Two Kid Schoolhouse
May Reading Jun. 3, 2007
Not a lot of reading done this month. Cleaning, packing, decluttering... ah the joys of moving. Still, I have managed to sneak in a bit:
Brick Lane by Monica Ali - story of Nazneen, a Bangladeshi immigrant to London, from her arrival as a young bride in the 1980s (arranged marriage to a much older man) to about 2002. She undergoes a lot of changes as she struggles with her marriage and with fitting in to Western culture; Nazneen is very passive for most of the story, then slowly begins to take some control of her life. The book provides an interesting view of unassimilated immigrants. 9/11 figures into the story; there is a spark of anti-West, anti-American activity but it goes nowhere. Also going nowhere are her husband's constant plans for better jobs, better education, a better life. There is an adulterous affair, that seems so inevitable it is not shocking. This book interested me but the characters also frustrated me greatly. I can't think of one with whom I really related or empathized.
Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It by Gabor Mate: A fascinating book about ADD. This book took a long time to read and absorb. Nodded my head on nearly every page. Saw myself, my whole family in various places. Saw lots of mistakes I make with my kids. A reminder that it's all about relationships! I'd like to buy this book as I think I'd refer to it again.
Started When Crickets Cry which looks interesting but I returned it to the library. I really don't have time for fiction right now! Also have been dabbling in The Duty of Self-Denial by Thomas Watson.
Did a lot of reading with the kids and will write about that tomorrow. |
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A book I (sort-of) hated but am glad we listened to May. 8, 2007
The kids and I just finished listening to A Stranger at Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston. This is the 4th in a series of books, and we have enjoyed the first 3 very much. They're set at an estate in England - appropriately old and rundown, with an equally rundown Great-grandma named Granny Partridge running the place. They are sweet stories with an element of magic realism to them.
This book starts off very differently from the others: in the jungles of Africa. At this point the main character is a young gorilla. We listened as he was hunted down, his parents and sister killed, and he is moved to the zoo. This was annoying me greatly and I almost stopped the story. Perhaps it was because I'd recently been horrified to read about efforts to have a chimp declared a person and I just wasn't in the mood for a gorilla with human characteristics and emotions.
But the kids were enjoying it, I had hopes it would turn around, and there were no more tapes or cds in the car, so...
Finally the story came around to England and the characters we were expecting. Everything was going well but soon I had a feeling I was going to get annoyed again, and I was right. The gorilla escapes from the zoo, and ends up in a thick wooded area at Green Knowe. It is befriended by visitor to the estate, a young boy who had previously "met" and become fascinated by the gorilla at the zoo.
The boy makes a lot of dumb decisions and tells a lot of lies in his effort to keep the gorilla in the wood rather than being captured and returned to the zoo. These decisions and lies ultimately lead to the gorilla's death. We heard this part in the Costco parking lot today. J was sobbing. E was holding it in. I was disgusted. The ending was "happy" in an odd sort of way - the boy determined that the gorilla had made the choice to be killed rather than go back to his bleak existence at the zoo. But beyond that, the boy's errors and lies were brought out. He did not appear to suffer any consequences of his actions, but at least they were not ignored. The zookeeper, who chastised the boy for causing the gorilla's death (by not telling him the gorilla was in the wood), came to understand something of the boy's motivation to help the gorilla, whatever mistakes he made trying to do it.
So in some ways I hated the book but I was glad we persevered and heard the whole thing. It sure brought up a lot of discussion, because it just wasn't an "easy" book. Who was the hero of this book? Were the police and the zookeeper wrong to trespass on the estate once they had evidence that the gorilla was in the woods, even though Granny Partridge didn't explicity give permission? Was Ping (the boy) wrong to have lied since he had good intentions to help the gorilla? Do you think he made bad decisions because he thought he knew and understood more about the situation than he really did? Was it OK for him to take food from Granny Partridge's kitchen and garden if he was doing it so the gorilla wouldn't eat poisonous yew trees? What could he have done differently? Do you think gorillas have the same sorts of feelings that humans do? Could the gorilla really have made the decision to let the hunter shoot him? Do you think death would be better than living in a concrete cage?
