Two Fabulous Pro-life Stories! FREE TODAY!

 

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A Life Imprisoned 

The Life I Dreamed

My latest work....

I recently published a short story which is now officially available for purchase at Amazon.com.  The story is entitled "A Life Imprisoned" and it tells the tale of a man who is convicted and given a life sentence for the murder of a dog..... 

Check it out here!

A disappointing win

            I normally do not like the summer reading programs our local libraries have each year.  The idea of bribing kids to read by rewarding them with little plastic toys or pieces of easily breakable junk just bothers me.   You can read my whole summer reading program manifesto here.

This summer though, my children learned about a library not too far away that offered free books as the prize for their reading program.  Since the premise behind this was one I agree whole-heartedly with (that the true reward of reading is the joy of reading), I allowed my kids to sign up.   All summer we drove passed the closest library, just five minutes from our home, to go the one that gave away free books.  It was about 25 minutes away but, for my children, I was willing to make the trek each week.

My children have all always loved books.  This summer, I noticed that my middle daughter, at nine years old, really took off in her reading for the first time though.  She used to prefer to be read to, but this summer she discovered the enjoyment of reading to herself.   
 This summer, she seemed always to have a book along with her.  Every night when I tucked her in, I’d find her curled up in bed with her nose in a book.   She would announce every few days that she had finished another great story and was anxious for a new one.   It was really cool to see her take off with her reading skills and join her older siblings in their favorite pastime of reading.  

The library's reading program ended last week.  It was a successful summer from our point of view.  We have lots of new books on our book shelves (so many we cannot shelve them neatly anymore) and we have a brand new voracious reader on our hands.  That was enough for us.  We were all happy.

Then, last Friday afternoon the phone rang.  It seemed my middle daughter’s name had been chosen for an end-of-the-summer-reading-program prize from the library.  We went to the library curious as to what the prize would be.  

As it turned out, not only did my daughter win a prize, she won THE prize, the grand prize of all the summer readers.  Her award?  The entire collection of Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.  Eight brand new hard cover books full of disrespect, crude humor, and bathroom references.

I may be *a little* picky about summer reading programs but I am *really, really, really* picky about my children’s choice of books.  Call me a literature snob—but Diary of a Wimpy Kid is not appropriate reading material for my children.  My daughter knew this and as we drove home with her new books stacked in a bag next to her, her little face showed nothing but disappointment.  

We have decided that this is not quite fair.   

No grand prize winner should be without a prize.   

No avid reader should be left with substandard stories.   

So Diary of A Wimpy Kid will be donated to someone who will appreciate their children reading anything.  And my little winner will be treated by Mommy and Daddy to a trip to Barnes and Noble for a few good books she can choose herself.... with final approval from the purchasers, of course.

My favorite books

I have been invited to take part in a blog "meme" on my favorite fiction books.  Books, being one of my very favorite things in the whole world, are something I am always thrilled to share.  :)  I did discover, however, as I looked at each of the categories, that as an adult I have spent a whole lot more time reading non-fiction than fiction, and many of the fiction books I do read are my children’s books that I just happen to pick up or that I am “previewing” for them.   I've discovered that even in adulthood though, I actually really love reading books intended for children.  Oftentimes, they have a lot of depth and meaning and are usually innocent and inoffensive, something many secular fiction books I've read that are more "age appropriate" for me, are not.  As a fellow book lover once told me, children's books often have more "heart."  Of course, there have been a few more grown-up selections I have loved, as well.  So, without further ado, here is my list:

Favorite books from my childhood:

We Love Kindergarten by Clara Cassidy
All the “Ramona” books by Beverly Cleary
Daphne’s Book by Mary Downing Hahn
Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Cheaper by the Dozen by Ernestine Carey and Frank B. Gilbreth
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg

My favorite books to read to my children:

Yertle the Turtle and The Sneetches and pretty much everything else by Dr. Seuss
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Goodnight Opus by Berkeley Breathed
All the “Ramona” books by Beverly Cleary
Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
The “Little House” books (especially On The Banks of Plum Creek and Farmer Boy) by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia  MacLachlan
The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Betty G. Birney
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
So, so many more……

Current read-alouds:

String, Straight Edge, and Shadow by Julia E. Diggins
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Clown of God by Tomie De Paola

My Favorite Novels:

The Genesis Code by John Case
Three by Ted Dekker
The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint Exupery (a novella?)
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
The Witch at Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Novels I’ve enjoyed recently:

The Bicycle Man by David L. Dudley
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Flowers for Algernon (a novella?) by Daniel Keyes
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Year Money Grew on Trees by Aaron Hawkins

Novels I am currently reading:

Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore

Novels I’d Like to read:

anything by GK Chesterton
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Jeweler’s Shop by Karol Wojtyla (aka Pope John Paul the Great)

For more wonderful books, be sure to check out all the meme participants over at Sue Elvis' blog "Stories of an Unschooling Family"  and feel free to join in with us as well!

Harry Potter, welcome here...

