10 books I loved in 2016

I love to read. It's a lifelong love that I've always held close to me (except when we were taking a little break in my post-college years and I spent a little more time with video games instead. Shhh, don't tell) and it grows stronger every year. I don't have a particular favorite genre. I love esoteric works and the occasional historical fiction, I'm discovering the graphic novel, and I have a growing respect for non-fiction. As a homeschool mom I find myself reading a lot of younger books as well, young readers or YA, either to revisit them in school studies, or to check them out as my son does. I also read galley fiction sent to me by the ALA so I can write suck-up reviews for their magazine Booklist, and I don't always get my choice genres from them, which has been surprisingly freeing and eye-opening.

I read 80 books last year, and not all of them were great. Some of them were books I as much conquered as read, like Ulysses and Moby Dick. Others were assigned titles that I'd just as happily have left to collect dust on the shelf and wouldn't recommend to anyone. In fact, I'm not a good one to provide recommendations anyhow, since my reading is all over the map for a variety of reasons. But take it as you will, the full list of all 80 books is on Goodreads, and the following ten are books I'd recommend...to the right readers.

Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
I swore off reading this series simply because of the hype surrounding it. I pretty much assumed it couldn't possibly be that great. Then around the new year, when we were taking a break from school and I had not assigned reading of my own, I was looking for something—anything—to read, and there it was, the whole series, neatly stacked on our coffee table where Calvin had left it after his most recent re-read. I was hooked after the first book—the first chapter, maybe—and poured through the entire series that week. I couldn't put it down. It won't be for everyone, of course, but I was taken not only by the story itself, but by the genius of the writing: the way each book is written to be specific to the age of its characters, not only in complexity of grammar and vocabulary, but in allegory and topic, as well. Genius.

The Scarlet Pimpernell, by the Baronness Orczy
Set during the French Revolution, this book is the original Batman. A seemingly innocuous British man of inherited wealth and not much use otherwise is the shame of his wife, who longs to see her family, nobels in danger back in France, rescued by the mysterious and heroic Scarlet Pimpernell. How long before she realizes that they are one and the same? Not before she puts them all in imminent danger. Intrigue and romanticism abound in this amazing century-old novel. Calvin and I read this aloud together and had a great time with the accents (which is this character, French or British???) and humor.

The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
You've probably seen, or at least heard of, the recent movie adaptation of this classic novel, but I think few people realize that it was originally an adventure/war story romanticizing the wilds of new American land, which is how and why Calvin and I tackled this book together as a companion to our history studies. Written in the early 1800s, this is a primary source novel, and Cooper writes with a great love for the land and its native people in a way that has memorialized it and the era, for better or worse. Much better than the movie.

The Swan Book, by Alexis Wright
Here, finally, is a new release. Published in June, 2016, this was one of the rare occasions that I really enjoyed a galley from the ALA. Set in Australia, it is a mystical story of native cultures. An Aboriginal girl is taken in by a climate war refugee and raised in near isolation in the traditional ways, while her counterpart, a boy, is raised instead on a modern set of stories and principles. When the two come together to honor a pre-arranged marriage, they will find out if there is room for traditional culture in the modern world after all. Rich with allegory and symbolism, this wild, explosive story blends the myths and legends of numerous cultures in a dystopian near future to ask this very question. Significant and contemporary, in the style of Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day.

Wolf Hall, by Hillary Mantel
Historical fiction, this is the romanticised (not romantic, mind you) story of Thomas Cromwell, advisor to Henry VIII in early sixteenth century England. Mantel's writing makes the topic accessible, but this isn't as informative of the time as it is a fictionalized character study of the people involved. I found it near impossible to put down at times.

Transit, by Rachel Cusk
This is the second book in a trilogy still in the making. In the first book, Outline, an author in the early stages after a painful divorce comes to terms with her own perceived invisibility. Cusk deftly portrays the plight of her character through her actual lack of voice—the story is told almost entirely through conversation with others. In the second book, Transit, the same woman goes further down the path to recovery, recapturing herself as she goes. Again, Cusk manages to exude her plight in the actual writing style, and our main character not only becomes increasingly present, but eventually even has a name for us to hold onto. Amazing writing and a story that women, especially wives and mothers, may relate to.

