Category Archives: Picture Books

Read Aloud Thursday::a couple of new picture books

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I’m beginning to feel like something of a RAT slacker.  I was counting on having Little Britches finished this week in time to write my review for today, but due to extreme busy-ness over spring break, that still hasn’t happened.  Instead I’m sharing a couple of new picture books we’ve enjoyed this week. 

If I had to pick one word to describe Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, it would be quirky.  Knowing that it’s illustrated by Jon Klassen of I Want My Hat Back (linked to my very mini-review) fame is the ultimate tip-off to its quirk quotient.  Quirky doesn’t always win the day at the House of Hope; either some of us have the wrong personalities for it (which I suspect is not the case) or my girls aren’t quite mature enough yet to get it.  In this case, though, they did, and I think it’s because Lulu has been learning how to crochet this week.  So far she has hasn’t exceeded her teacher’s skill and thus has only learned how to make a chain.  ;-)   (On my list of things to do is to find some online tutorials to teach me how to crochet so I can teach her.  :-)  ) Anyway, back to the book–it’s the story of a little girl named Annabelle who lives in a colorless town.  It’s colorless until she finds a magical box filled with yarn of every color.  She immediately commences knitting that endless supply of yarn up–into sweaters for herself and her dog, Mars; into sweaters for her classmates and teachers; into sweaters for her parents; even into sweaters for the very houses in her town.  News travels fast in this fictional world, and pretty soon everyone the world over knows about Annabelle and her magical supply of yarn.  A fashionable archduke decides that he must have Annabelle’s yarn, so he sails to her home and steals it.  Of course, it’s a magical box of yarn, so. . . No spoilers!  :-)   This book has a satisfying, if odd, ending.  The illustrations are fun–the contrast between the yarn and Annabelle’s creations and her usually black-and-white world provides lots of visual interest.  Jon Klassen’s famous Bear makes a cameo appearance in this story, too!  This book isn’t my normal pick, but I won’t be surprised if it makes some lists come award picking time.  (HarperCollins, 2012)
This next pick takes us from quirky to classy.  Mary and Her Little Lamb:  The True Story of the Famous Nursery Rhyme is nothing unexpected as far as the story goes:  Mary Elizabeth Sawyer loved her little lamb, and it indeed followed her to school.  A visitor, John Roulstone, happened to be at the schoolhouse that fateful day in the 1810s, and he created the rhyme we still sing today.  However, Will Moses embues the story with warmth by emphasizing Mary’s love for her little lamb, a runt which she nursed to health.  Oh, and the illustrations–Will Moses is an accomplished folk artist and the portraits in this book are a colorful and detailed feast for the eyes.  My girls and I all enjoyed this piece of Americana.  (Philomel, 2011)

In addition to these books, we’ve also been enjoying some of our traditional Easter titles this week, including Benjamin’s Box (and Resurrection Eggs!) and Jan Brett’s The Easter Egg.

Next week I plan hope to have a chapter book to review!  Never fear, though–our new library bin is overflowing right now with books, several more of which are also brand new titles.  Oh, and be sure to come back on Fridays this month for a Poetry Friday post in which I share some of the poetry books we’ve been enjoying this National Poetry Month!

What’s in your read-aloud basket this week?



April is National Poetry Month!

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For the past couple of years I’ve tried to spend some of our lesson time each week reading and creating poetry during the month of April since it is National Poetry Month.  Once again this year I’m going to attempt to review a book of poetry each week for Poetry Friday, which is hosted by various bloggers in the Kidlitosphere (the schedule is in the sidebar).  Here are links to poetry-related posts here at Hope Is the Word:

I probably missed a few (I know I’ve reviewed a few novels-in-verse), but that’s enough to start, right? 

What’s your favorite children’s poetry book or poet?  Any suggestions for a not-to-be-missed poem, collection, or poet for this special month?

