Nate the great (a review by Calvin)

Weekly book shelf, 5/21

Here's some of what Calvin was reading by himself this week:.

Jon and I read a number of picture books with Calvin this week, too. Bird, Butterfly, Eel is one of our favorites. It's a year-in-the-life story of the eponymous animals, following their life and travels from their summer homes in New England to their winter homes, in three different locations, and back. It's an endearing story, completely devoid of anthropomorphism, accompanied by beautiful illustrations. Calvin loves it.

And we finished Glinda of Oz, but are still reading our way through the Aeneid.

On my bookshelf this week... in fiction I just finished Shogun, by James Clavell. My copy of Beasts in the Garden arrived so that's my new non-fiction, but I haven't picked my next fiction yet.

Ancient Rome—clay face pots

Okay, ours weren't clay. When Calvin brought me the book that he'd been reading about ancient Rome and said that he wanted to make "these face pots" all we had in the house was playdough, both homemade and store bought, so that's what we used. It's a matter of making it up as we go along, isn't it?

Clay face pots have been found mostly in British Roman ruins and are believed to have had a religious purpose. Many have been found with ashes in them. That's about all I can tell you about them right now, except that Calvin found them interesting and wanted to give them a try.

Obviously play dough was not the best choice for this, and we'll probably give this another try in the future with real honest-to-goodness clay, but the upside to starting with play dough was getting to do it over, and over, and over again by squishing and rebuilding, squishing and rebuilding.

The big pot was made with mostly homemade play dough, which wasn't as firm and didn't keep its shape as well, plus it was the first. The smaller, more colorful pot was the last pot made, after much practice, and is one we made together. I rolled all the blue and I made the mouth while Calvin assembled and did all the other rolling and mashing and shaping.

I think they were both adorable, and now they're both blobs of dough again waiting to be remade or made into something else.

Journal entry—orioles

Glinda of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (our reviews)

This was the last Oz book written by Baum. He died shortly after writing it, and I wonder if perhaps some of it was even finished by another writer, because in places it sure felt like he was filling space by repeating facts and introductions well known to all Oz fans, and never before revisited. But that really didn't take away from the book much, it just made for some pages I would have skimmed quickly if I hadn't been reading it out loud. Otherwise, I'm still very in love with this series, and worried about how that might change when we read our first non-Baum written book next.