A Stolen Life- book review


A Stolen Life -by Jane Louise Curry is written for kids ages 10 to 14. It's a well-written historical novel with engaging characters, lots of action and some suspense.

Jamesina Mackenzie, lively, educated, living in her clan's highland homelands of Scotland is kidnapped by "spiriters' , taken on the ship Sparrowhawk to be sold as bond slave in America. The book takes you from the clan life of Scotland to an ocean crossing and then to southern plantation life, even to a Cherokee village. This pre-revolution story is historically accurate, giving readers a look at the indentured servant system as well as the slave trade. Jamesina's sorrow and helplessness as an unwilling indentured servant is profound, she is very likeable, resourceful and in the end- couragous. The very happy ending, with her surprise re-uniting with her brothers in a Scottish regiment is a little contrived, but it's the ending you really want, so it works.

A really good read for kids looking for a little bit of suspense, and the historical facts tucked in makes it a little bit educational, too. There are many subjects touched upon in this novel that would make for very good parent/child or group conversation.

Where I'd like to be - book review


Where I'd Like To Be by Frances Dowell is written for ages 10-14. This is the story of 12 year old Maddie who lives in a children's home. The story is told in 1st person, beginning with the the appearance of the new girl, Murphy, who is exciting with an exotic past- someone Maddie is hopeful will be her new friend. Murphy tells Maddie right off that Murphy is not her real name, along with stories of traveling with her parents before they were killed in an accident. Maddie is intrigued with the new girl and wants to believe her wonderful stories, even though part of her knows she shouldn't.
Maddie, Murphy and several other unlikely friends with different backgrounds/ different stories come together to build a playhouse- a real life extension of the dream homes they each carry in their hearts.

This story was sweet, innocent and a really great introduction to some of life's hard truths...that some kids do not have families, some kids are abandoned, some kids have parents that cannot care for them, all these kids hide hurts and hopes in their hearts. This story is a gentle look into these hard truths, without being brutal- shows the shadows and hurts without bruising the soul.

Where I'd like to be is a worthwhile read for this age group, a good first step into more mature themes. I firmly believe that even though there is much evil and ugliness in this world, that we do not need to bury our young children in it at a young age. This book told an interesting story without ugliness, the characters range of emotions are believable and change as the story unfolds, and best of all, hope and friendship are woven throughout.

a good read, I enjoyed it and your children will enjoy it also.

Science experiments book - review


We are using Janice VanCleave's 201 Awesome, Magical, Bizarre & Incredible Experiments for our Classical Homeschool group. I have to give it 5 stars out of 5 stars. The experiments are simple, the ingredients are easy to gather and best of all, the directions are easy to follow. We have done maybe 8 or 9 experiments so far, and they have all worked the way they are supposed to, and they all captured the interest of the kids.

The explanations for each experiment and discussion on concepts are brief, to the point - important science concepts are in bold to catch your eye, such as "osmosis" ...you are then free to find more resources on the subject if you wish, to flesh it out, or to just leave it be...which is nice, too, sometimes.

So far, the favorite experiments were the shrinking and na**ked egg. Big wow factor with all the kids, and again, very easy to set up.

If you are looking for just a little bit of science to round out your school year, short but not overwhelming..not a full on science curriculum...this would fit the bill.

good books alert


I stumble upon The Awe-Manac a daily dose of wonder by Jill Badonsky at the bookstore, and I had to have it! It's a daily almanac of sorts, but each day it gives you creative quotes, thoughts to inspire you, and ideas to challenge you to act out in some creative way each day. It's got lovely illustrations, too. Love it!


Healthy cooking for your kids is bargained priced over at Barnes & Nobles. It's a hardback and has great photos and some really good sounding recipes.
The Dragon slippers by Jessica Day George -this series is much loved at our house. I've read the first one, it was everything a good fantasy tale for kids should be. Josie is reading book three right now.

An adventurous hen, book review

Picture books about hens catch my eye, I have a soft-spot for that particular genre. This particular book, I took home with me. Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken is by Kate DiCamillo- the author of The tale of Despereux. It's a keeper, you have to take it home. To sum it up, Louise is a hen who longs for adventures and she has several in this book.
Chapter 1-Louise at sea...it says it all, really.

Here is an excerpt from the inside flap...

"She longed for adventure. So she left her home and ventured out into the wide world. The pleasures and perils she met proved plentiful:...Yet in the face of such daunting danger, our heroine...She was brave. She was fearless. She was feathered. She was a chicken. A not-so-chicken chicken. Her name? Louise."

Illustrations by Harry Bliss are a combination of comic and scenic..-wonderful.