 

Read Aloud Thursday–Prepositions and a Loud Little Girl

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Did that title get your attention?  Good.  :-)

I love checking out random books from the library.  I’ve found so many unexpected treasures that way.  Into the Outdoors by Susan Gal is one such treasure.  It is a very, very simple story about a family that goes on a camping trip.  They explore and meet all sorts of animals, including a friendly bear.  The illustrations are done in “charcoal on paper and digital collage” (whatever that means) and are kitschy and retro and joyful.  (I especially love the family’s wood paneled station wagon!)  The real star of the story, though, are the prepositions, because that’s what the story is really about.  Here’s the text from the first page:

We’re going camping!

Leaving the city down in the valley,

we head up the mountain.

Yes, the prepositions are in a colored font.  I usually wouldn’t appreciate a story that makes a point of being a grammar lesson, but I think I liked this one so much the first time I read it because I didn’t know it was going to be a grammar lesson.  I didn’t read up on it first, and there’s nothing on the outside of the book that would tip a person off.  In fact, after reading it, all I did was ask Lulu what those words are since prepositions just happened to be what we were working on in her language lessons.  Score!  This one’s fun and an unobstrusive way to talk about prepositions.  (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011)
The Little, Little Girl with the Big, Big Voice by Kristen Balouch isn’t a grammar-themed book, but adjectives play a big part in the storyline.  It’s the simple story of the titular “little, little girl with the big, big voice” who can’t find anyone to play with her because she’s so loud.  She approaches an elephant, a snake, and a crocodile until she meets her match in. . . . Well, I won’t spoil it by revealing the ending, but there’s a hint on the book’s cover.  This is just a silly, fun, and joyful story with bright, colorful, and unusual illustrations.  It’s impossible to read this one without smiling.  (Little Simon, 2011)

Have you read any good books lately?



Read Aloud Thursday–favorite toddler books

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The curls are gone. . . sniff, sniff

You’ll excuse me if this post is a little sentimental and nostalgic, right? 

We’ve passed a milestone here at the House of Hope. As of Saturday, I am no longer a nursing mother.   Our usual morning routine for the past many months has been for me to get the DLM out of bed around 8 a.m., change his diaper, and then sit in the rocking chair beside his bed for him to nurse.  We’ve followed up the nursing session by reading several books for many weeks now.  Having practiced child-led weaning with my girls (who weaned themselves at 11 months and 15 months), I really had no idea how much longer this would go on and what weaning would look like for the DLM, my best nurser yet.  For the past couple of weeks, the DLM would say “book!” in the middle of nursing, and sometimes even before.  He’s twenty-one months old and is really exerting his self-hood:   if it’s books he wants (and it usually is–he has an insatiable reading appetite already!), it’s books he insists upon.  And so the end of nursing happened almost accidentally.  Just when I’d settled into weaning him who-knows-when, I realized on Monday that he hadn’t nursed since Saturday morning.   Thinking it wise to take advantage of the situation, I suggested a book to him on Monday morning, and he never even mentioned “going night-night,” his code for nursing.  On Tuesday he suggested “night night” once, but he chose reading over nursing without a backwards glance.  It’s a little bittersweet, of course, this ending of one more little piece of his dependence on me.  It makes it a bit easier that this transition was accomplished through the love of reading. 


He most assuredly knows what he likes.  A book he couldn’t get enough of last week might be met with a definitive “NO!” tomorrow.  The books pictured above mostly came from the basket in his bedroom, so they’re the ones we read the most often, with a few notable omissions.  Most of these books are hand-me-downs from the girls, which is nice for me, of course.  I like remembering reading them to the girls and the building of the family culture that follows.  What’s even sweeter to me is that the girls read them to the DLM, too. 

I won’t bother with mentioning all of the titles above.  Maybe it’s because I’ve read all of these so many times, but I feel like surely everyone and her sister must know them all by heart like I do.  ;-)   I do want to mention a few special ones, though.

