The question of modern living books

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, as we've been reading some more recent fiction as our read alouds.

Last year we read a bunch of Kate DiCamillo, and this year we've read Karina Yan Glaser's The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street and Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy.

When we were reading DiCamillo, especially Despereaux and Edward Tulane, I really felt that she immerses you in the story, in the characters, in the place(s). Sometimes I thought the language was a bit rough, but it was set in such a world of fantasy, that I could forgive the torture of rats etc.

Now, reading The Vanderbeekers and The Penderwicks, I felt like these books were "very good" compared the junk hitting library shelves at an alarming rate. But... I don't know if it is because they are not fantasy, but about real families living life. Or what it is. But I just can't say that I loved either of them. Better than the twaddle? Yes! Much better! Wonderful beyond compare? Meh.

I enjoyed how Glaser depicted the brownstone. You do love that building and its inhabitants. But I couldn't get over the love interest. And the lying and sneaking around.

I also felt that we get to care about some of the Penderwick sisters. But I did not care for the love interest, yet again. And the sneaking around and lying to parents. Parents who are depicted as mean, a bit dim, and kids who hoodwink them.

These are much better books than the "obvious" twaddle being published today. But, still, I can't help but feel that there is something lacking. Depth. Nuance in the plot. Nuance in the language. Nuance in the thoughts presented. There is little description. No theology. Very few "ideas."

To give you some context, in the last few months, we've also read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, a journey through a bunch of E. Nesbit's fantasy (The Enchanted Castle, Five Children and It, and The Phoenix and the Carpet), and Fina's Homeschooling Dad took a break from Narnia to read The Hobbit and now they started on The Lord of the Rings. Reading these newer works in tandem with these classics, you can just feel the difference.

I think it also has something to do with these words by C.S. Lewis:

A children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. (“On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” paragraph 7)

It is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one’s adult enjoyment of what are called ‘children’s books’. I think the convention a silly one. No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty—except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all. A mature palate will probably not much care for crème de menthe: but it ought still to enjoy bread and butter and honey. (“On Stories,” paragraph 19)

I really wanted to like these books. There is so much hype about them in my world. A world where people know and value a good book! But I just can't.
Now I'm feeling badly that I've recommended them and even bought them as gifts for unsuspecting people. Two life lessons learned. Don't judge a book by what others tell you. And don't gift books you've not yet read yourself!

I know that we won't know if something will become a classic, until it stands the test of time. And it can't stand the test of time until the years have passed. But already now, mere years after these were published, I have my doubts.

I'd love to hear what you think, dear readers! Have any of you had similar feelings? Or am I just a book snob!?!?

Christmas break

We've had a Christmas break from formal lessons and spent a lot of time just reading aloud.

Fina's homeschooling dad finished reading The Hobbit with her and they started The Lord of the Rings.
He read Kate Seredy's A Tree for Peter aloud for all of us over a few days at Christmas and it was a very touching story.

Fina and I read a bunch of Christmas-y books.
We absolutely loved Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I can't believe I've never read it. We both were impressed at the language, the turn of phrase. You can just tell a living book, even reading a few sentences. That book is beautiful, through and through. We ILL'd the version illustrated by P. J. Lynch, upon the recommendations of some CM moms, and it did not disappoint.
We also greatly enjoyed Astrid Lindgren's The Children of the Noisy Village. Such a cute book, with the Christmas chapter in it.
Rumer Godden's The Story of Holly and Ivy is the sweetest book we've read in a long time. It's a new favourite.

We were on a Tomie DePaola kick. We read his Francis: The Poor Man of Assisi which is a beautiful book! The Lady of Guadalupe, The Legend of Old Befana, The Legend of the Pointsettia, and The Story of the Three Wise Kings.

We read a few other more modern books.
We liked Susan Tan's Cilla Lee-Jenkins: Future Author Extraordinare. It is nice to see a biracial girl exploring her identity.
We also read Karina Yan Glaser's The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street. I really wanted to like that book, but I think it ever so slightly deals with things in a little bit more of a mature manner than I had hoped, based on the reviews. I didn't always love how the kids treated each other. And I didn't care for the love interest. But you do feel like the brownstone is a character. It is well-written. Fina really wants to read the sequel. We shall see.

Fina is loving all things E. Nesbit. After having read The Enchanted Castle in the fall. We read her Five Children and It and Fina loved it! As soon as we finished that, we started reading The Phoenix and the Carpet. I did not know that it was a trilogy, the third book being The Story of the Amulet.

