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Monday, November 30, 2015

What We're Reading :: November


Me
Berry's Jayber Crow (back out from the library--I'm determined to finish!)
Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See (just started)
Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God (for our local book club, and great Advent reading too!)
Bits from Charlotte Mason's volumes (our CM study group is on the last two principles of the "Start Here" study guide from Afterthoughts)

Vincent, age 9
Henty's With Wolfe in Canada (great tie-in with our Year 4 history readings)
Pyle's Men of Iron (a perpetual re-read)
Walter de la Mare's Tales Told Again (one of Gianna's birthday books that he's been waiting on)


For Gianna, age 9
Henty's With Wolfe in Canada too! (she and Vincent are actually fighting over this book daily)
Mother Mary Loyola's The King of the Golden City (she stole this one from Cate's FHC-prep shelf)
Hale's Peterkin Papers (a Year 4 free read that has her doubled over with giggles)

Cate, age 6
Town and Country (a vintage reader)
Illustrated versions of Beauty and the Beast by Diane Goode and Mercer Mayer (we like the latter better...but I have my eye on the Walter Crane version!)
Arnold Lobel's Small Pig (again!  for whatever reason she just loves this particular easy reader)

Enjoying on Audio
Nesbitt's The Railway Children (two chapters left!)
Ransome's Swallows and Amazons (a couple chapters in)
Tales of Peter Rabbit by Jim Weiss (the middles' current naptime audio favorite)

Reading Aloud
Speare's The Sign of the Beaver (a Year 4 free read)
Inos Biffi's The Way to Bethlehem (an annual addition to our Morning Basket especially for Advent--it's ridiculously priced at Amazon but available cheaply here)
...and Gianna is reading to Cate and me in the evenings: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle

Little note on that last one: The other night she was reading from the chapter about "The Never-Want-To-Go-To-Bedders Cure."  We don't have bedtime battles here, but I could still relate when the chapter starts:
"Each evening as the clock struck eight, Mrs. Gray called Bobby and Larry and Susan.  She said, 'Come, children, eight o'clock and time for bed.' She tried to make her voice sound cheerful and gay but actually she felt like groaning, because she knew what was coming."
Ha!  Mrs. Gray, believe me, I've been there.

The girls didn't know why I was laughing so hard.

To the Littles
Journey Cake Ho! and One Morning in Maine (Xavier is on a McCloskey kick)
Welcome. Little Baby (Bridget's current favorite, for obvious reasons--she actually named her dolly "Aliki" because of this book!  LOL)
Lots of Paul Galdone folk tales (Clara's current selections)
...and in heavy rotation since I stocked the shelves with our fall books:
Lois Lenski's Now It's Fall, Cynthia Rylant's In November, and Manson's Over the River and Through the Woods

In the Mail
Lots coming in the mail this month, most of which I'll be putting aside for Christmas gifts--I'll be sharing those after the holiday! 

But a few already made their way onto our shelves...




From top to bottom:

What Is a Tree?
Buck's In Ponds and Streams
another for my collection of hardcover Golden Guides: Herbs and Spices
A Golden Picture Book: Birds (I'll be sharing more about this one in a nature round-up later this month!)
McClung's Screamer: Last of the Eastern Panthers (his other books are scheduled in the elementary years of AO)
A Treasury of Irish Folklore, edited by Padraic Colum
Sanderson's More Saints: Lives and Illuminations 

And I couldn't pass up these Audubon guides at the thrift store even though we already have some of them in hardcover:


What I'm really excited about, though, is the book-gifting to come!  I have a couple nephews still to shop for...I'm thinking a nice version of either The Jungle Books or Pyle's Robin Hood for my oldest nephew and maybe a few folk song favorites for my youngest?  And, of course, I still need to dig through my box of used finds in the garage to select stacks for my own kids.  That's probably my favorite part of Christmas "shopping"!

So what are you reading, friends?  Or what are you gifting to the book-lovers in your life?

16 comments:

  1. Inos Biffi's The Way to Bethlehem is a decent price at LTP http://www.ltp.org/p-2342-the-way-to-bethlehem.aspx. I ended up not buying it, but did hover over the "add to cart button" several times.

