Read Aloud Thursday ::: Summer Favorites

This week we've been spending time with another Download N Go lapbook as we ease back into our school routine - Summer Sensations. (Come back tomorrow for a chance to win a copy of this unit study!) We have spent our days in the air conditioning, reading about the hot weather outside and truthfully, in my case, trying to avoid it. : ) All that to say, here are a few favorite books we've stumbled upon, but by no means a complete list.



The Year at Maple Hill Farm is one that I have seen on multiple book lists, but have never picked up before now. Love the beautiful drawings through out the book as you get a glimpse of how the animals live throughout the different months of the year. I'll be looking for more books by the Provensens to read with the girls. (Amy @ Hope is the Word just reviewed The Glorious Flight by the Provensens and it's one that we "rowed" last year with FIAR and Homeschool Share).



The Relatives Came is a sweet story by Cynthia Rylant. The relatives from Virginia drive all day and all night to come for a summer visit. The house is crowded, there are people sleeping on top of each other but they wouldn't want it any other way. It's family and the visit is over all too soon.



When Lightning Comes in a Jar explores the fun and memories of a summer family reunion and the childlike delight of catching fireflies on a summer evening. Loved this one. It really captured the beauty of family and the heritage of passing on traditions and stories and memories of those gone before.

I'm hoping that next week I'll be able to share that we've finished our current chapter book read-aloud and what we thought of it. I'll admit I'm ready to move on, but we'll save more than that for another time.

For more Read-Aloud Thursday, visit Amy at Hope is the Word.

Wordless Wednesday

Photo by Noelle

The last of the garden ... pulling up all the plants and getting ready for fall.

Children's Classics ::: A Gathering of Days, A Midwife's Apprentice & Lon Po Po

For this month's Children's Classics I picked up three new to me books - two were winners of the Newberry Award and one was a Caldecott Medal winner. All interesting in their own way and VERY different from one another as you will see below!

First up is the winner of the 1980 Newberry Award. A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32 by Joan W. Blos was a quick and very interesting book and one that I was glad to try out.

Catherine Hall is a young girl that lived in the 1800's. A few months before her fourteenth birthday, she is given a journal and decides to chronicle her days. Some entries are brief and some are lengthly, but I definitely feel like I got a glimpse of what life would have been like for a young girl back then. (To put this is perspective, Catherine's teen years were almost 40 years before Laura Ingalls Wilder was born). These days have the beginnings of anti-slavery rumblings and it affects even Catherine's life in New Hampshire as she and her friends assist a runaway slave.

Life wasn't easy for Catherine, but it was good. She went to school with her best friend Cassie, helped take care of her father's house (her mother died when she was younger), and spent time with her little sister. They lived a simple life on a farm and I thought the descriptions of winter in New Hampshire during this era was very interesting. There was a lot of preparation to get through a winter and survive; and still they were busy all winter long preparing for spring.

I am definitely adding this book to our library. This will be a great read-along for my girls when we study this period in American History. I think it would be suitable for any reader, from about age 8 and up. (i.e., I think my almost 7 year old could read the words just fine, but she doesn't have the knowledge of slavery and that period of time for it to impact her as much as if we waited a bit.) Well worth getting your hands on a copy and checking it out for yourself. :

I also read The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman, which was the 1996 Newberry Medal Winner. This book was a little tougher to read but didn't make it any less interesting. This is the story of a young girl, abandoned and alone, and found sleeping in a dung pile by the local midwife. I wouldn't say it was out of pity, but the midwife takes her home and gives her odd jobs here and there to do in exchange for a small bit of food and a place to sleep. However, that doesn't mean her life gets any easier. The midwife is fairly abusive and, in fact, this girl doesn't even have a name (or is given one) until about halfway through the book. Apparently she's not deemed important enough to have one or to even find out what it is.

This book is the story of this young girl learning about herself and finding an identity for herself out of nothing. When asked what she wants she says, "A full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world." Thankfully, by the end of the story, she is headed down that path and has grown in self-confidence and can now stand up for herself a bit more.

I wouldn't recommend this book for anyone under twelve, I don't think. There are a couple bad words (nothing that would earn it more than a PG rating if it were a movie) but the girl is treated harshly by the midwife and others, and there are a few scenes that would be better for a middle school student.

Lastly, I read my first Caldecott Medal Winner this month - Lon Po Po by Ed Young. Lon Po Po is the story of Red Riding Hood, told using Chinese children and using Chinese panel art to illustrate the story. In this version, instead of Red Riding Hood heading out to meet the wolf on her way to grandmother's house, the wolf comes to three sisters, Shang, Tao, and Paotze. Against the stern warning of their mother, they let the wolf into their house and eventually realize that it isn't their grandmother come to visit but a wolf! The children are able to escape the wolf's clutches and he meets an unfortuate end and all ends well.

However, what won this book it's medal was the artwork. The story is told through different panels (2-3 per page) in a blurry medium to my untrained eye. According to Amazon.com: "Like ancient Oriental paintings, the illustrations are frequently grouped in panels. When the girls meet the wolf, e.g., the left panel focuses on their wary faces peering out from the darkness, the middle enlarges the evil wolf's eye and teeth, and the third is a vivid swirl of the blue clothes in which the wolf is disguised. The juxtaposition of abstract and realistic representations, the complicated play of color and shadow, and the depth of the artist's vision all help transform this simple fairy tale into an extraordinary and powerful book." While I think I prefer my illustrations a little bit more straightforward, there is no question that the art isn't beautifully done and this was a great book to read alongside our China unit that we completed last week.

This post is linked up with Five Minutes for Books Children's Classics Award Winners Challenge.