She got this cute loom from Ikea and has been making tiny carpets and mats with it.

Plus lots of playing outside, some skating and some skiing.

We have had quite a few days where the snow is buildable this year. More than usual. Which has been fun.

We started back to school last week, but I'm working on a new post for that. Thank you for your patience, kind readers!

knitting and skiing

We finished reading The Courage of Sarah Noble and our moving on to Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare as our historical fiction reading. We read the first chapter and it is riveting. I fear it may be a little mature for Fina (as there is a young woman who is being wooed by a man) but she told me she liked it and didn't want to stop!

I purchased three McGuffey readers and we are quickly making our way through them.

Fina is enjoying her knitting.

And continues to enjoy her brush drawing.

You might not be able to see that corn cob, but it is so detailed!

I love how in a CM education, you read slowly and spread out. It can seem counter-intuitive, but there is something wonderful about picking up a book, after having set it aside for one week. We are experiencing this with Rosemary Sutcliffe's The Wanderings of Odysseus. Fina loves it and easily picks back up from where we left off.

We had a lovely jaunt in our forest on Friday afternoon. Fina found a great tree limb to sit in!

One the weekend, Fina finally convinced me to let her go skiing. (I keep discouraging her, telling her it would not be fun to ski on the iced over slush and that she should wait for the next snow.) Well, did she prove me wrong! She had a lovely night-time ski on Saturday in our park and again on Monday night in a wind storm. We are still waiting on that new snow!

We've spent some lovely time watching our window bird feeder over the last few days. On Monday, we actually saw a blue jay come to it many times (though he is so big, almost too big for it), as well as the black capped chickadees and nuthatches who are our regular guests. Wonderful!

Another proof of recitation leads to memorization. We've been working on "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. We've only spent less than 10 minutes, 4 times (once a week) and today, Fina was able to recite it almost perfectly on Monday!

We finished reading The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden, as one of our free reads. It is a cute story and we both enjoyed it. I think we're going to try Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux next.

We started some history things this week. I started our family's history chart (outlining the years from when Fina's homeschooling dad and I met to the present) and Fina started her own life's history chart, from her birth to the present). We spent about 15 minutes filling in some information and it went really well. This leads up to other history tools.

Today, on our way home from outdoor playgroup, we stopped by our town's nativity scene that was just put up this weekend. They don't put Jesus in until Christmas.

Thanks for joining us!

Year 1, week 34, day 2, April 10

Fina started her morning with some yoga. (She needs the movement. She did not go out to play at all yesterday and, obviously, she feels it!)

I read Genesis 5, Adam's descendants to Noah.
Fina did 18C and D of her math, continuing to work on subtraction.
We reviewed her recitations.
I read "The Lion's Share" and "The North Wind and the Sun" from Aesop's Fables for narration.
We reviewed our nursery rhymes in Pio Peep and then I read through Oso Pardo (Brown Bear).  Fina repeated some of the words after me. We will go through it, one page at a time over the next few weeks.

Fina worked on her cursive. The slate seems to be working well.

We read our next poem, #189 "Robin Redbreast."
Fina read Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? aloud to me.

We sang our hymn and folksong.
And Fina worked on her dry brush painting.

Her butterfly net, with some very detailed tiny butterflies. The blue blob is a piece of the sky.

While she painted, we listened to a few chapters of The King of the Golden City on Librivox.

She went out to play and chase butterflies after lunch for a bit.

We've got a busy week at church this week, it being Holy Week and all! But we are looking forward to the wonderful celebrations!

Cabane a sucre in our town!

We took an easy (read not at all) school day on Friday, spending a lot of time doing some free reads. We read William Steig's Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and The Amazing Bone. We also started reading the third book in the Sarah, Plain and Tall series by Patricia MacLachlan called Caleb's Story.  And we continued with The Wizard of Oz.

Fina also spent a lot of time drawing and playing. And she spent many hours outside, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. Wearing shorts and a t-shirt. She stayed out playing with our little neighbour friend until 9pm. They LOVE being outside in the stillness and dark. (Fina did put on a fleece sweater and pants once the sun went down!)

On Saturday, we had our town's Maple Syrup Festival and we spent the day enjoying maple syrup products, exploring the museum, witnessing historical re-enactments, visiting an old fashioned house and eating baked goods coming right out of the wood stove, going on a horse drawn wagon ride, churning some butter, watching a lady carding and spinning alpaca wool, listening to Manitoban story tellers, playing with our friends and having lots and lots of tire sur la neige. We live in a wonderful town! We had a great time today!

