2012 Read Alouds for the Girls - 7th and 9th Grade

We're still making our way through A Girl of the Limberlost.

Once we're finally done with Elnora, we're reading The Penderwicks at Point Mouette. The girls are probably a little too old for this third book in the Penderwicks series, but we are very fond of them and something light and non-demanding might be a good choice for Arwen's first weeks of school.

Then I have plans for some Wodehouse. Keeping things light and amusing...I could almost simply pick a Wodehouse book at random and have it meet that criteria but I do have in mind Carry on Jeeves.

Winter will present a second opportunity for the girls to learn to love Dickens. I've no idea what book we'll be listening to, but I do know it will be an audio book we're listening to, not me, and that Chris plans to listen along with us. It won't be Great Expectations or A Tale of Two Cities - the first was loathed and the second has already been read and - loved is not the word - liked, by Lucy.

Dickens must be balanced by something contemporary, so I thought Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, which has been recommended to me by several people.

We've always read together after lunch but as Arwen won't be at home after lunch ( sob! ), read alouds this year will be after dinner. Some things change but there will always be read alouds in this house as long as there are children to listen.

September Read Alouds

Farmer Boy - Snowy and I are ploughing our way through this one, pun intended. I must say, Little House isn't nearly as much fun with my boy as it was with my girls. Even the chapter where Almanzo and his siblings get left alone for a week and spend the whole time eating cake and icecream and feeding candy to pigs hasn't really grabbed his imagination. I do, however, enjoy reading aloud the bits about food.

He ate ham and chicken and turkey, and dressing and cranberry jelly; he ate potatoes and gravy, succotash, baked beans and boiled beans and onions, and white bread and rye'n'injun bread and sweet pickles and jam and preserves. Then he drew a long breath and ate pie...He ate a piece of pumpkin pie and a piece of custard pie, and he ate almost a piece of vinegar pie.

The Wombles at Work -  This is our 'fun' read aloud but I'm unimpressed. I'm a Womble fan - indeed, I went to Wimbledon Common to see the Womble habitat - but this book finds the Wombles relocated to Hyde Park and I'm not buying it. Snowy, however, finds it a soothing sort of bed-time read.

A Girl of the Limberlost -  Since the girls and I finished Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, we've been lost for a book. The library is uninspiring and the bookshop hasn't got in any of the lovely new books we're waiting on, like The Penderwicks at Point Mouette. ( We could order everything from Amazon and indulge in Good Books to our heart's content, but I'm the last homeschooler left on earth gamely trying to support the independents, or so it feels. Jobs are looking shaky in the bookshop business. )

It puts me off balance, not reading aloud to the girls after lunch. In desperation I rummaged around in a box of under-the-bed books yesterday and discovered Limberlost. It's been under the bed for years, having read it myself and found it to be overwritten and sentimental. Strangely enough, in the way some books have, it's much better suited to reading aloud. It's the kind of book where you can have fun 'doing' the voices. It's a coming of age story, lonely Elnora Comstock, burdened with an unhappy and widowed mother, making her way out of a harsh life of rural poverty via An Education and the collection of moths. Yes, moths. I seem to remember there's some sickly romance in the later chapters, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, neither of my girls being great admirers of sickly romance.

Half Magic Or "We Read Fast Around Here"

Read aloud time for Snowy hangs on a good hook here. By 7.30 he's heading for my bed with a book and his supper and we read till 8.00. At 8.00 the radio goes on so we can listen to The Book Show music and then we either turn it down to finish our chapter, or listen and chat till lights out at 8.30. Half an hour or more of dedicated read-aloud time most nights sees us galloping along  through our book list.

We've just finished Half Magic by Edward Eager. It's a funny, literate tale of  four children in 1920's America who find a magic charm, and of  the mixed up adventures it brings them. The children are intelligent and feisty, they have a mother who reads them E. Nesbit and Twain and their magical travels take them to places like the Court of King Arthur. ( Eager's narcissistic Lancelot is a scream. ) Snowy enjoyed the humour; some slight sentimentality at the end left him less amused.

Half Magic made me reflect on  the richness of assumed knowledge Eager expected of his 1950's readers and the comparative poverty of a Nintendo generation who can discuss Mario at length and be hazy on Arthur and his knights. And like many novels from an earlier time, it holds a mirror up to our low expectations of children's abilities to problem solve and to take care of themselves and others and reflects back to us an unflattering modern portrait.

First Read Aloud of 2011

 

I wasn't so sure about this book when we started. It's basically a long recount of a strange adventure by balloon to the island of Krakatoa just before it explodes - not a lot of dialogue or getting to know any of the characters, there's a whole lot of descriptive prose and the chapters are a little longer than I prefer in a read-aloud.

Despite all these potential drawbacks, Snowy enjoyed it. I thought he'd get caught up in all the weird and wonderful inventions the book's narrator speaks of but although he enjoyed hearing about them, where he really got involved was in the drama surrounding an escape from the Island. He had to listen from the safety of under- the- bedclothes, the suspense was so great!

It would be a fabulous book for a unit study. 1001 rabbit trails to follow with this one! Yet I was glad we were reading  'just' for pleasure and that Snowy and I had such a strange journey to return to each evening.

 

Dickens Dropouts

Although I've been enjoying the verbal gymnastics required to read Great Expectations aloud, the girls have not been enjoying the narrative in equal measure. They loathe Estella, feel terribly sorry for Joe and Biddy and have not a skerrick of affection for Pip. Which makes the prospect of another 40 or so chapters not so cheery. Lucy might read it on her own, just to see how things turn out, but Arwen - when not comatose with boredom - is begging me for fun and fantasy. I may have to visit the bookshop this week. What a terrible chore!

Truly Dickensian Children

Read Alouds for Six year Olds

I find that my children are ready for me to read chapter books aloud at about the age of five or six.
Snowy and I have galloped through a number of delightful read alouds this year, some familiar to me from reading to the girls, others new to both of us. So I thought I'd share the 'hits' of the year so far, the ones that I've enjoyed reading as much as Snowy has enjoyed listening.

Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson - first in a series of books about the amusing adventures of the Moomins and their odd but charming friends.

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder - if I'm honest, Snowy was lukewarm on this one, but I have fond memories of reading it to Lucy and Arwen when they were little, if that counts ?

Tumtum and Nutmeg by Emily Bearn - sweet story of two mice, Tumtum and Nutmeg, with just the right amount of danger to enthrall.

The Rescuers by Margery Sharp - more mice, more thrilling adventures, Snowy's favourite so far.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - see previous post

All the Nanny Piggins books by R.A.Spratt - see previous post

Peter Pan by J. M.Barrie - again, I've written about this previously.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl - what self-respecting child isn't going to enjoy this book ? For the littlies, it has the advantage of not being as frightening as some of Dahl's other books.

Mr Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater - we're reading this now and I've been looking forward to reading it to Snowy ever since I read it to Arwen five years ago. Funny characters, funny animals and gorgeous illustrations by the Newbery and Caldecott winner, Robert Lawson ( who wrote the nuanced and utterly beautiful Rabbit Hill, but that's another post.)

Coming up next ? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis. Being old enough to hear that book is like an initiation in our home...

What six year old needs dreary old comprehension sheets and writing exercises when he can have a diet of books like these to entertain and absorb ?