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
This was a purely fun read. Two magicians duel through the actions of the youngsters they train, but while the two students don't know the destinies that have been set for them, they will still face the consequences. A fast, easy read, full of color and magic, with a little romance stuff on the side. Lovely imagery. 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
This is a little bit of a cheat, since I read this first when it came out a few years ago, but I did read it last year, and it was one of my ten favorites. A man returns to his home town for a funeral and falls into the memories of his youth, complete with a boogie-type man, a good witch, and a lake like an ocean. Gaiman has always been one of my favorite writers, and he does not disappoint here, embracing mythology and folklore with his usual gusto. 

One Wild Bird at a Time, by Bernd Heinrich
Bernd Heinrich is one of my favorite non-fiction writers. He is a life-long naturalist and scientist, but his short stories capture perfectly the meeting of science and heart. This is a collection recounting several times in which he spent quality one-on-one time with some of his favorite birds. With the same layman's science that embodies all his other story collections he relates what he learned from these birds and how he learned it. Touching, and also informative.

Persepolis (books 1 and 2), by Marjane Satrapi
Graphic novel, nonfiction. This is a memoir of a childhood in revolutionary Iran. Satrapi captures the emotions and the reality of a time period that has been largely misunderstood, or under-appreciated, by many Americans. The graphic novel format, with pleasing illustrations and easy dialogue, make the subject accessible without taking too much away.

10 things to love about homeschooling

(1) The pacing. Go fast, go slow, go a little of each. In homeschooling the limited number of students, only one in our case, allows the class to go at whatever pace it wants. And that pace can change throughout the year, as many times as you want. Maybe you flew through multiplication but are struggling with fractions. Maybe you sped through Animal Farm but are finding Moby Dick more time consuming. In homeschooling you can set your own due dates, and change them as necessary. No harm done.

(2) The personalized subjects. I do believe in the value of learning at least a little bit of everything out there, but personalizing our homeschool schedule allows us to devote extra time to the things Calvin loves. And again, we can change things up as the year goes on. We focused heavily on literature and science in the fall to go with our travel plans. This winter Calvin was enthralled by the math he was getting into, so we cut back on literature and gave more daily time to geometry. Come spring and good weather, we were back outside pursuing science again, this time with a side of art, because that's what tickled his fancy. We're doing at least a little bit of everything, but our focus shifts fluidly throughout the year.

(3) The personalized style. With regards to teaching and learning alike, we are all different. Some people are visual learners, others more hands-on. Some need lots of guidance, others are introverted, or autodidacts. And probably most of us learn different subjects differently. In homeschooling the method can be made to match the learner, the teacher, the subject, or a mixture of all of the above.

(4) Mix and Match curriculum. When we first started homeschooling I discovered and fell in love with The Well Trained Mind. In it, Susan Wise Bauer describes the benefits of a classical education and lays out, year by year, the methods and materials for achieving one. I sat down and with great dedication created a general map of the next four years, and a detailed schedule for the next four years, and immediately ordered all the materials we needed to get started. Oh the folly. It didn't take long to find that the package deal wasn't going to work, and by Christmas I'd already tossed the detailed schedule and reworked the four-year plan. We pick and choose our curriculum based on what's working, and feel completely free to change it up whenever something isn't. 

(5) The schedule. Or lack thereof, really. Some weeks we work every day but are done by lunchtime. Other weeks we work two or three full days  and take the others off. Sometimes we work on weekends, sometimes we take whole weeks off. When we're stuck at home with light but contagious illnesses we get lots of tedious work done and save our healthiest, most exuberant days for more fun stuff.

(6) The travel, or break, schedule. Related to the benefits of scheduling, we can take our vacation time whenever we want, meaning we get to go when the lines are shortest and/or the weather is the best. One of our favorite travel times is in early fall, after kids have started school but before they've started field trips, after the hottest days, before the coldest. Another great time is January, right between the public school breaks.

