Passing on reading traditions

Ava and David are four. The perfect age for make-believe play.

Stuffed animals, lego figures, costumes, and dolls start their imaginations rolling.

I bought some books about mice that were favorites of mine when I was teaching kindergarten and when my brothers and I made up adventures for our little stuffed animals.

Emily Arnold McCully’s books feature a large mouse family that have everyday adventures like going on picnics and sledding in the snow.

This cookbook has recipes that correlate to books Liam has read or may read.

For baby Kenton there are two Richard Scarry favorites.

Always so funny!

Picnic was a featured book for my ESL kindergartners.

I had a video and 3D cut paper activity that helped students understand the story.

Anatole is a classic story that I remember checking out from the Livingston Library when I was in elementary school.

Set in France, Anatole helps the cheese makers improve their cheese.

Finally, two new books for Liam.

He likes graphic novels and PB&J looked silly enough for a kid who likes to laugh.

Neil Gaiman writes for all ages. Some of his books are too scary for me but this one is funny. 

It reminds me of a Roal Dahl story. Strange, funny, odd, quirky. A good read. Hope he likes it.

I have been reading some mysteries and just finished reading my first Steven King  book.

More on those later.

 

Penguin books

We are going to a penguin birthday party for Ava on Friday.

After checking with Joey I bought these Tacky the Penguin books.

I was surprised at how many Tacky books there are.

Below is the first book.

The message in all of these books is that being odd is not a bad thing.

Below are all four books we are giving Ava.

Tacky doesn't fit the mold of a good penguin.

At first his penguin friends try to distance themselves from Tacky.

 But his silly way of looking at the world saves the day every time!

Hope Ava enjoys reading about this unconventional penguin. 

Sharing a reading tradition

Recently I mailed this little book to Ava with some doll dresses I made for her. She loves princesses and princess stories. I thought she would like this book as much as I had. 

My mom rarely bought us books. We visited the library weekly and I checked out a stack of books each time we went.

I think there was a sale on Golden Books and so mom bought each of us three or four books. As you can see this one was only 25 cents but our weekly groceries were about $10. 

Below you can see my 3rd grade penmanship. I was just learning cursive. I changed schools the summer after 2nd grade and remember that I was very anxious to learn cursive. I was afraid that

I would be behind the others if they had learned it in 2nd grade since I had not.

One day I will share the other books with Liam, David, and baby boy Cate. (His name has not been chosen as I write this.) I read my special Golden Books so many times. I could probably recite them today. We forget that re-reading favorite stories is an important part of building reading ability.

I hope Ava enjoys this book as much as I did sixty plus years ago.

Share your love of books with those you love. 

Cookbooks and Fantasy

In February after the graveside service for mom we ate together with family at mom's house.

Three year old David asked who would make him cookies now.

Mom always tried to have molasses cookies for the great-grands to eat when they came to her house.

She even sent cookies when we flew to NYC to visit Liam and David.

Martin and I got together a box to mail for Liam and David's May birthdays.

I made molasses cookies to include with the lab coats, books, and other treasurers.

The cookies aren't exactly like mom made them but I hope they are a comfort to David.

After I found mom's recipe file and while we are staying safe at home, Emily suggested that we make a family recipe book to share.

I pulled recipes from mom's file, my collection of saved recipes, mom's 1949 Good Housekeeping Cookbook that has had the covered loved off, the Calvary Cookbook, and the Brownsville Baptist Cookbook. I have retyped 9 pages of favorites so far. It is a good activity to work on in spare minutes.

This week I started reading The Enchanted Forest series.

I heard about the books on a teacher's book blog.

Ordered the box of books from Thriftbooks.

The series is for middle grade readers and is a fun read.

The first book was very engaging.

Started the second book last night

and the main character that I really liked has not appeared yet.

Still a good read. I would have loved these books as a middle schooler.

Of course they were not written until I was grown.

If you like magic kingdoms, dragons, humor, and mild suspense, you would like these books.

What are you reading today?

Peonies and stories about flowers

Martin put the cushions and cover on the swing.

Mischief is happy in her comfy place.

Sorry to inform her that I'm planning on spending time there reading.

The bearded iris are now blooming.

The mauve ones in the front are very prolific.

In the back there are small yellow iris, white iris buds, and amaryllis blooms.

We have been waiting on the peonies, watching their progress each day.

Martin got these from his mom's garden in Chattanooga.

They have bloomed in several places in our yards as we moved them with us.

He remembers his mom telling about her first peonies.

She was disturbed that ants were all over her peony buds.

So she put ant poison out to get rid of the ants.

Her peonies never opened.

She found out that peonies need ants to eat the covering on the buds for the flowers to bloom.

Sometimes we think we know best, when we really don't know the whole story.

I have read all my library books and the library is still closed.

Never fear I have some books that I bought that I haven't read.

Move over Mischief! I'm coming out to read.

Lots of reading going on here

Well, I have been reading but not posting for quite a while. I last posted a few days before my surgery. Then I was reading and recovering for several weeks. At the same time mom was having lots of health problems that required two hospitalizations and several weeks at rehab.

Mom had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure over a decade ago. She seemed like the energizer bunny, though. She kept on going and going. Finally her heart started failing.

She went to hospice on a Wednesday and passed peacefully in her sleep to her heavenly home on the following Sunday.

I still think about calling her about 4 pm at our regular phone call time.

I will continue to post her stories as I remember them.

Meanwhile as we all are quarantined from the coronavirus, here is what I've been reading.

The Blandings stories of P. G. Wodehouse -

The first magic bookshop mystery by Amanda Flower 

and a duplicate of a Wodehouse book.

The books above were found on Thriftbooks, a great book resale online store.

From the library I finally found Janet Evanovich's latest book. So funny!

And a new mystery series with a cat main character.

Also from the library, Rita Mae Brown mysteries with cat and dog sleuths.

I had read all of her books and took a break. Surprise! She has been busy writing more.

These last two are new to me. I thought a mystery solved by 'granny' might be fun.

We will see. I have 3 and a half new books to read. Hopefully the library will reopen by the time I finish reading them. 

Or I could order more from Thriftbooks.

Hope you are staying safe and well in these days of quarantine. 

Find some good books to read.

December - January Reading

Recently on Britbox streaming TV I watched a series based on P. G. Wodehouse's Blandings Castle and other books about the family of  Lord Emsworth. I checked the library and found a couple of the books, read them, then bought some more titles from Thriftbooks.

I need something light and silly right now for a distraction from health concerns - mine and moms.

So if you are looking for silly stories, I recommend these.

As I am dealing with worry and uncertainty I started back to writing in the notebook on the left.

I didn't want to share all my random thoughts on this blog but needed a place to write down things to get them out of my head and onto paper. It has helped me gain perspective on the things that are going on with my cancer diagnosis and all the anxiety surrounding that. I write down Bible verses that mean something to me and questions that I want to ask the doctor.

I opened Mere Christianity to the page that I last read and started to read and meditate on the enormous ideas C. S. Lewis explains so well. This has helped me so much with my anxiety. I have underlined parts that speak to me. I see the importance of slowing down and taking time to think on God and why we are here and why we need to be connected to Him.

Surgery is a few days away. I am asking for prayers for me, Martin, my family, and the medical team. I am hoping for cancer to be gone after the surgery but also know that there could be another plan for me. Asking for peace of mind whatever happens.

Love.