Cognitive dissonance at age 8 and 9

It's been a while since I've posted on the books that we are reading.  This one has been so good that I had to write about it. 

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor is a difficult, beautiful, sad and wonderful novel.  Set in pre-civil rights era Mississippi, it follows the story of a black family as they navigate the waters of second class citizenry.  The Logan family is different from many of the share cropping families around them.  They own the property that their family farms.  This fact gives them the strength to question the atrocities of everyday life.  Cassie, the narrator and only girl of the family, struggles to reconcile the things that her mother tells her about who she is and what the whites in her community tell her.

Reading this with the boys has been great.  It has opened their minds to a terrible world of which they know nothing.  It has given me so many opportunities to tell them about the fallenness of the world that we live in.  We have also spoken of the privilege that we have simply because we are white.  Pastor John spoke on racial reconciliation on Sunday (as he does every MLK weekend) and it was another good chance to come back to these topics with the kids.  When the the "N" word came up for the first time in the book, I stopped and had to tell the boys about this terrible word.  This is why we homeschool.  I want to be the one to walk my kids into the darkness of our world.  I want to be next to them the first time that they see things that make them cry and make them angry and make them question.  I won't always be there, but it is a wonderful thing to be with them at first.

If you're looking for a book to read to expose your kids to issues of racism, segregation and a past that was not so long ago and that has huge modern ramifications, then I highly recommend this novel. 

My Girls

I posted about what I have been thinking about the boys and their futures last week.  Last night we were reading our latest read aloud "Caddie Woodlawn" by Carol R. Brink.  It is the story of a pioneer girl in Wisconsin.  She is allowed, mostly by her father, to run and play and romp with her brothers.  Her mother would like her to be more of a "lady."  As she gets a little older she begins to struggle with the tension of who she is and who she wants to be and who others want her to be.

In the passage we read last night, she gets in big trouble with her mother because she and her brothers play a practical joke on their cousin from Boston.  She is sent to her room without any supper.  After everyone else is asleep, her father comes up to her room and sits on her bed.  He puts her warm hand in his cool hand and says to her the following.

It’s a strange thing, but somehow we expect more of girls than of boys. It is the sisters and wives and mothers, you know, Caddie, who keep the world sweet and beautiful. What a rough world it would be if there were only men and boys in it, doing things in their rough way! A woman’s task is to teach them gentleness and courtesy and love and kindness. It’s a big task, too, Caddie—harder than cutting trees or building mills or damming rivers. It takes nerve and courage and patience, but good women have those things. They have them just as much as the men who build bridges and carve roads through the wilderness. A woman’s work is something fine and noble to grow up to, and it is just as important as a man’s. But no man could ever do it so well.  I don’t want  you to be the silly, affected person with fine clothes and manners whom folks sometimes call a lady.  No, that is not what I want for you, my little girl.  I want you to be a woman with a wise and understanding heart, healthy in body and honest in mind.

I love this quote.  The spirit of it is what I want for my girls.  I want them to do the work that God has for them in a strong way like their mother and their grandmothers and their great-grandmothers before them.

Read Aloud--Where the Red Fern Grows: UPDATE

We finished Where the Red Fern Grows last night at about 10:00.  When we got close to the end we just had to keep going.  There was not a dry eye in the room.  When I finished, I prayed and thanked God that he truly did have a plan and that nothing that happened in our lives was outside of his plan, that all things happen for a reason.

Again, if you haven't read this book before, do it this weekend.  My boss is a huge dog person.  I brought the book this morning for her to read.  I'm sure she'll love it.

Read Aloud--Where the Red Fern Grows

Where were you when you read . . .?  There are few books that have this kind of impact.  I can distinctly remember reading the last few chapters of Where the Red Fern Grows together on our way to a Detroit Symphony Orchestra rehearsal when I was a little boy.  My mom had to pull over because she was crying.  So this has always been a book that I looked forward to reading to my kids.

It's the story of Billy, a boy growing up in the Ozark hills and swamps, and his case of "puppy love", his desire to have a couple of coon hounds. Old Dan and Little Ann are the answer to his prayer.  They go on to become the two best coon hounds in the country.  We haven't finished the book yet, but I look forward to every night and love when the boys all ask for "one more chapter."  This is also one of the first books that Molly intently listens to and follows.  It's fun to have her with us and enjoying it too.  I am afraid that after we read this book it will be difficult not to rush out and get a hound of our own.  I want my boys to, like Billy, long a little for that dog though.  It's such a great story of the sweet taste of delayed gratification.

