little miss reading corner

Little Miss’s Reading Corner: Charlie the Ranch Dog, Monet’s Cat and others

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 2 Comments

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Little Miss and I had some fun with some books this past month but did get a bit overwhelmed with how many we had to read so some went back to the library before we even opened them!

Apparently, my and The Husband’s love of books has rubbed off on her because she told me last week she can’t go to the library without bringing home at least one book.

I had suggested to her we merely go to our homeschool event and not sign out books.

“Oh no!” she declared. “No! I can’t go to the library without getting a book now! You’ve rubbed off on me. I must have books! I must become one with the books! I’m obsessed!

I am looking forward to another library trip soon, but here are three of our favorites from the last library pick-up and an extra one we had at home.

Monet’s Cat

I signed this book out as part of our art unit after I looked online for books that were for children and focused on impressionist artists. I was thrilled that our small library actually had it. It’s the cutest book that leads children through the paintings of Claude Monet. Little Miss and I had already watched a special on him and after reading this book we also attempted to paint like him. It wasn’t a success, but we tried anyhow.

I loved the cute artwork and story in the book.

It was also interesting to note that there was an actual ceramic cat in Monet’s house that was later passed down to Monet’s son and that is what the book was based on.

This is a book I am going to buy for us to read later.

Cezanne’s Parrot.

Sticking with the artist theme, I signed this one out as well to go with our unit on the Impressionist movement.

We actually haven’t finished this one because it didn’t catch Little Miss’s attention as quickly as Monet’s Cat. She got tired in the middle of reading it so I hope we can finish it today actually. It is due back to the library soon.

I’m not sure if these books are part of a series or not but they are, obviously, similar in that they deal with animals that insert themselves in the lives of artists who actually knew each other when they were alive. They also showcase the art of each artist within the pages.

My First Classical Music Book

Since we are focusing on the arts for homeschool for the month of May, I also picked up a book about music from the library. This is another book I will probably purchase for us.

It is full of information about composers but also about music and instruments in general and comes with a CD to give examples of the music talked about in the book.

Charlie The Ranch Dog

This book was not exactly a library pick but I did find it at a library sale. There are six mini books collected in this one hardcover collection.

Little Miss loved reading all the books to me before bed for a week. They are cute, simple stories. Little Miss loved finding the chipmunk hidden in the drawings almost on every page of the book.

She also loved sticking all the stickers to the wall in her room.

Mother Goose Bruce

This is a book I picked up from an online used sale.

It is so cute and funny. I might have giggled at parts of it more than Little Miss did.

She did like it, though and I am glad that we own it so we can read it again. There are two other books in the series and now I am going to look for them too. This book was in such good shape that it still looks new, even though I picked it up for more than half it’s original price.

The story is about a bear that is essentially adopted by four goslings who imprint on him when he tried to cook them for dinner

Little House in the Big Woods

We are also re-reading Little House in the Big Woods. The difference this time is that Little Miss is reading to me until she almost falls asleep and then I take over for her. It’s so much fun to see her getting into reading this way and to see her reading to me like I have been to her for years now.

For history, we are reading The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz and she’s not as big of a fan of it as she is the Little House series, but it focuses on Pennsylvania history and we needed a unit of that before the school year ended so it is working out well.

Little Miss’ Reading Corner for April: Books about Rose Wilder, animal books, and a chapter book we had to abandon

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Little Miss and I have been reading a lot of different books in the last couple of months.

We’ve read some picture books and a couple of chapter books.

We abandoned one of our chapter books – Soft Rain, which was a book about the Trail of Tears – part way through. It was a bit too heavy for Little Miss right now so we read it almost to the end but then I noticed there was a bit more tragedy than I felt Little Miss could handle at her age. We’ve decided we will try it again when she is older.

We were reading it as part of our history unit on Native American history.

If you think you might be interested in it for your older child or grandchildren, here is a quick description:

It all begins when Soft Rain’s teacher reads a letter stating that as of May 23, 1838, all Cherokee people are to leave their land and move to what many Cherokees called “the land of darkness”…the west. Soft Rain is confident that her family will not have to move, because they have just planted corn for the next harvest but soon thereafter, soldiers arrive to take nine-year-old Soft Rain and her mother to walk the Trail of Tears, leaving the rest of her family behind. 

Because Soft Rain knows some of the white man’s language, she soon learns that they must travel across rivers, valleys, and mountains. On the journey, she is forced to eat the white man’s food and sees many of her people die. Her courage and hope are restored when she is reunited with her father, a leader on the Trail, chosen to bring her people safely to their new land.