(7) Awayschooling. Speaking of travel, homeschooling allows you to take field trips to a whole new level. We spent three weeks in Italy once, discovering ancient  Rome through the Renaissance. Another time we spent a long week touring Washington D.C. after studying the American Revolution. Last fall we took our studies to the northwest. Awayschooling can be proactive or reactive. We've planned trips to go with our studies before, but more often we plan trips then tailor our studies to go with them. Either way, kids are learning in time and place what they could never really get so fully from a book at a desk.

(8) The socialization. What? Homeschoolers are socialized? Here's the thing. Kids are learning socially all the time. They learn from watching adults interact as well as from their own experiences. In a classroom kids spend most of their time observing an adult or two lecture a classroom of kids who may or may not care. The rest of their time they spend learning how to be social from others who are equally clueless in their cohort. You wouldn't ask the average first grader to teach another average first grader their academics, why would we ask them to teach each other manners, respect, or compassion? Homeschoolers spend their time in a more evenly mixed world. Some parents, some teachers, and other kids of a wide variety of ages, all working together to define society and culture. At the store, at homeschool group gathers, with kids in the neighborhood, at the library, at the post office...we learn about being social in the community from the community itself.

(9) The partnership. I am not responsible for the learning or the teaching in our household all by myself, it is a process that Calvin and I work through together. From the planning stage to the implementation stage to the grading stage, Calvin is a partner in every step of his education, and that gives him ownership over it. We all tend to respect our own things just a little more, and that ownership is a great way to keep kids engaged and respectful of their learning processes. It also gives them an understanding of the process, and a language for discussing it, that will serve them well for all their lives.

(10) The witnessing. This one is a little touchy feely, but I can't help it. I love spending our days together and witnessing all every discovery, every new skill mastered, every bit of excitement that comes in growing and learning. Not every day is great. Heck, some days are downright awful, but the bright moments are well worth the sacrifice and hardships. I truly love this life of ours.

10 of our favorite games right now

I am not really a game person. I love the idea of games, but I prefer reading, conversing, writing...just about anything to playing games. That being said, I think playing games as a family is a wonderful bonding tool. And these days the games market is hot. I'm not talking Matel and Milton Bradley, here. The unevenly weighted, entirely chance games of our youth bring out the worst in most of us. Losing a game of Sorry is a bitter childhood pill to swallow. It's just so unfair. But if you skip the game aisle and Target and go to a local retailer or do your research before shopping on Amazon, the modern Indie game market is something to behold. And even I enjoy family game night in the winter—it's second only to family movie night, which comes with popcorn.

(1) Castle Panic. This is a cooperative strategy game from Fireside Games. Monsters of varying strengths and abilities are storming your castle and you must work together to stop them. Take turns drawing cards of differing attacks and defences and work together to figure out the best way to use them to keep the hordes at bay. The game is fairly well balanced, so while winning isn't a given, strategic thinking will carry the day. 

(2) Betrayal at House on the Hill is a mostly cooperative tile and mystery game. All players work together to explore the haunted house until evil turns one of them against the group, then the remaining loyal members must work to defeat the betrayer before it is too late. The game layout is different every time, created as players roll dice and lay house tiles as they go, but the number of games is limited to the number of story lines provided in the book. An expansion with additional story situations is available.

(3) Forbidden Desert is a completely cooperative game. Having crash landed in the dessert, players must work together to recover the pieces of their ship, buried under sand, before their water runs out. The game is well balanced enough to be challenging but not impossible, and can be played at a variety of difficulty levels.

(4) Forbidden Island is another cooperative strategy game very similar to Forbidden Desert. Players must recover hidden treasure from a sinking island and escape via helicopter before no land is left. Play is much easier than in Forbidden Desert, but can also be played at a variety of difficulty levels.  

(5) Carcassonne is the first truly competitive game on the list. It is a strategic tile game in which players take drawing tiles and placing them strategically so as to eventually earn the most money from their lands. Strategic play includes considering land placement and land usage. Players keep track of their points throughout, and can earn bonus points for especially strategic play in the end. Play is well balanced and challenging without being confusing, and the original game can be expanded with a variety of challenging and hilarious add-ons.

