notes, which defeats the purpose of listening to them while you do other things. That said, the episodes are 5-10 minutes long and I listen to them in the morning right after I do the Bible reading for the day. I've really appreciated the short commentary, and what is pulled from the day's reading. Last year, I read through the New Testament, and then spent the end of the year reading through the gospels, so I have really enjoyed being back in the Old Testament!

Missing: life before masks. I'm not here for the mask argument. Having 3 girls in public school right now and also one foot still in the homeschool world with Ethan, I hear both sides of the argument LOUD AND CLEAR. But I'm ready to see people's faces sooner rather than later. Also missing normal outings like field trips, movies releasing in theaters, and church without social distancing.

Enough listing for one day. Happy Wednesday. :)

April's Reading

There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason as to when I get on here and post a reading up date. I used to be more consistent, but that has fallen by the wayside. Either way, I felt like sharing my April books tonight so here I am. We'll see how coherent this is as it's approaching bedtime, but I'm trying to hang in here for bit longer so I can make sure kids go to bed at a decent time. (I miss little kid bedtimes!)

I read nine books this month - most on the lighter side. They were:

Seed of Rebellion (Beyonders #2) by Brandon Mull (a reread) - I started rereading the Beyonders in March (I think?) when I was wanting something familiar. So far, anything by Brandon Mull is a great story and since I'd read these before, easy to pick up and put down when it was busy. Also, I only own books 1 and 2, so after finishing this, I wasn't dying to go on to #3 since I already know what happens!

The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman - I have listened to Emily Freeman's podcast of the same name on and off again - I'm just not a great podcast listener! It's too easy for my mind to wander when I have earbuds in and no words to follow along with. I was a last minute orderer of her book, but I really did enjoying seeing her podcast live and breathe here and it all made so much more sense to me on the written page than in audio. Decision making wears me out and the guiding principles and thoughts she shares in this book are golden - many are just common sense, but sometimes you need someone to tell you that it's ok and give you a couple nudges if you are wrestling through big decisions. This book was that for me and I'll be revisiting it.

The Island of Adventure by Enid Blyton - This was a series I recently spotted at our library. They had books 2-4 on the shelves, but no book 1 so I found an inexpensive used copy online and ordered it. Such a fun little book. Reminded me so much of Swallows and Amazons or the children in E. Nesbit tales. I've finally gone back to the library and gotten my hands on a sequel or two to this series and want to revisit these children in May now that school is winding down! This will be a read-aloud with Ethan soon, I hope!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - I read this one to fulfill a requirement for the Modern Mrs. Darcy bookclub that I'm working through with a few friends. The category was a book recommended by someone with good taste (I think that's the gist ... it's late and I'm not being exact). My friend Amy at Hope is the Word has talked about this one several times and it was already on my shelf so it made an easy pick. As I told my friends in the group, I couldn't decide how I felt about this book. It was very unique in the way it was written (I don't want to give too much away if you haven't read it), and it was extremely well done. Maybe because it was a WWII book from a child's vantage point that made it harder. I'm glad I can move this from my to-be-read pile, but I don't know that it will go down as a favorite or one that I'll reread though it would be a good book for a younger reader without much of the atrocities that come with other WWII reading.

The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis - Ethan and I knocked another Narnian tale off our list. This is my favorite story, mainly because of the conversation between Aslan and Shasta when he finally meets the great lion and realizes that he was with him all along the way, from the moment he was abandoned as a baby to the dangerous moments on his journey. It reminds me so much of the verse: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." (Isaiah 43:2)

Bluecrowne by Kate Milford / The Left-Handed Fate by Kate Milford - Sometime in 2017, I fiiiinallly read The Greenglass House which had been tucked away on my kindle for ages. I was completely mesmerized by that book, along with it's sequel, The Ghosts of Greenglass House. (I need to go back and reread both one of these days). These two books are prequels to the Greenglass books, telling the story of the Bluecrownes who where sailors (privateers) and the original owners of the Greenglass house. I'm already eagerly looking forward to another prequel coming out in this series later this year. Super fun reading for junior readers.

Snow and Rose by Emily Winfield Martin - The last book I finished was one I found on my bookshelves that Natalie had brought to me. Sometime last year, I signed her and Ethan each up for Amazon book boxes. I've it set up where they rotate who gets a box (they come alternating months) and if we spot books we are interested in, we make our selection and set it to ship. (And when nothing catches our eye, we pass on the box with no penalty). It's the first time I've done any kind of a book subscription service and we've really enjoyed it. This was a book that came in Natalie's box sometime last fall - she devoured it and immediately brought it to me to read. I confess, I read 20-30 pages of it and set it aside. It didn't grab me so I moved on. However, as I was cleaning my office this weekend, it surfaced and I finished it off in about two days. It's fairytale in the style of Grimm, a little on the dark side, but with an unexpected twist at the end that I enjoyed. If you like Jonathan Auxier's books like The Night Gardener or Peter Nimble / Sophie Quire, you would probably like this, though it's much shorter and without as much wit and depth. Definitely more fairy to it, if that makes sense!

Hank the Cowdog by John Erikson - Ethan and I finished a second read-aloud this month! We blame spring weather and new chairs on the front porch entirely! He has been reading the Mercy Watson books aloud to me and I have been reading Hank the Cowdog to him. This has been recommended as a book for boys so many times - we needed a break from Narnia (and to be honest, I'm not sure about reading The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle to him now. I know he's going to miss all the cool stuff that makes those books magic!) This book was perfect for an 8 year old. Hank is trying to solve the mystery of who is killing chickens in the coop and he gets into all sorts of predicaments along the way. Ethan loved it so much that he immediately requested that we find a copy of Hank #2 (which I now have on Kindle) and we're already one-third of the way into it. That said, there are 62 books in the Hank the Cowdog series (last I checked) and we are NOT going to be reading them all out loud! But I'm hoping I'm piquing Ethan's attention enough that he might be interested in reading them on his own soon.

Lots of fun kid-lit books here this month - I always seem to default to that when my brain is heavy and burdened with other things. Now that we are about 17 days away from the end of our school year, I'm looking forward to even more reading - my library hold list is crazy!

January Reads

January ended up being a pretty decent reading month for me, all things considered. It turns out that the first month of the year is one of the busiest for the person who is a director of a Classical Conversations community. It's time to re-register families for the coming year, hold informational meetings, figure out how to fill out 1099s for the first time, and the list goes on. I've been sticking to a pretty strict to-do list and just checking off the next thing. That said, the majority of the stack above are read-alouds - that's where most of my reading time ended up taking place. Personally, I read a couple books on my Kindle and one fairly good-sized series which was fantastic and a great way to end the month.

To recap our read-alouds, the two books leaning to the left in the photo above were actually December's read-alouds. They were all I finished in December (besides the big Bible reading project that I'm nearing the end of) and I never got a monthly wrap up for that month written. We finished Mr. Popper's Penguins and By the Great Horn Spoon this month. Mr. Popper's was a HUGE hit with my 7 year old. We read the book, we saw the play at our local children's theater, and he has the audiobook loaded on an ancient iPad and has listened to it several times. It's fun to look back and now and see when I had last read that book aloud (before he was born), so the 7 year cycle of repeating books is working out pretty good for me!

We also finished Sid Fleischman's By the Great Horn Spoon which tied more into the American History memory work that we are doing in CC this year. I admit, I wasn't sure about this book when it started. However, it did pick up about halfway through the book and by the end we were to the "just one more chapter, please!" and finished it up rather quickly. It was a great story as far as describing what it might have looked like for someone heading out to try their hand during the great gold rush.

In January, we finished The Prairie Thief by Melissa Wiley and Little House on the Prairie (and who all should know who that author is). :) The Prairie Thief was a just-for-fun read and requested by my 10yo girl - since she is the one that I seem to have the hardest time engaging with a read-aloud, I obliged her and we all enjoyed this one. (Again, this was another re-read, last enjoyed in 2012, so the girls would have been 4 and 5ish, and the boy not quite 2).

Little House on the Prairie was as reread for Natalie, who remembers it the first time we read it and has since read the series on her own at least once. Betsy didn't remember this at all ... and I have to say, I pick up different things every time that I go through the series, and especially the farther along I get into parenting. What a hard life it would have been to travel with three little girls with her husband to build a home literally from the ground up. And to read aloud Ma's feelings towards their Native American neighbors was not exactly pleasant, but we did have some good conversations about it. 

The last read aloud worth mentioning is The Hobbit which the boy and I read before bed off-and-on in December and January. It doesn't even need to be said how great a book The Hobbit is, but I might argue it's an even better read-aloud. So, so good.

