Half-Way There Reading Challenge Review

As of the end of June, half of my 2014 reading year is up.  How am I doing on my 14 x 14 in 2014 Reading Challenge?


One Category Finished: Children's Lit

What fourteen children's books did I read (with my kids)?

1. Children's Lit
1. Squire by Tamora Pierce
2. Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce
3. The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan
4. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
5. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
6. A Dog Called Homeless by Sarah Lean
7. Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo
8. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
9. Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan
10. Shadow of the Serpent by Rick Riordan
11. Summer of the Gypsy Moths by Sara Pennypacker
12. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood
13. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Hidden Gallery by Maryrose Wood
14. The Icebound Land by John Flanagan

Of these, my favorites were The One and Only Ivan  and Summer of the Gypsy Moths, both because they were about real life issues of home, independence, and relationships and both because they were heartfelt without being too maudlin.  A Dog Called Homeless was also very heartfelt (and it made me cry while I read it out loud) but it was a bit too obvious in its emotional manipulations.  Flora and Ulysses was quirky and adorable, and a really fun book that had us all saying what is this book about?  What is going on!? but in a good way.  The Incorrigible Children series is great silly fun and a great vocabulary builder - it's one of those books that uses the big words and then also explains what they mean to the kids but it makes sense and doesn't break up the flow of the narrative.  The rest on the list were also good, but pretty standard fantasy adventure fare.  Not that I don't enjoy fantasy adventure - I do!  

One Category Half-Finished (so on track, I guess): Books Made Into Movies 

1. Books Made Into Movies
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
3. Horns by Joe Hill
4. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (*double dipper)
5. Divergent by Veronica Roth
6. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell *(double dipper)
7. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

This turns out to be a diverse collection - lots of different sorts of books get made into movies!  I'm also trying to watch the movies after I read the books, but I haven't seen the newest (not available on netflix yet) from this list. I did not like the adaptation of Ender's Game into a movie - the book was much better.  I did like the adaptation of Cloud Atlas (a crazy book to even try to adapt into a movie!) and the movie of The Old Man and the Sea is so faithful to the book I could say lines out loud right before the narrator said them on the movie.  Oh - and I watch both versions of Great Gatsby.  Gotta go with Robert Redford on this one!

None of the other categories are on track, although many are very close at either five or six books read:

1.  Religion, Ethics, Philosophy, and Spirituality

2.  Self-Improvement and Lifestyle

3.  Work Related

4.  Science and Psychology

5.  History

6.  Just for Fun Reads

And then some are really trailing at only 3 or 4 books read:

1.  Parenting

2.  Women's Studies

3.  Poetry

4.  Books to Read Before You Die

5.  My Favorite Detectives

6.  Around the World, in Alphabetical Order

For the full lists, you can look at my Challenge Page.   OK - enough blogging, I need to get back to reading!

We Need Diverse Books

Did you ever play Authors?  This was one of my mom's favorite games when I was a kid, and I remembered it fondly.  When I recently ordered a set for my family to try out, however, I had one of those uncomfortable moments when you see a childhood thing and realize how biased it was.

The authors are all white, and there is only one woman author.  My kids noticed it at once, and I'm proud of them for that.  But darn - I really liked this game when I was a kid, and it actually greatly influenced my reading list.

And that means that I missed out on a lot of good books that would have broadened my horizons.  Reading is the closest I can come to understanding a world, a place, a time, or a life that I can't actually live.  A good book gives the reader a chance to step into other shoes in a way that nothing else does.

The We Need Diverse Books campaign has made waves recently, and it is bringing much needed attention to the issue.  Not only do we need diverse books because everyone should be able to see themselves represented somewhere in the library shelves or the bookstore, but we also all need to explore beyond our own lives and beyond people who look or live just like we do.



As a teacher, it is my job to surround the children I am educating (my own and the children at church) with books that celebrate diversity, promote acceptance and compassion, and open their minds to a larger vision of the possibilities of life.  All teachers should be curating the books they surround their students with, and there are helpful guides out there that can point us in the right direction.

