These two books were finds at the local library. My girls and I like any picture book by Jan Brett; her illustrations are breathtaking! Mossy is a cute story about a turtle that grows a garden on its back. Also impressive are the watercolors and narrative of Say's Grandfather's Journey, the touching story of the author's grandfather's life in Japan and later in the United States. In the library's children's section, my kids look over the chapter books while I peruse the picture books. There's a lot of twaddle among the shelves nowadays, but fortunately, not all the gems have disappeared. I tell my girls, you outgrow some things, but good picture books will never be one of them!
Lyle appears in several books, and what's hilarious is that he carries on as a normal member of society! This particular book deals with the fact that Lyle is the perfect candidate for several jobs, but his owners, Mr. and Mrs. Primm, refuse to let him work. I especially get a kick out of his mother, Felicity, a crocodile who works as a nurse in the hospital maternity ward!
These were some finds at a favorite used book store:
I wasn't planning to get them, but wanted to glance through them just for fun. This book store seems to know when it has nice, old, rare finds, and will often ask more for them than I'm willing to pay. However, when I saw that the price of each was a mere dollar, I had to rescue them! Look at their charming inside covers!
Come Home Laughing started out as the Master's thesis of Tanya Lyons, an unknown author, and unraveled into this marvelous book dedicated to adults whose parents divorced when they were children. The design is unique: a fiction story with factual data woven throughout. Sloane and others examine the relationship between their struggles as adults and the wounds they incurred as children. They learn to heal from the inside out through time together doing life, and at an intense retreat to promote healing. Lyons' book is written from a Christian point of view, and shed much light for me personally. This book masterfully tackles issues that a large number of Americans probably have, yet haven't dealt with. I plowed through it in a few days, with laughter, tears, prayer, and note-taking.
Finally, this school term, we have a new poet to study: William Wordsworth. At the library book sale last fall, I purchased a volume of his poems (published around 1890) for probably a dollar. How extraordinary to read and copy his poetry directly from a book from that time period!
Each school year, Charlotte Mason's students studied the poetry of one author for a term of twelve weeks, for a total of three poets per year. We began with Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and I believe our favorite was "The Charge of the Light Brigade." Then came twelve weeks of Emily Dickinson, whose haphazard use of hyphens and capitalization break every punctuation rule I've attempted to teach so far! I personally found her poetry lukewarm, as famous as it became after her death, and never was able to truly endear myself to this reclusive, odd individual.
Wordsworth's poetry, however, is a breath of fresh air. I think my girls concur; I haven't asked them outright, but I can tell from their attention and expressions that they enjoy his descriptions of childhood, godly things, butterflies, sparrows, and outside play. One can practically feel the fresh air of his poetry, and the heart seems to lighten while reading it. Again, we don't rip it apart in search of meaning; it's there simply to read for pleasure, and to copy for penmanship and spelling practice:
