Book Review: The Reading Promise

Nine-year-old Alice and her children's librarian father make a pact to read aloud together every night for 100 nights; but their Reading Streak continues long after that. Jim Brozina bonds with his young daughter through their shared love of great literature; and this remains the constant in their lives as they weather the trials of her teen years.

Not only is this an intimate look at the unique relationship between a single father and his daughter, the story inspires a deep appreciation for stories and how we share them. The book closes with a copy of the reading pact, challenging us to enjoy reading aloud with someone we love and inspiring others to do the same.

Through the many years of our homeschool experience, the best memories for me are of reading aloud to my daughters. Just as Alice experienced with her Dad, we enjoyed the coziness of curling up together on the sofa or on a bed with a wonderful story. We learned that we could very rarely put a book down once we'd gotten started. Many days, we'd read luxuriously for hours.We kept it up until my eldest daughter was in high school. By then, each girl had a different busy schedule of activities and outside classes, so that we couldn't coordinate our reading time together any more. I really miss it. And reading this book about Alice and her Dad made me appreciate those times I shared with my kids more than ever. I wouldn't trade them for the world.

Alice shares a partial list of the books they read in their Streak, but I wanted to share some of our favorites:

         Board Books
         But Not The Hippopotamus, Barnyard Dance, Pajama Time, The Going To Bed Book by Sandra      
            Boynton
         Macaroni and Cheese, Hot Dogs and Peas by Christine Hickson

        Picture Books
        The Dumb Bunnies series by Sue Denim
        The Princess and The Kiss by Jennie Bishop
        Miss Tizzy by Libba Moore Gray
        The Great Art Scandal: Solve the Crime, Save the Show by Anna Nilson
        The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka
        Mercedes and The Chocolate Pilot by Margot Theis Raven
        The Pumpkin Patch Parable and other parables by Liz Curtis Higgs
        The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller
        Miss Fannie's Hat by Jan Karon
        George Washington's Teeth by Deborah Chandra
        To Be A Princess by Hugh Brewster
        Eloise series by Kay Thompson
        Curious George books by Margret Rey

        Chapter Books and Novels
        The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
        The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
        I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton deTrevino
        Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
        Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
        Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan
        King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry
        Ali and the Golden Eagle by Wayne Grover
        The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
        Water Buffalo Days by Huynh Quang Nhuong
        A Question of Yams by Gloria Repp
        The House of Sixty Fathers and The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong
      
        Series
        The American Girls (Felicity, Addy, Samantha, Josefina, Molly, Kit, etc.)
        Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
        Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
        Greek Myths, George Washington, Leif the Lucky and others by the D'Aulaires
        Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
        Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Mongomery
        Hero Tales by Dave and Neta Jackson

What will you read for your Reading Streak?


      

        

What Is Faith?

                                                                                                                                                                                AGD photo

One Sunday evening at our Journey Group meeting, Katie walked in with a question, "What is faith?" 

Now, I was not surprised for Katie to be asking such a deep question. After all, Katie came to Journey Group every Sunday with a list of questions written in her journal that she had thought of as she read the assigned scripture each week. The rest of the girls always laughed and settled into their chairs as Katie fired off her list of questions and I returned fire with answers. I absolutely loved it. I was thrilled to see that she was really digging in and wrestling with questions about faith.

Katie is funny, crazy!, and very friendly. She has an outgoing personality that draws lots of people to her. She makes friends at the drop of a hat. And what I learned about Katie is that she loves and prays for her friends, too. I think this profound question, the "what is faith" question, came out of a conversation she was having with a friend who was asking about her faith. She struggled to put it into words. That's why she came to me for help.

I told Katie to give me a couple of days to get my thoughts together and this little graphic is what resulted. I wanted the girls to be able to print it and carry it in a Bible or backpack so they could think about it and share it.

Katie said it helped her. I pray that it helped her friend, too.

It's amazing what you learn when you try to teach others. God is good!

What's Cool About Your Hometown?

#3: "An Ethnic Restaurant." This one has the added
bonus of having a really cool old neon sign, which I love.

#12: "A Landmark." Spudnut Shop was
established in 1948. They still make
doughnuts with potato flour and
people line up out the door to get them.

#9: "An Historic Marker." This one commemorates visit of
The Corps of Discovery (The Lewis and Clark Expedition) to
this part of the Columbia River in 1805 - 06.

I grew up in a small town . . . a really small town in rural southern Virginia. But even in my little town, there were some cool and unique places. So, I'm quite sure that any of you out there, even if you live in a place that isn't on any respectable map, can find some cool things about where you live, too.

