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 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.

Weekly book shelf, 6/18

I missed a week! But not because we haven't been reading, I've just been to busy to blog everything, and we read so many books in a week that sometimes I'm not sure what to pick to talk about. Today, though, Calvin signed himself for the summer reading program at our library, which I wrote about in the journal, and that will give me a little more structure beginning next week, I think.

What Calvin is reading to himself...this past week his big fascination has been with volcanoes, an interest that may have stemmed from re-reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the fact that it is tornado season. He actually found the book by Seymour Simon all by himself after reading the title on the back of his book about trains by the same author. It's a good fact book with images from real weather situations, and the level and amount of information has really met Calvin's needs and abilities. My only gripe is that it is over ten years old so some of the facts are dates, especially after this year's active season, but hey, that's what the internet is for. The Magic Tree House book was a logical next step for us, of course, and I like those as well as ever.

Out loud we're still reading some of the stories from The Magical Monarch of Mo, and we're almost finished now with The Royal Book of Oz, which I'll review fully when we're done, but on a quick note, I'm very disappointed. I was hoping that the author switch (from L. Frank Baum to Ruth Plumly Thompson) wouldn't make too much of a difference, but actually I find it distracting and disheartening. Bummer.

On my own shelf, over the past two weeks I finished Day, by Elie Wiesel, and The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, by Alexander McCall Smith. I'm also making serious headway on Proust's In Search of Lost Time (or Remembrance of Things Past) and I find that I am really enjoying it, which is good because when I finally finish it I will likely have lost lots of my own time. Ha haaa.

Weekly book shelf, 4/29

I am trying something new. Since we enjoy reading so much, and since it is such a large part of our lives here, I am going to start listing our reading materials from the week every Friday so I can link up with a group of moms who are doing the same thing. I want to become more involved in the wider internet community, get some great new book ideas in the process, and hopefully also give some.

This week we're discovering volcanoes, so we spent some time with volcano books, of course. We have the DK Volcano & Earthquake Eyewitness Book and the DK Incredible Earth Inside Guide (an older book). We also have the Usborne Volcanoes book.

Calvin also discovered (or rediscovered, now that he can read them to himself) the Nate the Great series, and between his dad's old books and the ones we got from the library he's read at least seven of these.

Calvin is also reading his way through the Magic Tree House series. We discovered this one by accident when we used their Knights and Castles Research Guide when we were traveling through the Middle Ages. Once he realized there were story books to go with the research books—a whole series of them—he was in love. This week he read the first book from the series, and he's now in the process of rereading the second book. He's determined to read all of them in order.

Together we are reading Glinda of Oz. We've been reading our way through this series since we discovered it together last October. This is the 13th book in the Oz series, and the final one written by L. Frank Baum. We are both very fond of all of these books. They make great read-alouds.

And on my bookshelf this week...I finished Journey to the End of the Night, by Louis-Ferdinand Céline and have started on The Monk in the Garden, by Robin Marantz Henig.

Thanksgiving, by Alice Flanagan (review)

We have always used books to prepare Calvin for upcoming events. When his two year old check-up was right around the corner we borrowed a handful of books about visiting the doctor, and when we thought we were going to start potty training we brought home books about that (and triumphantly returned them when it became a moot point). But my favorite events are holidays, and those are some of my favorite books, too. The trick has been finding age appropriate books that are actually about the holidays, as opposed to just stories around the holidays. It was at Halloween last year that we first discovered Alice Flanagan's Holidays & Festivals series, and we really enjoyed it, so when we found the entire eight book collection used online this fall we bought it (Halloween is missing from the picture below because Calvin was reading it).

There are pros and cons with the series. Each book contains a lot of information, so when we read them to Calvin last year we read only portions at a time, and, while written with a fun voice, the books are strictly factual, so they may not be for all toddlers. But we love that she covers the history of the holidays, and the different celebrations as they are observed around the world. The Thanksgiving book, for instance, talks first about the first harvest celebrations all over, then she goes on to explain Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and "Indians," and from there the process by which the holiday became nationally recognized. I struggle with reading "Indian" each time, and with the lack of attention given to the Native Americans' situation (mention is given, in the current celebrations section, to the fact that many of the Wampanoag refuse to celebrate today and why), but the book is both factual and intriguing; it has certainly started us cogitating on what exactly Thanksgiving has us celebrating.

Calvin loves that this book is written in chapters, and he loves reading about the Native Americans (Flanagan also has a number of books on individual tribes, but we have yet to take a look at those). I love the history, and the book's factual basis. We only just got the books this fall, and of the two we've read so far Halloween is my favorite, and I think Calvin agrees, but Thanksgiving is fun, too. We'll let you know how Christmas is when we crack it open, but I won't let us do anything Christmas until after Thanksgiving has passed. It's a house rule.