I picked out Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo on a whim for a little Valentine’s Day gift for the DLM, and it has been a winner (well, up until today, when he positively refused to listen to it ;-) ).  Kevin Lewis is the author of this sing-songy, rhyming little board book full of all sorts of locomotive action and fun.  I love that the book ends with “Good night, engine, safe and sound” instead of the engine black and red caboose careening wildly about the track up until the last page.  (In other words, it’s a good bedtime story, too.)   I think we need to add more of Kevin Lewis’ books to our decidedly vehicle-sparse collection.  Daniel Kirk’s illustrations are bright, colorful, and graphic, perfect for a toddler.  The DLM (sometimes) and I (always) give it a Highly Recommended. 

Another favorite of mine is one I bought specifically for the DLM, and it’s the only other book that I can think of that we own that’s about a motorized vehicle.  Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle is also about a bunch of animals, and which just adds to the toddler appeal.  Of course, I’ve already said that. 

Hands down my favorite toddler book is Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.  Our copy was already well-loved by the girls, but the DLM has taken it to a new level:  for a while, every time I read the line

“I want my mommy!” said Bill,

he would turn around and give me a big, tight squeeze around the neck.  Every single time.  Now I’m more likely to get a grin than a squeeze, but I’ll never forget that sweet phase or this precious book.  I love it. 

It’s not long before this. . .

turns into this. . .

What’s your favorite, favorite book from your children’s toddlerhoods?  Please share!


George Washington Carver by Tonya Bolden (& other resources)

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George Washington Carver by Tonya Bolden is a book that drew me in right away by its cover.  Compared to the other biographies that I had access to, this one is bright and appealing and just makes me want to read it.  I had put this book on reserve at the library when we first started studying Carver, but when we visited the museum at Tuskegee, I couldn’t resist buying it in the gift shop.  This book is formatted very much like a fiction picture book, with huge photographs that take up whole pages, smaller photographs interspersed with text, and a clean and pleasing page design.  It is written in what I’d consider an almost-conversational tone; I can imagine a very knowledgeable and friendly museum docent “talking” the information in this book and captivating her audience.  According to its title page, this book was “Published in Association with The Field Museum, Chicago,” and I can definitely see the influence of a museum in the words and pictures of this excellent book.  In fact, I’m afraid that my enthusiasm about this particular title was probably dampened a bit because we read it together just a few days after we visited the museum in Tuskegee and saw with our own two eyes many of the items pictured in the book.  However, reading this book is definitely the next-best-thing to visiting the museum, and I give it a Highly Recommended.  (Abrams, 2008)


I checked out a bunch of other books about Carver from the library, and I wanted to mention a couple of them here.  The one we read cover-to-cover and actually used for narration and notebooking is George Washington Carver by Charles W. Carey, Jr. from the Journey to Freedom series.  This volume divides Carver’s life into easily-digestible segments of maybe a half-dozen pages each, making it perfect for narrowing down selections for narrations. 

The other title that I really, really liked but ultimately decided was a bit much for my early elementary students is The Ground-Breaking, Chance-Taking Life of George Washington Carver and Science and Invention in America by Cheryl Harness.  Obviously, this book is much more detailed than what we needed, and it deals with the peripheral but important issues and events during Carver’s lifetime.  The pen-and-ink drawings in this volume definitely add to its appeal!  I will remember these Cheryl Harness Histories for when my girls get a little older.  (Check out Cheryl Harness’ website and her blog for a little taste of her passion for history.)

I’m linking up this post to Nonfiction Monday, hosted this week by Rasco from RIF.  I’m also sharing this as Favorite Resource This Week my Favorite Resource This Week at learning ALL the time.

Tomorrow I’m sharing more pictures from our trip to Tuskegee and the museum there, so be sure to come back!

Week in Review

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It’s way past my usual Friday afternoon or Saturday morning collage/week-in-review post, but I enjoy writing these up so much that I’m going to go ahead with it even though the week is officially over. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in over my head this weekend with preparing items for not one but two consignment sales (children’s clothing and furniture/housewares), ferrying Lulu back and forth (and attending with her) a piano competition, and shaking my head in dismay getting really excited about the remodeling of our schoolroom which has to be accomplished before we get to the real remodeling projects: the dining room and family room. We had a really great week of learning, though, and I don’t want to forget it!