(6) Agricola All Creatures Big and Small is a competitive strategy game for only two players. Make decisions about running your farm—what to build, how to keep your animals, what animals to keep—to out earn your opponent. Game play is definitely challenging, but it's well balanced enough to be fair and fun. Plus, cute animal tokens.

(7) The Scrambled States of America is a fairly funny family game. Players keep a handful of state cards and try to apply them to description cards turned over one at a time. The player with the most correctly played state cards in the end wins. When I purchased this game I had hoped it would be a fairly good tool for learning about U.S. geography, but it's not really a good learning tool per se. Description cards tend to include aspects of the written name or card art as opposed to geographic terms, although I suppose it would be a good way to learn the names of the states and their capitals. In general, charming, quick, and enjoyable.

(8) Apples to Apples (or Junior) is a game of ingenuity and hilarity. Players keep in their hand several cards with names of people, places, or things, or simple phrases on them. A round judge flips over a topic card with its own phrase on it and players anonymously lay down the best matching card in their hand. The round judge decides who wins the round based on their own criteria (funniest, most exact, most absurd, etc.). The role of judge passes with each turn. The best part about this game is the humor, and while it is intended as a competitive game, it can easily be played just for fun with no scoring involved.

(9) Facts in Five is another game of ingenuity and hilarity. Before play, five topics and five letters are selected and players each prepare a grid. They then have two minutes individually to fill the grid in with one answer for each topic that begins with each letter. At the end of play there is no one winning answer; all players judge the acceptability of answers given and each players receives points for all their acceptable answers. Final scores are tallied exponentially, so the more right answers in a column or row, the better. Although scoring is a little convoluted, play is a great mind challenge, and can be hilarious at times. This is definitely a game for adults, not because of inappropriate content, but topics will be too difficult for most kids. we have skirted this issue by creating our own topics. Also, it looks like it may be out of print.

(10) Dungeons and Dragons. I add this one here somewhat reluctantly only because we have not broken into this as a family yet. We tried a few years ago, but Calvin was a tad too young and I was a tad too impatient for Jon's novice Dungeon Mastering. This year, though, Calvin is taking a history class with our homeschool group that is taught using D&D, and he's loving it, so much so that we have made plans to play with family friends who have promised to teach us the ropes. So I'm including it because two out of three of us already love it, and family play is definitely in our future.

(10) things we always pack for trips

Traveling is wonderful. I love discovering new places. I love making a home in a hotel room, tent, or other temporary dwelling. I love planning, executing, and recording all the wonderful things there are to do. But traveling can also be stressful. When all your usual items of comfort and ease are not at your fingertips coping with unusual situations becomes difficult, and even on a good trip, often on the best of trips, unusual situations abound.

So, whether flying, driving, or hitching a ride on an elephant, there are a few non-essentials that we always try to bring with us. I'm not talking the usual clothes or toiletries, but things you might not think of automatically yet will likely find useful along the way.

A checklist of small items. I don't list everything, mind you, but I try to keep track of chargers, tiny electronics, and definitely stuffed animals or other toys. And if not a detailed list, then at least a count (5 cords, 12 stuffed animals, 47 books...)

Ziplock bags. I'm not usually a proponent of expendable plastics, but it is surprising the number of times a good ziplock back comes in handy on a trip...for bring home rocks, for keeping wet bathing suits separated from dress clothes, for toting snacks or leftovers. Especially on long trips we generally conserve space by packing our clothes in the bags with the air sucked out. Not great for wrinkles, but hey, it's only vacation.

Camping silverware and a multi-tool. I've heard that there is a trick that uses the chain on a hotel door top open...is it a bottle of wine or beer? I can't remember because it seems ludicrous, and because we always pack a multi-opener for beer and wine. Because...travel. Also, we have these neat camping tools we always pack, too—a cross between a spork and a knife. I call them Sknorks (with a silent "k", like in knife, of course), or sometimes spifes.

