Our Week in Books: Saturday

July 10, 2010 @ 5:57 pm | Filed under:

For one week I am attempting to record everything each member of the family reads. Today is day five. Day one. Day two. Day three. Day four.

Jane:
—The Naming
—The Riddle
—Bella at Midnight
—Things Not Seen
—Things Hoped For
—Things That Are
, these last three by Andrew Clements
(Saturday is library day.)
—UPDATED ON SUNDAY: I hear she stayed up late last night finishing Mansfield Park. Yay!

Rose:
Pearls of Lutra (cont.)
The Birthday Ball by Lois Lowry (ARC; in progress)

Beanie:
Mossflower (cont.)
Beck Beyond the Sea (Disney fairies book)
Lily in Full Bloom (Disney fairies)

me:
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (advance review copy)
Great Expectations, first four chapters (long story) (ha, pun not intended)

read-aloud to Rilla & Wonderboy:
Today I Will Fly (a Mo Willems Piggie & Elephant book)
There Is a Bird on Your Head (ditto)**
Mr. Putter and Tabby Paint the Porch

Scott:
Reveal: The Story of REM (cont.)
Ringworld (cont.)

Scott to Rilla at bedtime:
The Salamander Room

I forgot to do arrivals and departures! Saturday is our big library day, so a lot of things went back. I forgot to pay attention to what, though. A bunch of Jane’s things—handful of Dorothy Sayers mysteries, plus I think I saw the four-book Softwire series by P. J. Haarsma, the Orbis books (Virus on Orbis 1, Betrayal on Orbis 2, etc; and I know there was a Caroline Cooney book in the pile too. Also the two Cory Doctorow YA novels I’d checked out—I’ve decided to read them as e-books instead.

As for arrivals, the library-goers brought home more than they took back. I saw two of Mary Pope Osborne’s series of tales based on The Odyssey (brilliant idea, I must say); So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane; all the books in Jane’s list above; three Disney fairies books; the first book of a YA series by Ted Dekker; and Scott checked out Ta-Nehisi Coates’s memoir, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, a Son, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood.

**Adding a note about reading the two Mo Willems books with Rilla today, because I’ll want to remember this in years to come. We had enjoyed both of these books, Today I Will Fly and There’s a Bird on Your Head, dozens of times already, but several weeks ago. Yesterday we found Today I Will Fly and she “read” it to me—mostly from memory, but a fair amount of sight-word recognition happening. And that’s so exciting; I can see she’s on the brink of reading, just as it happened with Beanie & Bob Books before her, and Rose with My Father’s Dragon before that. Today, she “read” me There’s a Bird on Your Head. Then she picked up Today I Will Fly and read that one—except she used, deliberately, the words from There’s a Bird on Your Head, tweaking them slightly to make them loosely fit the Today I Will Fly pictures. It was kind of hilarious, and great fun to see her playing with form that way. Gosh, I love this stage.

OK, I can’t be bothered to do italics on all those titles. Sorry, Chicago Manual of Style.


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Comments

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  1. Charlotte (Matilda) says:

    My BigBoy loves Mr. Putter and Tabby, too! There is always one floating around our library basket. I’d like to know what you think of the Odyssey series when you get a chance. My oldest has avoided studying anything to do with Greek mythology for too long and I aim to take care of that this year.

  2. Melissa Wiley says:

    Charlotte, will do! I’m eager to read them. LOVED Mary Pope Osborne’s Medieval Tales (a quite different format, but evidence of her skill in classic retellings).

    I’m so enjoying another go-round with Mr. Putter and Tabby. It’s been several years since Beanie was hooked on them. Now Wonderboy and Rilla are enchanted. Such fun.

  3. Penny in VT says:

    We’ve enjoyed the Osborne re-telling here, and Mr. Putter and Tabby are members of the family. Our favorite one is “Mr. Putter and Tabby Walk the Dog”. Oh oh and “Mr. Putter and Tabby bake a Cake”. Such sweetness!

    Lucky Rilla – such a thrilling step in her journey!

  4. Deb says:

    How did you like A Long Walk to Water?

  5. Lisa says:

    Great Expectations made me believe it is OK, Charlotte Mason or no Charlotte Mason, to use ABRIDGED editions!!!

  6. becka says:

    I LOVE the Rilla part! My baby girl (3 1/2) is in the stage of paraphrasing the familiar words of a book to go along with the pictures – so exciting when they “get it”