The last Read-Aloud that the younger kids and I did for the school year was
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi. This is a great story about a 13 year old girl returning from her boarding school in England to her parents in Boston, who gets put onto a sailing ship with a crew planning to mutiny. There is treachery and lots of adventure. It is filled with nautical terms. A surprise ending makes this story great!
I've been reading a lot of Non-Fiction this summer.
Miracles of John Paul II, by Pawel Zuchniewicz is a nice little hardcover book that I picked up for a dollar at the homeschool conference. It has the subtitle
Santo Subito , Italian for "Sainthood Now" which was displayed on many homemade signs at the funeral of this holy Pope. This was a wonderful collection of some of the many miracles associated with him during his life and after his death.The book tells about specific instances of both children and adults being healed of life threatening illnesses through his prayers and touch. John Paul II embodied holiness and had a profound love for our Lord, The Blessed Mother and all people. He was very prayerful and traveled the world. He also embraced the use of media as a way of evangelizing. The author believes that he is a Saint, and in fact, the Church has proclaimed him "Blessed." I know that it is hard to think about him without my eyes tearing up!
Fatima, The Great Sign, written by Francis Johnston, I am reading slowly. This was a also a dollar in the same book bin at the conference. The reason I am reading it is because I am aware that the Virgin Mary appeared in Fatima, Portugal less than 100 years ago to three shepherd children many times and she carried a message to the world. She encouraged the faithful to pray the Rosary daily for peace in the family and in the world. Her apparitions were accompanied by a "great sign", "the Miracle of the Sun" which was witnessed by 70,000 people on October 13, 1917. On that day, it had been raining hard all day and night. At the time of the vision, the sun lurched forward from the sky towards the earth and completely dried up the grounds in an instant. This was reported in newspapers at the time.
I am at the point of believing that any problems that we have that can't be solved with shelves can be turned over to God by way of the daily family Rosary, asking Mary to pray for us poor sinners now and at the hour of our deaths. Praying the Rosary gives me peace and hope. I often need that!
The author of this book is very concerned because one of the Fatima messages stated that Russia should be consecrated to The Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Church. As far as the author of this book is concerned, this hasn't happened yet due to political correctness. I will have to continue reading to get more of the details on this.
This new paperback, entitled
Who's Got You, is written by John Clark, one of the seven sons of Dr. Mary Kay Clark, a homeschool pioneer and the director of Seton Home Study School. His title refers to the fact that most children feel safer if their Dad is there. Just having Dad present makes them feel protected, but where does the buck stop for a Dad to feel safe and protected? This book is hilarious in the way the author presents many scenes from family life and the need for Dads to have a a relationship with God as his source of strength, and to have a Faith that really Works. It was easy to read and made me laugh in its cleverness!
The Eighty Dollar Champion is written by Elizabeth Letts, who was herself, the runner up of California's Horse and Rider of the Year contest. It is the true story of a horse literally bought off a trailer headed to the slaughter house. This book was a Mother's Day gift from Tim and Kristy and turned out to be the great true story of a young Dutch immigrant and his beautiful young family of blonde haired children who loved and trained this special plow horse to be the winner of The Horse of the Year and the overall Champion Horse at the Madison Square Garden Diamond Jubilee Horse Show in 1958.
Harry de Leyer taught riding during the day at a fancy girls' school but during the evenings and on weekends he worked with this horse who was unknown but had "heart". Harry and Snowman could jump over six and seven foot fences back in the day when no one even wore a helmet! This book had tons of horse vocabulary but also talked about the young immigrants struggle to make it in a new country and the changing times that they lived in. Television had a huge impact on the number of folks who watched horse shows and the newspapers loved to report on this underdog. The horse literally pulled a plow during the week and jumped on week-ends!
Thanks Tim and Kristy for such a great gift! They tricked me, by inserting a written note deep in the last third of the book which I think was designed to see if I actually read it!!! I'm glad I did because I enjoyed the historical part of the changing culture where the little guy could make a big difference in the posh world of big money through his own hard work and his personal relationship with his own horse.
This last book,
The Robe was written by Lloyd Douglas. I saw it at Cecilia's house and she highly recommended it as a life changing story. I am excited and ready for some historical fiction because it is fun to go into a different time and place by reading a good book. In this account of Jesus' time, Biblical figures are the characters and I am told that I will see them in a much more human way.
In addition to re-reading The Hunger Games trilogy and some Hardy Boys books I picked up at the conference, John is now reading the five part series of
The Borrowers written by Mary Norton. These little people live under the floor of a big house and have to forage for the items they need from the big peoples' stuff and they use things in ingenious ways.
Miss J, who reads at night after she gets into bed, has finished the Happy Little Family series written by Rebecca Caudill, this summer. She and I read them together last year, I read a page and then she read a page while looking on together but she can read them to herself now. It is a shame that there are only four of them because these little kids are cute and have lots of fun and adventure. It is mostly about two sisters but the whole family is featured in their work and play. The stories take place in Kentucky in the early 1900's.
She has also read The American Girl Book of Horse Stories, which is another book that I bought for a dollar at the conference. This a book of short stories about a topic that she loves!
Midnight in the Dollhouse written by Marjorie Filley Stover has been on our shelves for years and was enjoyed by the older girls when they were younger. In this story about a girl who breaks her leg in a tree fall and is bedridden for months, dollhouse people come alive during the night and have a full life going on by her bedside!
Summer is a great time for reading and I am grateful to have had some leisure time in which to enjoy it in between our many activities!