Year 1, week 34, day 1, April 6

We had a great Manitoba Charlotte Mason Enrichment evening last night. We were 11 moms. We did a discussion on narration and then we spent some time doing a dry-brush of a pussywillow branch. It was really wonderful!

We're continuing to read The Wizard of Oz as our free read. Fina is enjoying it. So far, I find that the movie is surprisingly faithful to the book, which is neat. (Fina has not seen the movie.)

I read Matthew 5:13-16. Fina worked on her recitations. We finished reading Benajmin Franklin by the D'Aulaires and Fina narrated throughout.

We finished Peppa se va a dormir in Spanish.
We read "A Fisherman Robbed" in The Burgess Bird Book. We read about the Osprey and the Bald Eagle.  We watched this very cool video of an Osprey swooping down on fish.

I read poem #179, "The Mouse and the Cake" by Eliza Cook in The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

We did chapter 19 of catechism and read the section about Holy Week as well.

We sang our hymn and folksong.
Fina read aloud from Benjamin Bunny.
We re-read Me on the Map.

And we spent many hours outside at the 6th birthday party of our little friend J. It was a great day!

We've skipped a few days of piano practice. We have had a few late nights and Fina has been sleeping in and I've been wanting to finish by lunch. We will get things back on track!

Year 1, week 33, day 4, April 5

This pic is from Monday. All of our snow is GONE and just look at that sky!

On Tuesday, we had a great outdoor playgroup yesterday.  We found this little guy.

And the kids enjoyed swimming in the chilly water that had pooled on our friend's yard from the flood of the creek. The floodwaters are receding, so that is great.

Today, Fina spent a long while doing a bunch of free "how to draws" from artforkidshub.com.

We started with our Bible reading, Genesis 4:17-26.
We ran through her current recitations, including "The Owl and the Pussy-cat."
I read "The Butterfly that Stamped" from Just So Stories, stopping a few times for Fina to narrate.
We worked on some new Spanish vocab, "el dormitorio/bedroom" from page 10.  We finished Peppa se va a dormir.

I read our next poem, "The Story of Augustus who would Not have any soup," poem #176 from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

Fina read aloud from Benjamin Bunny.
We made a model of Fina's room out of wooden blocks and hid things on the model and in the room for each other to try and find. It was fun! (Yes, tiny Twilight Sparkle was on our model and stuffed Twilight was hiding in the room. It was serendipitous!)

She spent some time working on her wood carving. We are currently reading Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz as our free read. I read a few chapters today. They are very short chapters.

We went out to play for a while in the afternoon.
We have our second Manitoba Charlotte Mason event tonight. We will be looking at narration and doing a nature study / dry-brush painting with a nice group of moms. I'm really looking forward to it!

Year 1, week 33, day 3, April 3

I read some Skylark while Fina ate her breakfast. Then she practiced her piano.

I read Matthew 5:1-12, the Beatitudes.
Fina worked on some cursive. I bought this 11x15" magnetic chalk board for $4 at Dollarama. It has two (useless for our purpose) easel legs and can be wall mounted.

This is for you, Elena.

So she did her cursive on her chalk board. It seemed to go better.

She did 18B of her math, subtraction.

We worked on her recitation. We tried reciting our most recent hymn, spoken not sung (as per Charlotte Mason's suggestions). It was an interesting experience.
We also started working on reciting "The Owl and the Pussy-cat" by Edward Lear.

I read "The Sea Fight" from Viking Tales.

We worked on our Spanish. We reviewed everything in Pio Peep, we reviewed all our vocab pages and we reviewed all of Peppa se va a dormir plus our new pages, 19-20.

We finished "A Maker of Thunder and a Friend in Black" from The Burgess Bird Book.  We looked up the grackle. Such beautiful colours.

I read "Mr and Mrs Spikky Sparrow" by Edward Lear, another nonsense poem in The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. It was funny.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina read a few pages from Benjamin Bunny aloud.

We looked at our next painting by Hans Holbein, "The Oberried Altarpiece."

We looked at the two middle portions. On our print, they were the other way around, however. And Fina wondered why the Three Wise Men came to the left of the Nativity portion. It was a great picture study!

The weather is BEAUTIFUL here, so we spent the afternoon outside!

Year 1, week 33, day 2, March 31

For those of you who are wondering, here is a photo of what our current Spanish vocab book looks like (the Berlitz First 1000 words in Spanish one).