(I also have a recommended reading list on my other blog right now, reflecting some of the good books I've found recently.)

Is it a lot of work to re-sort and re-evaluate your collection?  Yes.  But this is important, incredibly important, work that we all need to do.  And, it is also a joyful and fun task!  Goodness, there are some amazingly good books out there that are both representative of diversity and just lovely books in their own right.  If you love books, then realizing that you've only been getting just a slice of the them by reading your standards means that now you have a whole new world to explore.

But we only have them to explore if they get published, and so seek them out, buy them, and demand that publishers give us diverse books!

A bit of Musing on How to Get My Son to Read a Novel

Reading is one of my passions, and we are always surrounded by piles of books in our home, the kids see me reading all the time, and we make weekly trips to the public library to bring home even more books.

I think reading is one of the most important things we can do, and I'm very dismayed by the recent data that shows it on the decline with children.    In my ideal world all children would be soaked in reading, the outdoors, joyful physical movement, and imaginative play.

But this has not resulted in passionate little readers in my own household.  Both of my kids have struggled with the mechanics of reading, so I didn't get to enjoy the pleasure of seeing my tiny 6 year old reading Harry Potter to herself.  Instead, I have sat by their side as they struggle, sometimes even crying, to read Splat the Cat.  

My eight-year old is still in this stage of struggling, but my eleven-year old has had the full break through and really can read independently now.  I've responded to that by putting "Independent Reading Time" into his homeschool schedule.  He fills that time with his own passions - non-fiction books about science, technology, and history.  That's wonderful, but I worry that he isn't reading literature.

Not that the kids aren't soaked in fiction - but it's all on audiobook, or we read it out loud together.  And I love that - because I get to enjoy all these books too and because then we have a shared story line as a family that we can all use as a springboard for conversation, further learning, and imaginative play together.



But it still bothers me that my kids aren't "Readers". I'm thinking about giving him a Book List that he has to choose from for at least part of that Independent Reading Time on the schedule.  Or maybe I need to put Literature into his schedule as its own time block.  The summer is probably a great time to experiment with this, as our schedule will have to be changed week-to-week based on which child is in a summer camp and what the camp schedule is.  So maybe it will be a Summer Reading List!

What in the World Are We Studying Now?

We don't follow a grand, preplanned scope and sequence here in our homeschool.  As I explained last August, child-led interests caused us to abandon the chronological approach to history, for instance.

And now that my daughter is also off on her own explorations that sometimes converge, sometimes run parallel, and sometimes conflict with those of her older brother, we end up with some very interesting combinations going at once around here.  I'll admit that it can overwhelm me a bit at times, to juggle all these subject areas, two very different learners, and all the resources to organize and schedules to keep straight.

Currently we are:




1.  Feeding a new found interest in classical music in both kids.  In addition to their piano and violin lessons, they are enjoying learning more about the life of some famous composers and listening to classical music on Pandora.

2.  Exploring the Colonial history of North America.  After my daughter watched the Disney movie Pocahontas from the library and I was reminded how inaccurate that movie is, I started by checking out some good children's biographies of Pocahontas.  Interest in Jamestown led us to the PBS reality show Colonial House, which was a huge hit with the kids.  Now we are reading a stack of library books about Colonial times and contemplating some craft projects to go with it.



3.  The boy has just finished reading a whole chapter book by himself - a new achievement for him!  The book is Alanna, the first in a series of four books I had just read out loud to both kids, so he decided to go back to the beginning of the story and read it again.  The sight of him curled up reading a book is a welcome one for me!

4.  He is also finishing his study of WWII.  We're wrapping it up with a few old classic John Wayne movies, and then we'll be done.  Since we broke with our old chronological approach to jump straight to WWI, we had to decide what to do next: keep going through the 20th century history or go back to something earlier?  He chose the latter option, and we're going back to Medieval history where we had left off before.

