January 1, 2022 - The Great Reading List Re-Cap

 Happy New Year, y'all!

As a friend of mine mentioned on F-book, "If Betty White didn't want to live in 2022, this doesn't bode well for the rest of us."

My fingers are too worn out to be crossed, but please, Lord, let it be better.  It doesn't have to be perfect, but not 2021 level.

ON TO THE BOOKS!

According to Goodreads, I read 95 books this year.  My goal had been 100.  I'm pretty impressed with myself that I accomplished what I did, actually!  As always, my definition of a 'book' for the purposes of adding it to my list is fairly broad.  I don't count picture books or young children's books that I read aloud to the children.  I don't count collections of comics (unless I read the Complete Works of something), or anything that isn't a substantial example of its genre.  I do count graphic novels, YA books, stuff I read aloud, stuff I pre-read for the kids, stuff I read myself, e-books, print books, and I'd also count audio books if I ever listened to them, which I don't.

My shortest book was A Girl Called Echo - a graphic novel exploring Indigenous time travel.  It clocked in at 48 pages.

My Longest book was Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers - 501 pages!

32 of the books were classified as 'children's' or 'young adult' books and 63 were 'adult' books.  I never really understand those arbitrary designations but there you have it.

20 were nonfiction, and 75 were fiction.

My LEAST favourites of the year were these ones:

The Dan Harris book was a long, whiny ridiculous piece of garbage, and I wrote a fairly scathing review about it.  

Olive Kitteridge was very well written but just so harsh and dark and sad that it didn't appeal to me at all.  

The NYPL book was full of neither peculiar questions nor practical answers, thereby negating its whole point of being, and I just didn't like Tony Hawks.  No good reason, just thought it was a silly book is all.

My MOST favourite (new reads) were:

I hadn't picked up a Nancy Mitford before and I thought she was hilarious, witty and cutting in the best possible way.  The Pursuit of Love is the first in a trilogy (I only read the first two) and I thought it was the best.

Piranesi was absolutely outstanding.  I loved...I loved everything about it.  It was a little creepy, which usually doesn't appeal to me, but honestly if ever a storyline required an atmospheric eeriness, this was that story.

Gaudy Night is one of four Sayers that feature the Wimsey/Vane relationship prominently, and again I managed to read three of those books and thought this was the best of the ones I read.

Ella Minnow Pea had been on my to read list for years now, and I was so taken with it and how the author managed to not handle the topics he did with a heavy hand, which would have been all to easy.

Twice this past year I challenged myself to read a book 'blind'.  The first time, I went into a store and selected a novel based only on the cover illustration, with no other knowledge.  That gave me this one: 

 A very disturbed family consisting to two parents who put on performance art pieces and their two children, Child A and Child B, unwillingly roped into the pieces and eventually betrayed utterly by themselves, their relationships, their friends and finally, their family.  Imagine if The Royal Tenenbaums had all been deeply mentally ill and psychotic.  It was...it was a different book than I usually read, that's for sure.

For the second, I actually wrote an article about choosing a book totally without knowing what it was about.  Since The Family Fang was chosen for the cover, which gave me some control, I ended up picking this one by using Libby Overdrive and writing down the first five titles that came up under 'popular'.  Then I had my husband randomly pick a title.  Which is how I read this one:

I haven't read a Moriarty before.  I find it interesting that these sorts of plots are so popular amongst women - it's all spousal abuse and cheating husbands and disagreeable children.  Not really the sort of things I find myself drawn towards, frankly.  I mean, ANOTHER high society murder of rich white people?  It's all not really my cup of tea, I guess.  But I read it.  It wasn't a bad book.

And finally, only 8 of the books were read aloud to the children this year, which is my most disappointing statistic.  It was a rough year for read-alouds.  Let's hope that changes in 2022!

48 Reading Comprehension/Discussion Questions Instead of 'Did you like it?'

Things you can ask a child about something they've read/heard read aloud...

1) Which character was the most like you?
2) Which character was the least like you?
3) If you were going to make a movie out of this book, tell me who you'd want to play (insert role).
4) What part of this story gave you the strongest emotions?
5) How would you describe this book to a friend?
6) Can you think of 3 words to describe the (bad guy/hero/etc.)
7) Would you be friends with any of the characters if they were real?
8) What was your favourite scene?
9) Did the author use any literary devices that you disliked? (Too much rhyming, cliffhangers, etc.)

10) Why did this book appeal/not appeal to the critics?

11) Are there cover blurbs from other authors?  Who are they?  What did THEY write?  Why do you think they liked THIS book?

12) Is this similar to anything else you've read?  How?  

13) Why do you think you picked this book up, anyway?

14) How do you feel about the cover art?  Do you think it 'fit' the story?  Why?
15) Did you find any spelling or grammar mistakes in the text?

16) Did the story ever drag?  When?  Why?  Why did you keep reading?
17) Did the author use any interesting fonts or designs?

18) Were there footnotes or endnotes?  Did you read them?  Did they answer any questions?
19) Who did the author dedicate the book to?  Why?  Who are they?

20) Is this a good story to read before bed?

21) Was there an introduction?  Did you read it?  Did it help?  Would you suggest people skip it?
22) Was there an appendix?  A table of contents?  Did any of that improve your understanding?

23) Is this the author's first book?  Tenth book?

24) Have you read anything else by them?

25) Were there illustrations?  Who was the illustrator?

26) Who was the cover designer?  

27) Did the title page give you any interesting information?

28) Was there foreign language in the text?  Did you look it up?

29) Did this book make you hungry, thirsty, tired, energetic, etc.?

30) Is there a sequel?

31) How many pages did you read in a sitting? Why so low/high?

32) How would you change the characters, if you could?

33) Did you think that was a good ending?  Would you change it?  How?

34) Did you ever cry while reading it?  Why?

35) Do you think the chapters were split up at good points in the story?

36) Why do you think (character) did (action)?

37) Is there any foreshadowing?

38) At what point did you think you knew how it would end?  Or was it a complete surprise?

39) Could this have been a shorter book?  Or did it need to be this long to tell the whole story properly?

40) Could this be a longer book?  Or would it drag?

41) Who do you know who would like this book?

42) If you met the author, what questions would you ask them?

43) If you could choose a soundtrack for this book, what music would you choose?

44) What other books could you compare this one to?

45) What did this author do really well?

46) What did this author do poorly?

47) Imagine you have a bookstore of your own.  What would you put in a window display to showcase this book?

48) If the author came to a party at your house, who else would you invite and why?

the 9yo is reading...

I've been meaning to make a list of the series the 9yo has read for...well, since he was the 8yo.  So some of these are now too easy for him but I'm trying to clear the backlog of blog posts so HERE YOU GO!  I'll try to do the same for individual books later,  but series are always fun to look at.

You've almost certainly heard of the original Geronimo Stilton books if you've been looking for reading material for the 6-8yo set in the past several years, but this slightly more recent series (2009 and still going) is called The Kingdom of Fantasy and it takes the story into the next reading level - same colourful graphics, but a thicker, hardcover book and a more advanced plot line than just ' someone stole the cheese'.  The 9yo read these at an early 8yo level, so quite some time ago now.

This 9 book graphic novel series was The Greatest Thing Ever in around summer 2018 and although he inhaled it the first time, I've seen him reread them multiple times.  A little dark in terms of fantasy themes, but still child appropriate.  Who doesn't imagine going on a quest that starts with a monster in the basement?

This series follows a pretty similar plot line to the Amulet story at the beginning,  now that I think of it.  But then, it is a common literary device - children move to new house, new house very creepy, something magic this way comes!  After he read them all we were forced to watch the movie so he could explain why it was wrong.  Sniff.  I'm just so proud.

More Spiderwick Chronicles,  but in a brand new series!  Magic!

The Big Nate books fall squarely into the category of books I would never choose but...I don't feel strongly enough about to ban.

*cough * captain underpants * cough *

Boy.  bullies.  overcoming.  school hijinks.  grossness.  kids are disgusting.  girls are eww.  etc.  I mean, what is there to say?  He read them all.

These are hugely popular with the 7-10 yo kids, and you can see why when you look at how relatively easy they are to read.  Not much of a challenge,  But the 9yo loves comedy, and these are hilarious to him.  I think there are 13 now, and he's read up to 11?  They are definitely  take out of the library books for us, though, and not buy to own books, because he reads them at a rate of 1 a day.

Single handedly responsible for me finding small origami aliens all over my house.  There are several in the series.

 Not a book, but he got the Complete Calvin and Hobbes for his 9th birthday and has read it cover to cover at least half a dozen times.  I think it has even surpasses Garfield at this point...and he's read all of those, too.

We love Zita!  There are three in the series of these graphic novels and they are Worth Owning.  Brave, fantastic girl heroine kind and true and valiant!  Plus robots! Plus space travel and some really great bad guys and a giant rodent!

More Ben Hatke!  A really neat retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk.  There is an innocent first-boy/girl-kiss, just fyi.  The third of the Jack books is actually a story that includes Zita!

Another graphic novel series, this time 6 books long, based around a group of genius kids designing and coding to do cool things.  He's just started it, but I am not anticipating that this will take long.

Another series that he's just started, by the author of the Clementine books.  Looks like it will be a good read for my own odd little inventor/scientist.

Invitational Presence and The Reluctant Scholar

The Graphics Fairy

I really wanted to talk about one of the techniques I use when homeschooling, one of the most valuable tools in my toolbox, actually.

So, I've noticed that there are some common issues with educating children regardless of how you choose to do so, and one of the main ones is probably how to convince a reluctant child to do the thing you wish them to do.

Now, it's not particularly surprising to anyone who knows me that I am stubborn and recalcitrant at the best of times myself, but also that I am very much a 'path of least resistance' sort of gal.  Frankly, if there is going to be a fight involved, I'm not likely to travel far down that path unless I feel very, very strongly about the issue.  My husband and I joke that our parenting philosophy can be summed up as 'is this the hill you want to die on?'  And sometimes, friends, Romans, countrymen...it is indeed.  But far more frequently the answer is a resounding 'no'.

All that being said, if one of my children is reluctant to do some sort of schooling I am pretty likely to say 'meh', and let it go.  And frankly, 'meh' is its own successful schooling strategy in a lot of cases!  But there are some times when the hill really must be taken, and into the breach we must go.  I struggled to think of a good example of this sort of situation in order to illustrate my technique, but here's what I've come up with.

Suppose you have a child who is a reluctant reader.  Now, I mean exactly what I say here, not a delayed reader with an educational difficulty or a reader who is below 'grade-level' but is enthusiastically reading all sorts of things, or even a reader who is slow and plodding but consistent.  I mean a child who can read well, and does not wish to do so.  This might take the form of a child who chooses books that offer no challenge at all simply to 'get through' the work, or a child who opts to do almost any activity besides reading, or a child who shrugs and looks bored at any request for them to choose a book to read, even when presented with many interesting materials on topics they are currently very enthusiastic about.  

The methods I've seen in regards to handling reluctant readers fall into two categories - convincing and force.  Under convincing you have such options as 'Come on, just one page and you can go play', 'If you don't get this done you'll fall behind', 'just pick a book please, so we can get on with our day', etc.  Under force you have 'Well, you have to read for 30 minutes, so pick something or I will pick it for you', 'no tv until you're done your reading' and 'You have to, so no arguing!'.

Now, there may very well be success to be had with any or all of these options, or many more beside, but as I said, I don't want to argue.  I'm not a fan of having to wheedle my children, frankly.  Maybe I'm just lazy.  And yet - my children should read.  They should pick up books and read them for knowledge and enjoyment and of their own free will.  They should, at their own pace, progress in reading levels and in skill until they grasp adult language and are able to converse in society at a good level.  I wish these things for and of each of them, and I am not alone in this.

So what to do?  Well I came up with an idea recently about this, and I suppose it is based somewhat on the idea of 'being a good example'.  We all tell each other these sorts of things all the time, frankly, to 'be a good example', or praise someone for 'being a good example' and so forth.  When you're homeschooling your children (or even if you're not) you are one of those 'good' (one hopes) examples.  What do your children see YOU doing?

The more I thought about this good example philosphy though, the more I realized it didn't fully encompass what I was trying to explain, so I've come up with the term 'invitational presence'.  To teach a child something you wish them to know is a process that has many paths, but to illustrate a life has just two - you can live in the world and hope your simply existing sheds some light on the truth, or you can invite others into life with you.

Here's how this technique might work in our example of the reluctant reader.  You can read in front of your child, visibly preferring your book over other options for entertainment, perhaps even carrying a book with you, and you can ensure that book is one that is eminently shareable.  Maybe funny stories you could chortle at and then say 'oh, listen to this!' and read briefly aloud from.  Or facts that might be compelling.  Or even (shock!  horror!) a children's book!  You can invite your child, with excitement, to help you choose YOUR next book. You can make the trip to the library or evening reading together a treat, however that might look for you (I'm a fan of silence and gummi worms myself but to each their own).  When you read in front of your reluctant child, they see you, doing that thing they do not want to do, albeit a good thing and one they are at least exposed to.  When you invite them in, ask them (in actions, mostly) to join you in this excitement, to help you, to journey with you instead of on a parallel track on their own, you encourage relationship.  

So now what you have is not just a personal habit of reading, but a family culture of reading.  You are the Smith family, and you read. You read together.  You help each other choose books and you share snippets that other might enjoy and you have infectious happiness at the thought of making each other laugh or think big thoughts.  You encourage the finding of interesting things in print, and you comment, aloud, at the smells in bookstores and how great the endpapers look, because you are the Smiths.  And the Smiths are readers.

This technique, like all proper education, takes time, and it takes patience.  And what if you are not a reader yourself, you might ask?  What if reading isn't YOUR thing?  Ah, but homeschooling is at its core, an acknowledgement that learning happens everywhere and is not confined to a place called school.  It happens throughout our days and throughout all of our days, until the end.  A teacher who is done learning, is dead.  Consider your child's reluctance to read an invitation to you, and your response to that reluctance an invitation in return.  This is not a negative!  This is good! So many times we cannot see the problematic educational trees for the forest, and yet here you have recognized one of those trees, and you have a game plan to focus on.  This is not failure, my friend, but the very definition of success.

