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Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Child in the Family by Maria Montessori

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Over the years, I’ve read my share of books about homeschooling, looking forward to the day when I’d be doing history timelines with my elementary students, science experiments with my middle schoolers, and higher maths with my high schoolers. But, then… what do you know? I don’t have any of those. I have a baby. And before she’ll be a high schooler or a middle schooler or even an elementary schooler – she’ll be a preschooler.

Which is why I resolved to pick up something on early childhood education on one of my recent library trips.

And who better than Maria Montessori, right? She’s a universally recognized early childhood educator.

I started with The Child in the Family because we’ll be training our children in our family (not in a school setting) – and because I guessed that this would be about very early childhood, even infancy. And… I was right!

The Child in the Family is highly theoretical.

Montessori begins by stating that children are the last repressed class of humans – practically slaves to their parents, who exercise god-like power over them. She argues that while adults tend to think of children as blank slates, ready to be made after their parents’ image, children are in fact living spirits ready to begin to make their physical selves in their own likeness.

Montessori’s method, then, is all about giving children the freedom to raise themselves, to learn as they desire, to mold themselves as they like.

Montessori’s child is some sort of idealized angel, innately aware of both morality and of his own dignity. When the child sees injustice, he bristles. When his dignity is wounded, his spirit is crushed. As such, adults should tread lightly, recognizing their great potential for injuring this otherwise perfect being.

Does this sound melodramatic? I thought so too.

Montessori seems fully aware of one half of the human condition: Imago Dei. But imago Dei is only one half of the equation. Original sin means the child is not only a spiritual being made in God’s image, but also spiritually dead, bent toward evil.

Montessori’s only-half-right-theory means that her practice is only-partially-helpful. In this volume, Montessori mentions a few practical ways by which a parent or other adult can avoid offending the child. The first is to be patient with a child’s curiosity (a child isn’t being dirty or naughty when he picks up a fallen leaf from the sidewalk). The second is to, for lack of a better phrase, allow the child to be a grown-up. Montessori encourages the use of real miniature glasses and plates and silverware, rather than having unbreakable “child-friendly” dishes. She encourages the use of child-sized furniture that the child can move around (and discourages the use of rubber caps to keep the movement of said furniture from making noise.) She encourages the use of child-sized cleaning equipment so a child can sweep her own floor and dust her own furniture.

In general, I’m okay with those practices. I don’t think I’m anywhere near as dogmatic on the child-sized-but-real stuff – but certainly Tirzah Mae has no interest in using a plastic baby spoon, eschewing it in favor of real flatware (child-sized flatware for her is on it’s way, since she can’t exactly fit the real flatware in her mouth!)

The second to last chapter speaks of the Montessori teacher and how she uses “various stimuli to awaken a sense of security in the child.” She is all about making her educational material attractive to the child so that the child will initiate learning activity. Once the child has initiated the activity, she is careful not to interrupt either with praise or correction (I really appreciate this idea – I often see moms completely disrupt their child’s purposeful play by inserting themselves into the play.) Unfortunately, that is the extent of the discussion of Montessori’s pedagogical methods in this book. I certainly hope she elaborates more in other books – since this proposed role for the teacher seems much more interesting to me than the silly theories about a child’s innate goodness promoted by this particular book.

Rating: 2 stars
Category: Early Childhood Education
Synopsis: Montessori propounds her theory that children are innately good and should be allowed freedom to mold themselves as they like.
Recommendation: Lots of ridiculous theory, very little of practical use. Skip it.

Categories Everyday Life

Vacation (Part 2): Thai and Travel and Porch Swings

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September 6: Day 2

Sunday morning, Daniel dropped me off at church early to prepare the “opening” activity centers for the three year old Sunday School. We were learning about Noah, so I had a sticky wall rainbow and, by now, I can’t remember what else. Oh, but it’s coming back – pairs of animals to match and blocks to build an ark with.

Daniel went back home to take care of our guests and to get Tirzah Mae ready for the service.

After church, we went out to the land, where we inspected the then-current state of construction – at that point, the walls had been poured but the forms not yet removed. Timothy and I tramped around the perimeter so Tim could see our land more fully.