A book we did finish recently was In The Land of The Big Red Apple by Roger Lea MacBride. This book gave us a glimpse of life in the Ozarks (Missouri) during the 1890s through the eyes of Rose Wilder, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder. This is a fictionalized account of Rose’s life as a child based on stories she told MacBride, her adopted son. I kept calling the book The Land of the Big Red Apple because the library covered part of the title with their labeling. Ooops.

It is part of a series of eight books about Rose’s life as she grew up, including her as an adult.

Description:

The third book in the Rose Years series, the story of the spirited daughter of the author of the beloved Little House series.

Eight going on nine, Rose Wilder is beginning to settle into her new life in Missouri, the Land of the Big Red Apple. Her father is building their farmhouse and she dreams of the day they’ll have their own bright crop to harvest. But before that can happen, she has a fierce ice storm to contend with and her first real Christmas in the Ozarks to enjoy.



We are now reading On The Other Side of the Hill, which is the book right after In The Land of the Big Red Apple.

Description:

The fourth book in the Rose Year series, the story of the spirited daughter of the author of the beloved Little House series. 

On The Other Side of the Hill continues the story of Rose, Laura, and Almanzo as the young Wilder family struggles to overcome a series of natural disasters that beset their little farm.

We had picked up The Little Town in the Ozarks, which is also part of the series, from the library at one point but we didn’t get a chance to read it and sent it back because I didn’t know when we would get to it. We will get it again later, probably this summer, now that we know we like the series.

I didn’t write down the names of all the picture books we signed out at the end of March and the beginning of April,l but we did read a few I remember, including a book about John Audobon called The Boy Who Drew Birds. This fit in nicely with our science unit on birds. We enjoyed learning how Audobon studied and drew birds even as a young child.

For picture books this week, we are reading, or have read:

The Umbrella by Jan Brett

This was a really cute book with amazing artwork. Little Miss didn’t want to read it at first but it turned out to be very creative and entertaining. It was the story of a young boy who went into the jungle to find animals but then . . . well, I won’t spoil the ending.

Verdi by Janell Cannon

This was a cute book about a snake accepting who he is becoming as he grows up and then who he becomes. It is very funny and entertaining and the artwork is beautiful.

Cubs First Winter by Rebecca Elliott

As I am writing this, we haven’t yet read this book but it looks so sweet so I’m excited to read it with her tomorrow.

And Little Miss picked Grumpy Monkey by Susan Long again.

This is a very creative book about a monkey who is grumpy and who decides that sometimes it is okay to be grumpy or sad as long as you aren’t mean to other people.

Little Miss also has two books to read on her own this week for Reading Time:

Backyard Wildlife: Wolves (by Blastoff Readers)

And

I Can Read: Paddington’s Prize Picture

Later this week we will be reading a book about Claude Monet as part of our Art unit on him, but I still have to go pick that one up.

What have you been reading with your kids or grandkids or just what are you reading?

Little Miss Reading Corner Update

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

The last time I shared what Little Miss and I were reading, or going to read, I shared a couple of books we hadn’t read yet so today I thought I’d let you know what we thought of the books.

First up was Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle

Little Miss loved this book so much that we had to read it three times in a row. We may even read it a couple of more times before we take it back to the library later this week.

She also loved Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson. We read this one three times, with her doing the voices of the animals and me reading the narration a couple of the times. This is a truly adorable book, and we might even buy a copy to add to our collection.

Neither of us really liked the book Eat Like A Bear by April Pulley Sayre (incidentally it was interesting to see the last name Sayre, as that is the name of the town I first lived in when I married The Husband). This was a conservation book and it was just … well, odd. We didn’t enjoy it and only read it once and then put it back in the bag to go back to the library.

I picked Sachiko Means Happiness by Kimiko Sakai up at a book sale and I decided to put that one aside because it deals with Alzheimer’s in a grandparent and I really didn’t like the way it was written.

We did not get a chance to start Match Wits with Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of Black Peter and The Gloria Scott by Murray Shaw but I may try to read that this week. I renewed it from the library, so we have it for another couple of weeks.

I also renewed Spirit of the West by Jahnna N. Malcom, which is a chapter book, because we are using it for history and are learning a lot about the Nez Perce tribe, which I didn’t even know anything about before reading this book. I have used it as a jumping-off point to videos about the Nez Perce so we can learn even more about them and their life in Washington and Oregon before they were driven off their land by white settlers. This tribe was well known for their work with the Appaloosa horse breed, which the white settlers eventually decided they wanted to take from them, sadly.

We have not got to Little Town in the Ozarks by Roger Lea MacBride and I don’t know if we will or not because we have been reading Spirit of the West and the Imagination Station books and Little Miss has been listening to Fortunately the Milk each night before bed.

I have placed four books on hold at the library and have just been told they are available for us to pick up.