I'm glad the kids didn't read or listen to this book on their own. I don't want them to grow up to be people who think a chimp, or a gorilla, should be considered a "person," and this book could be seen as an encouragement to that point of view. Still, to them, it was an exciting and bittersweet book, set in a place and populated by characters they love. |
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April reading May. 1, 2007
Don't know how long I'll keep up the monthly reading post. But here is what I read in April:
Started in March, finished in April:
The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra (a man using a female pseudonym): This is a very good, but very bleak book about life in Afghanistan under the Taliban. I can only assume it is an accurate picture. The story focuses on 2 couples and the way their lives collide. It gives an interesting view of life for women who must wear the burqa. Last year an Egyptian woman told me that for many women, wearing the burqa is very comfortable and even freeing, as people do not relate to their attractiveness or lack thereof, just to what they have to say. I suppose that may be true for some, and particularly for those who have always worn it. But in this book, my eyes were opened when one of the main characters, a woman who struggles with life after the burqa is imposed, speaks of it taking away her personality. It also makes it very easy to brutalize a woman, when she is a creature without a face. And, does it really matter which woman, since they all look the same?
Upgrade by Kevin Swanson: This is a good book about education; full of good reminders about individualizing education and giving our kids the best.
Started and finished in April:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini : I am not ususally attracted to best-sellers, but after reading The Swallows of Kabul I was looking at some reviews and found this book recommended as somewhat more uplifting, less bleak. It was a very good book - though full of bleakness and horror. Yes, a little more uplifting than the previous book.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid: I think this will be the end of my Middle East reading for a while. An interesting yet puzzling novel about a Pakistani who goes to university in the US, whose pursuit of life in the US parallels his pursuit of a woman - named Erica, a bit of symbolism which escaped me at first. (Lots of symbolism in this book escaped me at first. My lit professors would be appalled.) Told in a monologue style, a fast and interesting read. But ultimately unsatisfying for me as it left too many questions unanswered.
Started but not finished:
Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It by Gabor Mate: A fascinating book about ADD. Still reading and absorbing it. Nodding my head on nearly every page. Seeing myself, my whole family in various places. Seeing lots of mistakes I make with my kids. A reminder that it's all about relationships!
Reading to the kids:
Great Northern? by Arthur Ransome: The last of the "Swallows and Amazons" series, a great, great book, as are all of them. See the sidebar for my S&A posts.
Mr Revere and I by Robert Lawson: For American History reading. Good story about Paul Revere, told by his horse.
The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare: More American History. The kids could have read this one on their own but I'd never read it myself, or didn't remember it. Good story about a boy in the wilderness. It also explored the difficult nature of the European takeover of the New World. Very thoughtful book that raised some good discussions.
Struggle for a Continent by Betsy and Giulio Maestro: Picture book about the French and Indian Wars.
Can't think of the others, and no time to look those up, or talk about what the kids are reading...
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Too many books? Apr. 17, 2007
A few years ago an acquaintance of mine told me that my kids had too many books. She thought they were spoiled by our large collection and should be getting more books from the public library. (We do get a lot from the public library.) Of course I believed she was wrong, and we continued to buy books. I never felt anyone could have too many books.
Till now, when I am about to pack book box #45. And I look at the shelves and see how many are left to pack.
Could she have been right? Is there such a thing as too many books? |
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We missed "Drop Everything and Read" Day! Apr. 12, 2007
"Drop Everything and Read" Day was today. And I had heard about it, but we had big big plans so I forgot about it. Then I remembered tonight.
Since this was a busy week, and we've had very little time to read - or really to do much of any sort of homeschooling - I think we're going to take tomorrow off and celebrate one day late! You could too! |
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March Reading Apr. 1, 2007
This year I set a goal to read one book per month (besides the Bible and the reading I do with my kids). This is a pitiful goal but I had to start somewhere. For someone who owns as many books as I do, and who loves to read as much as I say I do, a book a month should not be too tough to do.
