Weekly book shelf, 7/23

I'm way behind, so it's nowhere near 7/23, but it always takes me a bit to catch up after vacation, and I didn't want to skip a week because Calvin read some fun books while we were away, so I'm just posting late.

What Calvin read to himself this week... Lots of really great books this week, and three of them were entirely new to us. They came into the library sale room just before we left and they looked so perfect I bought them! "Hidden Michigan" is a hidden pictures kind of book with illustrated maps of various regions in our state, plus written facts and anectdotes. It was fun for him to read as we were driving from the SE corner of the state to the NW. "Let's Go to Mackinac Island!" is a week long trip with a family of four to the historic island in the Straights of Mackinac. The illustrations are light and airy and the story is realistic and engaging. We didn't actually go to the island, but we saw it from the shore, and Calvin really enjoyed the book.

"Coyote Cry" is an incredibly beautiful book about living with nature. This is probably not a book for very young children; in it a family is struggling to protect their sheep from the coyotes, and when the young boy's puppy goes missing they assume the coyote has eaten him like the sheep. In the end they find that the coyote has stollen the pup to raise herself, possibly because her own young have died. So there is allusion to death, and a lot of instense emotions, but they are handled with maturity and beauty. Calvin loved it and I think it is to become a family favorite. And "All About Trains" is one of Calvin's favorites because he is such a train lover. It is full of information that is accessible to kids, but not watered down, and illustrations that are realistic and interesting.

Things we read together this week... we're still reading the Little House book. It's taking us this long because we just don't go back to it all that often. It might be time to let it go and move on. And because we were out of town all week we packed a couple of old favorites, including the Arabian Nights and The Aeneid, but haven't really started something new yet.

On my shelf this week...I finished the disappointing "The Map of Time" and I think I'll pick up The Time Machine to supplement this week. I am making headway on Proust, too, even though it seriously feels like I'm going nowhere since I decided to re-read the first volume to up my note taking. Oh well.

Weekly book shelf, 7/16

We're on vacation this week. Yeah! Before we left we stopped by the library to fill out Calvin's weekly reading program form, but I left his own log at home and actually can't remember what the four books were that he listed from this week. So I'm winging it, and these are books I know he read this week.

What Calvin read to himself this week...the Nate the Great I don't think was a new one to him, but he gravitates to that series every once in while. Little Squirrel's Special Nest is another in the Reader's Digest Animal Adventures series. The writing in the series isn't remarkable, and the moral lessons are pretty forced, but I like that the stories are firmly planted in the natural sciences.

Earth, by Keith Brandt, is a really great (out of print) book about our physical world and the forces impacting it. It covers the makeup of the earth, the solar system, and everything between, and is both interesting and informative. And The Island of the Skog is a cute book, but not expertly written—the story development isn't smooth and the "moral of the story" is a little weak.

Some things we read out loud this week...we're still finishing up The Little House in the Big Woods, and we've read a lot of other fun books out loud this week, but I can't remember any of them right now. Maybe because I'm on vacation.

 I'm still reading Proust—I'm on my second time through Swann's Way—but I've also picked up The Map of Time by Félix J. Palma. This will be the first vacation on which I read as much as I planned to.

Weekly book shelf, 7/9

What Calvin read to himself this week...Squanto's Journey was an extension of last week's interest in the history of the U.S. and the books about Thanksgiving and Pilgrims. Honestly I didn't do a good job of working with him on this interest and I'm feeling badly about that. He read the books, he talked to me a bit about them, but my usual m.o. is to ask questions and knead that interest into rising and growing, but this week I just didn't get there. I guess you could call it an off week, but we'll return to Squanto's Journey because it is in our personal library—I chose it originally for it's beautiful images and for its depiction of the Native American story, and I'm still pleased with it, though I think it misses the mark a bit by painting the story in too pretty a light.

The Two Cars is a book we've read before and loved. Calvin got it off the shelf this week because we were going to the auto show on Friday. We are all fond of this book—the illustrations are traditional d'Aulaire, the story is a retake on the tortoise and the hare. Midnght on the Moon is part of Calvin's beloved Magic Tree House Series. And Train Song. It is one of our all time favorites: really a poem with a rolling rhythm, like that of a train going over the track, and the illustrations are rich and calming and beautiful.

What we read out loud this week...

