This month was rough on reading. This lovely stack above just couldn't compete with all of my obligations that really started up in October, including co-op with the kids, and honing my homeschool support group's ski + snowboard registration files before releasing them on Oct. 30th (and alllll the communication that will need to happen between now and February). That last one alone takes up at least a cumulative hour of my day, perhaps more, until early December.
I only was able to finish one of those books up top, but two are thisclose to being finished, and the other two are at least half-way, so perhaps November will look better for the reading list!
*Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens - This was a book club pick that was just pure delight to read. It was a very hyped-up book but the lushness of the setting (southern marshland) was just so lovely to read through. It's about a little girl who is abandoned by family and learns to survive in the backwoods swampland, and there's a murder mystery to boot. I loved this book, even though it's probably not a book I'd pick up off the library shelf. The natural landscape and the description of how Kya learned, categorized, and painted the flora and fauna was just so enjoyable.
*The Gates of Zion by Bodie Thoen - This was a book (out of a trio) that I've been meaning to read at least a year, possibly more, that a friend lent to me when I was lamenting to her that I just really have no real historical knowledge of the Jewish people outside of the bible. History to the Jewish nation after WWII is pretty much off my radar, and I feel very inept in the near-constant political news that pertains to them. She gave me this series as a historical-fiction account of some of the big things over the past century. This book ends with the bombing of the Kind David Hotel. It's not a read that I'm dying to get to, but it certainly has helped.
*A Velocity Of Being by Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick - This was a book I saw on Popova's site, Brain Pickings, awhile back and knew I must find time for it! I loved reading everything from the letters, to the little blurb about who was writing it, and experiencing the art that an artist would make in union with the letter written. What a lovely book! I mean, a book celebrating books, and including illustration? Sign me up. Not a hard sell, and really lovely to sit with.
Read-Aloud to Kids
*10 Girls who Made History by Irene Howat - This was the second book in the series we read for the kids' homeschool Bible subject. We read two of these (girls, boys) per year, and we have one more year left before all 10 are completed. They are stories of women from history who have somehow used their service for God in the past 500 years. My kids enjoy them as well.
*Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman - This was a perfect book to go along with our Switzerland reading this term, as it was a historical fiction account of the first ascent of the Matterhorn, the tallest mountain in Switzerland. It had excellent writing and plot-filled with action and moral courage. It won the Newbery award when it came out many decades ago, which is always one of the best indicators of quality in children's literature. We followed the book with the old Disney movie Third Man on the Mountain (very loosely based on the book), but the kids preferred the book.
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