Our family at the hole

Our family in front of “the hole”

From there, we went out for Thai at Chiang Mai Thai (Oh my, so much going out to eat this vacation already!) As is our custom, we served Tirzah Mae from our own plates – in this case Green and Yellow curries. The older woman who served us kept exclaiming about “The baby!” “Eating Thai curry!” After expressing her astonishment to us, I heard her in the kitchen, expressing her astonishment there as well :-)

Once home, Daniel and Joanna and Tim watched the very bloody The Untouchables, about the attempt to put away Chicago mob-boss Al Capone. I squawked around like a chicken with my head cut off, doing endless loads of laundry and attempting to get us packed for our trip to Lincoln.

When the movie was done, we “scared up” breakfast for dinner – caramel apple oven French toast I’d prepared earlier, as well as bacon and sausage and kiwi and whatever else I could find in the fridge that needed to be used up.

Then, all four of us adults got busy getting the packing done and the house cleaned up so we could leave for Lincoln at a decent hour the next day!

September 7: Day 3

After the usual scurry of last minute preparations for a trip, we took off – Daniel and I and Tirzah Mae in our gold Trailblazer, Tim and Joanna and their baby-on-the-inside in their blue Trailblazer (one of the fun parts of having a large family is occasionally accidentally matching!)

Tim and Joanna on the world's largest porch swing

Tim and Joanna on the World’s Largest Porch Swing

We stopped at the world’s largest porch swing in Hebron, NE where we took pictures and then took Tirzah Mae over to the playground. Tirzah Mae enjoyed her first swing ride (that is, she enjoyed a swing for the first time, not that she rode one for the first time.) She also went down a slide for the first time.

Aunt Joanna helps Tirzah Mae get acquainted with the swing

Aunt Joanna helps Tirzah Mae get acquainted with the swing

Once we were done in Hebron, we wished Tim and Joanna good-bye and headed on toward my parents’ home in Lincoln.

Categories Everyday Life

Grace to Know Your Limits

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This week was our first week back to fall Bible studies, having been gone for the first two weeks since they officially began.

I was leaving Tirzah Mae in the nursery, which meant doing all those things that must be done for other people to take care of her – stuff diapers so the nursery workers don’t have to figure out prefolds, fill a sippy cup with water and a dish with precut grapes since the nursery workers can’t breastfeed her, put her in clean clothing so I don’t look like the worst mom in the world…

It hadn’t been a terrible night – wakings at midnight and 4, but ones where I’d quickly fallen back asleep after feeding and settling Tirzah Mae.

When I got home from Bible study and had my list of usual morning tasks still to complete, I decided I’d forgo my afternoon nap.

Eat lunch. Switch laundry, hang laundry, fold laundry and put it away. My eyes started feeling heavy, my temples started to throb. But I still had to rinse diapers, give the toilet a quick scrub, and get the mail before I could start on my afternoon tasks.

“Grace to know your limits,” I thought – and began composing the blog post in my head (and then on the back of an envelope.)

Now I must learn the wisdom to work within my limits.

(Which is why I must now stop writing and get to taking that nap!)

Categories Read Aloud Thursday

Read Aloud Thursday (September 2015)

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Tirzah Mae and I continue to read board books – I’ve gotten another dozen or so by Sandra Boynton out of the library (since we’ve enjoyed several of hers in the past) and I picked up a couple of new-to-me authors from the library on my last visit as well. But we’ve also branched out, rather accidentally (on my part), into regular picture books.

I’ve generally been inclined to think that regular picture books are outside of our abilities, mostly because Tirzah Mae is majorly into oral exploration and because it’s hard enough to keep her from ripping board books. But when Alice gave some recommendations on our last Read Aloud Thursday post, I dutifully requested them from my library, not realizing until I picked them up that they’re normal picture books!

I tried (unsuccessfully) to read one to Tirzah Mae as we both laid on the floor. And then we went on vacation, taking the board books and leaving the picture books. But when we got back and I was casting about for things to do at the kitchen table while Tirzah Mae kept on eating second breakfast (I’m thinking she must be going through a growth spurt – she can steadily eat for an hour, consuming maybe two cups of food over that period.) Anyway, I was looking for things to do when I noticed Clip-Clop by Nicola Smee on the bookshelf. I got it out and read it and… what do you know? It worked wonderfully.

This Month’s Favorite Regular Picture Book:
Clip-Clop by Nicola Smee

Clip-Clop

A cat asks a horse for a ride, which the horse gladly gives – then a dog asks for a ride. Before long, there are four different animals on horse’s back, begging Mr. Horse to go faster and faster. When Mr. Horse finally stops, the animals fly off into a haystack. Mr. Horse is a little worried, but the four voices crying out “Again!” reassure him. It’s a delightful tale with wonderful rhythm. We’ve read it now three or four times, laughing and thoroughly enjoying it each time.

