Archive for December, 2005
December 15, 2005 @ 2:23 pm | Filed under:
Books
Thanks to all who sent well wishes for Wonderboy…he’s doing better this afternoon, now that the antibiotics have kicked in. Of course, all the lovely gastro-intestinal side effects that accompany antibiotics have kicked in too, with a vengeance. But at least his fever has come down.
This morning I was doing dishes while enjoying the very loud music Scott had turned on for Wonderboy’s enjoyment (having a hearing impaired son gives him license, at long last, to play music at the volumes he believes to his core to be vital to a truly authentic listening experience), and a family flashed into my mind—one of my favorite fictional families, how could I forget? No, wait! TWO families! I foolishly forgot them both!
So to our list let us add, posthaste:
The Murray/O’Keefe clan and the Austin bunch, those classical-music-listening, Nobel-prize-winning, space-and-time-traveling, poetry-quoting, dolphin-befriending, adventure-having folks from Madeleine L’Engle’s books.
And over at Love2Learn (my new home away from home [blog away from blog?]—and many thanks, ladies, for the invitation to join you!), Love2LearnMom points out quite rightly that I neglected to mention the wonderful families in Hilda van Stockum’s books—an omission over which Jane shrieked in consternation when the news reached her ears.
I’m sure there are other families who ought to be on the list—please write and share your favorites!
Wonderboy, who has been fighting a nasty cold for phe last week, spiked a fever yesterday. After our adventure last summer, I had a hunch what this meant…Took him to the doctor, and sure enough. Pneumonia. Again.
Between that and Beanie’s 3 a.m. nightmare, I missed my usual 5:30 wake-up call, so you’ll have to forgive my lack of new material this morning. As recompense, I offer a picture that make me guffaw yesterday: go see why Danielle Bean continues to be surprised.
Now back to my boy.
And the nominees are…a whole bunch of people, and I’m one of them (in the Homeschooling Mom Blog category). Voting has begun for the 2005 Homeschool Blogger Awards. You can place your vote here through December 26.
My favorite thing about these awards is how many wonderful sites I’m discovering by exploring the nominees in various categories. Like this one in the “Best Homeschool Family Blog” category. Wow.
P.S. Hey Andrea—I love the nifty nominee button! Kudos!
December 14, 2005 @ 2:57 am | Filed under:
Audio
A long while back I wrote about how extremely thrilled we were—thanks to the help of Lesley Austin—to reconnect with the work of a favorite storyteller, the great Jay O’Callahan. A fragment of his story, “Raisins,” had stuck in my head for some twenty years, and Lesley recognized it from Jay’s Little Heroes tape, which has been Beanie’s most frequent naptime request ever since I jubilantly ushered it into our home. If you’re still looking for a great gift for that little cousin, here you go…
December 13, 2005 @ 1:50 pm | Filed under:
Books
Kelly of the excellent children’s literature site Big A little a clued me into this Boston Globe interview with Penderwicks author Jeanne Birdsall. Here’s a quote:
“I started with characters,” [Birdsall] said. ”I wanted to write about four sisters—obviously a ‘Little Women’ thing. What I loved about books when I was a child were characters’ reactions to interesting situations, rather than highly plotted books. That’s what I always saw, even in ‘The Secret Garden’ and ‘Little Women’ and E. Nesbit’s and Edward Eager’s magical books.”
Loads of other riches at Big A little a today, including word of a new Dick King-Smith novel (hoorah!), an interesting quote about the particular challenge of finding a picture book that can stand up to the rigors of a hundred read-alouds in a row, and links to dozens of children’s book reviews. Great site.
December 13, 2005 @ 3:29 am | Filed under:
Books
A reader asks, “With so many beautiful books to choose from, how do I convince my husband to give me a healthy book-buying budget? What do you do in your family when it comes to adding to your library?”
Ah, the book budget…now there’s a subject. See that Erasmus quote in the sidebar? Gives you a pretty good idea of how we feel about books around here. And after my brief stint on the soapbox the other day about how, if a book’s author is still alive, I try always to buy the book new rather than used, the question is begged all the more.
If you saw my house, you’d have some idea of the answer. We’ve been here four years and I still don’t have curtains. Our furniture is unimpressive, to say the least. Most of it is the stuff our friends and family were looking to ditch when they got real furniture. And—working and educating at home as we do—no one in my family needs much in the way of a clothing budget. Believe me, I am not known for my fabulous taste in clothes—just my fabulous taste in books.
So that’s one way our home library has taken shape over the years: the book budget gets fed while the home decor and wardrobe budgets have to scrounge around for scraps and handouts. The vacation budget is, quite frankly, non-existent. A family trip means piling in the van for the three-minute ride to the library. I’m not saying it’s the most sensible ordering of one’s priorities; I’m just telling it like it is.
I mentioned the library. We LOVE our library. It’s teeny tiny but boasts the friendliest, sharpest staff in the state. And our county’s interbranch loan system is excellent (and free). A couple of mouse clicks and that book I’ve been dying to read is zipping its way toward me in the delivery van. And no, my heavy library use doesn’t, in my opinion, contradict my “buy books new to give authors their royalties” policy. Libraries pay for books. As an author, you better believe I want my books in frequent circulation in as many libraries as bookishly possible. Also, libraries themselves are important and worthy of support. I don’t know for sure, but I have to assume a branch’s budget is influenced by its circulation numbers. If so, my family’s checkout rate must surely have bumped our branch up a notch. Really, it’s almost insane, the vast quantities of books we carry in and out of that place. Scott’s there two or three times a week at least, not counting the Saturday outings when the whole gang goes.
