Thursday, January 03, 2008

Reading Round-Up, End of Year Edition

Well, here we are in the first days of 2008, and I still haven't listed the books I was busy reading in the final month or so of 2007. I thought I'd do one more reading round-up to cover that. I'm also busy trying to compile as full a list as possible of what I read during the whole year. From that, I'll pull my personal favorites list, which I hope to post sometime in the next week or so.

Reading time has been scant for the past six weeks or so, between holiday travels and end of semester grading. January looks to be plenty busy too, especially since I need to concentrate much of my reading/thinking time on the Church in England course I'll be teaching this semester. That goes online around the 24th, I think, so the reading list may look a bit heavy on English history for a while.

Currently reading:


The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
C.S. Lewis, Poet by Don King
The Little House Reader compiled and edited by William Anderson
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions by George Barna

Recently read:

The Evolution of the English Churches (1500-2000) by Doreen Rosman
God With Us by various devotional writers including Richard John Neuhaus, Scott Cairns, Luci Shaw, Kathleen Norris, and Emilie Griffin
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
Some other children's literature not nearly as good as the above :-)

Homeschool "stuff":

Pulling from The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise and Susan Buffington (for some further lessons and reinforcement as the sweet girl finishes up work in 100 Easy Lessons soon)

Also printing out a downloadable copy of a fascinating Reading Primer by Harriette Taylor Treadwell and Margaret Free, copyright 1910. I plan to have the sweet girl read through the nine stories collected there during this coming spring. Some of the stories included are "The Little Red Hen," "The Gingerbread Boy," and "Chicken Little." I love finding old but terrific resources like this!

Current Favorites on the Sweet Girl's Shelf:


Llama, Llama Mad at Mama
by Anna Dewdney
The Twelve Days of Christmas illustrated by Jan Brett

2 comments:

Erin said...

Oooh, Dewdney has another one? Must check out!! Right now I'm reading a book called "Three Bags Full," which takes place in Ireland but apparently was written in Germany. It was a Christmas present from our former exchange student. Haven't gotten too far into it, but it's pretty fun!

Oh, and I *finally* read "The Polar Express"!

Beth said...

Yep! I think Dewdney's will be my next review, though I've been trying to get to it for two weeks. Right now I'm diving deep, deep into English church history in preparation for my class. I'll be doing well if I get ten reviews done this month.

You know, I've never read *The Polar Express* or seen the film either, though I really do enjoy Chris Van Allsburg's artwork.