To this day, I ride up hills effortlessly on my bike. Not that I go looking for hills, mind you. On the contrary–I often add miles to my journey to avoid riding up steep hills.

A so-called no sweat route.

But I grew up on Westnedge Hill. You didn’t leave my house without going down a hill, unless you went across that busy street. And we valued our lives too much to attempt crossing the third busiest street in Michigan(!) often.

And even though I was a scary child, I got in my hours riding up hills in my neighborhood. My latest Alley Kids book is available for kindle now. In Riding Bikes, I remember the Westnedge Hill neighborhood in intimate detail.

Last night I listed book two of my Recipe for Reading series. The idea behind Recipe for Reading is a cookbook style collection of reading games I’ve road tested with my family. Book 1 is chock full of nursery rhymes and finger plays for babies and toddlers.

Book 2 continues the early childhood journey towards reading. It includes everything from suggestions for letter searches to a game I like to call, ‘If You’re So Smart…’. I’m excited about finishing this book and offering it on kindle. It should be available in a day or so.

In the meantime, be sure to check out my phonics and abc books, as well as several AlleyKids stories about my childhood in Kalamazoo, and, of course, Recipe for Reading book 1.

I’ve always wanted to be an author. My dream has come true!

So, from the list I posted on July 8th, here’s what I’ve finished:

1. The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling
I managed to finish this interesting book on a schedule of a chapter a day, along with some of the other books. It didn’t offer practical hints as much as refreshing for the journey. There were some tips, but as I’m currently reading Homeschooling at the Speed of Life, which is full of practical tips for organizing your home and your life, the Imperfect Homeschooler book seems more like an outline of good ideas.

2. Mansfield Park
This book nearly derailed my summer reading, because I found it so compelling that I stopped reading everything else just to finish it. In fact, I practically stopped doing everything else; I just lay around reading about Fanny Price and company. I was very excited by the conclusions drawn in the prologue. Jane Austin was a genius. After I finished Mansfield Park, I went to the library and checked out a book about Jane Austin herself, as well as a volume with two other novels, Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. I was subsequently compelled to put Jane away for the summer and finish some other books.

3. Winning by Losing
I will probably need to read this one again, as it’s more an action book than a reading book. I had started it before summer, and was pleased to finish it amidst Jane Austin and all the American Girls books I’d ingested with my little girls.

Sadly, I only finished three of the original list of seven books. I am still reading the Charlotte Mason book. The good news here is that I’m working my way through it. There are a lot of references and heavy concepts therein.

I am even slower in devouring Pilgrim’s Progress and The New Rules of Marketing and PR, but I am still working on them. I already mentioned that I’m still working on Homeschooling at the Speed of Life.

I have also made my life harder by adding a couple books: Brave New World, which is fascinating, and Paula White’s The Ten Commandments of Health and Wellness with Dodd Romero, which is inspiring.

And as summer folds into fall, so my reading list metamorphoses; it continues, and grows, hopefully not carrying me into winter as well. . .

By the way, the children finished both libraries’ reading games as well. This is the first year that Joy and Esteban earned a t-shirt, so they were happy about that. Imani won her second t-shirt, and finished the local game early. Xavier enrolled in the game, and reported enough to earn the tiny flashlight, but he was not interested in the other prizes enough to go for them. He did spend much of the summer reading and riding his bike back and forth from the library, but he also took Chinese this summer, and wrote an opinion piece for the local newspaper, so he gets a pass on the summer reading program. I won a gift certificate to a bookstore in the Portage reading game, so that was exciting. I have yet to win in the Kalamazoo game. This year, the Kalamazoo prizes especially seemed affected by the recession. The adult game is usually good for a nice tote bag, but this year I got a seed packet for signing up. Nice.

1. Beatrix Potter Complete Tales R/I

After checking out each individual story numerous times, and even some of the DVDs, we finally broke down and bought the collection. We love the beautiful watercolor illustrations, and the British dialog and 19th century customs. I think my two particular favorite tales are The Fierce, Bad Rabbit, and the Pie and the Patty Pan. It was really hard to choose just two. Everyone, even Yanni, who likes to be contrary, and has an irrational dislike for all things British, loves this book.

2.These Happy Golden Years (Little House)

I love most of the Little House on the Prairie books, as well as the stories of Laura’s great-grandmother, Martha, her grandmother, Charlotte, her mother, Caroline, and her daughter, Rose. I’ve read every one I can get my hands on, except, curiously, Little House on the Prairie. (I had assigned that to Yanni when she was 9 or so, and she told me it was boring. I must remedy this at once!) My all-time favorite of the all the series is These Happy Golden Years. This tells of Laura and Almanzo’s courtship, and it is so chaste and sweet.