On my Kindle this month, I read two books: The Boneshaker by Kate Milford and Lost and Found: Losing Religion and Finding Grace by Kendra Fletcher. I had such high hopes for The Boneshaker after I read Milford's Greenglass House books. As you might predict from the cover alone, it was a little creepy and I didn't love it. Lost and Found was a book that I've had on my wish list for years, and was able to buy for a steal as a Kindle version. I used to read Kendra's blog (Preschoolers and Peace) years ago when my girls where tiny. A year-ish ago she wrote this deeper work about her and her husband's shift in faith through some deep trials in their family and how they were drawn deeper to Jesus and from a works/checklist based faith. Her testimony in this book spoke to me, and I'm thankful I finally got the chance to read it.

The rest of the month was completely taken up with Brandon Mull's Beyonders series. Last summer I fell hard for his Fablehaven series, and decided to try this series featuring an older protagonist. I loved this series just as much! Where the main character in Fablehaven is a young teen girl and her younger brother, this series is focused on Jason, about 15, and how he becomes embroiled in Lyrian. He takes on a cause that he has no tie to because it's the right thing to do and becomes the unlikely hero of the tale and one well worth recommending. While I handed Fablehaven immediately off to my 12 year old, (and I'll be recommending the Beyonders to her as well), I'm excited about this series with a male hero for Ethan when he gets older.

Happy reading. :)

May 2017 Reads ... or Lack Thereof

Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, Texas


El Morro National Monument, New Mexico


Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona


Hoover Dam, Nevada


Hollywood




Ventura, California


Malibu, California




Santa Barbara, California


Arches National Park, Utah

And that is the reason I have little to no reading to post this month! We were either frantically wrapping up school, packing or preparing for the trip, or traveling across the United States over the past two weeks. It was all sorts of fun, but left little time for reading. A grand total of two things were read this month:

• one was a read aloud that the boy and I finished at bedtime, Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary. It has been a LONG time since I have read Henry and Ethan and I promptly went to the library and checked out some more books about him. 
• I also finished Outlaws of Time #2: The Song of Glory and Ghost by N.D. Wilson. This is the second book in N.D. Wilson's Outlaws of Time series. While I am a big fan of his 100 Cupboards books, and enjoyed one of his stand-alone mysteries, this series continues to baffle me a bit and I seem to have a hard time keeping up. However, I don't mind adding his books to his library because I have a fantasy-loving girl that will enjoy them, and I feel sure the boy will down the road. 

This week is our Classical Conversations practicum (3 days of a mini classical homeschool convention and training for next year) and then I'm hoping there is much pool and reading time in the near future!

What She Read in April 2017

Squeaking in on the last day of the month to report on April's reading. Such a good month for read-alouds in this house. I'm not saying it's because we are thisclose to the end of the school year, and right now reading aloud is about all we feel like doing! (Math and a few other things are still in the loop, but the end is in sight.) We finished four read-alouds this month, and I read three books - two in the last week ... another sign that I'm about to get a small reprieve from school stuff for some fun reading downtime. :)

Our read-alouds that we finished were:

• Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. The boy and I read this at bedtime over the last month and as I mentioned in March's post, I really enjoyed reading it this time around. The stories are just so clever and funny. I know some of the humor went over Ethan's head, but they were animal stories which automatically makes it a hit with him. 

• The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong. This was such a great book. We were totally sucked into the story of the school children in this small Dutch town. The towns surrounding their small area all have storks that come and nest on the roofs of the houses - why doesn't their town have storks? A simple question asked leads to this small town on a quest and several unexpected friendships to bring the storks back to Shora. Loved this one!

• Henry and the Chalk Dragon by Jennifer Trafton. This book is such a gem. The story of Henry who loves to draw. But one day one of his drawings escapes and comes to life and, as expected, mayhem ensues. Lots of big thoughts about how it can be scary to be an artist and let your work out so others can see it ... and comment on it! My books is littered with little post-its of great quotes and turns of phrases that I wanted to remember:

Quest. It was probably the best word of all the words ever made up. It meant going on a really long journey to find something you want a whole lot.

Henry was telling the truth. Dragons aren't scary - well, they are, but they're a good kind of scary. They're the kind of scary you want to be scared of. People are the bad kind of scary, he thought. Dragons can only eat you, but people can laugh at you, and that is like being chewed to death with a smile.