If you read one book this summer, whether you have kids or not, I recommend that you read this one.  Be careful though.  If you don't have a dog and aren't in the market for one, this is a dangerous piece of literature.  Reader beware.

Read Aloud--Paddle To The Sea

Paddle to the Sea  by Holling C. Holling is a great book, especially if you grew up on the shores of one of the Great Lakes like I did.  Our kids have spent enough time in Michigan and on the lakes to enjoy it as well.  It is the story of what happens when a young Indian boy in Canada carves a canoe and an Indian paddler.  Paddle to the Sea, as he is named, then makes his way from the small brooks of his home, through all of the various Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.  Along the way he meets loggers, ore boatsmen, children, and people playing in the various lakes.  Each time they pick him up and read his hull that says, "I am Paddle to the Sea.  Please put me back in the water."  The illustrations are all really great.  They have small drawings in the margins about the place that Paddle is visiting.

Apparently there is an old school film about the book.  I found it on Youtube.  I think the kids would love to see this.  We'll have to carve out some time some weekend soon.

Read Aloud--Carry on, Mr. Bowditch

We've now passed through the Revolutionary War and have move on to the early years of the United States of America in our read alouds.  Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham is a great story that traces the life of Nathaniel Bowditch, an early American mathematician and navigator.  Nat Bowditch was a smart boy who would have been able to go to Harvard, but after his mother died, the family couldn't afford it.  He was indentured to a ship tackle store.  Because he was "good with figures" he soon picked up astronomy, navigation and many other scholarly pursuits.  He went on to become a ship's navigator and eventually a captain.

The boys all really liked this one.  I liked that it focused on a boy who became successful because of his brains.  The book was filled with navigation, shipping and boat jargon, some of which the author explained and some not.  Ben said today that he was going to "turn in all standing."  That's when the shipmen went to bed in their clothes because they knew they would be up again soon to fight a storm.  It's fun when some thing like that from a book comes up again later in our conversations.  The only criticism that Ben had of it was that everyone died.  Nat's mom, grandma, sister, wife, brothers, and a lot of other people in the book died.  I told him though that people didn't live as long then as they do now.  And shipping was a very dangerous industry.  I liked that about the book.  It made it more authentic.

Read Aloud--Toliver's Secret

After reading Johnny Tremain, Toliver's Secret by Esther Wood Brady just didn't compare.  While it's an interesting story a young girl in colonial America, the characters were not very well developed.  The young girl even had to dress up like a boy to have her adventure.  Weren't girls having adventures as girls in colonial America?  Maybe not.  If you're looking for a great book about this time period stick with Johnny Tremain.  It was a pretty quick read though.  I do appreciate how our curriculum does try to teach history through these read alouds.  I think the boys have all gotten a pretty good picture for this period in our country's history.

New Cooking Adventures

Gregg and Allison got us The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.  America's Test Kitchen is one of our favorite PBS shows and the companion cookbook as not disappointed.  We have made a number of different recipes from it already.  The shtick behind the show is that they try all the different ways to make a recipe and then come up with the best techniques and ingredients of all of them.  We like the cook book because it mostly contains dishes that you would actually like to eat and for which you actually have the ingredients.  All of the recipes that we've made so far have turned out great.

• Chicken Enchiladas
• Peanut Butter Cookies--really, really good
• Slow Cooker chili
• Slow Cooker beef stew--a great beefy recipe
• Corn chowder (on the docket for Friday)

If you're looking for a good family cookbook, I'd certainly recommend this one.  Very helpful and doesn't assume a ton of cooking prowess.  

Read Alouds--Johnny Tremain

As I've stated before, this year's read alouds are mostly historical fiction centered around American history.  I have really enjoyed the vast majority of the ones we've done so far.  We have made it to the period of the American revolution.

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, takes place in Boston at the very beginning of the war.  Johnny is a young boy who through many circumstances comes on the side of patriots like Paul Revere, Sam Adams, John Adams and others.  The story follows Johnny as he assists the secret rebellion of the colonists, climaxing at the battle of Lexington and Concord.  This was a long book, but everyone enjoyed it.  Johnny is an interesting character and Forbes develops him well.  When we first meet him, he is a selfish and prideful teenager.  At the end, he has become a young man who is ready to give his life for his friends and his country.  I would definitely recommend this one.

When we were reading this, it made me think of the School House Rock song, "Shot Heard Round the World."  We listened to it this morning and the boys thought it was great.

Read Alouds--The Witch of Blackbird Pond

I'm a little behind on my read aloud reviews.  We finished The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare back in the fall.  She is the same author as our previous read The Sign of the Beaver.  As in that book, Speare takes a rather critical view of the people of a particular period in history.  This time her aim is at the rigid Puritans.  When Kit joins her aunt and her family in New England from Barbados, cultures clash.  Kit is a free loving, literary type from the warm shores of a Caribbean island.  Her aunt and her two daughters live in the cold world of New England puritanism, under the reign of a patriarchal father.  Kit's only solace is found in the home of a Quaker woman who man in the town suspect of being a witch.

The book is well written and it is always good for us to have a story where the protagonist is a girl.  It helps pull Molly into what we're reading more.  It's a good story, but sometimes I do get a little tired of the whole, critical view looking back.  Certainly there were Puritans that were too rigid, just as it was a tragedy how the white men treated the Native Americans when they came.  It is important for us to look back at those times and learn from the mistakes that were made, but it is also important to do so with grace and understanding.  Would we have made similar decisions had we lived in the same period?

Read Alouds--The Sign of the Beaver

Tonight we will finish our second read aloud from this year's curriculum list.  The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare has been a thoroughly enjoyable book.  It is the story of a thirteen-year-old boy who is left in the Maine wilderness after he and his father had built their house and begun to settle their land, while the father goes back to get his sister and mother.  While his father is away he meets an native boy named Attean.  Matt and Attean become friends and teach each other much.  Matt learns the most as Attean plays host to the forest and teaches Matt how to live in his country.  We have raced through this book because the boys have liked it almost as much as I have.  We have tried to get to bed earlier so that we can spend as much time with it as possible.

The book addresses many very interesting themes.  Published in 1983, it tries to paint a picture of the native people as knowing more about the country into which the white men were coming than the white men who came.  It also deals with the displacement of the native people because of over hunting.  Interestingly enough though, as I searched for more info on the book, native people are pretty critical of her handling of their culture.  She uses the word "squaw" a number of times, which I didn't know was seen as a derogatory term.  She also has the native people call themselves Indians, which apparently they wouldn't have done.

As with any picture of a culture written by someone outside of the culture, it appears that Speare has made some missteps.  I certainly appreciate that she has attempted though to address issues that need to be addressed.  The coming of the white man, in most ways, was no gift to the native cultures.  As we look at history it is important to be carefully critical.  As dominant cultures, we need to understand that mistakes were made.  It is less important to pass judgment on our predecessors than to work to not repeat their mistakes in our own time.

Read Alouds--Secret of the Andes

We have begun our home school curriculum read alouds for the year.  The kids and I are really enjoying them.  As I've stated before, we use the Sonlight curriculum read alouds.  We are only doing the read alouds and Ben's and Caleb's readers from Sonlight this year, not the rest of the Sonlight stuff.  This year's lists are focused on American history.  History was my minor in college and I took a lot of American history.

The two books that we've read so far are both Newberry award winners.  I think if you just went through and read all of the Newberry award winners to your kids, you'd be doing pretty well.  The first book, Secret of the Andes by Anne Nolan Clark was a gem.  I love a book where the words are as important as the characters and the plot.  Clark paints the landscape of the Andes mountains and the Inca people with beautiful words.  The story is one of a young boy who is raised as a llama herder with only his older tutor in a hidden valley.  He knows that there is something very special about his life and the golden plugs in his ear lobes.  He must discover the path that the Great Inca has laid out for him.

It was interesting how Ben especially picked up on the difference in the religion of the Incas and our faith.  When the older man would talk about how the Great Inca had made the sun and how they worshiped it, Ben would shake his head.  I didn't take a lot of time to do a comparative study, but it was interesting that the boys were recognizing differences.

I love that all of the books that we've read lately have been so well written.  Children's books should only be distinguished from well written adult works by their subjects and maybe some vocabulary.  As the boys get older, even these distinctions are disappearing.  I would recommend Secret of the Andes to anyone who is interested in a good story of Peru or for anyone interested in simply a good story. 

Read Alouds--The Borrowers Afield

At the end of the last edition of the The Borrowers we found Pod, Homily and Arrietty having to flee their home because then had been "seen."  The Borrowers Afield, traces the adventures of the the three as they find a new home in the great outdoors.  They meet some new friends and find that they can survive in a way that Homily never thought possible.

It is another adventure that all of the kids loved.  Mary Norton's writing is interesting and very descriptive of her characters and their settings.  I would recommend both of her books that we've read.  I think we'll be done with the Borrowers for a while now though.

Read Alouds--The Borrowers

We've finished all of our home school read aloud books for the year so we are on to some that my mom has passed along.  We just finished The Borrowers by Mary Norton.  It's a great book about little people that live in the floors and walls of a house.  All is well until a young boy comes to live at the house and the borrowers' daughter is "seen".  All the kids loved this book.  Apparently it is the first in a series of books about the borrowers.  Maybe we'll have to investigate the others.

Read Alouds--The Cricket in Time Square

We have listened to The Cricket in Time Square  and even watched the cartoon movie.  We had never read the book though.  It's well written book about a cricket who moves from Connecticut to the Times Square subway tunnel.  He meets a mouse and a cat and learns to play classical and popular music.  The boys loved this one.  They had been wanting to read it for a while and we finally got to it.  This a good one for all aged kids.

Read Alouds--The Apprentice

Our last book was a great one.  It was about a young man who wanted to become a great painter.  Caleb loved it from page one.  The Apprentice by Pilar Molina Llorente, is a great read.  It is short, but very interesting.  The young boy who lives with his father, a tailor, longs to become a painter.  His father gives in and sends him to become the apprentice to a famous artist in the city.  He is ill treated and not taught anything, until he discovers what is behind the locked door at the top of the stairs.  Get this one at the library and enjoy it with your kids.

Swiss Family Robinson

I am currently listening to the audiobook of Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss.  I am loving it.  A year or so ago we watched the old Disney movie and really enjoyed that as well.  If you've never read/seen it or if it's been a while, the gist of the story is that a family (mom, dad and four boys) is traveling to an island when their ship is caught in a storm.  The crew abandons them and they eventually end up on a deserted island.  Once on the island they devise all manor of inventions that help them live.

Two things I really love about this story are first, in the book they highlight much more that the family are Christians.  They were traveling to become missionaries when the story began.  Constantly the author refers to God's providence and the family's thanking God for his care of them.  Second, I love the masculine nature of the book.  What could be better than four boys finding an island, building a tree house to live in and taming animals.  This is every boy's dream.  The book was written in the late 19th century and so the gender roles are very traditional.  The mother is no Victorian era prude though.  She is the one that came up with the idea of building the tree house.  She carries a fire arm and knows how to use it.  She is the picture of a strong and capable woman.  If you have boys at your house (I think girls would like it too.) read them this book.  Or at least, rent the movie and watch it with them.

Read Alouds--Kildee House

The last book we read, Kildee House by Rutheford G. Montgomery, was a great one.  It is the story of Jerome Kildee, a former head stone maker who retires and decides to become a hermit in the California redwood forest.  Relationship finds him though.  First in the raccoons and skunks that come to inhabit his little cabin and then in the person of a neighbor girl.  She is one of my favorite characters in the book.  The relationship that she builds with Jerome is a sweet and tender one.  She is as important to him as he is to her.  She is also a strong, yet feminine character (something most kids stories lack.)  The boys loved this book and I loved reading it to them.

Read Alouds--Strawberry Girl

We just finished another great read aloud entitled, Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski.  It is the story of two feuding families in the pioneering days of Florida.  This was a great book to read while we were in Florida on vacation.  It is filled with a lot southern dialect which was a real treat for me to read each night.  I found myself going up stairs after reading and still talking like that.  It was a quick read but both the boys and I really liked it and would recommend it.

Read Alouds--Ginger Pye

I have not written about any read alouds for a long time because we had been engrossed in this book for months.  I have saved a few of the longer books to the end of this year, hoping that the boys comprehension and attention spans grew with them. (It was over 300 pages.) That has happened and this book was definitely a success.  The boys all loved it. 

Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes is a mystery about when a boy and his sister lose their little fox terrier.  Apparently Estes is a renowned author, but this book was my first exposure to her.  It is well written and like I said the boys loved it.  They talked about it all the time.  "Remember how Uncle Benny said . . ."  Uncle Benny was their favorite.  He is a three year old who happens to be the kids uncle because their mother was so young when she married their father.  They thought that was great.  This was not my favorite book, but I think I will check out more of Estes work.  If your kids are into mysteries and are okay with a longer book, then give it a try.