It took me over a month to re-read
Emma by Jane Austin. Between getting ready for Christmas and the regular duties of a busy mother, free time for reading didn't happen. Also this book is deep and a few pages are plenty to read at a time because they provide so much food for thought. Early on, I had to put the book down to watch the movie on NetFlix. I had to see again how everything would turn out. I kept seeing so many of my own character flaws in the well intentioned but bungled meddling of the main character! It was painful.I will say that the movie with the lovely Gynneth Paltrow is very close to the book and a delight to see.
Now I have begun
Mansfield Park by the same author. I have never read this before but saw the movie on NetFlix which is spectacular. The characters are very interesting and so full of human nature. For some reason I used to think that people of times past were "better"than we are, being less selfish etc. Not so! We all seem to have our little plans and designs and this book captures some of them. I absolutely love how the characters in these novels speak more directly than we do in saying what they really mean, but they do it with perfect manners at all times. My manners are quite odd at times and I am trying to take a lesson from these ladies as I read!
John has read some more Orson Scott Card novels,
Children of the Mind and
Speaker for the Dead. These books continue the
Ender's Game series. This author must be work very hard, for all the books he has written.
Juby has read
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell for her Seton book report. She will need to start writing that up, in a five paragraph essay format, later in the week.
Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes is a Newberry Medal winner and our current Read Aloud. Ginger is the Pye family's dog who is pretty special and winds up being stolen. This book was written in 1951 and I am astonished at how free the children are to roam around town all day and into the evening without their parents. This is a completely foreign concept to modern day kids but I remember and lived (a decade or so later) during the time when this was normal. Also, these kids never watch a screen in the book but are constantly having adventures and finding things to do outside. I miss those days! We haven't finished it yet but I do hope they find their dog.
