Get your bedtime stories ready!

Click here to view a list of our bedtime stories.

It's National Sleep Day!  Of course you can't sleep without a bed time story.  I love bedtime stories, both with my kids and for myself.  My husband grumbles about the hour plus I spend getting the kids to bed at night, but I just love spending that time reading with them. I get to spend real time with them, sharing something I love with each one.  I usually read a separate story to each child, and I mostly let them choose the book.  I sometimes get tired of reading Magic Tree House or Rainbow Fairies books, but that's when I step in and say "I have a really good choice I want to read and when it's over you can choose the next book."

Right now I'm reading chapter books with my girls, and picture books with my son.  Actually, to be honest about last night, my eight year old read several books to my five year old.  She is an excellent reader - there's really nothing she's incapable of reading now - but she's decided she only wants to read aloud to people who are younger than her.  More directly, she doesn't want to read aloud to me.   The teacher in me knows it's still important for her fluency to read aloud though, so rather than letting her slide or fighting her over it, I ask her to read to her brother several times a week.  Last night she read the excellently hilarious Knuffle Bunny series, as well as several other wonderfully fun books from Mo Willem's Elephant and Piggy series.  She read for well over half an hour and her brother went to bed a happy boy.

When it was her turn for a story, I continued reading Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George.  We've been reading it for a few weeks now because between a vacation, two family birthdays and the holiday's, our bedtime stories have been unfortunately intermittent.  She's really enjoying the story of a magical castle and an attempted coup.  It's more of a real older kid book than she normally chooses (even though she reads on almost a 5th grade level, she's been choosing Junie B. Jones type books lately), so it's refreshing for me to read something with actual plot twists and intrigue.

For my 11 year old I continued reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  We started reading the Harry Potter books together when she was six, and at first we read one every summer.  Of course we reread the previous books before starting the new one, but at this point it means we're reading Harry Potter almost year round.  Neither of us is complaining though.  They are such rich, enjoyable stories, it's a great way to relax together at the end of the day.  (She is also a voracious reader and reads several other books on her own all the time.)

My own bedtime story was again Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half.  This is the perfect book if you only have snippets of time to read.  It's actually a collection of funny vignettes that are just right to read before I finally crawl between the sheets.  I look forward to having a bit more time to read more of it today.  Having a little chuckle throughout the day is always a good thing.

I hope you all have a good bedtime story, especially for today!

Lois Lowry's Brilliance

I truly love this quote from Lois Lowry's Newberry Award acceptance speech.  I grew up on a very rural farm, but my mind has travelled the world through books.  I found ideas that were foreign to my family or school experience.  I have been enriched in ways I can't even begin to count because of books. My world is a better place because I am a reader.

Click here to learn more about Lois Lowry.

Welcome to the Future?

Happy New Year!  It's 2014, and I woke thinking of all the dystopic futures writers like to imagine.  There is no shortage of books about perfect societies that are formed some time in humanity's future, but of course some are more memorable than others.  The series that sprang to mind this morning was Lois Lowry's The Giver Quartet.

Click here to learn more about The Giver

I hesitate to tell even a bit of the details of these books because the revelation of secrets is so key to their stories. Suffice it to say Lowry uses these stories to examine the idea that people may sacrifice their humanity for safety's sake. Choice for security. Is the danger that comes with freedom worth it?  The Giver (and it's three accompanying books) are not for very young readers, but as a teacher I used them with my sixth graders and would find them generally appropriate for 4th grade on up if accompanied by discussion opportunities. They are a great springboard into conversations about liberty vs. safety and sacrificing self for society. Of course I also recommend them to adult readers because they are excellently written and thought provoking on a whole new level in a more mature mind.  Though written as companion books, each one is satisfying on it's own.  You can find links for all four books in the series below.

Share Books Sunday

I love it when people share what they are reading.  Not only is it a good way to discover new books, it tells me a lot about the person.  I also like the conversations that can start over shared books.  I've decided to create #ShareBooksSunday because I want to know what you're reading!

Click here for more about this book.

 Right now I'm reading the hilarious Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh. A lot of it is from her brilliant blog, but there are also new stories, and as always, excellent drawings of Simple Dog. She curses like a sailor, but Brosh may be the funniest person in the Internet.  I dig this book.

Review: Jerry Spinelli's Jake and Lily

Click here to read more about Jake and Lily.

I've read a lot of Jerry Spinelli's excellent work.  I have yet to meet a Spinelli book I don't like, and Jake and Lily is no different.  Spinelli likes switching among his characters voices to tell his stories, and it's a fun way to read and really get the whole picture.  In this case, we hear from twins, Jake and Lily.  Their grandfather gives them each a notebook and asks them to write their story.  In places they are very connected and finish each other's sentences, but in others they are distant and we see their divergent thoughts as Jake reaches for his own identity, forcing Lily to find herself, too.  Spinelli revisits familiar themes of individuality and connectedness, and while not as movingly done as in Maniac Magee, or Wringer, this is still an entertaining and insightful look at finding ones own way in life.  I especially liked the comment my 10 year old made after she read it: "Jake had to figure out for himself why Lily didn't like (the bully)."  She didn't know it, but she just got an introduction to the idea that people have to make their own mistakes and learn things on their own terms if they are to learn them at all.   Over all, I'd recommend this book to upper elementary or middle school age readers.

Jane Austen Wants a Library

I didn't discover Jane Austen till I was an adult, and sometimes her language is still a bit of work for me to get through, but I do love her stories.  I love this quote even more.

Click to visit Jane Austen's Author Page

John Steinbeck: Depressing But Beautiful

Yesterday, one of those list your favorites and tag a bunch of people games went around my Facebook friends.  We all listed 10 favorite books and tagged each other.  There were lots of fun comments about different books, authors and genres, but one stuck with me.  One friend's sister commented that she didn't like John Steinbeck because his books seemed like one bad thing after another and always had sad endings.  She has a good point.  Even when good things happen to Steinbeck's characters, things still seem to turn out badly.  I don't mind that, because to me it's just a part of the story and Steinbeck's stories are always beautifully told and reflect the dreary time they were written in.  They are authentic, almost to a fault.  The conversation got me thinking about John Steinbeck though, and brought to mind one of my favorite quotes from him.  I'd love to know the context of this one, but I can't find anything about it.

Click the picture to visit John Steinbeck's Amazon author page.

Steinbeck's idea rabbits may have all had unhappy endings, but I'm so glad he not only had them but shared them.  His books are beautiful portraits of humanity.  I'm happy I get to read them.