Bloggy Book Review: The Gathering Storm by Brock & Bodie Thoene

As Nazi forces tighten the noose, Loralei Kepler, daughter of a German resistance leader, must flee her beloved Germany. But is any place safe from Adolf Hitler's evil grasp? Loralei's harrowing flight leads her into the arms of needy child refugees, who have sacrificed everything in exchange for their lives, and toward a mysterious figure, who closely guards an age-old secret.

Explore the romance, the passion, and the danger of the most anticipated series of the last twenty years.

Born from the highly acclaimed and best-loved novels of three generations of readers -- The Zion Covenant series and The Zion Chronicles series -- Zion Diaries ventures into the lives of the inspiring and intriguing characters who loved intensely, stood up for what was right, and fought boldly during Hitler's rise to power and the dark days of World War II.

If you would like to read the first chapter of The Gathering Storm, go HERE.

I have been a long-time fan of the Thoene's writings. As a history major, I devoured their long, meaty series set during World War 1, World War 2, and the Jews reclaiming of Israel after WW2. This book fits in right along with their other series, with the setting taking place mainly in London as the main characters works with those evicted from their home countries. To be truthful, I didn't care for this one as much as their earlier works. I know I am definitely not in the same league as them as either a Biblical or historical scholar, but I was surprised by the ending and found it a little unbelievable. That said, it is still a very interesting book if you are a fan of historical fiction and the Thoenes in general. 


This book was provided to me free for review purposes by the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance and Summerside Press. 

Link Love

Also known as recent internet-ish finds for you to enjoy on your Saturday:

• Tropical Oatmeal Yogurt - tried this out this week. I loved it (with pineapple and coconut) but the girls were not so thrilled. So sad, more for me. : )
• Mt. Hope Academy (a new homeschool blog find for me) has been putting up information on her art and music studies that she is doing with her three boys. Mozart was posted this week and I'm definitely going to borrow some of her ideas.
• Scroll down on this post to see the cute handprint wreath that Monika posted on the write.click.scrapbook blog. Looks super cute and I may attempt something like that this year for Christmas ... we'll see.
• I've already bookmarked this idea about Alphabet Summer for my girls for next year. This will be perfect for the girls next year!
• As I've had a little time in the afternoons while the girls are resting, I've been going back and looking at Ali Edwards' December Daily posts and ideas. I have done a December Daily album for about 3 (4?) years now and I am pretty sure I want to do one this year, especially since it will be our first Christmas with our new little guy. Trying to go ahead do some thinking on it so I don't wait until the last minute on an album plan, etc. and then it gets too complicated. Simple is key this year, I believe.

And as for my Saturday plans today ... we're on day three of a conference Travis has been attending. (Thankfully he's home in the evenings, but we're missing Daddy on this Saturday). The girls and I are going to work on going through all of Noelle's clothes to see what fits for this fall as well as a little room rearranging. I'm thinking there will probably be a Sonic run as well for a mommy-pick-me-up later!

Simple Celebrations

We've completed (survived?) our first week of school. This calls for a little celebration with homemade chocolate chip cookies to go along with this week's family pizza and movie night.

Reading about China for Read Aloud Thursday

This week we have been easing back into school and we started out with a Download N Go study about China. As we have had our read-aloud time this morning we have checked out several different books and have found some that we have really enjoyed. I won't go into a big description of each because that would make this far too long, but I'll try and note a few favorites.



D is for Dancing Dragon is from Sleeping Bear Press, and we always enjoy their alphabet journeys through different states and countries. We have several of these on our personal shelf - what I love is that it has a simple rhyme throughout the book perfect for my little ones to listen, and the sidebar of each page is full of extra information if you want to go in depth on some of the different highlighted subjects. Some of these books even have teacher guides on the Sleeping Bear website which is also very cool. These will be great resources over the years and I love picking them up as I have a chance.

Some other non-fiction books that we used to get an overview of China were Look What Came from China and Welcome to China. Welcome to China was probably my favorite because it was published fairly recently - current enough to mention the Olympics which were hosted there two years ago.



The next three books are all variations of the same Chinese folk tale - seven siblings (or five) that each have a special ability which enables them to help each other out of a predicament.







Tikki Tikki Tembo is a classic tale of the little boy with a long name who falls into the well. My girls love this story and I love the bright artwork on these pages. One of our favorites.

The Story about Ping is a Five in a Row classic that we are just now reading for the first time. I am going to try and remember to make plans to spend more time with this book next year when Natalie starts kindergarten.

One of the few missionary biographies that my library had that was at an appropriate age range for my girls. We enjoyed the story of Ms. Aylward and Noelle pronounced her work in China with young girls as "cool."



I'll share a bit more about Lon Po Po next Tuesday when my Children's Classic Award Winners post will hopefully be up. : )

And with that, I'm stopping! We have two more days to finish up in China this week and as we've read these books aloud each day, it's definitely made our "trip" there more pleasant!

For more Read-Aloud Thursday posts, head over to Amy's at Hope is the Word.

Eight

Two people.

Eight years.

One house.

Three girl babies.

One very anticipated boy baby.

Much laughter.

Lots of forgiveness.

Happy Anniversary to my favorite person in the whole world.

Photo: Thanksgiving 2006, Clingman's Dome, TN

Free Scrapbook / Journaling Class

A link worth checking out if you scrapbook or just enjoy journaling. Elle's Studio has some CUTE little scrapbook embellishments and I'm looking foward to what they put together in this class! 

First Day

Hello first grader.

This is her kindergarten picture from last year. I didn't even realize this morning that she had the same dress on until I pulled up this picture. Noticing the dress is about 5 inches shorter and requires leggings to make it wearable. Time is flying.