Fina listened to some of The Red Fairy Book on Librivox over breakfast.
Then she practiced her piano pieces.

I read Genesis 4:1-16, Cain and Abel. Fina says "see! Even Cain had original sin." It was quite the moment.

We started on subtraction today. Fina did 18A.

We reviewed her recitations.

I read "The Hare and the Tortoise" and "The Fox and the Crow" from Aesop's Fables.

We read pages 15-18 of Peppa se va a dormir. Fina's Spanish comprehension is above and beyond what I imagined. This kid is really something. (It makes me feel a lot better about my guilt for her lack of fluency in any other language other than English. I guess it DID all stick with her. Spanish, Italian, even French.)
We reviewed all our nursery rhymes and even looked at two new vocab pages, "En la sala," about the living room. There were all kinds of things Fina knows nothing about. VCRs, walkmen, CD players. Words that are useless to her!

I read poem #165, "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. We listened to Stravinsky's rendition of this poem, which I remembered from undergrad. Very cool!

We sang our hymn and started our new folk song, "The Red River Valley." Seeing as we live in it, I thought it would be a good choice.

Fina worked on some cursive.

She likes the top blue one the best.

Fina finished reading Squirrel Nutkin. And she started Benjamin Bunny.

She spent the rest of the day playing outside with her friends. It's nice to have the public school kids home and outside!

Year 1, week 33, day 1, March 30

Fina started by practicing her piano. She did a great job. And she started her new piece.  She also gave her pony a lesson. A full lesson. It was quite funny!

I read Matthew 4:18-25 and she narrated.
She finished her unit test for math. Off to subtraction we go!
We reviewed her recitations.
We read "Gyda's Saucy Message" from Viking Tales for narration.

We worked on our spanish. We started our next nursery rhyme, "El patio de mi casa" and we also did the next two pages of Peppa se va a dormir.

She worked on her cursive.

We read the first part of the "A Maker of Thunder" chapter of The Burgess Bird Book. Fina is finally getting into this book.  We read about the Ruffed Grouse. Fascinating! And we watched some video. Incredible!

I read poem #164, "Nonsense," from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.
We did chapter 18 of Fina's catechism. Looking at the 4 evangelists. It was quite neat.

We started our new hymn, "Behold the Wood of the Cross."
Fina read a few pages from Squirrel Nutkin aloud.
We started a new Palestrina piece, from his "Motets for Five Voices." This one sounds "less Vatican-y" she says! And it is more slow. She tried really hard to describe it. It was great!

She did some crochet work while I finished reading Stuart Little to her.
She spent much of the afternoon and evening outside playing.

Year 1, week 32, day 4, March 29

We had our outdoor playgroup yesterday. The kids had so much fun. We had a pretty large group. Fina went through three changes of clothes. Good thing for friends who are willing to loan!  There was SO MUCH WATER! 

We were out from 11 til 4:30 and then she came home and continued to play outside with a neighbourhood friend (the public school kids are on spring break) until 8:25. This weather is just wonderful!

This morning, I read two chapters of Stuart Little over breakfast. Fina then practiced a bit of piano.

I read Genesis 3:8-24, stopping three times for narration. This was one of her best narrations ever. Something is really clicking. I'm glad her Bible narrations are so good! We had a big discussion about the passage.

She worked on the test for unit 2 in her math work.

"These are the neatest numbers I've ever written in my whole life!"

We reviewed her recitations.

I read "The Cat that walked by Himself" from Kipling's Just So Stories to Fina for narration. She was taken by it!

We worked on our Spanish, reviewing page 7 of our vocab book, learning our next nursery rhyme "El patio de mi casa" and reading pages 11 and 12 of Peppa se va a dormir.

She worked on some cursive. We tried working on the whiteboard (she is still having some perfectionist frustration. I think we need to get a slate that she could use at the table instead. Writing vertically is quite different. Good, but different!)

I read poem #163, "Little Things," from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse and we reviewed our last few poemas.

Fina read aloud from Squirrel Nutkin.
We sang our hymn and folksong. We will start our next hymn and folksong tomorrow.

Fina spent some time painting, while listening to The Red Fairy Book on Librivox.

Then she spent all afternoon and evening playing outside. We went back to the forest at the creek and the water had risen at least another two inches. I was unable (unwilling) to cross and fill my boots with water!

Year 1, week 32, day 3, March 27

I read some Stuart Little over breakfast.
Fina practiced her piano.

