Archive for June 10th, 2012
June 10, 2012 @ 7:50 pm | Filed under:
Books My 48 hours is up. Thanks to my three-year-old who took a good long nap today, not to mention my very amiable husband, I got some long stretches of reading time and managed to clock a total of 16 hours 15 minutes. I logged a little under 2 hours of blogging/commenting/social media time: 1 hour 50 minutes.
Total: 18 hours 5 minutes. I passed my goal!
Books read:
The Year of Learning Dangerously by Quinn Cummings (final 67 pages)
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Welcome to Lizard Motel by Barbara Feinberg
Wise Child by Monica Furlong
Juniper by Monica Furlong (first 140 pages; I hope to finish it tonight)
Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading by Lizzie Skurnick, chapter 1.
To various children:
Brambly Hedge: Winter Story by Jill Barklem
It’s a Tiger! by David La Rochelle
Take Two!: A Celebration of Twins (a poetry collection by J. Patrick Lewis & Jane Yolen—my three youngest are fascinated by this tome; each one of them came to me with the book at a different point in the afternoon).
I’ll aim for a more detailed summation later, but right now there are bedtime things to do around here. And Rose just came to me in search of something new to read. Music to my ears. š
MotherReader’s finish line roundup is here. Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by to cheer me on, and congratulations to all the other participants. Big thanks to Pam Coughlan for organizing all the fun!
“After breakfast,” she went on, “you must have a look at Daisy and the rest of the garden. Then we’d better do some lessons.”
“In magic?” I asked. I was both curious and scared.
Juniper laughed.
“I thought we’d begin with reading, writing, astronomy, fairy stories—that kind of thing. Later on we’ll do a bit of Latin.”
“Girls don’t learn Latin,” I told her. “It unfits them for marriage.” (I was quoting my Uncle Gregor’s views on the education of girls.) “And I never heard of a school that taught fairy tales.”
“All learned people learn Latin,” she said. “It’s bound to come in useful. Fairy tales, on the other hand, are about real life.”
—from Wise Child by Monica Furlong
I first read Wise Child in 1993—I remember because my boss at Random House was Monica Furlong’s editor on Robin’s Country, and everyone there said ‘Oh you’ve got to read her other books, they’re wonderful,’ and they were right. That was before I had children, before I’d ever heard of homeschooling, much less considered doing it. So I’m amused, now, to find that what I’ve been doing all along is really Juniper’s version of education. Minus the good cow, Daisy.
(Also wonderful: Juniper, a prequel to Wise Child.)
June 10, 2012 @ 7:24 am | Filed under:
Books 
It’s Sunday morning. I woke early and snuck in a half hour of Wise Child time before I dragged out of bed. That brings me up to:
10 hours 15 minutes of reading time
1 hour 20 minutes of social media/blogging time
Books read:
The Year of Learning Dangerously by Quinn Cummings (the final 67 pages)
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (entirely because of a conversation on my FB page yesterday—I had a sudden need to reread it; first time in years)
Welcome to Lizard Motel by Barbara Feinberg (also mentioned in that FB discussion by my friend Kathy Ceceri; I’d bought it months ago—also based on her recommendation—and her mention of it yesterday reminded me to pull it off the shelf)
Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading by Lizzie Skurnick, chapter 1. (A reread for Girl Detective’s Summer of Shelf Discovery reading project. Now I get to pick one of the books mentioned in the chapter—or another book with a heroine who made a big impression on me as a kid. Wrinkle in Time is there, if I want to indulge myself with a favorite. But I’m thinking I should visit something new. Would you believe I’ve never read Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself?)
Plus a good-sized chunk of Brambly Hedge to Rilla at bedtime. That totally counts, right? Oh, and a new picture book, It’s a Tiger!, which arrived from Chronicle for review yesterday, and I squealed because ART BY JEREMY TANKARD (you know we adore him) and the book is hilarious and it’s a safe bet I’ll be called upon to read it at least seventeen times this week.
I’ve got just about 12 hours left in my 48-hour window. Will I finish Wise Child? Will I veer off on another rabbit trail? (Lizard Motel added at least four titles to my TBR list.) Will I wind up playing trains on the back patio all afternoon? It’s anyone’s guess.