     We are a little Harry Potter crazy around here these days.  There was a time when Tim and I were very anti-Harry Potter.  When the books first came out and we had only one child, just a baby, we heard so much about how the books glorified wizardry and the occult.  How they were a bad influence on good Christian children and good Christian parents should not allow their children to read them.  We decided, then and there, that we would be good Christian parents and ban the books in our house.  Even as my parents, siblings, and nephew delved deep into the world of Harry Potter, raving about the stories and the characters, we stood firm.  We would not go there.  We would never allow anything that promoted anti-Christian values and pro-witchcraft into our house. 
    Fast forward a few years.  A blog Tim followed, a good Catholic blog, featured a post about Harry Potter.  The blog author had read the books, all 7 of them, one after another, in about a week’s span.  He wrote about how he had heard the negative impressions from other Christians but went ahead and read the books himself to see if he agreed.  In doing so, he discovered wonderfully written stories exploring themes of good vs. evil and, in his opinion, promoting the noble values of sacrifice, love, and friendship.  Now at the same time Tim happened upon this blog, we were struggling to find worthwhile books for our (then) 8 year old son.  Our son, like the rest of us, is a voracious reader, flying through books at an alarming rate.  He also happens to read at a reading level about 6 times above his grade level.  This presents quite a difficult dilemma.  I want to encourage my children to read books that challenge them, that teach them, that help them to be better people and that help them to understand themselves and others better.  For an 8 year old who reads like a high schooler this is a difficult challenge.  He had read all the Narnia books, he had read the Hobbit and he had read countless other books, many of them mindless, that we found along the way.  It was getting to be very hard to find books that were worthwhile.  He was, at that point, spending most of his reading time with his nose buried in Hardy Boys books, age appropriate maybe, but certainly not very educational or literary.  So, we considered Harry Potter.  Was it possible these books we had written off as evil, could actually be acceptable?  We researched as much as we could, browsing Catholic website after Catholic website to get as many opinions as we could.  There were, as expected, various viewpoints and mindsets.   We decided there was really only one way to find out for sure if the books were good or evil, Tim and I would read them first.  Neither he nor I really wanted to.  I had no interest in wizard books.  He had little time for pleasure reading.  But, about three pages in, each of us was hooked.  The stories are well written.  They do explore the battle of good and evil.  And like good stories do, they suck you in.  With rapt attention, Tim and I both flew through the books, all seven of them, on the edge of our seats the entire time.  After we finished each book we would anxiously await the other finishing so we could discuss the twists and turns of the plot and speculate about the characters. 
    Needless to say, we have decided that Harry is welcome in our home.  We have allowed our oldest to read all the books, though we were still cautious about it.   After the third book the themes become much darker and more disturbing.  So our son, who is now 10, has only been permitted to read the first three books.  He has read them each several times over.  Harry Potter is not a perfect role model for children.  He is sneaky at times.  He is disobedient quite often.  But in the end he chooses good.  He chooses sacrifice over personal comfort.  He chooses to care for his friends rather than do what is easy and safe.  He chooses to stand up for what he believes in.  The stories do promote the values we want to encourage in our children.  They have opened up a lot of discussion about good vs. evil and about magic and the occult.  They have offered Tim and I the opportunity to teach our children things about our faith and the teachings of our Church that had not yet come up in life before reading Harry Potter.  
    The last Harry Potter movie debuted today.  We were not quite so Harry-crazy that we were in line at midnight to see it.  In fact, our children have only seen the first two movies, so far.  Though we love the stories we are not quite ready to expose our little ones to the intensity of the later movies.  Still, Tim and I do hope to get to the theater sometime in the next few weeks so he and I can see it. 

