Our friend at woodyswonders posted about what her family was reading recently and asked readers what they are reading so I thought I would write about the great book I recently finished.  My mother gave me the Jane Austen's complete novels a year or two ago and I had read everyone but Persuasion and Lady Susan. Recently I rented the movie The Jane Austen Book Club and was inspired to read Persuasion. I loved it! It is my new favorite Austen book passing up Pride and Prejudice. A friend and I were talking about P and P a few months ago and she hated it.  Just a bunch of people sitting around talking and gossiping. Granted it is a pretty silly life from our point of view now. But I love Austen's characters and how absurd she makes them which makes them hylerious. Like the mother from P and P and Sir Walter and Miss Elliott from Persuasion. They are just so lame that it is silly. Anyway I loved the book. Now I will read Lady Susan and continue reading Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell and Home Education by Charlotte Mason. I am slowly reading those two books because each page gives me something new to think about.

Adelle and  I just finishing reading aloud Pinocchio, Meet Felicity (we are doing a Colonial America Unit Study) and The Courage of Sarah Noble.  We started Constance, a Plymouth Pilgrim the other day but she isn't too into that so we will see how it goes. She read Skippy Jon Jones to herself while acting in Joel's commercial for class on reading this week. She keeps repeating, "the dude just wants his beans back" Thank Jen!

Maeve continues to amaze me by how long she will sit on my lap and listen to me read to her. Her favorite book right now is Mr. Brown Can Moo by Dr. Seuss. I made the mistake of bringing it to church one day and she was "reading" it to herself very loudly. Needless to say it didn't come back to church again. She walks around the house saying boom, boom, boom, and splatt, splatt, splatt.

I don't want to leave Joel out. I think he reads for classes but I've only seen him reading the Book of Mormon in Italian. If he is only going to read one book at least he chose that one! Wait he just told me he was reading a book on camera filters and looked at the pictures in an art book.

Some people have asked me this question and the answer is yes. We started using the program, The Writing Road to Reading by Spaulding in August. I really like it because it is very systematic and makes a lot of sense to me. Adelle has done  well with it. She started reading all of the easy Dr. Seuss and P.D. Eastman books about a month ago and really enjoyed those. She think Dr. Seuss is hylerious. Her favorite books were Are You My Mother? and Oh the Shapes You Can Make. She is now reading Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant.

Most of the time I am still reading aloud to Adelle. We just finished The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. After reading that the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland makes a lot more sense. It is based on that book. Her favorite part of that book was when Mr. Toad dressed up as a washerwoman. He wanted to go on a train to get home after escaping from prison but had no money. He sat in the station crying until the engineer snuck him on the train.

Maeve loves to read books. I caught her reading in the papasan chair earlier this week and took these photos. Of course this was prior to her running around diaperless, because of that dang diaper rash, and climbing in the papasan and peeing all over it. Lovely. She prefers speed reading, not always letting you finish the page before turning to the next. But she will want me to read the same book over and over again in one sitting so we eventually get to read all the words. She really like books about animals, particularly dogs and cats. She signs these with much enthusiasm. One day last week we went on a walk and she saw a cat sitting in the window of our friend's home. She stood there signing cat over and over again for seriously ten minutes. She is really good at spotting dogs and cats everywhere we go.