3. Secret Garden, Little Princess, Little Lord Fauntleroy: Three Complete Novels

After I finished reading The Secret Garden to the babies last spring, I went on a quest to read more Frances Hodgson Burnett. Of the three, I think the babies prefer The Little Princess. I’m partial to The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy. I thought it was interesting how Burnett insists that her heroines look ‘queer,’ but her hero, Lord Fauntleroy is beautiful. I wonder if that’s because she had a son?

4. Pollyanna

This was part of my cultural icons search. I wanted to know what people meant when they called someone a Pollyanna. I loved this hopeful, Christian character. She changed so many people’s lives, and turned so many hearts just by thinking about things for which to be grateful. I also loved Pollyanna Grows Up (Puffin Classics)

5. Little Women (Signet Classics)

When I started reading this to Yanni and Xay, I had to read ahead. Soon I had finished reading it to me, but not to them! Yanni has since read it, and I didn’t think Xay really cared too much. I liked this book so much better than Little Men and Jo’s Boys. Girls coming of age really strike a chord with me. I wish I’d discovered these as a girl!

6. Black and White

This is an interesting book I’d found at the library, and ordered it on Amazon as soon as I could. It tells four different stories per page, and you have to figure out which story goes where, and when each one starts and ends, and how they’re all connected somehow. I really like this one more than the children do. It’s too illogical for most of them.

7. Sam and the Tigers: A Retelling of ‘Little Black Sambo’ (Picture Puffins)

I got to meet the illustrator of this book! When I was a free-lance reporter for CityLife, Jerry and Andrea Pinkney came to town, so I interviewed them for one of two articles I actually contributed to the paper. (I discovered that reporting is not my thing. I much prefer blogging). It was neat to meet the illustrator, though, as I had already been a big fan of his beautiful watercolors. This story is a re-telling of the Sambo story, written by Julius Lester in a lilting southern storytelling style. The pictures alone are enough to recommend this book.

8. The Chronicles of Narnia Box Set (adult) (Narnia)

I didn’t expect to like these books; I don’t care for fantasy. But these were more than that. I read them to Yanni and Xay years ago, and by the third book, I was hooked, too. My favorites in the series are different from Yanni’s, which are different from Xay’s. We enjoy listening to them on tape as well. This last winter was spent od’ing on The Horse and His Boy from the Focus on the Family radio series.

9. Heidi (Children’s Classics)

Yanni had to read excerpts from Heidi when she was in the fourth or fifth grade. We checked the book out from the library, and I read it to Xay. We loved the story of the little girl with the big faith, and her nurturing grandfather. We checked out a movie about it, and it was no where near as good as the book. I can’t wait to read it to the babies!

10. The Complete Anne of Green Gables Boxed Set (Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne’s House of Dreams, … Rainbow Valley, Rilla of Ingleside)

It was an adventure finding each of these books at the library. My quest took me to every branch in town, but it was worth it. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to Anne next. And then the story followed her children. I was so upset to finally finish with Rilla of Ingleside! I wanted the story to go on and on and on.

Frank B. Gilbreth, in Cheaper by the Dozen

What impressed me most was that he volunteered to do a creative book report. Although, he didn’t know it was a book report until I told him it was. Xay wanted to make a jello aquarium with gummy fish and neon gummy worms, and jelly beans for stones.

It was his first time working with jello, and we bought the generic store brand. It took so long to set up that the jelly beans had lost most of their color by the time it was jelled. Many of the fish had sunken down to the bottom of the bowl by the time we had jello. The rest had to be stuffed in the opening of the *fishbowl.*

It was good snacking during the long Thanksgiving cooking time.

Once upon a time, there were two reporters at the Kalamazoo Gazette. Both fair writers, one better than the other. They met and fell in love. Some of their love story is chronicled in the Gazette, as part of their job is to attend events and report on them.

They married, and commenced to babymaking. A few years after their wedding, they gave birth to twin girls. They write about their daughters as a part of their jobs, and they continue to be pretty high-profile, taking the children to various events, and photographs are taken, etc.

Anyway, the wife in this pair had a column the other day in the Gazette. At first, I scoffed at the title: ‘the plot to get children to read.’

I thought, here we go again. Another round of reading is fundatmental, and all children who don’t know how to read are going to hell, just like the rest of society, blah, blah, blah.

