Sammy and I have started to visit our local library every couple of weeks. She’s in this phase where she wants to read a particular book over and over until her mother would rather rip her eyebrows out rather than read it one more time and then suddenly– obsession over! No more of that book ever ever again, please. So the library makes good sense.
I’ve also recently discovered PaperBackSwap.com, which I highly recommend if you have a bunch of books that you are ready to part with. Basically you set up an account and add a list of books that you would be willing to swap. When someone requests one of your books, you print out a mailing wrapping provided by PBS, pop the wrapped book in the mail, and then when the book is received you earn a credit that you may use to request a book from someone else. It’s a handy way to weed out one’s book collection and grow it in the direction you want, provided you do not mind used copies, all for the cost of media mail postage. Since I joined in May, I’ve been involved in 12 transactions. Only once has a book failed to arrive in the mail, but that’s the USPS’s fault.
Anyway, here’s what we’ve been reading:
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman: Loved it. I’m hoping AC will pick it up after he’s read Harry Potter 7. This follows American Gods, apparently, but I hadn’t read AG and I believe that Anansi Boys easily stands on its own. Quirky, funny, and poignant. That’s Gaiman. He really gets storytelling.
The Baby Beebee Bird by Diane Redfield Massie: this is a brightly colored, engaging book for parents and kid. Sam loved saying “beebee bobbi” over and over again, and it has lots of fun animal noises to make too.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling: Of course. I’ve now read it twice. Rowling did a great job concluding her magical epic.
Hi, Cat! by Ezra Jack Keats: this is Sam’s current obsession. It’s a simple story, told as much through the visuals as via the words, about a cat who interferes in a young boy’s shenanigans in the city.
The Open Mind: Exploring the Six Patterns of Intelligence by Dawna Markova: This was an interesting read, but I wouldn’t go out and spend money on a new copy (I got mine through PBS). Ever since I started teaching, I’ve heard about three primary learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Markova argues that in fact everyone employs all three styles, but on different channels. You may consciously learn best through visual input, but you also integrate information received auditorily and kinesthetically too, just in different ways. Hence the six patterns or combinations of intelligence. I’m pretty sure now that I am a VAK (visual-auditory-kinesthetic) learner, which would explain why I need to look at a visual diagram in order to put Sam’s humidifier back together.
The Old Ladies Who Liked Cats by Carol Greene and Loretta Krupinski: This is another library find, and sadly it appears to be out of print. In Greene’s preface, she explains that the story is based on an anecdote of Charles Darwin’s, calling it an “ecological folktale.” It is that, but even more so it is a wonderful illustration of simple economics, and how government interference “to protect the people” ends up causing deeper problems. Basically, a small island economy runs smoothly until the mayor places a curfew on cats. Because the cats can no longer catch field mice at night, the mice run rampant and eat all the bee honeycomb, the clover then is not as sweet and that affects the cow’s milk. The sailors who drink the poorer quality milk get weak, paving the way for invaders to conquer the island. The solution? Repeal the curfew and let the cats do their job. Sam likes the pictures of the animals.
