This and That

February 23, 2009 @ 8:51 pm | Filed under: Links

Busy, happy weekend with some of Scott’s family. Wish the rest of them could have been with us. His parents and his oldest brother flew in from the East Coast for the baptism and much merriment. Uncle Jay is one of the best guys I’ve ever met. Absolutely the most generous. My children are crazy about him, and there was much weeping following his departure this afternoon.

It had been too long since we last saw Scott’s parents. So nice to see them laughing it up with our noisy throng. Scott’s mother stood proxy for the dear godmother who lives far away. There’s a story behind that beautiful christening gown; we’ve been talking about it in the comments. Such an honor to have my children be part of its long history.

After they left this afternoon, I caught up a bit on blogs and tweets.

Look who else was baptized on Saturday! Beautiful.

darcy
Karen and Faith shared this link to Austenbook, which made me laugh out loud at least six times. Perfect timing, too. I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice. Again. Couldn’t be helped. I read Shannon Hale’s Austenland and, well, after that I had no choice.

Related: this time around, I read P&P on an e-reader. My iPod Touch, to be precise. It’s the third or fourth book I’ve read on the Touch, and this was the first time I found myself really enjoying the reading experience (as distinct from enjoying the book itself). I will always, always prefer a real book, the rustling paper, the satisfying weight of it, the smell of ink and tree. But…I admit it. There are some advantages to electronic reading. With my Touch, I can read with one hand, turning pages with the barest tap of a thumb. I can lie in the dark nursing the baby and read without any light source other than the device itself. Last week I tried to curl up with a nice fat library book beside my slumbering child, and I dropped the book on his head. You begin to see the advantages of a “book” no bigger than a playing card.

I’ve been experimenting with the various e-readers available for the iPod Touch and would like to post some reviews, but I’m too busy reading.

(No really, I’ll get to it eventually.)

Lots of friends have shared the scoop on these nifty Homeschool Connections online seminars. They are reputed to be extremely fun and informative. Great lineup of speakers.

I still haven’t taken my photos for the Illegal Books Meme, but lots of other people have. And I will, too, as soon as I get a chance.

Speaking of CPSIA, I really appreciate the post roundup in the Love2Learn sidebar.

Did you see Beck’s rant about The Ten-Year Nap, that book that so annoyed me last month? Beck too, and she didn’t even have to read it:

(Do my) mundane daily routines and ever-more tenuous connections to increasingly independent children compensate for all that lost promise? asks the Publishers Weekly blurb on Amazon’s page for The Ten Year Nap. And then I barfed, or I WOULD if I wasn’t in some sort of decade-long coma, apparently.

291If Beck lived in SoCal instead of Canada, I would totally make her a cobbler.

Comments

Comments RSS | TrackBack URI

  1. Karen Edmisten says:

    We can thank Faith at Two Thirds Unschooling for the AustenBook link! (I thought I had linked to her, but I hadn’t, so just corrected that.)

    Anyway, yes, so funny!

  2. Melissa Wiley says:

    Oh yes, thank you too, Faith! Link added. :)

  3. Kimberly says:

    I loooooove my ipod touch. You are absolutely right, it is the THING for late night feedings. I can catch up on bloggy readings and emails, etc. It isn’t the most fun for typing, but it isn’t horrid. I am learning to type with my pinky finger!

  4. Beck says:

    That AustenBook link is BRILLIANT. And so are you! If I lived closer, I would make YOU a cobbler, since you’re the one with the small baby and all.

  5. Kathryn says:

    I’m more of a night owl than Michael, so I like being able to turn the light off and read using the Touch. I’m can’t wait to see your reviews of e-Readers. At the moment I’m using Stanza to read books from Project Gutenberg,

  6. Melissa Wiley says:

    Kathryn, I’m liking Stanza too. Just needed to enlarge the font first. It’s amazing how many classics there are free for the picking via Gutenberg and other sources. The iPod becomes a whole library, and there are no late fees.

  7. Time to Read — Here in the Bonny Glen says:

    [...] morning, though, before anyone else is awake—especially if I download a book on the iPod, as I mentioned the other day. I recently read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother that way. (And am now even more creeped out [...]

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