Live. Laugh. Love.: What We're Reading

We finished Afternoon on the Amazon this past weekend where Jack & Annie traveled to the Amazon Rainforest and found the second of four "M" things to help break Morgan's spell: a mango! One of Will's new favorite expressions that's used frequently in these books is "Oh brother!" He smiles and giggles every time Jack says this in response to Annie's free-spirited, carefree actions. I also told him how Aunt Casey's students like to say the last repeated line after the tree house starts spinning to take them on an adventure or back home. So I'll finish saying "and then everything was still..." And he'll say "absolutely still" with a big grin. He also continues to tell me what chapter and page we are on each time we start a new chapter and helps me read the name of the chapter. He also remembered what a Table of Contents is and has (in the past few books) learned what a prologue is as Mary Pope Osborne gives a brief explanation about how this series began.

The weekend through Monday was spent reading book #7 - Sunset of the Sabertooth. Will was particularly interested in this book because of all the exciting animals in it. A woolly mammoth! A bear cave! A sabertoothed tiger! As we resumed reading each day, I'd always ask him some reading comprehension questions to kind of recap where we were in the story and he was always spot on. He found it fascinating that Jack & Annie rode on the back of a woolly mammoth (whom Annie nicknamed Lulu) and that Jack was able to scare away the sabertoothed tiger using the mammoth bone flute. The mammoth bone flute also happened to be the third "M" thing for their mission.

And now we're about halfway through with book #8 - Midnight on the Moon - where the magic tree house takes Jack and Annie into the future inside a "moon base". They learn interesting facts such as that one day on the moon is equivalent to 14 days on Earth, or that if you weighed 60# on Earth, you would only weigh 10# on the moon. They wear special space suits to go out and explore so that they may be provided with oxygen and temperature regulation. There is no rain or wind on the moon and therefore they discover foot prints in the thick dust that covers the ground, probably left there years before. I asked Will what he thought the third "M" thing would be that they discover in this book (before we began reading) and he guessed a motorcycle. LOL I think it's safe to say he is wrong, but they did ride on a moon buggy while exploring!

It's funny - I started reading a new Jodi Picoult book for myself recently and I'm laughing at how much tinier the words and longer the chapters are after reading these big-font, brief-chapter, beginner books. Also, while on the subject of chapter books, I can't wait to introduce Will to the Boxcar Children when he's a little older - a series I completely loved when I was younger.

Onto our picture books for the week.

1) Giant Earth Movers by Robert Gould. You remember Will's obsession with taking home at least one or two board books each time we visit the library? I've decided it's probably because he is allowed to browse through them a little more freely then the picture books on the shelves. The board books are sort of haphazardly displayed with the cover facing out in a shorter shelf for kids. So he typically peruses that section while I'm collecting our other books. This one is just about construction trucks as usual.

2) Bright Basics Animals by Nina Filipek. And this one is just about different animals and it asks comparing questions about which is taller or smaller, etc. He requested both of these books a lot but much of the time, he was satisfied with just carrying them around and looking at them himself.

3) How Many Kisses Good Night? by Jean Monrad Thomas was sorta' sweet but not that interesting. I thought Sophie would like it but she stills prefers her familiar favorites, so this one went back after just a couple days.

4) I Am a Tyrannosaurus by Karen Wallace. I don't generally browse the pages of books before we request them but I think I will start! This book is excessively violent for a children's picture book. Will is beginning to grasp an understanding of the food chain and how some animals eat other animals. But this talks about a tyrannosaurus ripping an animal to shreds, one of them a baby triceratops. No thank you. I had to ad lib and quickly move on to the next page to get through this one and then I told Will we would find a different book because this one was too mean. So we're going to hunt for a book about a brachiosaurus (long neck) who seems to be a friendlier plant-eater. ;)

5) The Bird House by Cynthia Rylant. We love Cynthia Rylant, but this one was particularly dull... unless you're a bird lover. Will sat through it and didn't act bored, but I still returned it with the others I mentioned above.

6) Here's a Cynthia Rylant book that was much better: When I Was Young In the Mountains. It's just about how life was simple and fun growing up in the mountains with her grandparents. I like how she said she never wished to travel to the ocean or the desert because she lived in the mountains and that was always enough. Will really liked this one too.

7) Cock-a-doodle-doo! Barnyard Hullabaloo by Giles Andreae was a fun, cutesy, rhymey book about farm animals.

8) The Snow Day by Komako Sakai is one I'm going to make a mental note to borrow again in the winter. I just LOVE days when we're holed up in the house while the snow falls outside. It's so cozy and romantic and this book reminds me of that. This book (along with several others this week) are ideas from Will's latest Scholastic order form. LOVE those things!

9) The Whales was both written and illustrated by Cynthia Rylant. You can tell she is very passionate about these great, gentle creatures by the tone of her writing. It's not a lengthy book but it's very sweet and the neat illustrations are done with acrylics. I love the pages showing the Orca whales that says: "Whales love their children, and when they are born, the babies are gently pushed to the top of the water where they take their first breath and see their first sky and gasp at the loveliness of living." Isn't that nice? Will has been really interested in whales - especially Orcas and Humpbacks - ever since he saw a Diego episode on Humpback whales. So he really liked this book.

10) Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French is so funny and had us all laughing. An Australian-native wombat looks similar to a bear, only smaller, and loves to sleep, eat, dig holes and roll in the dust. This story is just a choppy and comical journal of how a wombat spends its days. I highly recommend this one! :) Also, take note of the picture on the cover and how the wombat is sleeping. He always seems to be in funny positions with one or both arms and legs in the air. Haha! Now scroll down for some pictures of Will pretending to be a wombat. :)