What We've Been Reading

Amazingly, we have been keeping on track with our read-aloud plan for the year!  For us, read-aloud time comes in the afternoon--after all our other schoolwork is completed and while the boys are snoozing.  I love curling up on the couch with my girls and getting lost in the pages of a book.  I love when we get to the end of a chapter and they beg, "Read, more, Mama.  More!  PLEASE!"  This school year, we have read three excellent books.


Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is the story of a young girl who is sent from her home to live with her spinster aunts, Jane and Miranda, in the town of Riverboro.  Rebecca has a way of charming everyone she meets with her creativity, imagination and energy.  While we did enjoy the book, it did become difficult for Mary to follow the plot, especially in the later chapters.  I plan to read this wonderful book again when the kids are a few years older.


Who hasn't heard of Peter Pan and Tink and Wendy?  Certainly, I was familiar with the story of Peter and Wendy, but I had never actually read it!  We laughed at the idea of having a dog for a nanny and thoroughly enjoyed flying away with Peter to Neverland.  The girls were riveted during the big fight scenes and may have acted it out one too many times.  I could probably blame the pregnancy hormones for my pendulum-like emotions lately, but I cried reading the last chapter.  If you haven't read the book yourself (really, skip the movies and read the book), I will totally ruin the ending if I go into an explanation for my tears, so please read the book for yourself.  I promise, you won't be disappointed.  One sort of funny thing I want to share is that Mary read this book on her Kindle before I had the chance to read it aloud.  Tink is very cute in Disney's portrayal, but she is really very crude and cruel in the book.  A few times, she calls Peter a "silly ass."  Rather than read it as written, I would just say, "silly," but my Mary, with the amazing memory, would correct me and say, "No, Mama, it says, 'silly ass!'"  We had a discussion about vulgar words!


Most recently, we completed Caddie Woodlawn.  Caddie is a red-haired tomboy running in the woods of Wisconsin in the late 1800s.  Because Caddie's sister Mary died in Wisconsin after the long journey from Boston, Caddie's father requested that Caddie be permitted to run wild with the boys rather than be made into a lady.  Amid the crazy escapades of Caddie and her brothers, Tom and Warren, there are some wonderful life lessons.  I especially enjoyed the chapter "Father Speaks" and even became teary-eyed (again blame the pregnancy hormones!)  We really, really, really enjoyed reading this book and are really excited about the sequel: Magical Melons.