Book Reviews
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
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Wile E. Coyote Science: A Timberdoodle Review
This is a sponsored post. I received this item from Timberdoodle in exchange for an honest review. These thoughts and words and opinions are, as always on this page and in real and regular life, all completely and totally my own. _________________________________ Everyone’s a homeschooler! Wheeeeeee! It’s a weird world, am I right? I’m not making light of our current world situation. But in my life I’ve never coped with any hard thing without a certain touch of levity. (It’s how I manage.) So you and your friend and your neighbor and the people who never thought they’d give it a try are homeschooling this year. Even if you aren’t…
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Bear Grylls Survival Camp: A Timberdoodle Review
This is a sponsored post. I received this item from Timberdoodle in exchange for an honest review. These thoughts and words and opinions are, as always on this page and in real and regular life, all completely and totally my own. _________________________________ Since they watched the first show with this guy, they’ve been hooked. My boys love Bear Grylls. They’ve watched lots of iterations of his show and they’ve read a handful of books by this guy. (They even share the animal name in common with him. Although I don’t think Bear is his given name, my boys’ actual middle names are Fox and Hawkeye. Well, I guess technically Hawkeye…
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Five Finds Friday (a new look, a story that stands the test of time, a t-shirt London designed)
It looks a little different around here – right? It might take a little getting used to but hopefully we’ll all be able to navigate it just fine. Actually, the real hope is that it will be better. Only time will tell. But I’m kind of proud of myself. Because I am NOT a technologically savvy person even though I run a business that is primarily online. The backend of websites is always a scary place to me. But, through both desperation and just plain old desire to get this accomplished, I gave it my best go. And so, without further chitter chatter – let’s get on to this Friday…
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WWII Graphic Novels: A Timberdoodle Review
This is a sponsored post. I received this item from Timberdoodle in exchange for an honest review. These thoughts and words and opinions are, as always on this page and in real and regular life, all completely and totally my own. _________________________ It was a quick and easy yes when Timberdoodle presented two graphic novels as a review option. As a kid – and as a grown up, frankly – graphic novels never pulled me in. I liked hearty, thick books. Descriptions. Dialogue. Details. But my kids. My goodness, they ADORE a good graphic novel. (And, let me tell you the truth, they adore a whole host of bad ones…
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five finds. on a friday. (eyelashes. chicken pot pie. basketball.)
Monday seems like a very long time ago. Was it? Maybe. funny It’s getting more and more difficult to have a nightly family read aloud time. But mostly I keep persevering because it’s important to me. Yes, the books themselves matter. But the IDEA of it matters more to me. The time that we all sit in the same space for half an hour when maybe we’ve hardly seen one another all day. The time to be quiet together and to listen to good words together and to hear the same story and to have routine and tradition and familiar to end our day. I read books that I think…
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These Is My Words: A Book Review
I haven’t written a solid book review in a while. But this book is so memorable that I just have to. Last year I signed up for my friend Ruth’s email book list, virtual sort of book club thing. (I sold that really well, didn’t I?) Each month she sends us a list of books to read – usually she’s developed the choice along a topic or a theme. And I think there is a Facebook page for sharing your thoughts, although honestly I never use it. Mainly, I just value that she is so well read and so intelligent herself that I love taking her advice and picking up…
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Juliet’s School of Possibilities: A Book Review
Expectations are infinite.Time is finite.You are always choosing.Choose well. It’s the heart of this little book. A brand new release. Non fiction. A parable. A fable. A moral of the story kind of book. Written by Laura Vanderkam, a time guru, this book is basically a story that teaches readers a lesson. Honestly, it was an impulse pick up at the library. The cover was red, it caught my eye, and it was on the new releases shelf – which meant I had to read it and return it in 14 days. Usually too risky for me. (Those pesky library fines, you know.) The idea and the concept of a…
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five finds friday (my weakness for hair products and my friends Jane & Walter and my kids reading classic novels)
I’ve had to do a LOT of writing for Travelers Rest Here this week and sometimes I can only write so much so I’m afraid over here had to suffer a little in the mean time. Let’s see – this week included: Driving places often. Per usual. But my attitude about it is improving. So – progress.Poison ivy smack dab in the center of my left hand. It’s so itchy and uncomfortable. Or poison oak? Or maybe some other bizarre thing?Bergen fracturing his toe because he was fooling around in the kitchen late one evening.Two different days in the same week where I got to sit in the glorious green…
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five finds friday (ankle boots, shaved ice, another great book)
We’re all doing the “school is almost over” happy dance this week at my house. Isn’t it always surprising how many other tasks can get accomplished when you remove one large every day item from your schedule? It’s been a happy week of slow mornings and wrapping up history lessons. Of finishing our geography studies and tapering off any novels and other books we are reading. The weather has been most cooperative and the mornings have felt like a true spring and a cup of tea on the deck in the cool of the morning is divine. funny I’ve probably already written about this show. You guys, I can hardly…
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Scary Close: A Book Review (& some feelings this book unearthed as well)
It was just sitting on the shelf at the library when I was looking for something else. Donald Miller. Scary Close. I haven’t read anything by this author in ages. Last two novels I read of his – Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – felt like I read them in another life. Which – technically, I did. Impulsively, I grabbed it and added it to the stack. Books about the Grand Canyon, the National Parks, Nelson Mandela, the Empire State Building, Twilight (yeah, that’s what one of my kids picked up), drawing guides, a couple Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and this Donald…
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A Reason for Handwriting: A Timberdoodle Review
This post is an affiliate post. In exchange for my personal and honest review, Timberdoodle sent me a free copy of this workbook. ____________________________________ It’s that time of year when every teacher and every parent is suddenly pulling out the calendar and counting down the days. Let’s just make it through, right? Finish strong and all that. But it’s also that time of year when most of us have to make decisions about our children’s education for next year. Ugh. Who designed this system? This systems that says – just when you’re real tired and over and out with the current school year, just when you have given up trying…
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books that work their own magic.
This post is about a book. But it’s also about parenting and homeschooling and personality differences and what we can never fully understand and about getting out of the way of ourselves as often as we are able and letting beauty and truth and ideas educate whenever we remember to step back and shut up already. I’m a talker. An explainer. I give too many details. To my kids.To you readers.To the lady behind me in the grocery aisle. And I often am dangerously close to doing the same to good literature. Superimposing MY words on top of already beautifully crafted other words. (This is an especially difficult habit to…
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The Awakening of Miss Prim: A Book Review
After I finished the beautiful and spunky and darling The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society novel I was forlorn. (I mean, you know, forlorn for precious literary novels.) I’m always working through a non fiction book (or six, whatever) but those aren’t books I can read at night before I go to sleep because then I forget everything about them. And they aren’t books I pick up for a little refreshing break in the afternoon or evening. (The Road Back to You or For the Children’s Sake isn’t exactly light reading for me.) So when Judy Kay suggested that I might really enjoy another book with a…
