Family Read Alouds {July-Aug 2020}
Out of our normal routines in these lazy days of summer and skimping on bedtime stories due to sheer exhaustion, we haven’t been reading as much as usual. Here’s what we read the past two months:
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Books
Summer of the Woods by Steven K. Smith (Virginia Mysteries #1). My boys LOVED this book! Two best-friend-brothers move to Virginia and explore the woods behind their home. They discover an old coin in the creek, which leads them to uncover the details of an unsolved mystery of their town- the theft of a rare coin collection from the local museum decades prior. Lots of action and suspense kept my kids begging for more. Although I didn’t love that the boys hid their secret from their parents, the characters learn from that error. There’s also talk by the elderly neighbor of his brother dying at age 7 from falling in a hole, which felt a bit unsettling to my kids. But they loved this and it captured their imaginations. They’ve been digging for rare coins in the back yard and checking the dates of their allowance money ever since.
Wondrous Rex by Patricia MacLachlan. I had high hopes based on the reputation of the author and the summary, but this was just okay. We finished it in a week or so, and no one missed it too much.
Walking is a Way of Knowing (In a Kadar Forest) by Madhuri Ramesh & Manish Chandi. I have never read a book quite like this one. It was so absorbing and foreign and my kids were hooked! The Kadar people are a forest-dwelling tribe of the Anamalai Hills in south India. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers until about 40 years ago when they were forced to live in small permanent settlements at the edges of these forests. The Kadars continue to trek into the forests every day. The authors of the book were young researchers who set out to understand the ways in which forest dwellers relate to their environment, and the story is told as elders share the forest with an urban visitor. After walking with the Kadars for hours, the visitor gains insight into their culture, powers of observation, and story-telling. For them, walking is not just a way of getting from place to place but a way of knowing, and a full body sensory experience.
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. I was grateful we finished up the last few chapters on the weekend so I could hand the book over to my husband to read those heartbreaking sections when Charlotte dies. 💔😭 I think it’s good for my kids to see me emotionally invested in a beautiful novel… even if they try to soothe me with empty words- “don’t worry mama, Wilbur will make three new friends. You don’t need to cry!” I was surprised that my sensitive firstborn handled this book as well as he did. (Although he did page through and read the end after we completed the first chapter together!)
PS. We also LOVE Trumpet of the Swan by E. B White. I think we’ve read that twice so far in my kids’ short lives 🙂
Audiobooks
Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman. This was another that I had high hopes for based on the reviews. It didn’t strike any of our listeners as funny. At 58 minutes, it was entertaining enough for a few car rides, but not memorable. This may just be a matter of opinion as reviews are quite good.
The Wilderking series: The Secret of the Swamp King and The Way of the Wilderking by Jonathan Rogers (after finishing book 1, The Bark of the Bog Owl, last month). We completed this series with awe and wonderment and a bit of sadness that it was over… we literally sat in the driveway for the conclusion of the book and continued to sit in silence for several minutes after the final The End (one or more of us may have had tears in our eyes at the beauty of the conclusion). This is one of those series that has taken hold of my boys’ hearts and shaped their souls. I find the plot in their imaginative play continually. The series is loosely a retelling of King David as a boy, but not heavy handed or too rigidly following the plotline, just capturing the core of the narrative of “the one after God’s own heart.” It’s clear that the author has a PhD in seventeenth-century literature; the writing is gorgeous.
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield. This was a book that is often suggested in many of my homeschooling circles. It was published in 1916, and the narrator we listened to had a very grandmotherly voice… it felt very old fashioned and wholesome. Nothing too exciting happens for four and a half hours of listening time, but my boys both really loved it and requested it every time I said we were going someplace in the car!
So that’s what we’ve been reading lately! What about you?? Connect with me in the comments below or on my Instagram or Facebook accounts.