This Month’s Favorite Board Book:
Fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy by Sandra Boynton

Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy!

A touch-and-feel book with simple language, this one captivated Tirzah Mae and she won’t let it go. There’s a “fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy” cow’s nose, a “rough, rough, rough” dog’s paw, and an “incredibly soft” duck’s belly. Tirzah Mae delighted in touching the different textures. But what she liked most of all were the lift-the-flap eggs at the end. The book asks “Do you want to start over with the fuzzy fuzzy guy?” Depending on which flap you lift, the little chicks inside answer either “Yes” or “No”. Tirzah Mae thinks these are hilarious. So much so, that all we need to do to send her into paroxysms of laughter is to say “Yes” and then “No” in the voices we generally do when we’re reading. So, so funny. She likes this so much we’re buying it for her (I think I’m going to call it a birthday gift.)

Tirzah Mae lifts the flaps

This Month’s Favorite New Author:
Leo Lionni

Leo Lionni’s What?, Where?, and When? feature torn-paper mice illustrations demonstrating different words. In Where?, the copy asks “Can you guess where the mice are?” before showing them “Up high” in a tree, “Popping out” of a shoe, etc. When? asks “When does it snow?”, leaving reader or listener to respond “in the winter”. What? asks readers to guess what the things on the pages are. Readers once again have to supply the noun, while the text of the book supplies little comments like “Do you see what I see?” as the mice peek out from behind a giant set of eyeglasses. Even if I weren’t planning on reading every book in my library, I’d still be picking up whatever else I can by the author on my next library trip.

Check out what other families are reading aloud at Read Aloud Thursday at Hope is the Word.

Categories Everyday Life

Breaks, Intentional and otherwise

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I don’t plan blogging breaks – but only because I’m not that intentional about blogging. I rather expect that I’ll post daily (except on Sundays), but I (generally) don’t stress if I don’t. Usually, that means I end up posting 3-5 days a week.

And then I started doing I-don’t-know-what at the beginning of this month. (Probably trying to get my list of books read since starting my “read every book” challenge organized and counted for this post.) I was busy and just didn’t blog. Then my brother and his wife and their baby-on-the-inside came to visit over Labor Day weekend. Then we went north for a week-and-a-half-long vacation.

I didn’t intend for that to equal a blogging break. I’d have access to a computer, as well as my tablet (with a keyboard). I’d probably even have time, since we weren’t there over a holiday – meaning that our families were still generally working during the day.

But blogging barely crossed my mind.

Which means I have plenty to report, right?

Of course right.

September 5: Day 1
I spent the morning writing up the aforementioned challenge progress report. Then, when Timothy and Joanna texted that they were about an hour away from Hutchinson, we took off for Hutchinson’s Cosmosphere.

Tirzah Mae in the Ejection Seat

Tirzah Mae sits in a spacecraft ejection seat

If you ever find yourself in southeastern Kansas, you really should check out the Cosmosphere. The first time we went (with my parents sometime last year, I think?), we bought tickets for the whole shebang: the museum, the “digital dome” theatre playing some documentary, “Dr. Goddard’s lab”, the planetarium. We spent a fair bit of time exploring the “upstairs” portion of the museum – with all sorts of facts about the planets. When we went downstairs for the “Hall of Space museum”, I was already tired, but I took a fair bit of time reading everything in the first gallery, a display all about the Nazi V1 and V2 rockets – precursors to modern space flight. I had no idea how large the museum was.

This time, we knew better than to waste our time on documentaries and planetarium shows we could see just about anywhere. We were prepared to plunk down our cash for tickets to the Hall of Space museum – and nothing else. As it was, my brother asked for the military discount (a couple dollars off ticket price), was asked if he was active military (which he is), and was handed free tickets to the Hall of Space for us all.

A bright-eyed Tirzah Mae looks out from her space suit

A bright-eyed Tirzah Mae looks out from her space suit

Anyway…we toured the Hall of Space, reading about and seeing artifacts from the entire history of the Space Age – from the aforementioned V1 and V2 rockets of World War II through the Cold War space race and the Apollo missions up to today. This time, I had more energy (not having wasted it on the upstairs stuff!), but I still wore out by the end of the museum. There is SO much to see and to learn.

Once we were done, we were all worn out – so we ordered Mediterranean in (from Le Monde – a delicious place).

