Next Shelf

September 26, 2008 @ 8:35 am | Filed under: Books

The kids will be awake soon, so I won’t have time to do a whole shelf, but Scott (of all people! he sees these shelves every day) has been clamoring for another bookshelf post, so here goes.

Same bookcase, third shelf down:

My Charlotte Mason series: her six books, shelved here for easy access. I return to these over and over again.

A boxed set of Edward Eager novels: Half Magic, Knight’s Castle, Magic by the Lake, The Time Garden.

Not that I can actually see any of the above right now, since Scott has a bunch of music CDs stacked in front of them. But I know they’re there.

Then comes one of the several Lord of the Rings sets we own. Scott and I both brought copies into the marriage, but I think this set is much newer, a Christmas gift to one of the girls a couple of years ago.

An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott.

And then my favorite Alcott, Little Men.

Mystery Train by Greil Marcus, “generally considered the first truly scholarly exploration of rock and roll, its history, its importance, and its uniquely American properties,” says my husband. I haven’t read this one, can you tell?

A biography of Richard Wagner by Robert W. Gutman. Scott’s read it, I haven’t.

Elvissey by Jack Womack. Has a library sticker on the spine so must be something Scott picked up on the discard pile. He reads a lot about music, as you can see.

Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda, the first book in a favorite series of my girls.

The Brownie and the Princess, a collection of stories by Louisa May Alcott. I’ve not read it yet. Jane enjoyed it. She says a couple of the stories are set during the Revolutionary War. The title story, she says, is very sweet.

Exile on Main Street and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, two books in a series called 33 1/3, which is a collection of small books, each by a different author and about a single record album. Scott has really been enjoying these lately. I’m seeing them all over the house.

Latin for Children DVDs.

And then a sideways stack of craft and home arts books:

Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions by Sarah Ban Breathnach.

Festivals, Family, and Food

Crafts Through the Year by Thomas and Petra Berger.

Knitted Animals

Magical Window Stars

Catholic Traditions in Crafts

The Nature Corner

Rose Windows

Of the craft books, Rose Windows and Magical Window Stars are the ones we’ve used the most. We made a ton of the stars last year for Advent decorations. As I mentioned in the comments below (I am adding this later), these days I am more likely to turn to the internet than to books for seasonal and liturgical craft and recipe ideas.

I’ll try to come back later and add authors and Goodreads links and maybe some commentary to these titles, but morning has broken* and I need to get a move on.

*Whoops, glanced at this hours later and see that I never hit ‘publish.’

Tags: ,

Comments

Comments RSS | TrackBack URI

  1. nina says:

    I’m enjoying this series very much. I’m wondering how long it took you to get your shelves orgainzed once you moved into your new house. We’ve been in our new (“rented” which adds a whole dimension to organization) house four months and my shelves are still in a jumble.

  2. mamacrow says:

    how I loved ‘an oldfashioned girl!’ I discovered it as an adult, and it’s sequal (name escapes me) is great too.

    You know, what this house really lacks is a set of L M Alcott…

  3. Mama Squirrel says:

    You have Festivals, Families and Food too? That’s the one I’m using with Crayons this year–as I said, though, in a limited way–a lot of it’s too far into the Waldorf/Mother Earth for me. What do you think of it?

    I’ll have to check out that Greil Marcus book for Mr. Fixit–sounds like something he’d like.

  4. Melissa Wiley says:

    Nina, re how long it took to get our books organized after we moved here–

    I don’t think I even attempted to sort them the first year, though I’d have to hunt back through the blog to see when I did the big rearrange all over the house that got the books into an order we loosely maintain. Actually, I could date it by when I started my Library Thing account, because it was shortly after that that my friend Laurie loaned me her CueCat (which I still have, gulp) and it was after cataloging the first 300 books that I got fed up with having to hunt through the whole house every time I wanted a specific book and did the Big Sort.

    Of course in a house with kids the books are never going to stay in their assigned seats. ;) I do a re-sort about once a month.
    We are overdue for one again. But if I start moving things around now, I’ll mess up my one-shelf-at-a-time series, won’t I!

  5. Melissa Wiley says:

    Mama Squirrel wrote: You have Festivals, Families and Food too? That’s the one I’m using with Crayons this year–as I said, though, in a limited way–a lot of it’s too far into the Waldorf/Mother Earth for me. What do you think of it?