In January I read one book. In February I didn't finish anything but started a few. Here is what I finished in March (not listed in any particular order):
Rascal by Sterling North - I had started in February to make a study guide for my kids. I finished it a few weeks ago. As always, I cried at the end.
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult - Not the type of book I usually pick up, but I kept reading such rave reviews so I requested it from the library. Had to wait a while for it. It was quite good; I couldn't stop reading it. A good fast read; not great literature. I did feel a little deflated at the end.
Praying Backwards by Bryan Chapell - I'd gotten this book as a freebie last year and kept meaning to get to it. In February I took it on our trip to Philadelphia to check out the town we'll be moving to. On the way home I was quite agitated about some decisions and pulled this book out of my bag. It flipped to a random page and I found great comfort and wisdom for the problem I was having. Then I started at the beginning and slowly finished it. A wonderful, useful book.
The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne - I am not a mystery fan but ordered this on a whim from Dover Publications during a 25% off sale. I just wanted to see what else Milne wrote. I can't say it was a good mystery because I don't read mysteries, but it was a good read. Short and quick, it sort of jump-started my month.
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards - Someone here at HSB reviewed this, I think, and I requested it from the library a few months ago. It had a long queue but once it got here I read it very quickly. Absorbing book. When I described it to my husband, he thought it sounded very outlandish but as it was written it was very believable.
Even though I have a "current reading" list on my sidebar, it's not very current; I should just take it down. I rarely remember to update that. Here is what is in process:
Upgrade by Kevin Swanson - a book about education, loaned to me by a homeschooling friend. Very interesting and encouraging.
The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra - picked up on a whim from the library. Set in Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban. About 1/3 of the way through. Bleak, absorbing.
As for family read-alouds, we had been going through the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome, and were due to start the last of the 12 books, Great Northern?. But the kids are not ready for the series to end, so we have taken a detour and read The Children of Green Knowe and The Treasure of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston. Sweet and exciting books; some magical realism which made it enchanting for us, maybe not so for some folks.
Maybe I will do this again at the end of April! I doubt I will have so many completed.
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Reminiscing with books Mar. 28, 2007
It's hard to get motivated to pack when a move date is 3 months away. But we have to start somewhere. So we're starting with books. C got us a nifty (and long-needed) cataloging system for our many books. Now we're using it not to record what shelf each book is on, but which box it's in. It's great fun and useful too.
I just packed box #20, book number 809. We have a ways to go.
The best boxes for books are "banker's boxes" AKA file boxes. They can be purchased for about $12 a 6-pack, or sometimes cheaper, at office supply stores. They are a good size - I can carry one full of hardbacks. Printer paper boxes are good too. I like having fresh new boxes for my books. We have green stickers, each with a number, for each box. I take great comfort seeing those boxes lining up in the garage, much like a country woman looking at her cellar shelves full of the fall's canning.
Much of our lives are in those boxes. We have two just full of board books and other little kid picture books. We've destroyed (not on purpose) some baby books, and gotten rid of some, but most of the books we read when the kids were babies have become such friends. Even the picture books the kids and I read when we were doing "Five in a Row" are beloved. We are keeping most of our good "chapter books" as well - so many that I have read aloud; I hope my kids will read them when they are able.
Going through college textbooks is fun too. I marvelled that I had kept a copy of The Mahabharata. I thought I'd thrown it out 18 years ago when I was through with that mythology class. It's gone now. I also got rid of a few French existentialist novels - must have been a phase I've forgotten. But I did have to keep Celine's Journey to the End of the Night, even though it's my big sister's book. Which she renamed Journey to the end of My Life. I am not sure she ever read it. I know I haven't. But maybe I will, someday... Of course my Norton Anthologies - American Lit, English Lit, and World Masterpieces are too precious to get rid of, as are all the Greek plays.