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1.  We’ve focused on art a bit more this week than we have been lately.  I positively love art–everything about it, from the process of actually making art to studying the works of great artists to reading about it.  I have one child who loves it as much as I, so this week I encouraged her to participate in Sketch Tuesday while her sister had a doctor’s appointment.  Louise took her time drawing a picture of something that hums and coloring it with watercolor pencils.  (We love these!)

2.  I remembered to get out our art calendar and do a bit of art study.  I got this week’s Sketch Tuesday.  When I told her she was to draw something that might be found in a treasure chest, she decided almost immediately on a crown.  I grabbed our Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History and found a picture for her to use as inspiration.  Sketch Tuesday is such an easy way to inject these little bits of art into our week–I’m making a resolution to do it weekly!  (Be sure to check out Tuesday’s slideshow to see all the treasures.) {I have no idea why #2 and #3 have run together.  When I try to edit it, it looks correct on my screen.  Computers!  :-) }

4.  Math went much better this week than it did last week, praise the Lord!  I think “easy does it” needs to be my motto when it comes to letting Lulu settle into a new mathematical operation.  Too, RS C lessons 87-90 involved using manipulatives to do the multi-digit subtraction and not depending so much of mental math entirely.  (This was really the hard part for Lulu–keeping the numbers straight in her mind when doing the subtraction mentally.  I encourage her to persevere and work on increasing her capacity to remember the numbers without writing them down because I think it’s important that she improve at this.  For the record, the problems she was doing mentally involved mostly two-digit numbers, and we played several card games during the week to work on this skill.)  She caught on quickly to using the abacus to do this multi-digit subtraction and then to using symbols to represent the various places and to represent the trading.  It was a great math week for us, which was very welcome after a couple of weeks of really struggling.  (How could it be bad, when you get to do your math dressed in your favorite kimono? :-) )

Louise and I worked through a couple of lessons in RS B together.  We finally got to a lesson that involved using the part-whole circle.  This is still mostly review for her, but she is really enjoying the one-on-one attention.  (Oh, and she was very excited to finally get to do a worksheet this week.  ;-) )

5.  I could’ve entitled this post “Back in the Saddle Again with SotW”; this week we came full circle once again and started back using SotW volume 2 for our history.  We left it way back in November when we started a unit of sorts about Native Americans (read about some of the resources we used here).  After that it was Christmas and we went around the world again.  After Christmas I tried out a hodgepodge of resources:  Tapestry of Grace, Simply Charlotte Mason, doing my own thing.  We’re pretty certain we’re joining a Classical Conversations community next year, so we’ll be back on the ancients again for that, so I was just discombobulated–should we continue on with our Middle Ages study, knowing that we’re backtracking next year?  In the end, I decided just to go with it.  Right now we need something simple and effective that doesn’t require me to do a lot of groundwork, so we stuck with reading chapter 11 (material we had actually already covered in other resources), doing a couple of notebooking pages, and reading Marguerite Makes a Book.  Lulu and I work together on her narrations, but she has grown in the past couple of months to really wanting to do her own writing.  Narrations are really the heart of what first drew me to the classical method, and I really, really like the idea of having ongoing notebooks that the girls can look back on to see what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown as writers.


