What We’ve Been Reading Lately – August 2020 Edition
It’s that time again! I love sharing our reads at the end of each month! I’m a little late this month, but hopefully you’ll forgive me 😉 As we’ve started back to school, our read alouds have dropped off a bit, but I’m trying to make an effort to read books together outside of school as well. Let’s dive in!
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What I've Been Reading Lately
Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time
This book is more of a resource than a book to read. The first few chapters are about why raising globally minded kids should be a priority and how to do that, but the rest of the book is amazing booklists. There are chapters for every continent and suggested books to help your child learn about the cultures and people there. Jamie gives suggestions for picture books all the way up to books for your high schoolers. I checked it out from the library to see what it was like and now I want to own it! It’s a great resource to have for geography or simply for diversifying the things your child is reading.Â
It seems like almost every month this year, I’ve been posting classics that I didn’t read until now. The Call of the Wild definitely fits into that category.
This is the story of Buck, a dog stolen from his comfortable home and sold to a dog team traveling in the Alaskan Klondike. This is considered Jack London’s best work and adored by many. And I … hated it. I pushed through, hoping there would be some happiness, some redemption, but it’s mostly full of violence against the dogs and the treacherous conditions they endure. I’m sure I’m inviting criticism, as this is such a beloved book, but it wasn’t worth sticking with. The writing style was beautiful, but that didn’t save it for me.
I picked this book up for 25 cents while thrift shopping with my older sister. I had read James Herriot’s Treasury for Children with Claire in kindergarten. We both adored it. I had heard good things about his adult books, but hadn’t checked them out. I’m so glad I read this!Â
It’s the story of how James Herriot becomes a country vet in Yorkshire, England. It’s filled with heart-warming stories about both animals and humans. There honestly aren’t words for how much I loved this book. In these tumultuous days, this book was a wholesome breath of fresh air. It isn’t often that I rate books 5 stars on GoodReads, but this one received that rating easily! I highly recommend it, especially if you love animals.
“When Death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it. Of every year that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentle nature comes. In the Destroyer’s steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven.”
The Old Curiosity is the second Dickens book I’ve read this year (I read Martin Chuzzlewit back in May). I think this is the third time I’ve read this one, but I absolutely love it.
Primarily the story of beautiful little Nell Trent and her grandfather, this story also includes a lot of unforgettable characters (if you’ve read it, I’m sure you remember Daniel Quilp … and shudder). Many Dickens novels take me a while to get into. He takes his time developing characters and setting the stage. However, The Old Curiosity Shop always sucks me in immediately. My only qualm is that it doesn’t have the ending I wish it did. I won’t say anything else, lest I spoil anything. It was a very enjoyable re-read.
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
“It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety; indeed, if cuts you off from your own past and future, sealing you in a continuous present.”
John Taylor Gatto was a public school teacher for 30 years in New York. He was admired and even won Teacher of the Year. However, the close proximity to compulsory schooling and its effects changed how he saw schooling. While I don’t agree with everything he wrote in this collection of essays, this book further cemented my love for homeschooling. I understand many parents can’t homeschool and choose not to, so this isn’t intended to shame anyone, but this book really drove home how broken our school system is. I highly recommend this book to all parents, even if your children attend school. Our children deserve better. We can’t advocate for change unless we see the need for it.
What Claire's Been Reading Lately
Claire received this Marguerite Henry set from her uncle for her birthday. I’m pretty sure it contains all of Marguerite Henry’s books. We’d read the Misty books, but not the others. It took Claire about half an hour to finally choose which book to start with! She loved Brighty! It’s the story of a mule who lived and adventured in the Grand Canyon during the late 1800s. We’ve yet to find a Marguerite Henry book that isn’t wonderful.
Last month, Claire read the first book of this series, Peter and the Starcatchers. This month she sped through the next two books in the series (this one and Peter and the Secret of Rundoon). All are a prequel tale of Peter Pan. Claire has absolutely loved them! They’re all pretty hefty books (in the 600 page range), but she has proclaimed them her favorite series of all time. She keeps telling me I need to read them.
The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Beginning
I had been seeing rave reviews of this series all over Instagram! I requested them from the library and Claire has really enjoyed them. The story of Peter and his sister, Mary, this is almost like a Magic Treehouse type series, but with Bible stories! So far, Claire has read the first 4 of the series and really liked them.
Jasmine Green Rescues: A Piglet Called Truffle
This is also part of a series (are you sensing a theme here? Claire loves series!). Jasmine’s mother is a veternarian and her father is a farmer, so she’s grown up around animals. In this series, she rescues different animals and they’re such adorable books! The other books in the series are about a duckling, an owl, a deer, a dog and a kitten. Claire has only read two (that’s all our library has), but they’re right up her alley! She highly recommends them to any animal lovers!
Read Alouds
I picked this book up at a thrift store some time last year. I had heard it was a fun story, but by the time we got around to reading it (last month), I was a little wary. I hadn’t read it as a child, so I was concerned there would be a lot of racism I’d need to correct in it. I figured the worst thing that happened would be that we stopped reading and had a good discussion about racism. I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of the plotline is actually fairly anti-racist (especially as it addresses the main character assuming all Native Americans are alike or behave a certain way based on TV shows he’d watched). Of course, the term Indian is used instead of Native American, but when it was written, Indian was the more common phrase used. There is some animosity between the cowboy and the Native American that needed some addressing, but overall, it was a pretty fun book that we enjoyed reading together.
Rose’s family owns a bakery. But not just any bakery. A magical bakery! Rose can’t wait until she is old enough to be able to bake recipes out of the family’s magical cookery book. So, when her parents leave town on a magical emergency, she decides it’s her time to shine.
I wanted so badly to like this book. The premise was really fun and reminded me a bit of the magical recipes in Igraine the Brave (by Cornelia Funke … highly recommend that one!). However, this book was really problematic for me in several ways. To put it in a nutshell, I didn’t like the focus on crushes and everyone’s physical appearance. Rose thinks she’s hideous and spends most of the book comparing herself to everyone else. There’s no redemptive arc. She just has really low self-esteem and the book leaves her there. I didn’t feel like she was a very admirable protaganist for young girls. I could go on about other issues I had with the book, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll stop there. If you’re interested in reading more, feel free to check out my review on Goodreads. Claire really enjoyed the book, so we did finish reading it, but had lots of discussions about poor attitudes/choices of the characters along the way. It’s the first in a series and we won’t be reading any further.
The sequel to The Wild Robot, this book is the continuing story of Roz the robot. I don’t want to write too much about the plot, because if you haven’t read the first book, a plot synopsis will spoil it. Last month we enjoyed The Wild Robot together as a family. This month we read The Wild Robot Escapes and loved it! It was the second time Claire and I had read it, but we knew Peter would love it too. We’re getting ready to have a family book party surrounding the book, which we’re excited about! The ideas are coming from our Brave Writer Arrow guide (which we use for language arts). If you’d like to read more about the Arrow, check out my curriculum review here.
That’s it for this month! I hope you enjoyed checking out the books Claire and I have been reading this month. Maybe a book intrigued you, so let me know if you decide to read any of the books we’ve shared here! We’re always looking for book suggestions too, so please tell us what you’ve been reading in the comments section below!
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