And that was our first day of vacation :-)

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (September 2015)

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Since the first day of September was a Tuesday, the fourth Tuesday of the month is the earliest it can ever be – which means the September Nightstand completely snuck up on me. (Does anyone else feel that way when the Nightstand isn’t on the last Tuesday of the month?)

And since I haven’t had a lot of books that needed to go back to the library over the past three weeks, I’ve been enjoying a leisurely reading schedule that has me partway through a couple dozen books but only finished with a few. Which means you should be able to browse a nice short list this month :-)

Fiction read this month:

  • Whirlwind by Cathy Marie Hake
    A rather typical Christian romance in which a widower ends up thrown into a marriage of convenience with his son’s new nanny. A little underdeveloped mystery, some likewise underdeveloped romantic tension. I still enjoyed it. Also, this was my library’s last book by Hake, so I’ve closed her out in my quest to Read Every Book at my local library.
  • The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
    My in-real-life book club’s September pick, this was a long but intensely interesting look at the intertwined lives of three women. It wasn’t a mystery exactly, but it was something like that. I highly recommend it. Read my full review.
  • 3 “Arthur” picture books by Marc Brown
    Maybe I need to pick up the pace so I can just get done with these. Ugh.
  • A dozen or so read aloud board or picture books
    I’ll be discussing our favorites from among these this Thursday for Read Aloud Thursday.

Library books returned September 2015

Nonfiction read this month:

  • Don’t Know Much About Literature by Kenneth C. Davis & Jenny Davis
    This Q&A book made me feel that I do indeed not know much about literature. Either I hadn’t read anything from the author (sadly, way too common an occurrence) or the questions were about the author’s life instead of his works. I did ace the quiz on C.S. Lewis, though. So there’s something. Also, this closes out the “802” section in my library. Go me!
  • The Journal of Best Practice by David Finch
    David Finch’s marriage was on the rocks with little expectation of resolution when his wife made a discovery that changed their lives: David has Aspergers. The Aspergers diagnosis (which was confirmed by a doctor) gave Finch the impetus to try to work on his marriage, to try to work on himself. Daniel and I listened to The Journal of Best Practices (read by the author) while we drove on our recent vacation – and we generally enjoyed it, although we felt that the author blames his Aspergers for rather a lot. Many of the problems in the Finch’s marriage were exacerbated by Aspergers, sure; but they’re the same things many marriages suffer from – lack of communication, failure to see a spouse’s perspective, poor division of labor, etc. Finch makes statements about “neurotypicals” that make me wonder what tree he fell out of (and if his editors also think that’s actually how normal people are) – believe it or not, not being on the autism spectrum doesn’t make one intuitively socially aware or incapable of overthinking something. Nevertheless, this book was interesting to listen to and gave us plenty to talk about. We were disappointed, however, with how often the author drops the F-bomb. (Side note: Why is such deplorable language considered acceptable writing? I wish I could trust that I can listen to a nonfiction book in my car with my daughter present, but I’m realizing I’m going to have to do a lot more screening of our trip reads in the future.)
  • The New Kitchen Science by Howard Hillman
    Back in the day, I taught a lab called “Scientific Principles of Food Preparation” – and I loved it so much I’ve dreamt of making a series of posts with videos showing the amazing science that goes on under our noses every day in the kitchen (although, oh my, the work it’d take to turn that dream into a reality!) So I was excited to read this book. Unfortunately, Hillman starts his Q&A format book with a chapter on kitchen *equipment* – definitely the most boring of kitchen science. It got more interesting as the book went on, but I still felt like the book could have been laid out differently to better engage the reader and more logically explain the science. (Also, it could have included a LOT more experiments!)
  • The Modern Christmas in America by William Waits
    An adaptation of the author’s doctoral dissertation in sociology, this was a rather dry treatment of the evolution of gift-giving in America from the 1880s through the post-WW2 period. The author took a novel approach to studying this by exploring popular literature: magazines and their advertisements. I enjoyed the many advertisements reproduced in the book, but thought the author’s blatant socialism (in the chapter on charity) and his theories on “decontamination from the marketplace” were rather off-putting.

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

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16-year-old Laurel is sitting in her treehouse, pouting, while the rest of her family enjoys the baby’s birthday party. She’s just about decided to join the family party when she sees her mother greet a visitor (a man Laurel has never seen before) by plunging a knife into his chest.