When I was in junior high, I had Mrs. Talbott for U.S. History. She never looked at notes or wrote on the board much. Her style was to walk around the room, up and down the rows between the desks, and tell the stories of history. My mind never wandered. I was always right there with her on everything she said. That was the beginning of my life-long love affair with history.

#2 on the list:"A Neon Sign"

Around that same time, my Home Ec teacher assigned a measured drawing of a house we'd like to live in.  I discovered that I loved drawing floor plans. It became a hobby. I'd draw plans, then add furniture - all very 2-D, because I'm terrible at actual drawing - then my artist friend, Winfred, would sketch drawings of the outsides of the houses for me. I had a big pile of those by the time I finished high school.

Putting these two interests together is what led to my majoring in Historic Preservation in college. Historic Preservation is that dream state where "book learning" meets "hands-on." I studied archaeology, material culture, art and architectural history, landscape design, building preservation, history museums, research, and archival techniques. My research took me all over the beautiful, historic city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, as I photographed, studied deeds and maps, walked Civil War battlefields, led tours, reenacted historic events, designed and built an archaeology exhibit, conducted an historic district survey, learned ghost stories and much more.

Fast forward twenty years.

My husband and I move our family across the country to the Inland Northwest, a.k.a. Richland, Washington. By this time, I've been homeschooling my daughters for about eight years. One of the requirements I have to fulfill is teaching them Washington State History.

How do you do that, when you didn't grow up in a place? Long story short, I ended up taking my own inventory of the built environment to see what I could teach in a hands-on way. I made a list of about twenty things I felt made the area unique and tied into the overall patterns of U.S. History. Then I wrote a curriculum that tied it all in with the Historic Preservation (that I had just been chomping at the bit to teach my girls as soon as they were old enough) and taught it at the local homeschool co-op to 15 high school students. That was four years ago. My two eldest daughters were in the class that year. This year, I'm pulling it out to teach my youngest daughter, by herself. So this will be more fun for her, I decided we'd blog about what we're doing.

Today we did the first lesson of "Investigative History: An Introduction to Historic Preservation," called The Vulture Tour. Click here to get the lesson plan and here to get the student worksheet.

Around the post are some of the pictures Rebecca took today. (A lovely day for outdoor photography, by the way.)

Rebecca and I will be adding more posts about our adventures in state and local history, with lesson plans and tips to help you incorporate these ideas with your kids.

#13: "An Historic House." This is an "A" House,
one of the Alphabet Houses that was built
in the WW2 era. We'll be learning about these
houses more in-depth later in the year; so I'm
glad she spotted it.

#22: "A Beautiful Church." Richland Lutheran Church,
a.k.a. "The Cupcake Church" because of the unique roof.

#16: "A Decoration Found on a Building"
Detail of the bell tower in front of the above church.

Dealing With The Deathly Hallows and Beyond

18th-century grave markers, Boston, MA (KHD photo)

I'm a real late-comer to the Harry Potter party. My daughters were really small when the books were first published and were more into Princesses and American Girls, that kind of thing. The fantasy genre was not one we explored at all until they were older.

When I finally sat down about two years ago to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, I was  surprisingly delighted with the storytelling, the humor, the wit and the magic. I've since read the entire series at least twice and watched all the films.

Particularly in the years when the earliest books of the series were released, many parents and religious leaders very vocally denounced the suitability of the series for children, since the context is witchcraft. Rowling countered that the books are very moral, a clear good vs. evil story.  She stated in interviews  that the plot of the series hinged closely on her religious beliefs;  but she wouldn't reveal what those were for fear of giving away the climax of the story. Mugglenet, a Harry Potter fansite, has a wonderful section of editorials, where I found this article about the Christian themes in the Potter series. Keep in mind that the article was written before release of the final novel.

The theme of death is prevalent in the series. I was fascinated to see how Rowling dealt with it and what it revealed about her worldview. When I read The Deathly Hallows, the tombstone inscriptions Harry and Hermione see in the Godric's Hollow cemetery caught my attention:scripture on the tombstones of both Dumbledore's and Harry's families. This was the initial inspiration for a series of quick Bible Studies called, Tombstone Tales From The Deathly Hallows and Beyond. So far, there are three of these: Ariana Dumbledore, Dobby and Cedric Diggory. I've got a list of a few more I'll be adding to this collection.

Visit my scribd shelf at this link to check out Tombstone Tales.