    I’m with you–there is much in there that is not my cup of tea. With the Waldorfy craft & recipe books, I have felt like I could pull out what worked for me and ignore the rest. I find I’m much less inclined to use them than I once was, though, and I’ve been thinking about purging several to clear some space on our overcrowded shelves.

    Anyway, nowadays it’s so easy to find seasonal recipes and crafts on the internet…mostly I just go dig around Alice’s blog and see what she was doing this time last year. ;)

  6. patience says:

    Wonderful :-)

  7. Jen Lynch says:

    “Little Men” is my favorite too! I credit it as the book that planted the seeds of unschooling in me. Evie loved “The Brownie and the Princess.” The Alcott home, Orchard House, is a wonderful place to visit if your ever in the Concord, MA area. Fruitlands is where we had our rehearsal dinner before our wediing. I am a bit of an Alcott nut and my husband’s family is from that part of MA–lucky me!

  8. Karen Edmisten says:

    This is a fun series. I do love to browse other people’s bookshelves. :-)

  9. Heather says:

    Edgar Eager books delighted me as a kid, I can’t believe I haven’t remembered to turn my own kids on to them. Thaks for the reminder!!

  10. Susan Gaissert says:

    Little Men is my favorite Alcott, too. I even wrote a blog post about how Jo March is one of my favorite unschoolers.

  11. Kim says:

    I was wondering what one called those star things so we could track down a book!

Leave a Reply

Comment a lot? Register here. Already registered? Login here.

Want your own gravatar? Get one here.


Welcome to

the Bonny Glen—

the online home of

children's book author

Melissa Wiley




In the Archives

you'll find posts about:


and much more!



booknotes2


Contact Me

My review policy


 Subscribe to my feed

Subscribe to my comments by email or feed


Where to find unabridged Martha & Charlotte Books


My Bonny Clan

Jane, 14 yrs old
Rose, 11 yrs
Beanie, 9 yrs
Wonderboy, 6 yrs
Rilla, 3 yrs
Huck, 14 months

and Scott, the love of my life



Every Face I Look at Seems Beautiful






Book Log 2010


March


Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith
by Deborah Heiligman
(shows up in posts
here and here)

February


Mare's War
by Tanita Davis

Betsy and Joe
by Maud Hart Lovelace

Mockingbird
by Kathryn Erskine
(notes)

Liar
by Justine Larbalestier

Winona's Pony Cart
by Maud Hart Lovelace


January


Essays of E. B. White
(selections)

Carney's House Party
by Maud Hart Lovelace

How to Say Goodbye in Robot
by Natalie Standiford

Kendra
by Coe Booth

Secret Keeper
by Mitali Perkins

The Prince of Fenway Park
by Julianna Baggott
(I interviewed her here)

The Kitchen Madonna
by Rumer Godden

Asterios Polyp
by David Mazzucchelli


Book Log 2009

(A roundup post with links to my notes and reviews)


Book Log 2008



chestertonbaby



snidely200

boys


rosebaby

3littles

3932141947_a5a702c941

rillachin

bbb



Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars at the old blog?

They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.



My Big List of Booklists


Boy with the Perfect Heart


The Green Ways of Growing


Some Breezy Open


Scary Junkyard Dogs


The Quiet Joy


Way Leads on to Way


At the Museum


Balboa Park Posts


Favorite Fictional Families


The Barcelona Journal








Search This Blog



ASL Sign Lookup
(I use this a lot)


Find my books at IndieBound

Shop Indie Bookstores



I Heart the Kidlitosphere

Check out this big list of children's-book-related blogs at Kidlitosphere Central

Author and Illustrator Blogs


Recent Comments





Recent Posts



A Word about How I Blog

Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.

(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)




Be Like the Bird

Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.

—Victor Hugo




From My Feed Reader



Twittered

Twitter Updates



    How We Learn

    “Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”

    Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?

    And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?

    (from a post called Way Leads on to Way)


    Our Family "Rule of Six"

    Six Things to Include in Your Child's Day:

    meaningful work
    imaginative play
    good books
    beauty (art, music, nature)
    ideas to ponder and discuss
    prayer

    Whence It Came





    Meta