In the very next chapter, Laurel is a grown woman and her mother Dorothy is celebrating her 90th birthday, her last birthday. Laurel goes through a family photo album, telling her hospitalized and unresponsive mother the familiar story of her own life, starting just before she’d met their father. As Laurel nears the end of the album, an old photo falls out, one Laurel has never seen before. It’s their mother and another woman, victory rolls in their hair. Laurel asks her sister about the picture and her sister explains how she’d found the photo in a book belonging to their mother: a copy of Peter Pan, the play. The book was inscribed “For Dorothy. A true friend is a light in the dark. Vivien.”

It’s funny, Laurel thought, she’d never considered her mother’s life before the album began – her life before she’d met and married their father. But this photo, and the inscription in the book, touched something deep inside of Laurel. She began looking into the story of her mother’s past.

From there, The Secret Keeper follows the lives of three women: Laurel, her mother Dorothy, and Dorothy’s friend Vivian. The narrative jumps back and forth from woman to woman and from 1940’s England to modern day (2011) England. And it’s absolutely fascinating.

This was the September pick for my in-real-life bookclub, and I knew from the other readers that there would be a twist at the end. Despite this, I spent the majority of the book with no clue as to even what I might be trying to solve. Was I trying to solve the mystery of the man’s death? Of Vivien and Dorothy’s relationship? Of… well, I didn’t know. It was disconcerting, reading a book that kept me guessing all the way to the end – guessing not only about the solution to the mystery but about what the mystery was exactly.

It drew me in like few books have lately. It wasn’t simply an escape – it kept me thinking too much. Yet it wasn’t dense and literary (in such a way that I felt exhausted afterward from the hard work of interpretation.) It was an engaging story, a thought-provoking read, a mental and emotional workout that I only recognized by the runner’s high, not by any perspiration in the process. (For the record, I have never experienced a runner’s high from running, nor have I ever run without noticing myself perspiring. Actually, I’ve pretty much never run. So maybe my metaphor should have been something more like an enjoyable night of dancing that I only recognized as a workout from the pleasantly sore muscles in the morning – but it’s not what I came up with first, and I don’t have the energy just now to figure out how to transform that one to fit the sentence. Yep, I’m that lazy.)

It took me a few chapters to get into this novel, but once I was in, I was in all the way. I enjoyed every twist and turn. And the twist at the end? It’s more like two dozen twists, absolutely paradigm-shifting twists. Twists that make me want to sit right back down and read the book over again to see how the author crafted the story so exquisitely that everything fits in this completely altered worldview.

Yeah. It was GOOD.

You should read it.

Rating: 5 stars
Category: General Fiction
Synopsis: A woman seeks to learn about her mother’s life before marriage and family – and finds out more than she could have ever imagined.
Recommendation: An excellent book. Highly recommended.

Categories Books

9 years ago today

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On this day in history, 9 years ago, I started a massive project: to read every book in my local branch library.

I’ve moved cities twice, gotten married (just once, thank you), and had a child in the intervening 9 years.

What started at a branch library now continues at Wichita’s Central Library.

I’m gonna read every book in my local library. Or die trying. Probably the latter.

Meanwhile, it’s been tremendous fun.

TOTALS as of Sept 5, 2015 (9 years or 3287 days)

Category Items Complete Categories Closed Items/day
Juvenile Picture 1335 433 0.41
Juvenile, Board Books 54 15 0.02
Juvenile, First Readers 64 3 0.02
Juvenile, Chapter 92 7 0.03
Juvenile Fiction 308 205 0.09
Juvenile Nonfiction 179 1 0.05
Teen Fiction 40 4 0.01
Teen Nonfiction 5 0 0.00
Adult Fiction 443 70 0.13
Adult Nonfiction 756 34 0.23
Audio CD 549 0 0.17
Juvenile DVD 48 0 0.01
Adult Fiction DVD 90 0 0.03
Adult Nonfiction DVD 34 0 0.01
Periodicals 66 0 0.02
Total 4063 items
1.24 items per day

Interestingly, the last time I made an update was exactly 4.5 years ago – which gives a nice opportunity to see how my reading habits have changed over the past 4.5 years.

Some major differences –
Juvenile: I have decreased my reading of juvenile books in general (from 1203 books to 829 books) – although I had not read any board books until we were expecting Tirzah Mae and my intake of juvenile nonfiction was increased in this past 4.5 years.
Adult: My “adult” reading has basically halved, with the proportion of nonfiction to fiction increasing.
Media: I have listened to about 100 more audio CDs in this past 4.5 years than in the 4.5 years before that. My DVD consumption has decreased dramatically (because I haven’t been recording when Daniel and I watch something on Netflix – while I *did* record things I watched with my sister on Netflix). I have also essentially stopped reading magazines.