It is a dangerous thing to open a door. But that, after all, is the only way to find an adventure.

Of note: we got to meet the author at a book signing for Henry, and she was delightful. :)

• Stuart Little by E.B. White. This is the first time that I have ever read this one which surprises even myself, considering I'm such a fan of Charlotte's Web and The Trumpet of the Swan (review). We enjoyed it - I do have a soft spot for mouse tales - but I also found this book a little on the odd side. It was a nice short read-aloud, but Stuart is no Wilbur. 

The books that I read this month:

• The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. I picked this one up for Amy's Newbery Challenge. I'm just sure that I read this at some point as a child, but it has been a while! It's the story of young Kit who must move to colonial Connecticut to live with her extremely strict relatives. The religious liberty that these colonists came to America to find have them extremely suspicious of anything that doesn't fit into their mold, and Kit finds herself very lonely until she meets a women who most of the village suspects is a witch. Fascinating read about early America and one that I think I'll pass on to N2 this next year when we return to American history in our studies.

• The Unbreakable Code by Jennifer Chambliss Bertram. This is fun literary mystery set in San Francisco. I read Bertram's Book Scavenger last year enough to make sure that the sequel was on our shelves when it came out last week. If you liked Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library or books with lots of literary references sprinkled throughout, I recommend this one!

• A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro. This book was recommended to me by Nicole on Instagram. I enjoy mysteries (can't get the Nancy Drew out of a girl once she's hooked) and when she said this was a YA series based on the descendants of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, I decided to give it a try. This was a great mystery and I definitely liked the premise of the Watson and Holmes descendants always finding each other. That said, I didn't care for some of the language in the book, but that is my only quibble with this. 

And with that we are on to May. :) With the prospect of school ending, a family road-trip, and the pool opening in the next several weeks, I have high hopes for more reading time to come. Which means a summer reading list, naturally!

March 2017 Reads

March has come in like a lion and is going out like a lion! It has been a full month as we are about one week away from winding up our Classical Conversations work for the little folk in this house. (N1 still has about a month left of her Challenge A class). Thus, it has been a light month for personal reading around here. We did just come off of a week of spring break, but there wasn't much downtime for reading as I was on a decluttering mission, as you do when the weather starts to warm up and you want to shed all your winter fluff in all areas! We have been reading aloud a ton and that is the sum of most of what I have to report this month.



The boy and I have been in a fantastic night time reading routine and finished two bedtime books this month. We read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl - that book just gets better with each read through! We also finished Akimbo and the Lions by Alexander McCall Smith. This was one of N1's favorite series when she was reading small chapter books and it was a winner with Ethan as well. Really, anything with animals is a winner with him. Right now he and I are about half way through Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, another one that I am enjoying immensely more this time through. Maybe it's because I just came off a year of teaching grammar in our homeschool co-op but Kipling has such great plays on words, alliteration, and clever turns of phrases that it's just been a delight to read. And the stories themselves are fun, too.



Our school time read-aloud for most of March was The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. I remember seeing the old movie as a child (and was slightly traumatized by the shipwreck portion at the beginning of it!) but had never read the book. It was mentioned in Sally Clarkson's recent book Different as one that really resonated with her wild boy she was trying to tame ... off I went to the library for our own copy to hopefully inspire a couple of mine, likewise. :) This was was actually first published in 1941 (I also didn't realize it was so old) and tells the story of how Alec and the Black were the only survivors of a tragic shipwreck. They learn to depend on one another and Alec becomes the only person able to tame the savage horse. They make it back home and the book culminates in a fantastic horse race - I'll save the spoilers of who won, but I bet you can guess. :) This was a GREAT read-aloud and one I'll pull back out in a few years when Ethan is ready to read it on his own. I could see him getting lost in this whole series.

Personally, I read three books (I guess I did read a little more than I thought!) but one definitely took the a huge chunk of my month. Johnny Tremain was my pick for Amy @ Hope is the Word's Newbery challenge for March. I had never read this one (shock!). Set during the Revolutionary War against England, this is one I am considering revisiting next year when we work through American history.



