family bookshelf

Cozy on up to a good book.
Here's what we are reading:

Becks

Not a lot of reading going on in this book, but a lot of looking and telling mom what plane he wants made. His favorite so far is the AeroBat.

Ty

Hoosier Daddy has been reading this book to Ty before bed. Ty loves the main character, Matthias, and smiles every time Cornflower is mentioned. What a grand adventure!

Me

A book written by Ty, given to me on Mother's Day. So precious, the pictures are adorable.

and

I needed a good Western to read now that we live out West. Will Gus choose Lorena or Clara? I'm loving this book, although the word 'poke' is terribly overused.

Hoosier Daddy

An eye opener, if you want your eyes opened. "Be careful of dinner" is right.

nic bishop

Ty has told me numerous times that he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. He eats up all things science. He digs our local science museum, and attended their weekly discovery time for two years before he began Kindergarten. Today, when his Dr. asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up, he said, a scientist... after an astronaut and a fire fighter.

Ty loves non-fiction books about animals, insects, amphibians, and dinosaurs. I hesitantly admit, I hate reading these books to him. I silently groan when I open his backpack every Wednesday to find yet another non-fiction book about dinosaurs. But he loves them, and so I read them to him. My complaint about non-fiction animal books is, usually, the text outweighs the pictures, and the pictures are generally small. Plus it takes FOREVER to read through them.

If you also face this dilemma, check out the author and photographer Nic Bishop. His photos are extraordinary. On the two page spread, a single large photo is on one side while a handful of sentences of text is on the other. What makes the books so great for me is that on each text page there is one sentence that is bold and larger than the rest, so if you are short on time, you could get away with just reading that sentence. I love, love, love his books.

Someday I will feed my little scientists appetite with our own copies of Nic Bishop's Spiders, Frogs, and Marsupials!

leaf

One of my favorites. Especially for my little shaggy haired Beckham. Beckham picked this book all on his own - off the "New Arrivals" shelf at our local Library. If you know Beckham at all, and read this book, you will definitely smile.

Leaf is a wordless book about a boy who doesn't want to get his hair cut. He runs from mom, and out into the wilderness he ventures. A bird drops a seed on his head and a leaf sprouts in his hair. After being exposed to the elements, the leaf starts to wither. With the help of his mutt, the boy figures out a way to keep the leaf alive. Sadly, mom gets hold of him and snips all his locks off. Sad as he is, he takes the pile of hair with the preserved seedling and plants it on a hill. You'll have to check the book out to see what happens next.

A delightful book. If you have a boy with long hair, they will love it. Any child would love this book really.

books about the law

. . . one type of book that practically no one likes to read is a book about the law. Books about the law are notorious for being very long, very dull, and very difficult to read. This is one reason many lawyers make heaps of money. The money is an incentive--the word "incentive" here means "an offered reward to persuade you to do something you don't want to do"-- to read long, dull, and difficult books.

Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events), 83-84 1999

The past little while we have been entertaining ourselves with the audio books: A Series of Unfortunate Events. I originally checked them out from the Library for the kids to enjoy, but have found the series quite entertaining for myself. I must say, despite three years of reading dreadfully boring books, Matthias is still quite humorous and fun to be around! Thank goodness.

thunder cake

One of my favorite Children's author/illustrators is Patricia Polocco. Her stories are so heartfelt and her illustrations are so expressive of human relationships and emotions. I love love love all her books. Today (and yesterday) were the perfect days for reading Ms. Polocco's Thunder Cake. We've had several heart thumping thunderstorms and tornado warnings which have caused my kids to cry, cling, and duck under cover. Thunder Cake is a story about Patricia as a little girl who is deathly frightened of thunderstorms - to help her grand daughter conquer her fear, Grandma has a plan of making thunder cake which includes venturing outside in the thunderstorm to gather tomatoes and eggs, milk the cow, and running to the shed. By the time the cake is baked and tasted, little Patricia isn't so afraid anymore! The best part of the book is the recipe for Thunder Cake found at the end.

So today we baked up a Thunder Cake during the 4:00 thunderstorm. I was a little skeptic when I saw the recipe included tomatoes, but I couldn't taste them. It is a chocolate cake, and the strawberries on top were delicious! I can't say the book cured my kids fear of thunder, but it was a fun celebration for the storm! Beckham calls it "under cake."

A photo of the boys behind the curtain watching the storm.... and our Thunder Cake!

two things that made me happy today

Ty got this fantabulous book for his birthday from Matthias' parents, and it is his favorite book right now (I really love it too!) Basically it is about a mom who, with each new baby, discovers that each child will only eat one specific food (that is different from everyone else). As each year passes by, and a new child enters the family, the mother becomes more and more frazzled trying to keep up with her seven picky eaters (and all the house chores). The pictures are hilarious! What is funny about this book to me is that after child number two, her response to the picky eating drastically changes from patience and humor to tired and weary. The pictures show how her house and kids get more and more unkempt as each year passes. Anyways, I won't spoil the ending, but only tell you that the kids find a single solution to fix their picky eating habits. I recommend this book to every mom as it will make your life seem a lot better than Mrs. Peter's!

Our cool friends, the Lyons, were looking out for Ty and his corn allergy by bringing to our attention that Jones Soda does not have any HF corn syrup in it, but has only pure sugar cane. They brought over a couple for him to guzzle and it was a treat indeed. This boy hasn't had a soda in quite a while and has, by himself, become accustomed to asking Matthias or I before he consumes any treat or beverage, "Does this have corn syrup in it?" What an amazing boy. I always give him the option of whether to eat the contaminated-by-corn syrup food or not, and he usually chooses not to eat it. Props for Ty. It was a great find, and although we don't drink soda around here, it is nice to know such a soda exists for the rare times when we do!

little black sambo

This was one of my favorite books growing up. I bought a beautifully redrawn (original text) copy for the boys a couple years back, and now it is one of Ty's favorites. (The illustrations are amazing!) If any of you are not familiar with this controversial story, it is about a boy, Sambo, who's parents buy him all these fancy clothes and while walking through the jungle, meets up with 4 different ferocious tigers who want to eat him up. Sambo bargains with each of them by surrendering a piece of his clothing - if they promise not to eat him up. This satisfies the tigers and Sambo survives becoming the tigers' dinner. Anyways, during the story Ty asks me, "Why did he give them all his clothes?" I explained, "Because they were going to eat him up. Would you rather get eaten up by tigers or give them your clothes instead so that they won't eat you up?" Ty explains, "I wouldn't give them my clothes. I would run away really fast, faster than the tigers, and they couldn't catch me." Sooooo clever! What was Sambo thinking? Duh.