Of course, the real question is how many books I read in a certain time frame – and I haven’t answered that one yet. Since my last data point is 4.5 years ago, I’m going to have to answer for the entire past 4.5 years – but it looks like I have read 566 books in the past 4.5 years (excluding children’s picture books, first readers, and beginner chapter books.) That equals out to 125.8 books per year or 10.5 books per month or 1/3 of a book per day.

Categories Recap

Recap (2015.08.31)

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In my spirit:

  • Marveling at how the first two “stories” in the Bible with human characters show so strongly God’s justice and mercy entwined (The fall – God’s justice in the curse and His mercy in the curse on the serpent; Cain and Abel – God’s justice in making Cain a wanderer whose crops would never grow and His mercy in preventing others from killing Cain.)
  • Rejoicing in God’s mercy to the apostle Paul, which Paul says was so that “Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” (1 Timothy 1:16) If God shows mercy to a blasphemer, persecuter, and insolent opponent – He will also show mercy to us who have placed our trust in Him.

In the living room:

  • Books, books, books. I’ve been requesting books from the library, forgetting that once I request them, I have to pick them up and bring them home. My library shelf is overflowing (but we’ve been reading at a pretty steady clip, so if I can just refrain from requesting more until everything fits on the shelf…)

In the kitchen:

  • The sourdough starter turned pink, which my internet sources say means no good – so I threw it away. I think I’ll take a break from the sourdough and try again when fall truly rolls around (and I won’t feel quite so bad about turning on the oven every other day to use up my starter!)
  • What with my fatigue this week and some over-large recipes last week, we ended up eating lots of leftovers this week. But we still managed to sneak in a new recipe: these very nice Slow Cooker Beef Short Ribs. I used bone-in ribs from the half cow we got last year and cut the brown sugar to 1/4 cup instead of 3/4 – they were excellent.
  • Daniel’s workgroup has “snack days” about once a month and the days have themes. This month’s theme was “everything crackers” – so we tossed around a few ideas before settling on this Smore’s Eclair Cake, really more of a pudding dessert. Any gains I might have been making nutritionally…
  • I’ve made this Kung Pao Chicken before, and always liked it – but since I don’t stock dried red peppers, I always sub red pepper flakes. Unfortunately, I haven’t been recording amounts that I subbed, so it’s a guessing game each time. For the record, 2 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes is too much. I handled it okay – Tirzah Mae needed some watermelon and breastmilk to help her cool her mouth down after dinner.

In the nursery:

  • Tirzah Mae loves to make her parents laugh. She’ll shriek to get our attention and then dissolve into laughter, begging us to join her. And when we startle her? She bursts into laughter and then opens her eyes expectantly, waiting for us to do it again.
  • Either it’s one thing or it’s the other – in this case, nighttime sleep has become a struggle. She goes down for naps just fine, but when I put her down at night, she pops onto all fours and starts climbing the crib sides. Then, she’ll spend the next half hour or longer clearly fighting sleep – fluttering her eyes to check to make sure I haven’t tried putting her back in the crib.
  • We took our first trip to a playground and splash park this week. Tirzah Mae wasn’t too sure about either the swings or the water – but warmed up to the latter once we started walking around the sprinkler-type jets and she realized she could get her mama wet (while she herself could be walking under the arc of the water!)

In the library:
aka “Books added to TBR list”

  • Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs by Mary Hathaway (added based on Barbara’s Review – I do love Austen adaptations)
  • The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon (added based on Lisa’s Nightstand – it’s hard to think of a more awful world than one without the written word – the premise of this dystopia)

In the garden:

  • The beans are finally growing to maturity – maybe it’s just been too hot until now? Or maybe the “Square Foot Gardening” recommendations packed them too close together. Either way, I servd fresh-from-the-garden green beans Saturday night!
  • The cukes are going gang-busters (I probably could have preserved some if I’d chosen to), but some of the vines are starting to look wither-y.

On the land:

  • We have a hole!
  • Also, an error on the deed meant it needed to be refiled – but that’s for the title company that misfiled it in the first place to deal with. I just had to drop off the original at their office.
Categories Read Aloud Thursday

Read Aloud Thursday (August 2015)

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One of the major difficulties of writing up what we’re reading aloud is that we read A LOT. And since mama is picking the books at this point (without Tirzah Mae showing much preference), we read a new book (almost) every time. Which means there are a lot of books to talk about.

