Four daughters, four dolls
December 3, 2012 @ 4:50 pm | Filed under: On My Bookshelves
The other end of the doll shelf.
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This morning I glanced out my bedroom window and thought for a moment that someone had put Christmas lights up in the big pine tree behind our back fence–a string of large orange lights, so pretty. Then I realized I was just seeing the blossoms of the Cape honeysuckle in front of the pine. (“Just.”) Now when I look, I can’t not see the lights. Guess our yard is going to do its own decorating this year.
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Books we read today:
Big Bad Bunny
Hanna’s Christmas (Rilla picked it, I swear)
The Christmas Trolls
Backseat A-B-See
As the Crow Flies (love this book so much—crows, our favorite!)
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sarah says:
So much love these dolls. So much love the thought of four daughters … three sisters … a special doll each. What a blessing.
Don’t you just love how the natural world is decorated for Christmas? Snow or summer, there is something special which happens in nature around December. We have beautiful bright red flowers on our Pohutukawa at this time of the year, as if the world simply can’t contain its radiant joy any longer.
On December 3, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Penny says:
Love these posts. We have very similar book content on our shelves. I feel certain this does not surprise you.
Nature always decorates best anyway, I think. Lucky you š
Your nature journal entry is lovely. I like your style.
On December 3, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
Penny, indeed it does not surprise me! I have a feeling your shelves would feel exactly like home to me. š
I had that experience the first time I went to my friend Eileen’s house. We’d met at church—two homeschooling mamas with a bunch of little kids—and hit it off. She invited me over, and when I saw her bookshelves I burst out laughing. We had exactly the same books. Reading lists heavily influenced by Charlotte Mason, Ambleside, the Sonlight catalog…it was hilarious. š
Sarah, of course you know I had to look up Pohutukawa…wonderful! Looks a bit like our bottlebrush trees—which were new to us when we moved to Southern California. They look like something out of Dr. Seuss. Not surprising, since he lived in San Diego too. I see bits of his whimsy growing in gardens all over town.
On December 3, 2012 at 6:14 pm
MelanieB says:
Oh I love that image of the Christmas lights. I had a similar moment when we were at my parent’s house in September. The girls had made a flower garden out of Bendaroos on the dining room window and while I was looking out the opposite window into the front I saw all their bright colors reflected over the image of the oak trees. It looked like someone had put flowers onto the trees and for just a moment I was enchanted.
Oh the titles are so familiar, but is it odd that it’s a bit disconcerting that they are all different editions than the ones on my shelf? Such old, dear friends, but my goodness what are they wearing?
On December 3, 2012 at 8:11 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
Melanie, I bet you’d enjoy that edition of A Wrinkle in Time (if you’re a L’Engle fan—our tastes overlap so much I can’t help but assume you are!). It’s the 5oth anniversary edition and they included all sorts of extras in the back matter…letters, her Newbery speech, notes, photos, an afterword by L’Engle’s granddaughter…oh! and some of the original manuscript. She almost used “scegging” instead of “tessering.” CAN YOU IMAGINE.
I wrote it up for GeekMom a while back—here.
On December 3, 2012 at 8:31 pm
MelanieB says:
Oh but of course I’m a L’Engle fan. I was Meg Murray complete with brown hair and glasses and being so awkward. All I lacked was the attic bedroom and the genius family. I think I remember reading about “scegging” somewhere. Such an ugly word!
That does sound a lovely edition, I shall have to look it up some time. Though I couldn’t possibly give up my old paperback that I got sometime when I was in junior high, originally in a box set with A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet– somehow the other L’Engle books never felt quite so canonical to me as those three because for years they were the ones I read and re-read and I never imagined anything more outside of the box set.
I was also very much in love with L’Engle’s autobiographical Crosswicks trilogy and her Dancing on Water, Reflections on Faith and Art.
Oh and speaking of crows, have you read Lois Lowry’s Crow Call? Her first picture book and the pictures by Bagram Ibatoulline are some of my favorites ever. Oh I don’t think we own it. either. It was a library find. Need to put it on my Christmas list.
On December 3, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
I haven’t read Crow Call! Adding to the list. Oh, the impossible, wonderful list.
Of the Crosswicks books, I’ve only read Circle of Quiet. I think. The others are, of course, on the aforementioned List.
(Oh, also I recently read the opening of a new L’Engle biography. Essay collection. Whatever it is. Listening for Madelieine: a Portrait of Madeleine L’Engle in Many Voices. I read the intro by Leonard Marcus and was transfixed. And crave more. It’s on the List!!)
On December 5, 2012 at 8:54 pm