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    1. Thank you! I will link it above! I don't know why I never think to look beyond Amazon. :)

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  2. Book posts! YAY! We love Journey Cake Ho! The Jungle Book illustrated by Jerry Pinkley?? doesn't have many pictures but the few that it has are beautiful, just FYI. :)

    I'm DEFINITELY buying a ton of books for Christmas as gifts:

    For my dad, Still Higher for His Highest by Chambers
    For my mom, Own Your LIfe by Clarkson
    For my sister, Connie Willias time travel one??? Dark Ages -forgot the title, and two others that she asked for, possibly Cloud of Witness also
    For my brother, Mississippi Solo
    For my sister in law, Little Book Store in Big Stone Gap
    For my nieces and nephews, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, and a few others I haven't decided on for the toddlers
    For my oldest, a few horse type fiction books, one of the Wingfeather saga
    For my second, The Green Ember and possibly some Tin Tin
    For my third, LEGO idea books and I'm not sure what else
    For my fourth, not sure
    For my fifth, a new Ruth Krass book
    For my sixth, The Little Locomotive

    I'm sure there is more this is what I can think of so far! :) Oh my other brother in law and sister in law probably You and Me for Eternity by the Chans

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    1. LOVE seeing your giving list!! This gets me excited.

      I was actually thinking about Mrs. Frisby for my oldest nephew also, but I was thinking he'd have been more likely to have read that one for school already than one of the classics. (Sadly!) Haven't decided yet.

      I love Connie Willis' time travel books. I'm assuming you're thinking of The Doomsday Book? It's such a good one!

      So what is the new Ruth Krauss book? I am a fan. :)

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    2. For Christmas I asked for a fairly large stack of books including books by Greg Popcak, Three to Get Married by Fulton Sheen, and some Plutarch. We are always sure to ask for books on our wish lists. :)

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    3. Fulton Sheen is so great. The only ones of his I have read are Life of Christ (this was my Lenten reading one year) and This is the Mass, which is a gem (especially if you go to the TLM).

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  3. I was literally just thinking about Journey Cake Ho! a few days ago, Celeste, so my eyes were immediately drawn to the book in the first picture of this post. I love when that happens.

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    1. How fun, Dawn! You and I seem to always be on the same wavelength! :)

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    2. I can think of far worse things:).

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  4. I don't know how much TV/screen time your gets get but the Mr Piggle Wiggle movies (I remember multiple but its been years since I've seen them....) are HILARIOUS (think the Pippi Longstocking movies).
    Thank you so much for sharing these! This month (and September, and December) I'm reading various penguin classics of Plutarchs' writing. LOVE reading Plutarch. Who knew though because I never was a huge fan of the ancients/classics. Being a Kolbe Homeschool graduate, many of these are re-reads.
    Happy Advent!

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    1. I love that you enjoy Plutarch! Reading him along with my kids is my first exposure. And thank you for the recommendation. My kids think Piggle-Wiggle is just hilarious. :)

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  5. Celeste, I would love to know how Vincent and Gianna enjoy With Wolfe in Canada as the book progresses. My 10 year old son is reading the book right now. He loved the first part of the book which happens in England, but once the action moves to North America, it seems that the book becomes chapter after chapter of descriptions of battles, which he finds a bit dull. The beloved characters introduced at the beginning of the book seem to be forgotten until the very end. Too bad, because the beginning of the book was very charming - I enjoyed it myself.

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    1. I will let you know! They are already more than halfway through, and my son in particular loves description after description of battles, so I'm not sure they'll be all that put off. Haha! But we'll see. :)

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    2. Okay, Laura Jeanne--I had to come back and give an update because you were right! The story definitely changes. Gianna gave it up shortly after I wrote this post, which I didn't know until last week. The two of them were talking about the book, and I asked if they had already finished it. Vincent gave an enthusiastic yes and said he loved it; in fact, the battles may have been his favorite part. Gianna said that she didn't feel like finishing because it was "all fighting toward the end." So there you have it! :)

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  6. What is the book the children are reading in the picture at the top? The illustrations are fun!

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    1. Hi there! It's Journey Cake Ho! by McCloskey. :)

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