6.  The DLM has taken apart every puzzle that he could get his hands on this week.  Oh, and he has climbed into and out of our new cabinets (and mashed his fingers in the doors of them, too).  {More about the new cabinets in a bit. . . }

7.  We went outside as often as we could this week.  I even sent the girls outside one day before lunch to do a bit of nature study inspired by the March issue of the Handbook of Nature Study newsletter.  The weather has been very spring-like in northwest Alabama–cool and windy, but pleasant.  I have to note one thing that happened this week that has nothing to do with nature study but everything to do with this picture.  Often when I send the girls outside, Lulu will take a book along to read.  (While I can certainly appreciate this, I usually send her outside to actually get some exercise.  ;-)   )  In language this week, among other things we finished the list of prepositions that we’ve been working on memorizing.  (When I saw we, I mean it very loosely.)  Lulu had to complete this sentence to illustrate using the preposition with:  “I like to play with ______.”  When I asked her to fill in the blank, she sat still for a minute and responded, “Books.”  Yep.  In other language news, it happened that lessons 68-71 in FLL volume 2 dealt with writing a friendly letter.  It worked out nicely that Lulu had just written a letter to her penpal, so we just incorporated that into our lessons.  We were able to zip through lessons 68-72 this week, and we can see the end in sight! 

8.  Thursday night science was more about solutions and mixtures by way of earth science.  Steady Eddie pulled out the big guns and showed the girls a bunch of different types of rocks discussed how they were formed.  (That’s pumice floating in the glass there, in case you’re like me and don’t remember everything you learned in eighth grade earth science.)  The pièce de résistance at the end of the lesson:  a vial of volcanic ash from Mount St. Helens!  The girls looked through loupes at all the rocks and the ash and noted which types of rocks are made of crystals and what size the crystals are.  (Oh, and the rock candy we attempted to make a few weeks ago never “grew” the way it should’ve, but we did get some nice sugar crystals in the bottom of a couple of the glasses, so the girls also got to compare the size of these sugar crystals to salt crystals.)  On Friday I read aloud Volcano:  The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens as a follow-up to our science lesson from Thursday night.

9.  I have to mention this, though it really wasn’t a part of the official school week: Lulu earned a medal for participating in a local event called the Piano Olympics on Saturday.  She played one song for a panel of judges and an audience, she took two written tests (theory and composers), and she completed two listening exercises in which she attended two short recitals and responded to all of the songs that were performed by circling descriptive words about each of the songs.  We went back in the afternoon for an awards ceremony, and about twenty of the piano students were selected to perform in the honors recital.  Most of the students chosen played more complicated pieces than Lulu is capable of playing yet, but it was a joy to listen to and watch these young pianists be recognized for their hard work and talent.  Both girls practice the piano each day just after they do their morning chores and just before we begin with math.  I hope that we can move from it being a duty to it being a delight (it hovers on the line most days) so that they can both grow into accomplished musicians.

Oh, we did other things, too:  some reading, handwriting practice (the bane of my existence as a homeschooling mother!), spelling (only one lesson, alas), etc.  We went out for errands and library runs on two days:  Thursday and Friday.  On Fun Friday we enjoyed free hot chocolate at the library’s coffee shop (all proceeds in this wonderful little cafe benefit the library!) thanks to our completion of the library’s winter reading program.  We then walked over to the city’s art center to take in the art exhibited from a juried art competition for junior high and high school students.  We saw everything from crayons melted on canvases to a gorgeous dress made of hundreds of strips of fabric and everything in between.  It was a lovely way to spend the morning.

This week felt really good, the best we’ve had in a long, long time.  Much of it depends on me and my being in a place of peace and contentment about what we’re doing.  That’s why it’s so important for me to really know why we’re doing things, curriculum-wise.  If I feel like it’s a waste of time or too something (hard, easy, whatever) for the girls, I’m not going to be at peace with what we’re doing.  And now it’s time to start planning for next year.  :-)

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I can’t not include a few shots of what we’re doing in the house.  (All of these pictures are in-transition mess pictures, but you get the idea.)  We’re moving the built-in bookcases that Steady Eddie made many years ago for our family room down into the school room, but not before he installs cabinets along the wall in the school room and paints them.  For that to happen, all the books and the bookshelf had to be moved up into the kitchen.  Yes, I have a full-to-overflowing bookcase in my kitchen.  I guess it’s official now:  we’re a homeschooling family.  :-)

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Read Aloud Thursday–the Maybelle books by Katie Speck

