My Children's Summer Reading

This summer we have visited the library many, many times - sometimes stopping at 2 or 3 libraries a day. This is not helping the state of my TBR pile at all, and while I have contemplated making the decision to work on what I have already checked out, it is so much fun to get a new stack of books to dream of reading.

And my daughters have enjoyed picking out a few new things to look at and read, too. Right now we are finishing up Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary, anxiously awaiting the release of the movie. While my oldest daughter has read all the Ramona books to herself already, even she is listening attentively as we re-read something familiar to her. Who can resist hearing about Ramona putting her doll Bendix in the oven in Beezus' birthday cake and destroying her sister's special day? We have made the decision to keep reading through all of Ramona's adventures because she is so entertaining, and I am looking forward to this happy stroll down memory lane for myself.

My oldest daughter happily enjoyed reading Best Friends Forever: a World War II Scrapbook by Beverly Patt. Set up like a scrapbook, my daughter has learned so much about the plight of Japanese Americans and their time spent in internment camps. We have had good discussions about an event in history that I did not learn about until I was much older than my daughter's eight years. She has proudly proclaimed this the best book she has read "in the past six months - at least."

One of my goals this summer was to introduce my girls to some classics. Heidi by Johanna Spyri was one of my favorite books when I was in third grade. When I announced I would be reading this book, I was met with resistance initially, but my two oldest daughters loved Heidi and would beg for me to read more each night.

Today my middle daughter found a book that will give her hours of looking pleasure: Collector's Guide to Lunchboxes by Carole Bess White and L.M. White provides pictures of many lunchboxes I remember from my youth (and a few others besides). There was much exclaiming over these beautiful treasures, and lots of inquiry as to which ones we could buy. I was happy to explain that these pictures were just for looking, although she and my husband have had fun perusing lunchboxes on eBay this evening.

This hardly touches our summer reading, but it is what we are currently thinking about at our house. I should finish up The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry this evening and have two more books I have already determined to read next.