I made a mistake last week. For as long as I can remember I've assumed that The Little House on the Prairie was the first in the Little House series, probably because that's the name I'm most familiar with, so when I said last week that that's what we were reading, I misspoke. We started at the beginning, reading Little House in the Big Woods, I just can't quite get that into my head. Obviously this is my first time reading the series, and I don't think it will go on my favorites list. I know a lot of people love these stories, and I like knowing that they are a true telling of life from that era, but I find the sentences distractingly simplistic. It feels like a list of facts instead of a story, which I suppose makes sense, it's just not what I expected. Calvin clearly finds the information interesting, but he's not as drawn to the book as he has been to others we've read out loud. I'm considering giving this to him as something to read on his own and looking for a different read aloud.

And on my shelf this week...I finished The Women of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor, and started rereading Swann's Way, in a newer translation, while taking notes on my new reading blog. If I keep this up there's no way I'll finish In Search of Lost Time by the end of the year. Oh well.

Weekly book shelf, 7/3

Thanks to a somewhat impromptu weekend trip I'm behind on pretty much everything, especially the laundry. But vacation means travelling, and that means lots of reading in the car (though not for me, that's something I've never been able to do with out getting vertigo), on top of other reading times. Calvin is definitely all set for his weekly library reading, and he got lots of extra read aloud time with his Oma on this trip, who was sitting next to him in the car.

What Calvin read to himself this week...still on his Magic Tree House kick, he explored Indpendence Day and some others that focused on the history of the United States. Actually, he spent a lot of the trip rereading these to anyone who would listen. He really enjoys these books, and I have yet to find anything in them about which to complain.

As mentioned, we had plenty of read out loud time this week. Calvin's Oma, Jon's mom, brought with her for the car ride, on our way to a family reunion with a bunch of other Dutch folk, three books about Dutch artists Van Gogh and Rembrandt. All three of these books were wonderful. They are based on historical facts and bring the artists to life, engaging the reader in their stories, and the illustrations are very enjoyable. I was especially pleased with the two Laurence Anholt books and I see that he has a whole series of books on master artists.

Having finished the Royal Book of Oz, we started a new bedtime read aloud this week: The Little House on the Prairie. I have actually never read this series, so I am looking forward to discovering it along with my son.

And on my shelf this week...I am half way through The Women of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor, and I finished reading Swann's Way, the first volume in Proust. I am really enjoying Proust, and because I think I'll get more out of it a second time through, I've actually gone back to reread the first volume. Also, I'm in the process of starting a separate blog just for taking notes on the work as a whole.

Weekly book shelf 6/25

It was our first week of reading for the library summer reading program, and I think that any concerns I'd had have been put to rest. I'm not sure Calvin thought even once about needing to read a certain number of books for the program. He read plenty, and on my urging added the books to his log. I can see this will be no problem.

What Calvin read to himself this week...I let him count the Twisters on Tuesday for this week's library list because he checked the book out the same day he signed up for the program, which was a little ahead, and because he read it at least one more time this past week. The topic turned out to be timely because in addition to tornadoes it touches on the prairie and the pioneers, and this was Log Cabin Weekend at our local historical park. It was amazing how much Calvin had picked up from Twisters on Tuesday when we started talking about covered wagons and going west. On a similar topic I pulled out Civil War on Sunday because Civil War historical actors were also a part of Log Cabin Weekend, and he read that as well.

I Can Read About Weather is a book I've had on our shelves for a while, and which Calvin discovered of his own accord this past week over days of threatening rain clouds, sudden downpours, and severe weather alerts in our area. I'm fond of this book (and the rest in the series as they were printed in 1975, I don't know about any new printings) because they are really cool media wise—pencil and watercolor sketches in gray tones with only one color added in—and are serious about the science while being readable for Calvin. He read this one, then proceeded to tell my mother about the different kinds of clouds, and even how to spell them, before I even knew he'd found it on the shelf. And the fourth book for his weekly reading was Spider's Lunch, which he liked for its illustration method (paper, probably emulated by computer), and I like, again, because it doesn't really shy away from the science.

Out loud we finished The Magical Monarch of Mo this week, and The Royal Book of Oz. He read some more Arabian Nights with his dad, and now I'm faced with finding our next adventure. We haven't reviewed the Royal Book yet, but I was so disillusioned by the author switch, and Calvin seemed far less interested than usual, that I think it's time to move on. I'm looking for good suggestions for sure. In the meantime we're going to pick up another Baum book, I think.

And on my shelf...I didn't finish anything grand and new this week. Instead I devoted all of my reading time to Proust and i am a handful of pages from being finished with Swann's Way. I am very much enjoying the work, which really has to be called a work because that many words cannot seriously make one book, can they? Proust is like a more practiced, more polished D. H. Lawrence, one of my favorite authors. When I get to the end of Swann's Way, though, I have a couple of other books I'm going tread before going on, beginning with The Women of Brewster Place by another of my favorite authors, Gloria Naylor.