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Today I’m not writing about classic literature, so dismiss that notion right now, okay? :-)   I’m writing about a couple of fun and quirky short chapter books that Louise and I have really enjoyed reading together.  We’ve been doing shared/paired reading (or whatever it’s called in the world o’ reading education) in which I read a page and she reads a page, taking it time about (as my Granny would say).  The wonderful thing about these little stories is that the chapters are only three to five very short pages each, making the catching of a new reader’s breath very convenient. The book itself is very small in format–about 8″ x 5″, just perfect for six year old hands.  While these haven’t been our usual read-alouds, neither in subject matter nor in the way we’ve read them, I think they deserve a place on my list of short chapter books for the youngest listeners.

Maybelle is a cockroach, a creation of Katie Speck (thanks to her grandmother–read the story here).   Maybelle lives in the JUST SO home of the Peabodys, and she knows The Rules of being a bug:

When it’s light, stay out of sight; if you’re spied, better hide; never meet with human feet.

However, Maybelle has a hard time actually keeping the rules because of her involvement with her flea-friend Henry and her desire to taste the delicacies at the various dinner parties and teas the Peabodys host.  In Maybelle in the Soup, Maybelle ends up being spied at a dinner party, and as a result the Peabodys have their home exterminated. What are the resident insects to do but evacuate?  Their evacuation, of course, leads to another adventure, this one in the Grand Hotel.  In Maybelle Goes to Tea, Maybelle and Henry get into a scrape because of a pesky fly who doesn’t know The Rules.  Maurice the fly ends up knocking himself out when he collides with the window, and Maybelle and Henry feel obligated to save him.  That’s not easy, of course, especially because of the resident housecat, Ramona.  Paul Rátz de Tagyos‘ illustrations are cartoonish and cute and help me to almost forget that Maybelle is {shudder} a cockroach.

Do I love these stories?  Honestly, no.  While I wouldn’t consider them twaddle, I just don’t personally enjoy thinking about cockroaches and fleas.  However, again I do think they’re worthy of note as beginning chapter books.  They’re full of what I’d almost consider gross-out humor, but it stops short of being really gross and is just kind of. . .sweet, in a buggy sort of way.  There’s dialogue and action and lots of comic book-esque onomatopoeia:  ZIP! BONK!  Louise gets a kick out of stories and is always eager for one more chapter, and we can knock out one of these short chapter books in a couple of sittings.   These books have provided lots of enjoyment and motivation for my emerging reader, and for that I give them a two thumbs up.  (Henry Holt, 2007 & 2008)

Using our time wisely while Lulu has her piano lesson

What stories do you read to your children out of love for your children, not the stories?  :-)


Read Aloud Thursday–outfoxing the fox

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I normally wouldn’t review a holiday book so soon after (or so long before?) a holiday, but
this subtle Groundhog Day book is simply too good to miss, no matter the time of year.  As the title indicates, Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox is the story of a groundhog named Brownie who appears as expected on February 2 and is met by not only her shadow, but also by a ”small, scrawny fox.”  Mr. Fox pounces on her, knocks her flat, and announces, “Hold still.  I’m trying to eat you for breakfast.”  Well, it turns out that Brownie is wilier than Mr. Fox and offers him lots and lots of excuses why he simply can’t eat her for breakfast or lunch or dinner, and the fox buys every one of them.  Not only that, Brownie then takes the fox along on her hunt for signs of spring.   (“Besides me” is her frequent refrain.)  My girls and I love this one.  What I love most about it is the rich, delicious language Brownie uses: 

“Not a clink or a crackle,” she said.  “This icy ice is frozen solid.”