We haven't found too many duplicates, mostly classics, which is not surprising when two bookish adults combine households. Three copies of Bleak House - but I've still never read it. We each brought into the marriage a copy of Goedel, Escher, Bach, though I am not sure either of us has read it. I read some but didn't understand a word. I had gotten rid of my copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance years ago; I think C's hit the "out" pile this time around. Did we really think that was good? The most embarassing duplicate is my own purchase of two copies of Consciousness Explained. Yes, I'd forgotten I owned the hardback when I saw the paperback and bought it too. (At Kepler's in Menlo Park, by the way. I remember where I bought many of my books. Hm, how come I can remember where I bought it, but at the time couldn't remember that I already had?) Oh, no, wait - I bought the paperback for a reading copy - yeah; that's it. Actually, I've still never read it.
It's hard to figure out which books to pack and which to keep out till the last few weeks or days. I had packed up Finding Fairies but today the kids were mad for it - it's a beautiful spring day and they had made up a fairy game. So we brought it back out - and I even remembered to delete it from the database since we will be cataloging it again.
I wonder what will happen to all these books when I'm dead. Of course I hope my kids will have claimed most of them when they are old enough to read them, and that there will be grandchildren for those baby books. Who will get the only copy of Goodnight Moon? I hope these books are not a burden to my children, but a beloved legacy. |
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New blog for you to read Mar. 9, 2007
Have you read all these books? Mar. 7, 2007
Snatched this meme from smallworld. Way back on March 3, that's when I started this. Must be busy around here. Anyway, it's an interesting list - but then I find lists like this interesting. I do wonder where it comes from. The books don't seem to fit a particular category (best-seller, classic). I'd love to know the origin if anyone knows.
I've put astericks next to the ones I've never heard of. Maybe I'll check them out sometime...
Go ahead, do it yourself!
Look at the list of books below:
* Bold the ones you’ve read
* Italicize the ones you want to read
* Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.
1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) Many times over
4. Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. LOR: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. LOR: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)*
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)*
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) Read all of her books; now wonder why
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) Started it - ick.
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)*
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)*
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) Too many annoying characters, but I finished it
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) Fantastic book; would reread but gave it away.
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) Pitiful, isn't it, that I were a English major anf I've never read this .
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)*
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) Yeah, I'd like to. As if.
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo) Beautiful book.
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) Started it a couple times w/the kids, couldn't keep going.
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) Fun, fluffy sort of book.
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) Or did I ever finish?
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)*
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)*
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)*
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)*
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)*
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce) Hm, does part of it for an English class requirement count? |
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Overdue updates Jan. 28, 2007
The other day I realized that the "current reading" on my sidebar was very out of date. The kids and I had finished We Didn't Mean to go to Sea a long time ago and had read the next two books in the Swallows and Amazons series. I had given up on Marriage to a Difficult Man a while back too. Something about the author's writing style just wasn't doing it for me. I don't have a lot of time to read so I don't spend it on books I'm not enjoying or not getting anything out of.
I took down the friends list since the easy way to read friends' blogs is no longer available. I added in all the current bloggers on my list to my bloglines so I can keep up with them that way.
I had set myself a goal of reading one book a month this year. This won't sound like much to you prolific readers. I do a fair bit of reading each day - aloud to my kids (our homeschooling is really based to a large degree on read-alouds), Bible reading, Bible study preparation, homeschooling materials. But I need to read for my own pleasure and edification too. So today I realized I wasn't going to complete a book in January if I didn't get started on something short and easy. That sounds so silly but I hope it gets me on the right track. Anyway, Celebrating the Sabbath is short, easy, and since I spend a fair bit of Sunday doing mundane chores that could be done ahead of time, it seemed like a good fit. My husband recommended Quicksilver, a very large and very complex novel. I will try that next. In February I should have more reading time. Uh huh. |
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About Me |
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Musings of a slacker homeschool Mom
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