Welcome to my little corner of the internet...

Adventures in Reading

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

I always knew that Jr finally making that leap to a full blown reader would make things more interesting. No more present lists in the open. Watching where I set down my world events magazine or taking care not to leave private information like passwords out. But I didn’t really think about the books themselves.

I have a habit of bringing into the house books that I’d like to review for upcoming topics. This year one of the many science topics we will talk about is reproduction as in where babies come from though we may leave the mechanics for a bit longer if no questions come up. But back to my story! Not all books on the basics of where babies come from are created equal. So I am taking opportunity now to review a few looking for one that will suit both my boys.

Well at least I was.

I was until I brought in Everybody has a belly button: Your life before you were born. and left it sit on my bedside table where it was to wait until I had a moment to look through it.

Cut to scene: The boys are sitting on my clothes hamper when I walk in my bedroom – - reading the Everybody book in complete silence. I suppose technically Jr was reading it and LilB was only looking at it. Keep in mind had I had opportunity to look at it first this wouldn’t have bothered me at all. But it was still unseen as to content to ME! I admit to a little mental freaking out.

But I needn’t have freaked out at all! That night the Everybody book made the request list for bedtime books. I was delighted to see that it was exactly what I was looking for in a beginner reproduction book. There were correct terms. Nicely done pastel pictures that were perfectly age appropriate in my opinion. The books skips very lightly over the mechanics using the egg cell and sperm cell but not identifying from whence they came (Or how they get “together”.) Instead this book focuses on the development of the baby itself. Birth is also an area where the author takes the light touch approach and doesn’t overwhelm the children with too much information. I was very pleased with the ability of the author to be informative and interesting with a graceful balance for the age group intended to read the book. I expect that we will be reading it again as LilB is quite interested in discussing babies. Jr to my delight remembered much of what we had talked about back when his brother was born.

Oh and for the record WOMB still wins because it sounds like room. Uterus (the word) they still don’t “like”. Aren’t kids grand?!

All In A Day

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

61t4ymynvsl_sl160_

This is the first book on my list of books to remember when Cybils 2009 open up. This was an absolutely spectacular find at our library. On a whim I grabbed this while passing by the “new books” shelf because my eye had caught the authors name: Cynthia Rylant. She is one of my favorite children’s authors and we have read many of her books here in our house! My personal favorite is her Lighthouse Family series.

I loved this All In A Day from the first page! The story is delightful and the illustrations are perfect. We’ve been paying more attention to the illustrations in books lately. So it was a particularly sweet treat to get to the end of All In A Day and read the small tidbit about the illustrator Nikki McClure! When we realized that most of the pictures were a single piece of cut paper artwork, we traveled back through the book and looked more closely at each illustration. Where we tried seeing not only the wonderful picture but also the connections and the way each part lead to another.

If you have the chance check it out! It is worth the read and the re-read

2009 Books

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

Every year for the past few I’ve intended to track what I read. I actually have yet to successfully do this! But I am motivated this year and I’ve finally decided how I’m going to track what book I’ve read as I read them. I’ll be using my Librarything account. Now truthfully this irritates me just a little because up until this point I have only put books I actually have on my shelves into Librarything.  But!  I really, really want to track my books. And I just don’t want to have another site to remember to visit. So I’m tagging my reads for the year then I’ll print a list and delete my phantom books from my shelves.

Why is this important to me?

I read a lot and I mean A LOT of series books. A few years back I read a great book with a fun storyline that I really enjoyed then I promptly forgot the author and the title. Just a year or so back I read a darker but equally good fantasy novel set in a world I liked and wanted to visit again…same problem: no author, no title = no chance. I found myself this last week with the exact same scenario: I have the first book in a trilogy on my bedside table. I’m hoping by tracking my books I’ll not lose out on returning to the series! I’m a nerd. I know.

crystalblue

Click the Crystal Ball if you want to see the impressive 3 (insert sarcasm here) books I’ve read already this year. The crystal ball has nothing to do with my books I just don’t have a book graphic I like at the moment.

Do you track your books?

What is on your list to read?

Orange or Purple? heh