5.  Getting our second go-around with Ancient Greece.  My daughter was interested enough to sit in and listen when her older brother studied Ancient Greece years ago, and we did Greek Myths all together last year.  So now she is ready to study Ancient Greece in her own right, but he's interested enough to listen in (this is a great advantage of multi-grade settings, that children get multiple exposures and plenty of chances to review and even be tutors to younger children).  Because we did the myths so much already, we're reading children's versions of the Homeric epics now.



6.  Earth Science for Hypatia using Real Science Odyssey, and Physics for Carbon using Exploration Education.  We've got crystals growing right now, and we've been messing about with a rock collection, identifying rocks.  Carbon has built an electrical circuit and is messing about a lot with his snap circuits (I can't praise snap circuits enough).

7.  Still practicing Spanish with Rosetta Stone and Hooked on Spanish.

8.  Choosing not to move on from the Alpha level of Math U See right away for the girl, but doing some Kumon addition and subtraction workbooks first.  Meanwhile, the boy is cruising again and moving quickly through the Gamma level.  Sometimes math comprehension comes quickly, sometimes it doesn't, and we try to follow the flow and stay with a level until it's truly been mastered.

9.  Doing Language Lessons with both kids, and then we've been doing Explode the Code (on paper, not the online version) with both as well, but I think it's no longer useful for my son.  He's finished Level 3, and now I'm wanting to do a different program with him - something like a word roots program.  If you have one to recommend, please tell me!

10.  With the boy we are using Writing Strands.  I have mixed feelings about the program, and would like to explore some other writing programs.  Once again, recommendations are most welcome!

11.  With the girl we are still focused on getting her reading.  We have a lot of beginning readers, and just read one a day.  They are of extremely variable quality, but have the virtue of being short even if they are awful.  I try to pay attention to her zone of proximal development and avoid frustrating her too much but still challenging her as we read together.

12.  And of course there is: nature study as it occurs naturally (pun intended), "Outdoor Hour", gardening, baking, animal husbandry, chores, Minecraft, imaginative play, movie-making, "Project Time" and "Making Time", yoga, and field trips.


What we're not doing: we've fallen off with our art program.  Mostly we ran out of supplies, and I haven't had the money to spend to go the art supply store.

The Reading Life

One of my book piles. :)  A few of those books never did get read however, because I ran out of time on the library loan and had to return the Hoffman book unread, and I had accidentally grabbed the graphic novel version of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? when really I wanted the original.

I was disappointed with The Rhythm of Family.  It is a series of short essays about living seasonally, but I didn't find it as compelling as I expected it to be.

Happy Home has some interesting sewing projects, but I didn't find anything I wanted to make from it. That's the good reason to check these craft and sewing books out from the library before you buy them!

The books that I am reading for my credentialing studying right now: Multigenerational Congregations, Conflict Management in Congregations, and How Your Church Family Works. All of them are pretty interesting, if you enjoy thinking about how groups of people work together and what healthy relationship systems are.

I really should just take Goat Song off my pile, because it can't compete with the other books I'm reading at the moment so it will be a long time before I come back to it.  And then the Bible and the Asimov guide are on there because I have a goal of actually doing some personal Bible Study, but I never seem to find the time.

And Friedman's Fables was an impulse buy that I haven't spent much time exploring yet, but I like the idea of stories about systems theory and right relations, so I hope to find some good stuff in there.

The kids and I listened to Mr. and Mrs. Bunny - Detectives Extraordinaire! in the car.  I grabbed it at the library because of the cute title, and I loved it.  It had me giggling and laughing out loud.  Some of the funniness actually went over the kids' heads, though, so it's almost a better book for adults than kids.  Very silly, very fun.

Picture Books for the 6th Principle

Our 6th of the 7 UU Principles is The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

Following our Rainbow scheme for the kids it is worded (Indigo Promise)  Insist on Peace and Justice for All 

The books we read for this Principle this summer:

Why War is Never a Good Idea by Alice Walker is an unflinching, but beautifully illustrated, reflection on all the consequences of war.

Can You Say Peace? shows children from around the world saying "peace" in different languages.

What Does Peace Feel Like? has quotes from children about what peace feels, smells, tastes, and sounds like.  It's quite delightful.