Since we’ve been reading a number of series books or books by the same author, I’m going to try to group them a bit (we’ll see how that works!)

BabyLit! Books

Little Master Baum: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Jennifer Adams

Little Master Baum: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Daniel heard about the BabyLit! books when Tirzah Mae was a newborn, and requested the Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility ones from the library. The gist of these is that they introduce characters or plot points from classic books. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a “colors primer”. One layout is Dorothy’s blue dress and the blue munchkins. Another is the yellow brick road with a variety of yellow signs. Some of the colors seemed a bit contrived: pink had Glinda’s castle and rubies and socks while the scarecrow was “tan”. But it may be that the reason I didn’t like Oz as much as I enjoyed the Austen adaptations is simply that, well, I don’t like Oz anywhere near as much as I like Austen. The series is a solid one, and I’ll be looking for more of these – but I wouldn’t be buying the Oz one.

Mini Myths

These are very loose adaptations of ancient myths, set in modern day preschoolers’ worlds. (Why does everything for children have to be about themselves?)

Brush Your Hair, Medusa and
Make a Wish, Midas! by Joan Holub and Leslie Patricelli

Mini Myths: Medusa and Midas

Medusa has crazy curly hair, but she’d rather do somersaults than brush it. Grandma arrives before the hair is brushed, and summarily takes Medusa for a haircut. The only similarity with the myth is how Medusa’s hair looks.

Midas’ favorite color is yellow. He only wears yellow clothes, only eats yellow foods, and he wishes that EVERYTHING was yellow. But when he tries painting his pet dinosaur yellow, he gets his wish, but discovers that a yellow Dinoboo just isn’t the same. This one is closer to the myth, but I had a hard time figuring out why exactly painting Dinoboo yellow made Midas cry. It’s not as if his daughter had turned to gold.

Be Patient, Pandora! and
Play Nice, Hercules! by Joan Holub and Leslie Patricelli

Mini Myths: Pandora and Hercules

Pandora has been instructed not to open the wrapped box – but curiosity gets the better of her and she touches it, sits on it, stands on it, bounces on it. The bouncing is the last straw and the box bursts open, sending cupcakes all over everywhere. All the cupcakes save one are ruined. I thought this myth was actually quite well done.

Hercules is a strong little boy who likes to beat up bad guys (signified by toys) and to break down castles. Unfortunately, the castle he broke down is his little sister’s and she’s none too happy. Hercules has to make up for his error by rebuilding her a castle (which she summarily knocks down herself.) The myth is present in this one to some degree, but even if it wasn’t, this story and its accompanying illustrations are a cute description of family life, I think.

Books by Boynton

I am, in general, a fan of Boynton – but I actually managed to find a book or two I wasn’t so fond of in this go round.

Little Pookie
and What’s Wrong, Little Pookie? by Sandra Boynton

"Little Pookie" and "What's Wrong, Little Pookie"

Boynton introduces us to Little Pookie the pig as Pookie’s mother shares ten (oh wait, make it eleven!) things she knows about her Little Pookie. A sweet little story that I imagine moms and little ones can identify with quite a bit (especially item 11: “You like reading books. And oh! I do, too!”) In What’s Wrong, Little Pookie?, Pookie’s mother tries to guess what’s wrong, giving more and more outlandish guesses each time – until Pookie has rather forgotten what got him so upset. These are precious little tales.

Dinosaur’s Binkit by Sandra Boynton

Dinosaur's Binkit

This one’s a lift-the-flap, touch-and-feel type book – and Tirzah Mae loved it. The narrator tells Dinosaur that it’s time to get ready for bed, so he begins the process, but does so very sadly (escalating to a full-fledged meltdown) because he couldn’t find his “binkit”. Dinosaur’s boy finds him crying in the closet and offers him a handkerchief – that happens to be the lost fuzzy Binkit. It’s a relatable story for many, I’d imagine (although, while Tirzah Mae definitely goes to sleep better with her “lovey”, she dosn’t meltdown if she’s missing it.) What made it fun for us was that this was the first time Tirzah Mae really got into the touch-and-feely part,

The Bunny Rabbit Show
Opposites and
Fifteen Animals! by Sandra Boynton

"The Bunny Rabbit Show" and "Opposites"Fifteen Animals

In The Bunny Rabbit Show, a chorus line of bunny rabbits sing and dance across the pages. I sang freestyle, with no tune in particular, but moms who are more particular can look up a recording of the bunny rabbits’ song. Maybe I’d enjoy the official version more – the book didn’t really do it for me.

The little protagonist in Fifteen Animals (which is also a song) has fifteen animals, all of which have their own special name: Bob. (Okay, they aren’t ALL named Bob. There’s a surprise at the end – don’t tell your child!) This is a silly, totally relatable little story.

Opposites is a pretty typical opposites book – with pairings of opposite words set amidst illustrations. It did have a few novel opposites that were well illustrated: “hello” and “goodbye” were fun.

Happy Hippo, Angry Duck by Sandra Boynton

Happy HIppo, Angry Duck

A Bear? asks “Hello, Little Person! How are you today?” and then goes through a list of possible moods, each of which are paired with an animal (Happy as a Hippo, Angry as a Duck.) This wasn’t my favorite of Boynton’s books, probably because there isn’t anything inherently angry about a duck and the cartoon-style illustrations didn’t strike me as crystal clear about what each mood “looks like”.

The Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton

The Belly Button Book

I think some people would find this book of bathing hippos showing off their belly buttons hilarious. I’m not really a fan of belly-button-baring-bathing suits, though, so I was less impressed.

Other Books by Familiar Authors

Black & White by Tana Hoban

Black & White

These are the same black and white outlines that can be found in Black on White and White on Black, except that they’re in an accordian fold that folds and snaps into the dimensions of a normal board book. I wasn’t a huge fan of them as separate books and I’m not too fond of them in this form either.

Hide and Seek Harry at the Playground by Kenny Harrison

Hide and Seek Harry at the Playground

The last of Harrison’s Hide and Seek Harry books (that my library owns). We continue to enjoy this simple series where Harry the Hippo hides out (not so secretly) in a variety of settings.

Mommy Hugs by Karen Katz

Mommy Kisses

Katz has been a mixed bag for me – but I think this one goes on the “like it” list. The mama in the book counts up ten different types of “Mommy hugs”, from one “nuzzle-wuzzle wake-up hug” to ten “I love you,”(x10) “goodnight hugs”. I don’t know that Tirzah Mae looked at the illustrations much, but she sure enjoyed the hugs :-)

New Authors This Month

Chicks by Laura Ellen Anderson

Chicks

A sweet little book with multicolored chicks going about their days – from hatching in the morning to snuggling together at night. Tirzah Mae enjoyed looking at the pictures. I enjoyed the one sleepy little chick who came out with her nightcap on – and kept it on all throughout the day, catching naps whenever she could (I wonder why I enjoy that so much – perhaps because I am *definitely* a fan of sleep and my daughter is definitely NOT?)

Summer by Chris L. Demarest

Summer

Simple two to three word sentences describing things you’ll see at the beach in the summer. The pages are cut into odd shapes to allow continuity from one page to another (because the skyline, for example, is from the previous page). Overall, though, this book was an “eh” from both Tirzah Mae and me.

A Circle Here, A Square There by David Diehl

A Circle Here, A Square There

A simple book in which shapes are found in a variety of everyday objects – a triangular piece of pizza, an oval egg, a diamond-shaped kite. The text is simply the name of the shape – but the simplicity of this one is charming. I think we’ll be taking a look at this again as Tirzah Mae gets a little older.

Baby Animals Spots and Stripes by Phyllis Limbacher Tildes

Baby Animal Spots and Stripes

This black and white wordless book is just delightful. The detail of the animal drawings remind me of plates from an old nature guidebook. There’s a spotted rabbit, a raccoon with a striped face and tail, a spotted box turtle, a striped king snake, etc. Tirzah Mae liked looking at these pictures as I showed her the stripes and the spots – she also liked the surprise color illustration on the last two-page spread!

Who Says That, Cat the Cat? by Mo Willems

Who says that, Cat the Cat?

A simple animal sound book in which Cat the cat goes around asking different animals “What’s your sound?” “Hound” the hound and “Cow” the cow and all the other animals answer with their respective sounds – until they get to Bunny the bunny, who answers with a worried look and a little scribble in her speech bubble. Cat the cat answers with “Sounds like somebody needs a hug!” and all the other animals hug the nervous bunny. Cute.

Check out what other families are reading aloud at Read Aloud Thursday at Hope is the Word.