Here are some of the quotable parts that just tickle me, and I quoth these often..as often as I can work them in...

"Louise stood alone on the deck of the ship and let the wind ruffle her feathers..."

and

"Her heart beat fast within her feathered breast." -that is my favorite quote, and it is repeated throughout the story, much to my delight...

..."And inside the henhouse, safe and warm, all the chickens slept the deep and dreamless and peaceful sleep of true adventurers."

sigh. Love it.

The Big Read

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books printed.

The Rules:

1) Look at the list and put one * by those you have read.
2) Put a % by those you intend to read.
3) Put two ** by the books you LOVE.
4) Put # by the books you HATE.
5) Post.

**1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (love,love,love it, read it often!)
**2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
**3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
**4 Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
%5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

**6 The Bible
*7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
#8 1984 - George Orwell (horrible, stinking ending, wanted to kick the book across the room, why couldn't he have left me with some kind of hope???)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (not very likely-saw the Golden Compass movie and was disturbed by it)
**10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
**11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read several, but not all-I even had a huge "complete works of" book, including sonnets, but didn't read it all)
15 Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier (I liked the black and white movie..doesn't really count tho')
**16 The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
%20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
*22 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (didn't really like, it upset me)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (read parts of it and studied it in H.S. AP class, but that doesn't count as really reading it)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams -
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh -
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (again studied it, but didn't read the whole thing)
#28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (depressing, I think it shouldn't be given to moody Jr. High students, why would you do that??)
*29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
%30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
*31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
**32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
**33 Chronicles of Narnia- C.S. Lewis
**34 Emma - Jane Austen
**35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (it's hard to pick a favorite of Jane Austen, but this is probably my favorite of 2)
**36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis -
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis de Bernières -
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
**40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
*41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins -
**46 Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery (love the whole series, I re-read them every year or so, usually in the fall- it's a fall thing...)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
%49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
%51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
**52 Dune - Frank Herbert (I loved this book, captures the imagination-but the sequel was weird and I gave up on the series after that)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
**54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
**57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (wonderful!!)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
#61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (hated it...)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
%65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
**68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (a great read!! It is a re-telling of Pride & Prejudice, and hilarious!!)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
*70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
*71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
**73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Émile Zola
%79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A.S. Byatt
*81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
#83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (a horrible, horrible, vile book. I was too young to realize I should just walk away from it. The book that convinced me to never read any of Oprah's book list ever again)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
**85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
*87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
*89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle (the BBC series with Jeremy Brett is addicting)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
*92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (read it in French!)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
**94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (Beautiful and intriguing, going to read it to my kids)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
%97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
**98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (my favorite Shakespeare play)
*99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
%100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I came up with 39...

Not too shabby. How did you do?

hat tip to Angelina at Permanent Things.

a book is an adventure


Flipping through my Tapestry of Grace curriculum guide, I noticed that we would be coming up on The Odyssey in a few weeks. I am very much looking forward to this, and I already had planned on checking the library for The Adventures of Odysseus by Barefoot Books- to read with my 3 youngest students. If they didn't have it, I was going to purchase it, because it just looks beautiful. This week at the library I stumbled upon it and checked it out, what serendipity!

Demi-Sky pounced on it, curling up with it the other day- and he asked me to read to him the page about the sirens, wondering what the bird-like creatures with women's heads were.

I have to tell you that this book is a simplified re-telling of The Odyssey for children. I studied The Odyssey in a High School AP class, years ago- but frankly, we rarely had time to actually read the works we studied- I was lucky if we read one of the stories (I can't remember), most likely we outlined it and discussed major themes and literature types and importance.

I sat down with Demi, Sky was in the room listening, and read this aloud;

...."The shimmering song began. I begged my crew to change their course. I threatened them and cursed them but they were deaf to my pleas....

....As for me, I could see nothing. I could only hear a song so searingly beautiful I nearly lost all reason.

In the song I heard so many sounds: the beating of a swan's wings, the hiss and drag of the sea on sand, the moan of the wind as it blows across the broad face of the world, the rythm of the passage of the seasons, my wife singing-and all the sounds I heard were in harmony. For those few moments I heard the Song of the Spheres. Ever since then, all music has been clatter to me; the sound of a shield as it falls on a cobblestone floor."

I began to choke up, and I looked at Sky and said, "dang, if this is a simplified paraphrase, I have to read the real thing now!" (-I know, I'm profound and poetic, aren't I? Just keeping it real, bloggy friends...)

just wow.
go get this book! You can buy it at the Chinaberry catalog here* or from any other bookseller.
The illustrations are beautiful.