I also read The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill and Pekoe Most Poison by Laura Childs (both on Kindle). Pekoe Most Poison is a light mystery in Laura Childs' tea shop mystery series. A nice clean mystery series sometimes is hard to come by and this is perfect for someone who was a die-hard fan of Murder, She Wrote when she was in junior high, a-hem. :) The Girl Who Drank the Moon was the 2017 Newbery winner and I loved this one. So much that I went in search of more Kelly Barnhill books from my library. On its surface it is a simple tale of magic and love and protection, but through out the story we are unraveling the little lies that the main characters have told to "protect" each other. But were those lies really worth it for all the heartbreak and misdirection they caused? It was one that I picked up for a song on Kindle last year, and it was well worth the couple of dollars I spent on it.



It's almost time to start thinking about SUMMER READING. :) (I'm eyeing my Mitford stack and wishing I could while away the hours rereading those favorites - there is new one coming in September and I am ready!) I'm hoping to start pulling together a summer to-read list for myself and thinking of what would make a good evening family read-aloud with our whole crew. Book lists are definitely some of my favorite things.

February Reads for 2017

Last day of February ... sneaking in here at the last moment to catalog what has been read around these parts this month. My stack is still on the smallish side, but there has been lots of reading-aloud done and I've checked a couple books off my list that I've been wanting to get to so it's a win for me.

As far as read-alouds, we finished three this month, though only two are pictured above. One was the bedtime book for me and the boy - we are working our way through his sister's Roald Dahl collection and it has been such fun to read these again with him. The nice thing about Roald Dahl, besides his fantastic writing, is that his chapters are just the right length for a little boy winding down at night and on a good evening we can get through two during a reading sessions. Fantastic Mr. Fox was the recent read and enjoyed by both of us. We have since moved on to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which is always an excellent read-aloud. However, as I read, I go back and forth in my head between the Gene Wilder version and the Johnny Depp version of the movie, depending on which part of the book I am in. So confusing! And don't ask me to pick a favorite because I love them both! :)



As a collective bunch, we read aloud Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. This is the second time that I've read this one aloud - the last time was in 2010, before the boy was born. At that time, I had one 7 year old girl hanging in there with me while I read it (and two tag along little sisters) and it was a new book to both of us. This time, I just didn't love it as much. Peter and Tink really aren't very nice people! I think I prefer the polished up Walt Disney version.







The last read-aloud (not pictured) that we checked off this month was our science text, Apologia's Land Animals of the 6th Day. We started this "text" in the Fall of 2016 and it has taken us about a year and half (minus summer) to work our way through it. We have learned so many things about mammals and I'm so thankful that I got to read this along with the kids as part of our schooling. And now, I see the fruit as the three younger will spout out random and interesting animal facts that they have retained at different moments, ie., when the boy and I were emptying the dust canister from the vacuum and he comment that there were probably a lot of dust mites in there that we just swept up. Um, yes, there probably were! Ick. :)



Personal reads for me were all over the board this month! I finished Sally Clarkson's newest book Different, which was written with her son Nathan. This book probably deserves more discussion than I have room and time for here, but this is different than many of Sally's other books that she has written. This was a book written for the mama who is parenting that child at home that is what she calls an "out of the box kid." They don't fit the mold or expectation of how a child should learn and behave whether it is because of a larger than life personality, a learning struggle, clinical diagnoses of some kind, or a combination of any and/or all of the above. It was an encouraging read for me as we navigate different scenarios with a couple of our own and I need to go back and make note of some of those things that I marked the first time through. Highly recommend this one.

I read Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer as part of Amy's (@ Hope is the Word) Newbery Challenge. I'm two for two so far for 2017! Roller Skates is a story set in New York in the late 1800s. And, as always when I read books set in a time since past, I am amazed at the freedom given to children in that day and age. (A similar feeling struck me as I read the All of a Kind Family books and The Saturdays, and its sequels by Elizabeth Enright). You can read Amy's review of Roller Skates here - this could be a great read aloud as you study America during this time period, but might need a parental pre-read if you have super sensitive little ones.

Another one that I finished, not pictured in the photo was When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. This was the 2010 Newbery winner - and again, recommended by Amy - and it was good. There was mystery, fantasy, and lots of literary tie-in's to A Wrinkle in Time and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The last book that I read this month was one that I picked up on a whim at the library and read over our winter break. The After-room by Maile Meloy is the third book in the Apothecary series. I had read the first two books quite some time ago. Long enough that I was VERY fuzzy on characters and story line and pretty much everything going into the third book. That probably should have been a clue that I didn't love them enough to spend the time reading the third book, but I did anyway if just to see the series wrap up and move on.

And there's February and it's on to March. I realize that February is the shortest month, but it seemed to FLY by this year. If you read anything amazing and wonderful in the last while, do share. I am realizing that my books seem to be junior and YA lit heavy lately, but that is where I'm finding all sorts of reading gems so I'm unapologetic about it. :)

January Addendum

As par for the course, since I got our / my January reads up last week in a timely manner, I've now got a couple additions to make! (Truly, though, this is a rarity). However, we did finish another read aloud on Friday and I made time over the weekend to read a short Newbery honor book and I would hate to leave those off my reporting lists. They are worth sharing about!



On Friday, we decided to pick a (super) short read aloud so that we wouldn't be starting something that would have to sit over the weekend. Sometimes I find that when we start something new, we need several days in a row to dive into it or we lose momentum. The boy picked The Bears of Hemlock Mountain by Alice Dalgliesh off our shelves, and since it was short we dove in. This is the story of young Jonathan - a boy growing up at the base of the Hemlock Mountains. These mountains are full of all sorts of wonderful animals that Jonathan observes with his favorite uncle, James. Except for bears - of course, there are no bears on Hemlock Mountain! (Or are there?) No one will speak definitively on this matter, but Jonathan is soon sent on an errand over the mountain to collect a large pot from his aunt. Will he find bears or won't he? This was a fantastic read for one sitting and our animal boy LOVED it. The illustrations in the version that I linked are also fantastic. I can see this being something that we will pick up again and that the boy will enjoy reading when he is off and reading independently.



The other book I finished this weekend is one that I chose for Amy's (@ Hope is the Word) Newbery Challenge. This is her 3rd(?) year of hosting this challenge and I have been a very sporadic participant. I am going to try my best to jump in when I can this year and with that in mind, I decided to read The Windy Hill by Cornelia Meigs this weekend. It was the perfect length. You can find the book in print, however, I read it on Kindle because I already had that version (and it was free). An honor book for the Newbery in 1922, it tells the story of Oliver and Janet who are spending some of their vacation with their cousin Jasper. However, there is a family mystery and of course they need to get to the bottom of it! It is full of stories within a story as the children learn about their family history with a little bit of a puzzle to thrown in for good measure. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this - definitely time well spent this weekend!

I don't foresee finishing any more books before January is over, so I'm feeling pretty confident about pressing publish on this post! Then it is on to February!

January Reads for 2017

Happy New Year!



I had good intentions of writing sooner than the last week in January. I miss this spot and some times want to peck a few more keys that I am allowed on Instagram. I guess we'll just warm back up to posting with a quick post on what I read in January, and it will be short and very sweet.

This month, I got through four books - three of them were read alouds with various and sundry children, and I got through ONE book personally. Why only one, you ask? Well, I bought myself a new edition of Little Women for Christmas and my January goal was to reread this beloved favorite. It did not disappoint. It has been several years since I read this ... I want to say that the last read of this book was with the girls and we only read the first half of the book with promises to return and finish the second half. (Ahem, apparently that has never happened!) Reading this book over and over through the years as a teen, then as a young adult, as a mama to littles, and now returning to read as a mama of one little and a handful of (gulp!) middles, it has something for me in every age and stage of parenting and loving my family well. Working through anger and impatience (like Jo); being graceful, patient and willing under affliction (like Beth); running a happy home and loving my husband and children well (like Meg); and using the small talents that God has given me in whatever small way that I am humbly allowed (like Amy) - this book never fails to inspire.

And now I want to read Little Men. :)

The three read alouds that we read this month were so randomly and fantasticly different.

• Animal Planet Chapter Book: Sharks - The boy and I had been reading through this at bedtime. (Not my first choice for bedtime reading, but he seemed to suffer no ill affects). This was actually a book sent to me by the Amazon Vine program to read and review and it got two (make that four) thumbs up from us. Lots of facts and pictures for my animal loving boy and we are going to hunt for a few more of these books for him.
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - This is the first time that I have read this book aloud and B (age 9 1/2's) first time through the book. I think she has seen this movie once, but with our older two, the general rule was that had to read through the books to get to watch the movies. (And that usually resulted in getting to stay up late after other siblings went to bed for a private showing with Daddy. Super cool privilege). :) I'm pretty sure that B has been grandfathered in to a few viewings as a younger sibling, and honestly she hasn't been as interested in diving into the series as they were. She is my one that has not jumped into reading as fast as the bigger girls. The first time that she expressed interest in the series, I handed her the hardback from the library. The sight of so many pages completely overwhelmed her! We solved that problem by an offer to read it aloud together at bedtime AND we read the book on Kindle. Problem of an overwhelmingly big book solved! We finished it up yesterday and are looking for a night where we can watch the movie together.