So, I didn’t have a good attitude reading this column. It was very well written, with a touch of allegory. Very cute, in fact. It talked about the summer reading program at the Library.

I personally prefer the school year program, where children can read two books and earn a cookie coupon every month from September through June. Yanni really milked this for all its worth until she aged out of the program, and Xay is hot on her heels.

The summer program gives the kids weird beads amd a cheesy string so I guess they can have a necklace? when they’re done, but I’ve never seen more than maybe 5 beads–even that year when Xay finished his game card 4 times!

Anyway, I read the article and filed it in my ‘good writing, but I don’t know if I agree’ file.

Then, yesterday I decided to take the children to the library to collect their prizes. Xay has been reading like a house’a'fire. I mean, he must be 5 book reports behind by now! But the game card had approximately 12 slots to fill, and that boy was possessed to fill them all.

Imani is just learning to read, and it’s still at the pretty painful stage. She likes to stick with a book that she has memorized, and read that over and over. That doesn’t work real well with the game. I checked out several early readers and we trudged through them together. When we started yesterday, Imani only had 4 spaces filled on her 12 book card. I thought we could get her up to 8. Then, I thought about some of the stories I’d read at bedtime, which would also count. Then, I looked up and I said, “If you read two more books, you’ll fill up your whole card!” We waded through Elmo the Pig. Mani thought it was funny. All she had to do was present her library card, and she’d fill up her whole first game card! I began to see how I could use this game to get her ahead for her next school year. . . that article in the Gazette was looking better and better.
Yanni is on the Teen Advisory Board (TAB) at the library. She is also still stuck on her last assigned book of our school year, The Light and the Glory. I teased her that she could get kicked out of TAB for not participating in the game. Mind you, as a member of TAB, she helped design the game. General grumbling, disbelief, followed by a mad search for her book ensued.

This is the same child that read Crime and Punishment in a month and a half. I never finished Crime and Punishment, despite the fact that it was assigned reading in my College English class in 11th or 12th grade! Then, she proceeded to race through three Beverly Cleary books, two of which were non-fiction memoirs.

She can definitely read The Light and the Glory.

Xay found the book, and Yanni and I struck a deal that I don’t care what else she reads as long as she finishes that book.

We met my favorite librarian in the children’s room when we got to the library. Anne remembers Xay when he was 20 months old, and delights in seeing him take off. She handed our family over two other librarians, as her shift was over. Xay has finished the game. He won a t-shirt, a pen, several coupons, and got a new game card to increase his chances for winning big at the raffle in September.

Xay then proceeded to check out more books to finish the card a second time. “Mommy, I have a great idea! I can check out The Chronicles of Narnia!” and off we raced to find the whole series.

Mani finished her first card, and won a sticky lizard, and a bulging eye monkey, in addition to more beads for the ‘necklace.’ Joy and Esteban are in the read to me program. They won big last time–stuffed animals. Now they’re collecting stickers for their card. I’ve yet to fill up a read to me card. That’s my goal this summer.

I have also signed up for the game. I have never filled up a card for the adult game. I think i have to read something like 18 books. I sure wish I could count the books I’d finished before signing up for the game! I think I have about 4 on there, and I’m reading children’s books to get done faster.

Yanni checked out a Time Warp Trio book–I usually make them read those while we’re still at the library. She finished it the same day. At least she can get some points in the game. . .

art/sandwich report Xay.jpg

Q.: Why did you go to Harris’ house?
A.: Because my parents were drunk. They went through three phases of drunkenness: buzzed, drunk, and obliterated! I went there for the summer.

Q.: What is your relation to Harris?
A.: His father, Knute, is my second Uncle. His wife’s name is Clare. They have a daughter named Glennis. Then there’s Harris, who is 11.

Q.: What’s your name?
A.: I’m not telling you!

Q.: Why did you make Harris pee on the electrical wire?
A.: Because Harris said that my brain was messed up when I was talking to a girl!

Q.: Was the work on the farm where Harris lived hard?
A.: Yes. When Knute broke his hand, I had to do a lot of working, like separating the milk from the cream.

Q.: Were you sad when you had to leave?
A.: Yes, and so was everyone else.

Once, Oscar offered an ox to God. God said, “I do not want your offering, Oscar. I so love the world that I offered my Son. Now no one needs to offer dogs, foxes, oxen, or any other animal. They just need to accept my Son as Lord.” Fat Ox was happy.

The End.

(ed. note: Fat Ox was a character Xay created. His name was some of the few words he could read at the onset of Kindergarten)