Backpack. Not a lot of people think to pack a bag in a bag, but a lot of our trips include trail hiking, museums, or long days on the town, and having something other than a purse or suitcase to lug your sunscreen, camera, and travel guides is pretty handy. When flying we'll use a backpack as one of our carry-ons, or on occasion we'll fill it with clothes before throwing it in a suitcase.

water bottles. That thing I said about hiking and long days on the town? Long days get long, and depending on what you're up to, water isn't always easy to get, or it costs a fortune. Plus I try to avoid every buying or using water in plastic bottles. On drives we obviously take filled bottles, but on flights we stuff them with packed items and slide them in the suitcase or the carry-on. 

journal and tape. This might sound like two totally different items, but it's not really. I usually try to pack a journal or other notebook to commemorate our trip. We take turns writing about our days and reviewing things we've seen it in, and I use the tape to secure ticket stubs, maps, and other ephemera we can't seem to part with. It's true, though, that tape could come in handy in other ways.

Book light(s). Fairly self-explanatory, these insanely helpful for keeping passengers occupied while driving after dark, but it's also handy for reading or playing a game in the hotel room after the kid has fallen asleep.

At least one travel game. Standard playing cards are a never-fail, but sometimes we'll throw in a couple of other games that are small not only in physical size, but playing size as well. Love Letter, Oz Fluxx, and Frog Juice are some of our favorites.

Sewing kit. I started carrying one of these with me on trips after I read it in a list of things to pack for camping. It's especially helpful then because a tear in a sleeping bag or tent could be catastrophic, but a needle with thread has lots of uses and I try not to go far without one. 

(10) resolutions I'm going to try and keep

I'm a week or so late on this, but that's more in the writing than in the making, and you'll see that I address such tardiness in the following list, so bear with me.

(1) Take more photos. For several years in a row I took, and mostly kept, the photo-a-day challenge, and by the end of the year I had a lot of wonderful shots to make a family yearbook with. The last couple of years, though, I've spent less and less time behind a camera. To some extent this is a good thing, but I miss the photos, and I miss the hobby, so this year I want to refresh my knowledge and start working on my "skills" again.

(2) Read out loud more. We read to Calvin every night, several times a day, actually, for many years, but when he started being able to read just about anything himself, we fell away from this. I blame impatience, because both Calvin and I can read in our heads faster than out loud, and we're often too eager to hear the story for it to go so slowly. This past fall, though, we read a couple of books together because they were difficult reads that I thought would go better read together, and while it really is sometimes exhausting, I've missed reading together.

(3) Get courageous in the kitchen. We are all good eaters. There are very few foods that we won't eat, and we really enjoy trying new things. I try new recipes all the time when cooking, but rarely do I venture out o my own.

(4) Stop counting calories and logging food. A few years ago, when I had a few pounds to lose, I started keeping a food log that tracked every calorie in and every calorie out. I lost the weight quickly, and reduced my record keeping to a less anal food log, but even now, after years at a healthy weight and with a very religious exercise schedule I am keeping that food log like my life depends on it, and the truth is, it doesn't. I have become a slave to the food log, and it's time to let it go and focus instead on keeping to my generally healthy lifestyle with easy happiness.

(5) Turn in book reviews on time. I review books for a magazine: they send me a stack of pre-release books each month which I then read and write briefly about. Each book has its own deadline, and although I'm almost always finished with the books well in advance (I like to read them all in a sprint so I can read books of my own choosing for the rest of the month), I almost always put off the writing part and and up turning in the review minutes before the deadline. Time to change that nasty habit.

(6) Plan the next four-ish years of homeschooling. Alright, this is more of a to-do list item than a resolution, but it is something I need to be resolved about. Four years ago Calvin and I decided together on a couple of curriculum paths that would last for a four year span. We've reached the end of that span and it's time to look ahead again.

(7) Read more non-fiction. I want to be a non-fiction reader, at least some of the time, but almost all non-fiction puts me to sleep. I've found some joy in reading Mary Roach and Bernd Heinrich, but it's time I branched out a bit.

(8) Revive, update, and stay on top of the blog. Self explanatory.

(9) Get back to the piano. When Calvin was three years old we both started taking piano lessons. A few years later I broke a couple fingers and had to take a break, which got me out of the habit pretty quickly. Now, seven years later, Calvin has gotten good enough that he could give me lessons. I'm giving that some serious consideration.

(10) Get more sleep.

Good night.