Peace Begins With You is my favorite, being a simple explanation of conflict, peace, and how we can work toward peace.

This list of books about peace and social justice looks promising also.

Children's books for the 5th Principle

Our 5th Unitarian Universalist Principle is The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

For the kids we re-word that as Believe in Your Ideas and Act on Them, and Listen to the Ideas of Others or sometimes as Everyone Has a Voice

Books I love for this Principle:

The Day Gogo Went to Vote is about a South African grandmother finally getting the right to vote after the end of apartheid. 

Yertle the Turtle

Horace and Morris, but mostly Dolores

Heart on Fire: Susan B Anthony Votes for President

Henry Hikes to Fitchberg

Books about the political process here.

Related posts:
Books for the 4th Principle

Books for the 3rd Principle

Books for the 2nd Principle

Books for the 1st Principle

Picture Books for the 4th Principle

The 4th of the Unitarian Universalist Principles is A Free and Responsible Search for Truth and Meaning, which we word for the children as Grow By Searching for Truth.  Books I have found that go with this Principle are:

The Three Questions by Jon Muth takes a Leo Tolstoy story and reworks it as a magical fable for children.

Another Jon Muth book is also good for this Principle: Zen Shorts

The Hermit and the Well is a story from Thich Nhat Hanh's childhood.

The Empty Pot and The Greatest Power, both by Demi, are stories of how children search for truth and are rewarded with positions of authority because of their search.

Related Posts:

Picture Books for the 1st Principle
Picture Books for the 2nd Principle
Picture Books for the 3rd Principle

Picture Books for the 3rd Principle

Continuing with my series of Sunday posts of books for each of the Unitarian Universalist 7 Principles, we come to our 3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations


For the kids, we rephrase this as Yearn to Learn

How My Parents Learned to Eat is a charming story of an American sailor and a young Japanese woman courting each other and learning how to eat in the ways of each other.


Who's In Rabbit's House? uses a clever device of a play being put on, with a story of how all sorts of animals try to "help" rabbit, but all fail to listen to the quiet suggestions that actually end up solving the mystery.

Sumi's First Day of School Ever shows how a newly immigrant student, who doesn't speak English, experiences her first day of school.

Once Upon a Time tackles the subject of a child experiencing difficulty reading, and how people who accept and believe in her eventually help her overcome it. 

Picture Books for the First Principle

All this summer we are doing a reading program at church, and trying to tie the picture books we read into our 7 Principles.

The first of the UU 7 Principles is the inherent worth and dignity of all, which the children initially learn as respect everyone.  


Here are the picture books I have found to go with this principle:

1.  The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss

2.  Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees

3.  Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polacco

4.  The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills

5.  Momma, Where are You From? by Marie Bradbury

6.  My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis

7.  Everybody Cooks Rice by Norah Dooley

There are more books organized the Principles here.

And, as our 1st Principle is very much tied into anti-bias work, there is a list of recommended picture books for anti-bias education here.

The Reading Life

'Tis the season of the summer reading program.  Besides the summer REading program I'm doing at church, the kids have forms for the reading program at Barnes and Noble and the one from the local library.  Barnes and Noble is giving out free books after they read 10 books and write a recommendation for each, and the library has a different coupon each week the kids can pick up when they come in and update their book lists.  At church they can pick a prize out each time they finish 7 Books - one for each UU Principle.




I question how much these summer reading programs really motivate kids.  I think a book is its own best reward, and kids who love to read will read in the summer no matter what.  Those who don't love to read aren't going to care about free books or coupons or little prizes.  And why do we try to encourage reading in the summer?  What about the winter - curl up with a good book in front of the fire?  The spring - rainy days are reading days?  The fall - the best harvest is between the covers of a book?

But no matter how ineffective the summer reading push may be, we continue to place books and stories in the center of our lives.  Our favorites recently:

Dark Life by Kat Falls creates an imaginative future where global warming has raised the water levels and led to a need to farm the ocean floor.  It's somewhat dystopian, but aimed for the tweens so the politics are a bit naive (and the love scene at the end of the book was painfully awkward).  Carbon loved it, however, and was intrigued by the idea of undersea living.  Too bad "liquigen" isn't a real option.