• The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton - this is a delightful stand-alone story that was recommended to me by a fellow homeschooler on Instagram. It is a blend of nonsense and wordly wit that reminds me of the great Roald Dahl. There were so many lines that I wanted to go through and flag so that I could read them to my grammar class that I teach in our Classical Conversations community - fantastic uses of alliteration, rhyme, -ly adverbs, etc. The author is a crazy, talented illustrator in her own right AND is the sister in law of Andrew Peterson, author of another of my favorite series, The Wingfeather Saga. So many good signs that pointed to us loving this book. And we did. Highly recommend as a read aloud and for your library.

There were several that I wanted to read in January that I just didn't get to ... Little Women consumed all my time, and I just didn't have as many spare minutes this month. Luckily next month has a week of winter break for us and I always try to spend some down time with a book when we aren't doing as much school. I'm already looking forward to it. :)

Linking up with Amy at Hope is the Word who is bringing back a once-a-month Read Aloud Thursday roundup. Yay!

October Reading and Etc.

You can tell when a school break rolls around for us ... I have a minute to breathe and update my/our reading lists here. :) We have been steadily plugging along with school and activities and house renovations and are oh so very thankful for a Thanksgiving break this week! Here's a short update on what we / I read in October, with hopes that a November update might be more timely!



Lots and lots of reading aloud happening here (as always!) and we finished up three books this month in different levels of rotation. First, the boy and I have moved to reading shortish chapter books before his bedtime. (Still plenty of picture books happening as well, thank goodness!) He has been enamoured with Paddington so we finished the first book in that series, A Bear Called Paddington. We love both the movie and the book, even though there are really very dissimilar, and moved straight away into the second book in the series, More About Paddington.

Secondly, we wrapped up King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green. We had read his retelling of Robin Hood last time we were in the Middle Ages, so I knew I wanted to read his version of King Arthur. We did enjoy it, though I give the caveat that it was also long and it took several chapters to get into the feel of the older English writing. Once we were in a groove, the story seemed to move at a much quicker pace!

Thirdly, we finished up a wonderful biography of Corrie ten Boom. While we all enjoyed this, my 10 year old especially asked for "just one more chapter" as every one left us hanging as to Corrie and Betsy ten Boom's fate as they suffered the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. This was a gentle introduction to some of the scenes of WWII as well as a beautiful picture of the faith of Corrie and Betsy ten Boom and I'd highly recommend it.

For my own reading, I managed to get several books read (fall break helped immensely!)

• Being There: How to Love Those Who are Hurting by Dave Furman. This is written from a pastor in Dubai who suffers from chronic illness. He gives wonderful encouragement and examples of how you can minister to those who are in the midst of any kind of a trial or struggle - simple, practical ways to engage, assist and encourage those in the long-term battle with illness, grief, depression, etc. Highly recommend. I know this is one that I will refer to often.
• A Table by the Window by Lawana Blackwell. A clean, fun mystery that I haven't picked off the shelf in years. I have several stacks of books that I am hanging on to for nostalgia's sake though I haven't read them in years. This is one and I had the urge to read it over fall break. Still good.
• Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins. Mamas who need encouragement in the trenches of homeschooling need this books. I actually think this would encourage any mama, but she does speak a lot about homeschooling her nine children, eight of whom were boys! Autobiographical in nature, and full of stories of what worked with her crew, as well as stories of what didn't. The book comes off as a very humble retelling of the grace given to her as a mom trying to do her best with the work and privilege in front of her of educating her children. Another highly recommend.
• The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart. If you have a munchkin who loved The Mysterious Benedict Society, Mr. Lemoncello's library adventures, etc., get his book. I recommend it for adults as well, obviously, but 'tis the gift giving season, so here's a recommendation. :)
• Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. This is a book that I've had sitting on my shelf for forever, bought because I had heard descriptions of his beautiful writing and imagery. The writing is this book WAS beautiful and the story so simple as you read of Hannah's life - from childhood, through marriage, and into old age with grown children and grandchildren. This is not one that I would reread again and again, but I was certainly touched by the one time through that I did read it.

I'll leave you with this one last book recommendation, or warning, however you may take it! Do not read Ember Falls if you do not like adventure, rabbits, rabbits with swords, mortal peril, and nail biting cliffhangers at the end of the book! We finished this last week and are now left waiting for the inevitable third book in the series because we must! know! what! happens! next!

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. Grateful to those that still come by here and read my keyboard peckings in this small space as well as those that I have connected with through Instagram. Reading and books bring me such joy, that is wonderful to have like-minded friends and acquaintances around the world to share them with. Grace and peace to all.

August and September Reads

Popping in to give a quick reading update and bloggy hello! I have girls slaving away on math and geography, another is downstairs having a piano lesson, and the boy is getting some quiet tv time in my bedroom so I have a few precious moments here for an update. Our school work this year has ramped up considerably with the additions of a few things to our plate and that leaves little time for blogging ... or much non-school related reading for that matter.

For August, I did pretty well and then slowly tapered off as our work load increased as evidenced below:

• Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard by Jonathan Auxier is one that I enjoyed - a fun junior lit adventure. Carrie did a great job reviewing it on her blog if you want more of a review that I have time to give here. It's the sequel to Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes which I read in June 2014. This is much the same sort of tale if you've read that one. Jonathan Auxier also wrote The Night Gardener which is deliciously creepy in all the right sorts of ways if you are 10-12ish (or older!) and wanting something a little fun to read for October.
• The BFG by Roald Dahl (read-aloud). We had high hopes of seeing this one in the theater but we didn't get it read in time (though I would have waived that) and we spent our summer movie money on Finding Dory. (No regrets.) We can still look forward to watching this when it releases on iTunes later this year. The kids loved this one ... I found it hard to read aloud because of the BFG's unusual manner of speech. I might have enjoyed it more as an audio book! :)
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by JK Rowling, etc. Who didn't read this this summer? I didn't purchase it but waited to get it through the library. Definitely a different read from the regular HP novels, however, it was very interesting to read about the children of some of our favorite characters and the situation in which they found themselves. I'm glad I didn't spend the money on purchasing it, but it was worth getting on the hold list at the library.
• Pretense by Lori Wick. I can't tell you why I picked this one off my shelf, unless it was just a nostalgic feeling for a book that I haven't read in about 10 years. This was a Christian fiction favorite from a long time ago and while this genre isn't something that I read much of anymore, this book stood the test of time, I enjoyed the re-read. (And the fact that it was something familiar that I could read as we started school and I had to keep putting down!)
• Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Latham. This is a classic that I read along (but not aloud) with my oldest who is in Classical Conversations Challenge A program this year. Oh my goodness, is this a good book! The story of Nathanial Bowditch who dreamed of a life of academia and the study of mathematics, but was forced to spend nine years of his childhood and early youth in apprenticeship. His determination and love of learning was so inspiring. I don't know that this would make a great read-aloud with a young audience because there is a lot of nautical terminology in the book that might make it cumbersome, but it's definitely a book that should not be missed!

Ah, September. Lots of read alouds going on and we finished a couple of big ones!

• Tumtum and Nutmeg: Adventures Beyond Nutmouse Hall by Emily Bearn. Our first official back-to-school read aloud and one that the boy had not been through yet. Delightful as always. I've talked about T&N at great length before. (I really shouldn't go back and reread early reviews ... wow).
• The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton Burgess. This was one of our looped read-alouds that we worked through all last year and we finished it a couple weeks into this year. We all loved this sweet book full of animal information as told from the perspective of Mother Nature and her school of small woodland animals. We've decided that an animal story is a must in our rotation and we've gone one queued up to fill this hole. More on that later!
• The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. I've read this book so many times, so this was just a quick reread for me before N1 has to write a paper on it for Challenge A. I actually had to purchase a new copy of the book - when I picked it up to reread it, I discovered that it was missing the first few pages. My childhood series has gotten a lot of love over the years!

And that's my list for the last two months.

Our current read-aloud is Roger Lancelyn Green's King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. It took us a few chapters to get into the language and flow of this story, but we are a little over half way through and are enjoying the adventures of the knights. I'm hoping that we will finish this in the next couple of weeks - we have the newest adventure in the Green Ember series (Ember Falls) sitting here on my desk staring at us and I can't wait to pick that one up!