Snowmen at Night by Caralyn (sic) Buehner

Monarch Butterflies by Ann Hobbie

The Squirrels Who Squabbled by Rachel Bright

The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig

And

What The Dinosaurs Did Last Night by Refe Tuma

I will keep you updated on what we think about these latest books as well.

What have your littles or grand-littles been reading lately? Anything good?!

Little Miss’s Reading Corner

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

Little Miss and I have been reading a variety of books lately. Most of them are chapter books that I read to her but recently she’s started reading chapter books to me, which has been fun. I love how she’s starting to put inflection in her voice for the dialogue and I also love how she starts to fall asleep while she’s reading so she’s doing my work for me.

I don’t know if I’ve ever explained that the Paddington books that Little Miss and I read at night are chapter books, not picture books. I didn’t even realize there were picture books of Paddington until I found one at the library last week and realized that what we have is actually a collection of all the picture books of Paddington’s story that are out there.

The Paddington Treasury is one of the books we read earlier in the month and enjoyed, incidentally. I bought it a few years ago and we finally cracked it open. Little Miss read part of it to me.

Other books Little Miss and I read over the last few months and enjoyed included The Imagination Station books, which are produced by Focus on the Family.

So far we’ve read The Imagination Station: Secrets of the Princes’ Tomb and are in the middle of The Imagination Station: Problems in Plymouth and The Imagination Station: Voyage with the Vikings.

I am reading Problems in Plymouth to Little Miss and she is reading Voyage with the Vikings to me.

Last month we read Sarah, Plain and Tall and Skylark by Patricia MacLachlan.

We enjoyed these sweet stories about a woman who answers a mail-order bride ad and goes to live with a family in the Midwest and falls in love with the children but also their father.

We hope to read the remaining three soon.

We also enjoyed Blizzard by John Rocco, which I think Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, mentioned on her blog.

This book was so cute, and the photographs were so creative, especially the middle pages which are two pullout pages that showcase the main character’s journey through the blizzard to get food for his family. The book is based on a true story about the author and a blizzard he experienced as a child in 1978.

Books we picked up at the library or the library book sale to read and will update you on later include:

Boundless Grace by Mary Hoffman and Caroline Binch

Sachiko Means Happiness by Kimiko Sakai

Match Wits with Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of Black Peter and The Gloria Scott by Murray Shaw

Spirit of the West by Jahnna N. Malcom

Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See by Eric Carle

Eat Like A Bear by April Pulley Sayre

Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

Little Town in the Ozarks by Roger Lea MacBride

Little Miss’s Reading Corner: Silly, spooky, and grasshopper books

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

Little Miss and I took a trip to the library a couple of weeks ago and she picked out some books for us to read together. I thought I’d share a few from our stack today for her Reading Corner. I took photos of the fronts of the books, but our library puts the barcode right over the titles, which I find terribly annoying as someone who likes to photograph what I’m reading. Silly, I know. I suppose I’ll get over it. Sigh.

Little Miss wanted something “spooky” even though she doesn’t usually like spooky stuff. She said she would read it during the day. So we grabbed a book called simply The Spooky Book by Steve Patschke and illustrated by Matthew McElligott.

It was a very cute book about a boy reading a spooky book that is about a girl reading a spooky book at the same time. When something happens in the book, it happens to the boy too.

It’s a fun book that insists a book can’t scare you while it scares the people reading it. We thought it was very cute.

Next Little Miss picked a book about dragons because she loves dragon stories.

Dragons Are Real by Holly Hatam is a board book probably meant for younger readers and those less discerning about dragons because Little Miss kept correcting the lore within its pages saying “that’s not true,” or “dragons don’t do that” when she disagreed with the declarations made inside it.

Overall we enjoyed the book, however, because the illustrations were very colorful.

 

I picked out Grumpy Monkey by Suzanne Lang and illustrated by Max Long (brother and sister) and we both ended up really liking it, partly because the illustrations featured extra creatures in the images, hanging out on trees and in leaves, etc.

The story is about a monkey who is grumpy but doesn’t know why and tries his best to be happy for everyone who keeps telling him he needs to be happy.

The message is that sometimes we are grumpy and it’s okay and we don’t have to figure out why we are grumpy. As long as we aren’t mean to others while we are grumpy. That’s not okay.

I placed The Ant and The Grasshopper by Luli Gray and illustrated by Giuliano Ferri on hold as part of our grasshopper unit.

This was a very cute book about an ant who prepared for the winter and a grasshopper who didn’t and how the ant helped the grasshopper and they became friends.

Little Miss has been fascinated with grasshoppers lately, including catching them in the backyard and running to me to show me what she’s caught.

We also signed out a book about dinosaurs and another one about grasshoppers, but haven’t had a chance to read them yet.

Hopefully we will get to them this week before they are due.

So that’s what Little Miss has been reading. How about you?