TinTin in America by Herge is a classic, but we did have to stop and talk to the kids about the portrayal of Native Americans in the book - it is simply awful.  Actually, I have all sorts of problems with TinTin, and yet somehow allow it to charm it's way past my normal standards.

Judy Moody and Stink: the Mad Mad Mad Mad Treasure Hunt by Megan McDonald has been a lot of fun.  I think I prefer the straight up Judy Moody books, which are aimed at slightly older kids, but in this crossover book the siblings are really a team, and not snarky rivals.  It's good for my sibling set and they are both enjoying it equally.

Urchin and the Heart Stone, the second in the Mistmantle Chronicles, continues the action right where Urchin of the Riding Stars ended.  This second book lacks some of the energy of the first, however.

The Reading Life: the not so great book week

Another week, another pile of picture books.  Nothing we read this week was really all that great though. I don't know if I'm just not in a great mood this week, if the kids are getting too old for picture books, or if we just didn't have any winners in this pile.

The good thing is, since they are all from the library, we can just return them and get another pile!

Saturday Morning book post

Another week, another book post. I am in a spot where I don't have very many books to talk about myself, because I've picked up about five and read the first five pages but not decided which one I will actually read. And I'm still trying to finish up that Models of Religious Education text book. Hopefully soon I'll actually get going on a book that I can tell you all about!

For the kids, I got The Daring Book for Girls from the library. Carbon, based on his enjoyment of The Dangerous Book for Boys, was super excited and tried to get Hypatia interested. She was 100% not interested. But at least by just checking it out it showed Carbon that there could be exciting things out there for girls also.

Both kids are reading out loud to me now. Hypatia just decided she could read, and is working her way through the Bob Books Set One. With repetition and some help, she really can read them, and she is clearly going to be one of those kids who doesn't really use any method (no phonics for this child) but just somehow starts reading. She's determined and what ever help I do give her has to be really subtle so she still feels like she's doing it herself.

Carbon - my logical systems phonics boy, who stops and argues about spellings, hates silent k's, and would like to redesign the english language - is also reading out loud. He's graduated from those silly Bob Books to "real" books:

Henry and Mudge in Puddle Trouble by Cynthia Rylant

Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff

10 Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss

The great thing about this stage of reading is that our local library has a whole section of these easy readers, so he can choose his own books and there are lots of them. There are some book series that are really good - we all like Henry and Mudge, Nate the Great, Frog and Toad, and Amelia Bedelia. I look forward to finding some other good ones that are new to me.

Hypatia is picking them up too - she REALLY wants to be reading. After he reads a book, she takes it from him and carries it around the house, "reading" it by repeating what she just heard him read.

Our audiobook in the car this week is the fourth in the Percy Jackson series: The Battle of the Labyrinth. I think this series is actually getting better with each book, or possibly I just like all the characters more as they develop and have their adventures.

Well, that's about all the time I have for books today ... I've got to go tidy up and get ready to have a BBQ here today. :)

Been Reading - Twig

Twig by Elizabeth Orton Jones, was a delightful find from someone's blog, which unfortunately I have forgotten and therefor cannot give a hat tip where it is due.

The book is now more than 60 years old, and it reads with a charming old-fashioned quality but is also so simple and universal a story that it still made sense to my modern child. A little girl, known as Twig, lives a simple and bare-bones life, with the small and barren backyard of her apartment building described as "her whole world". When she finds an old tomato can that has been ripped in a shape that looks just like a door, she puts it out in the yard next to the dandelion flower, and hopes that a fairy will come and make its home in it. Through the magic of "Elf", a young character escaped from a story, she herself is transformed into the right size to live in the tomato can.

The adventures from there are simple and sweet, but were still of interest to Carbon as we read it to him. Although the book is older, the author seemed to be writing from her own life and her own heart, and those aspects of childhood have not changed in all these years.