Around the world in 8 short weeks

    It is summer time!  My blog has been pretty depressing lately but today  I am going to focus on the positives.   Every year since I started home schooling, we have spent our summers working on “fun” learning projects.   Not that we don’t have any fun during the school year, but in summer I am more laid back and our “schooling” is even more fun than normal. 
    This year as I thought about our summer plans, I decided we’d go on an around the world trip.  A trip around the world with 5 children in a few short months- quite a lofty goal, huh?  Thankfully I’ve planned our trip to be simple and cheap.  You see, we live in an area with dozens of libraries.  Within a 10 mile radius of our house there are probably 10 of them.  A few miles out farther there are, at least, another 10.  Yet, when we set out each week for our regular library outing (usually coming home with 30-some books practically bursting out of the canvas bags that hang from our sagging shoulders) we always head to the closest one.  It is one of  the smallest in the area and my children are convinced they have read everything worthwhile there.  I am inclined to agree, not only because they are such voracious readers but also because the shelves are lined with a lot of garbage and the good books can be hard to find to begin with.   In fact, the canvas bags have been a little lighter and less full in recent weeks as the selection gets harder and harder.  Anyway, I decided we would spend the summer checking out all the other nearby libraries- taking a trip around our town to explore a new selection of books that will open up the world to us as we delve into their pages.   A different library, every week, all summer.
    So far, we have visited two new libraries.  The children have enjoyed so much seeing the amazing children’s sections they have, much better than our own library’s boring line of shelves and tiny rack of puzzles with missing pieces.  The first had a gazebo in the middle with soft cushions inside for curling up on top to read the array of beautiful books displayed all around the room.  It had tables of toys and bright colorful decorations.  And the books!  It took only moments to fill the bags to overflowing and I had to tear the children away from the shelves before they checked out the whole library.  Library exploration number 1 was a huge success.  Yesterday we hit library number 2.  If our first outing was a success, our second was an absolute triumph!  Library number 2 was quite a bit farther away but we had errands to run in that area and I figured it was worth the time to stop in.  Was it ever.  Library number 2 had a whole wing for the children.  A wing full of toys-- it looked like a preschool classroom with stations of playthings- blocks, a pretend store, a boat to climb on, a toddler-sized teeter totter.  The little ones played so happily that for once the older ones could explore to their hearts content.  No leaving this place because the baby was whiny and had had enough of the stroller.  This time she was the one we had to tear away.  With all the playtime, I personally never got a chance to browse the shelves of books but when we did leave, the bags were full, the children were happy, and the rest of the day was spent engrossed in interesting stories.   Clearly, our trip around the world is off to a great start.
    In addition to all our “travel plans,” we are finishing up the history lessons we never quite got to.  I had ordered a new history program last year, all excited about the great reviews it got, but was disappointed in it once we got started. We really gave it a good try but it got tossed aside around December.  This summer we are going to learn history the right way- through stories.  
    So, in a way, we are traveling not just around the world but through time as well.  I’m pretty sure there’s no better way for the kids and I to spend the next few hot, humid months than discovering new and exciting places and times through a summer-full of stories.

The richest kids in town

"Any kid who has two parents who are interested in him and has a houseful of books isn't poor."

~Sam Levenson.  

Hmmmm.... a houseful of books?   We have bookshelves in every room.

Some of them neater than others...

We have pictures books, board books, chapter books, and poetry books.

We have school books and story books, classical books and silly books.

Books stacked up high,

and books found underfoot.

Books spilling all over the floor,

Books placed neatly on the shelf (sort of).

and books we just can't put down.

Books everywhere we look!

 This has been one of those weeks when the book shelves are much, much fuller than the bank account.  But that is okay, it is all good, I don't worry too much about money.  With our houseful of books and, of course, love, I am pretty sure my children are among the richest kids in town.   

Summer reading program

    We packed up about 40 books, shoving them into 3 canvas bags that were about to burst at the seams, slipped our feet into our flip flops, and the kids and I set off for the library.  This scene repeats itself at least once a week at our house, sometimes twice a week.  The library is practically our second home.  This morning, the place was an absolute zoo.  I tried to bend over to get a book off the bottom shelf and bumped into someone.  I tried to flip through a picture book to see if it was worth checking out for my 5 year old and someone bumped into me.  The children’s section usually resembles a ghost town in the middle of the week at 11 am but, today there were people everywhere.  And right in the middle of it all, there was a line of about ten kids, their parents milling around not too far off, awaiting their little plastic prize for a few hours of reading over the last week.   It seems the annual summer reading program has invaded our nice, serene home-away-from-home making it less of a haven and more of a madhouse.  My son, coveting the opportunity to put his hand into the box of junk and pull out a cheap plastic toy, asked me what it was all about.  I explained what it was and told him that, no we were not going to sign up this year, though we have done it in years past.  Then, we quickly picked out another 40 books or so, and got out of the craziness as fast as we could.
    Now, I am certainly not against encouraging children to read.  I completely understand the motivation for a summer reading program, especially at the library.  However, I am a little saddened by it all.   I have always loved to read.  From as far back as I can remember, I have loved books.  I wish that all those children at the library, anxious to receive a reward for spending their free time with a book, would realize what I have always known.  The books, the stories themselves, are enough of a reward.  In fact, they are a much better reward than plastic tops or bouncy balls. 
    I wonder what it is that has convinced our children that reading is only a worthwhile activity if there is a prize attached to it.  We could blame video games, television, and overflowing activity calendars just to name a few- and I’m sure those things absolutely add to the problem.  I fear the biggest detriment to raising readers, though, is the books many children are given when they do decide to read.  I think a steady diet of Captain Underpants, Judy Moody, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid have stifled our children’s minds.   Good books, with thought provoking stories, just pull you in.  They interest you, intrigue you, challenge you to think about things differently and to consider things you may not have thought about before.  They change your perception of the world you live in and open up new worlds to you.  Books are amazing and children will devour them, if they are exposed to the ones that are worth their time.
    So, today at the library, we did not participate in the summer reading program because my children, like me and Tim, love to read for the sheer pleasure of reading.  The incentives would not change that, they would only add to the clutter around my house.  Whether they are rewarded externally for their reading or not, my children will pick up a good book and get lost in it any day of the week and any season of the year.  That, for me is the best reward!