The girls love that she outfoxes the fox so many times, and the end they head home as friends.  Susan Blackaby has created quite the hero in Brownie, and Carmen Segovia‘s illustrations are perfectly wonderful.  Using only white, blue, shades of brown, and red, Segovia creates the perfect wintery world for Brownie and the fox.  (Truthfully, the illustrations remind me a bit of the ones in Jon Klassen’s much-lauded I Want My Hat Back which I wrote about here, but I like this story so much better.)  Don’t wait until next February 2nd to read this one–find a copy today!  Highly Recommended.  (Sterling 2011) {I just looked this one up, and yes, it was nominated for a Cybils last year.  Rats!  I was hoping it had been published late enough in the year to be nominated for next year’s Cybils!}

You’ll have to dust off your fake French accent for this next fun picture book.  Rabbit Pirates:  A Tale of the the Spinach Main by Judy Cox is a rollicking good time.  Something about this story just tickles me.  It’s the story of Monsieur Lapin and Monsieur Blanc, rabbits and friends who run a little café in Provence called the Spinach Main.  Obviously, these bunnies have seen much more exciting times, but now they are content to sip their glasses of mineral water on the terrace and reminisce.  That is, they’re content until a “well dressed fox” becomes one of their restaurant’s regular patrons, and it is obvious that the fox has more on his mind than the aubergines on his plate.  What will the bunnies do?  Never fear–they have a few tricks up their sleeves, and while they don’t have to resort to their old pirate tricks, they are more than a match for Mr. Fox.  This story is just plain old fun, and Caldecott-winning illustrator Emily Arnold McCully‘s illustrations are the perfect complement to the story.  Another Highly Recommended tale! (Browndeer Press, 1999)

I love that I can still find picture books that my chapter book-devouring older daughter still enjoys.  Both of these stories are nuanced and complicated enough to be enjoyed by anyone.  :-)


Read Aloud Thursday–Adam of the Road Elizabeth Janet Gray (and a few more Medieval selections)

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My girls and I finally finished the chapter book read-aloud that we started right after Christmas (I think?), Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray, and what a good time we had with it!  Winner of the 1943 Newbery Medal, Adam of the Road is the story of Adam the minstrel’s son and his adventures as he travels about the English countryside.  Adam is a likable fellow, very warmhearted and loving, and we couldn’t help but grow to love him and root for him as he searches for his father and his dog, Nick.  What I like most about this story is that it very unobtrusively presents many, many facets of Medieval life.  From life in a castle among the nobility to the wandering life of a minstrel and almost everything in between, we get a taste of what life was like for the people of the Middle Ages.  In this regard it reminds me a bit of Hans Brinker (linked to my review), but the lessons are much more palatable in Adam of the Road.  Simple but lovely word pictures abound in this story:

Adam hesitated.  Then he told the story.  He exaggerated it a little.  He played the sour notes on his harp and he made them sound even worse than they really had.  The young squire, who had been looking rather unhappy, threw back his head and shouted with laughter.  Adam threw back his head too and laughed, strangely eased of his pain.  For the first time in his life he had played the part of an oyster.  He had taken the bit of grit that was scratching him and made something of it that was comfortable to him and pleasing to someone outside.  He had made a valuable discovery, but he did not know it at the moment; he only knew that he felt happy again, and he wagged his head a little.  (63)

I also really like that Roger, Adam’s father, is a very skilled and passionate minstrel, and he passes his love for his vocation on to his son.  During his travels, Adam falls in with a family of minstrels whose standard for minstrelsy is much lower than Roger’s; they ” ‘give people what they want,’ ” and Adam notices the difference:

At first that sounded like what Roger used to say.  “A minstrel must fit his tale to his listeners,” but when Adam thought it over he decided that it was quite different.  Roger told tales that fitted the good in people, tales about courage and danger and adventure and love.  (238)

I love that “Roger told tales that fitted the good in people.”  I think the best stories do that.

My girls were quite taken in by this story and usually begged for just one more chapter each time our read-aloud session came to an end.  They also drew several comparisons between it and another Newbery winner, The Door in the Wall by Margaret De Angeli.  This is one I read, reviewed, and loved a couple of years ago, and since then I have had Lulu read it and both girls have listened to it numerous times in audio.  I also have to mention that the version of Adam of the Road that we read is the one pictured below, not the one linked above.  I think the Robert Lawson’s playful illustrations make hunting out this particular edition worthwhile.