But back to our own personal library. Because, you know, so many of the books I write about here are keepers. Here’s the main way we add to our overcrowded shelves. For Christmas and birthdays, we tend to go pretty light on family gifts. Each child gets a game, a toy, an outfit, and two books, one from each parent. (Of course the grandparents spoil them rotten.) The books have become an important family tradition. I usually give classic children’s novels like The Secret Garden or Peter Pan, and Scott’s custom has been to pick out special picture books. Every December (and before each birthday), he makes a special trip to the bookstore and spends a long time reading and choosing. He has brought home some real treasures over the years. He inscribes each book with the date and a funny note. The girls love going through the shelves to pick out their own special Daddy books. Our oldest is ten now and outgrowing picture books, but she treasures her Daddy books, and he’s been a whiz at finding books to entice her with, like Mistakes that Worked or So You Want to Be President, both mentioned earlier this week. One of these days I should do a post just listing his discoveries.
Anyway, with four kids and counting, this adds up over the years to a lot of books.
The other way our library has grown is via our education budget. I assume every family, whether public-schoolers, private-schoolers, or homeschoolers, winds up with a certain chunk of the budget earmarked for school or educational expenses. What I spend our education funds on is Really. Good. Books. I don’t buy textbooks and workbooks (except when Rose begs). I buy what Charlotte Mason called “living books”: books written by an author passionate about his or her subject, not books written by a committee; books that grab us and zoom us off to another time or place; books that get inside our heads and become a part of who we are. Google “living books” and “Charlotte Mason” and you’ll find loads of good essays on this subject; I needn’t belabor the point here. But it’s the rest of the answer to the question above: every year, instead of paying tuition or school fees, instead of buying separate school clothes and shelling out for the items on a supply list, instead of paying for formal homeschooling curricula or enrichment classes, I spend our education budget on really great books. (And games. And art supplies. And science experiment stuff. But mainly books.)
It’s one of the best parts of my job.
December 12, 2005 @ 2:19 pm | Filed under:
Books
The Penderwicks : A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall.
“Meet the Penderwicks, four different sisters with one special bond. There’s responsible, practical Rosalind; stubborn, feisty Skye; dreamy, artistic Jane; and shy little sister Batty, who won’t go anywhere without her butterfly wings.
“When the girls and their doting father head off for their summer holiday, they’re in for a surprise. Instead of the tumbledown cottage they expected, they find themselves on a beautiful estate called Arundel. Soon the girls are busy discovering the summertime magic of Arundel’s sprawling gardens, treasure-filled attic, tame rabbits, and the cook who makes the best gingerbread in Massachusetts.”
Here’s what has me excited: I keep coming across reviews that compare Jeanne Birdsall’s work to some of our tippy-top favorite authors. Like this, from Booklist:
“Birdsall follows in the footsteps of Elizabeth Enright, Edward Eager, and Noel Streatfeild, updating the family story yet keeping all of the old-fashioned charm.”
And from Kirkus:
“Not since the Marches have readers met more engaging girls than the Penderwicks.”
The Marches?! Hello! We are so there. Review to come, after I get my hands on a copy. I’m chomping at the bit…
Other fiction featuring families of whom we are fiercely fond:
The Railway Children, Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and a bunch of others by Edith Nesbit.
All the Swallows and Amazons books by Arthur Ransome.
The All-of-a-kind Family series by Sydney Taylor.
The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson.
Noel Streatfeild’s Shoes books, especially Ballet Shoes and Dancing Shoes. (Gotta love Wintle’s Little Wonders!)
Little Men by Louisa May Alcott.
Half Magic by Edward Eager.
The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright.
Ginger Pye and Pinky Pye by Eleanor Estes.
And of course we mustn’t forget The Chronicles of Narnia by our beloved C. S. Lewis. The Pevensie clan is one of the best families ever.
…on the feast of St. Lucy.
Hanna’s Christmas. My kids are 1/8 Swedish, which I figure qualifies us to observe the old Swedish St. Lucia day custom where the oldest daughter dresses all in white and serves sweet rolls to her parents in bed. Not that a total lack of Swedish blood would deter us from keeping this lovely tradition…over the years it has become one of the sweetest parts of our Advent celebration. All three girls dress up here, of course, raiding my drawers the night before for long white slips and such. They make construction paper candle-crowns just like the little girl in the story—without the help (much to their disappointment) of a crotchety stowaway tomten. Hanna’s Christmas is the story of a girl whose family moves from Sweden to America right before the holidays. The intensity of her homesickness is surpassed only by that of a tomten who inadvertantly stows away in a packing crate and, in his indignation and misery, causes no end of mischief in the new house (for which Hanna gets blamed, of course). The St. Lucy day tradition becomes the catalyst to a new outlook for both reluctant immigrants. This is one of my kids’ favorite Christmas books. Not that they’re biased or anything….(she says mysteriously).
December 11, 2005 @ 3:26 am | Filed under:
Clippings
Things that caught my eye this week:
• Roger Sutton of The Horn Book on Disney’s new Christopher Robin. Sigh.
• Big A little a on the current mania for penguins.
• Chicken Spaghetti on the new children’s illustrator postage stamps—starting in January you can stamp your letters with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Maisy, Curious George, Wilbur the pig, Frederick the Mouse, and a Wild Thing or two. Fun! And knowing my timing, I can use them for my Christmas cards. My 2002 Christmas cards, that is. I’m pretty sure that’s how far behind I am.
• NYT article, Reading Kids’ Books Without the Kids
• Carlotta on Home Educating Boys
• And this month’s Wild Monthly!