What I've Been Reading - August 2019

So.  I haven't been reading much this past month, I admit.  I have instead been planning school and preparing for that and also knitting a sweater.  So there hasn't been much spare time around here.

However...here goes

Link

Troost makes me think of those guys who post a lot of stuff on the Lonely Planet forums about the obscure hill tribe they lived with on March break.  You know what I mean?  His long-suffering wife, who appears to hold a prestigious careers and also keep the home together whilst her husband wanders around China under the guise of 'seeing if they should move there' must be a veritable saint.  Also all his talk about air pollution made my lungs hurt.

Link

I have an intense love of graphic novel memoirs, and this one is great on so many levels.  Chast gives us glimpses of her structured, rigid, somewhat cold upbringing and her anxious reality dealing with two ill, co-dependent parents who refuse to throw anything away or let their bank books out of their sight or give even a little on such essentials as 'not balancing on chairs' or 'going to the hospital when you cannot get out of bed'.  If you are also living in that reality - the slow progression of aging parents and increased concern for them - you should read this.  It will make you sad but also feel not alone.

Link

Complete and total fluff!  Sometimes you need that.  Dirk Pitt is honestly a laughable character, as is almost everyone else, but he's...I mean at one point he ACTUALLY emerges from the rubble of partially destroyed Havana leading a line of orphans he rescued from a huge wave.  There is nothing he cannot do!  He is all knowing!  The women are in love!  The waves!  The waves are rising but Dirk will save us!  He pulls back a blimp from hitting a hotel!

Picture books

Here are some of the picture books we've been looking at these days.

Blogs!

I asked a while ago about favourite missionary blogs, and then I thought about it and decided I would make my own list.  Here are the blogs I check every week, missionary families AND other ones.

Ellisons In Mongolia - A family of three who moved in 2018 to Mongolia as missionaries with Global Partners - the missions branch of The Wesleyan Church.

The Kubackis In Angola - Medical missionaries who have served for many years in a small outpost in rural Angola, taking two weeks out of the month to fly with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) into the bush to bring medical care to unreached isolated tribes.  I believe their sending organization is SIM (Serving In Missions).

The Knitting Needle And The Damage Done - Funny blog with knitting magazine reviews.

Swistle - Goodness I've read Swistle for such a long time now.  She's a personal blogger, so not really any particular topic but I check her every week.

Pleasant View Schoolhouse - I used to love reading her but I think she's stopped blogging now, which is a shame.  She's essentially the Dora Saint of the blogging world - gentle, gracious, classy.

Hearth Ridge Reflections - Just found this one but have been checking regularly for updates.  Charlotte Mason style homeschooling and lots of books, which I love.

The 8yo Is Reading...

A few of the books the 8yo has finished in the last little while.

A.mazon

The pictures are from Amazon but the books we own are mostly second hand.

How To Read A Lot Of Books - One Technique. Also the books I have started.

Here's one way in which I read lots and lots of books every year - I scatter them.  I strew them about.  I tuck them everywhere in my life.  There is a book beside me in the car.  There is a book beside every chair.  There are books in my kitchen and my bedroom and there are books stacked in the bathroom.  There are books I would like to read in my children's rooms and there are books in closets.  My entire life is filled, filled, with books.  I mean filled.  I read constantly.

Well, I suppose that isn't totally true.  I read constantly in spurts and in between spurts I read lazily.  I meander through books off and on, pausing to get deeply involved in a different project like learning how to make a certain food or finish a certain craft or hike somewhere or watch a documentary I've wanted to watch.  And then something will pull at me and I will disappear into books without noticing time passing.  I will forget to eat.  Sometimes I will stay up very very late.  Too late.

This isn't so much a technique for how to read more, so much as an explanation of how I personally read as much as I do.  I keep books everywhere so I am almost never without a book, and when I feel like reading them I dive in and get lost in them and forget the passage of time.  Not a helpful technique for many, perhaps.

I'd like to finish up some of the books scattered in my life right now, so I thought I'd wander around the house and see what I can find that is unfinished.

Let's start:

Beside my favourite reading chair we have a substantial pile.

There are also several books here that I have intended to read and haven't.  I'm not going to start those right now, since I have so many books on the go at the moment.  I will come back to them later.

In the bookshelf of doom, where books that are purchased sit and get forgotten, there are several titles that have been started...

And also a LOT that have not been started.  It's taking significant willpower not to start another book right now from that pile.

Right. And of course beside the bed:

I'm going to gather up all of these books into one big pile and make a list on paper and start crossing off titles as they are finished.  It will be nice to get a fresh start and then I can bring up all of the unread books and start those.  Like spring cleaning the reading lists.