 

Another Medieval read-aloud we have shared in the past few weeks is Castle by David Macaulay.  Winner of a 1978 Caldecott honor, Castle is the fictional tale of the building of a castle in Wales.  More informational than plot-driven, this black-and-white picture book gives a detailed description of how the castle is built from below ground and up.  Obviously, David Macaulay‘s line drawings are amazing.  I honestly think this one might best be read individually so that the reader can sit and soak up the description, flip back to the glossary to learn the meaning of a technical term or two, and study the drawings.  As it was we read it over several days, stopping when I felt my brain couldn’t take any more description (or the DLM demanded my attention, or both).  I do not visualize things easily, so perhaps I am playing to my own weakness here; Louise actually recognized the word portcullis (and not just the word, but what it is) from her careful studying and reading-what-she-could-by-herself of You Wouldn’t Want to Live in a Medieval Castle, so I offer it as a companion to these other stories.  I don’t particularly like to read the very visually complicated You Wouldn’t Want to. . . books, but they’re good ones, and the kids generally really like them.


I’m linking this post up to this month’s Award Winning Books Reading Challenge at Gathering Books.

Happy Read Aloud Thursday!



Messy Monday + a book review: Ready to Dream by Donna Jo Napoli and Elena Furrow

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I was inspired by Stephanie’s post way back last month about the Hearts & Trees online magazine, which I promptly purchased (for only $3–a steal!), and then didn’t have time to implement.  A couple of Fridays ago I finally made time to pull out the paints and teach the girls about primary, secondary, and tertiary colors using the information and instructions from the magazine.  This was quite a hit, of course!

I really like to make art with the girls, but lately it’s all I can do to keep the DLM making his own mess art.  He woke up from his nap just in time to really want to get involved in this activity.  :-)

All children are artists.  The problem is to remain an artist once he grows up.  –Pablo Picasso

Serendipitously, we had read a wonderful picture book, Ready to Dream by Donna Jo Napoli and Elena Furrow, just the day before.  It’s the story of a little girl named Ally who goes with her mom to Australia to visit.  Ally is an artist, so she travels to Australia with a heart full of anticipation and a backpack full of art supplies.  The first person she meets is an Aborigininal woman, Pauline, to whom she shows the picture she drew on the plane.  This woman, an artist herself, becomes Ally’s friend and mentor, the person to whom Ally reports with her newest piece of art, created as she and her mom explore the continent.  Pauline encourages Ally in her art, for each time Ally points out something a little off in her art, and Pauline helps her readjust her vision to see it as an opportunity or something that makes the art special or more accurate.  Here’s a sampling of one of their conversations:

When Ally returned, Pauline was leaning against a wall, looking out over the desert.  “I saw fairy penguins and a duck-billed platypus and koalas. See my koala?”

Pauline petted the koala.  “No accidents this time?”

“No, but my painting keeps curling.”

Pauline put her hands to Ally’s cheeks.

“Koalas dream in warm balls in the crooks of trees.  Let it curl.”

Ally let go of the corners, and the bark curled up in her hands.  Was this koala sleeping?

I love this!  I have one daughter who thinks in pictures and who really, really enjoys drawing.  The other is no less artistic, only her creativity is often expressed in different ways.  Creativity in this vein is not something that comes naturally to me, but I so want to encourage it in my children.  Ready to Dream is a picture book that emphasizes the wonder of creating, and it really helped remind me of the importance of viewing creativity as a process.  Additionally, this would make a great story to supplement a study of Australia since Ally and her mother visit so many different places in Australia.  Bronwyn Bancroft‘s paintings in this book are bold and colorful and folk-art-like.  (See samples here.) I give this book a Highly Recommended.  (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2009)

Favorite Resource This WeekI’m linking this post up at learning ALL the time as my favorite resource this week.  Both the Hearts & Trees magazine and the picture book Ready to Dream earn this designation!