I read Matthew 4:12-17 for narration.
Fina did the math test for lesson 17. We will do the unit test next time and then we move on to subtraction!

Fina reviewed her recitations.

We continued with our Benjamin Franklin. We read from p 30-42 and Fina narrated throughout.

We reviewed our Spanish nursery rhymes, we moved on to the second page of the "kitchen" vocab words (page 7) and we continued with pages 9+10 of Peppa se va a dormir.

Fina worked on her cursive for a few minutes.

We read chapters 17 "More Robbers" and 18 "Some homes in the green forest" from The Burgess Bird Book.  We looked up the Blue Jay, the Crow, the Ovenbird and the Redtail Hawk and saw photos and listened to their calls.

We read poem #159 "Good Night and Good Morning" from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina read aloud from Squirrel Nutkin.

We took a second look at Holbein's The Last Supper. Fina drew this.

"These guys [with the halos] love what Jesus is saying, are listening to him. The one on the right is looking into the crowd.  I sort of drew the continuation of what is going to happen. Crown of thorns. Jesus resurrected."

In the afternoon, we went to our local provincial park with our friends J and J. The girls had fun playing in the ice, slush and puddles!

On our way home, we stopped by the local bison farm.

Tomorrow, we have an all-day outdoor playgroup. The public school kids are on their spring break, so we will have some of the "older" crowd with us, which is always great fun!

Year 1, week 32, day 2, March 24

I read from Sarah, Plain and Tall and Stuart Little over breakfast.
Fina practiced her piano pieces.
I read Genesis 3:1-7 and Fina gave a great narration!
We worked on 17X of her math.
We reviewed Fina's current recitations.
I read "The Two Travelers and Bear" and "The Dog and his Reflection" from Aesop's Fables for narration.
We spent some time with our Spanish work. We sang "De Colores," did pages 5-6 from Peppa se va a dormir and reviewed page 6 of the vocab book (kitchen).
Fina worked on her cursive. Fina needs to work on connecting different letters together. We are just writing random words and hoping to hit connections we need to work on. Today, we happened upon "ot" which is good to work on!

We finished reading Paddle-to-the-Sea! So exciting. We reviewed Paddle's journey on the globe and on a map.  We will watch the NFB film soon! She is going to love it. (I don't think I ever saw it.)

We read poem #155, "The Months," from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

Fina read aloud from Squirrel Nutkin. It is a fair bit above her reading level, but she is wanting to read it. We will get back to Frog and Toad which will be a bit easier!

We sang our hymn and folksong. Fina actually knows all 4 verse of our hymn!

She wants to carve her own Paddle-to-the-Sea. I found a template online and she transferred it to a wood block she has.

Then she spent a while painting. I asked her to do a nature study first, so she painted our little succulent.

And then she painted for another half an hour.

We went outside in the afternoon.

Year 1, week 32, day 1, March 23

By the way, my last post was post #200!!!  Thanks for reading!

Yesterday, we had a nice visit with a friend and her 4 year old daughter. Fina was an excellent hostess (she isn't always!) and the girls had a great time together. Before supper, Fina took her homeschooling dad on a walk through town.

This morning, we started with some piano practice.

I read Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus being tempted by the devil. Fina gave one of her best narrations ever!

She worked on 17E2, and 17F of her math book.

We worked on her recitations. She has almost memorized the Parable of the Lost Coin, just by reading it through once a day.

I read "Harald's Battle" from Viking Tales and Fina narrated it.

We read pages 3 and 4 of Peppa se va a dormir and Fina narrated it in English. We also looked at page 6 of our vocabulary book, kitchen words.

She worked on some cursive. She is continuing her list of "things that people think they can't eat outside." A nectary is the little sac of nectar at the back of a flower.

We read "The Mouse and the Shrew" from Eyes and No Eyes.

I read our next poem, "Mary's Lamb" from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. It is the original "Mary had a little lamb."

We did chapter 17 from our catechism book.

We sang our hymn and folksong.

Fina read aloud a few pages from Squirrel Nutkin.

Fina spent 30 minutes working on her handicrafts, while I started reading from our next two free-reads, Stuart Little by E. B. White and Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patrician MacLachlan.

We listened to our Palestrina selection for this week.

Then she spent a long while working on her painting, while listening to the Librivox recording of The Red Fairy book.

Steps to build a raft.

And she started a new Japanese braiding project. And did some wood carving.

She went out to play in the afternoon.