we recently got ourselves into a lot of trouble, kenny and i. we made the big mistake of purchasing two packages of playmobil knights and swords for rowan and sawyer's easter baskets. 

it was a bit of an embarrassment when they kept calling the swords, "pokey things" and kept asking what to do with the shields, and wondering just why they needed "metal" armor on top of their clothes. we made an even bigger mistake by then getting the take-along playmobil castle complete with 84 more knights, 115 swords and shields, and one horse.  when they opened this up, the questions kept coming: "what does this pokey thing do?" "why does this man have a feather in his helmet?" "is it cold out? is that why they need these big hats to cover their faces?" "why do they have to protect the castle?" "what princess?" "what bad guy?"

i think it's time to introduce our 3- and 4-year-old boys to knights in shining armors, princesses-in-distress, and real-life heros like st. george. fortunately, we celebrate this day on the 23rd of this month. i just found a half price copy of St. George and the Dragon (even though it's a fictitious story of the actual St. George, who I'm learning is not actually British!), but i'm hoping it will enhance their castle-play at the very least.

are there any other recommendations for knights and castle and medieval stories for young children who don't know that a sword isn't really an inch tall and made of plastic?

some questions/comments to chew on while you read the next 8 chapters for our online discussion tomorrow:

1/ please convince me to finish this book.

2/ i'm serious.

3/ what i mean is, in today's society/culture, why read a comedy of manners of a culture that we really don't understand?

4/ the only example that i can think of that is a modern-day comedy of manners is the TV sit-com, The Office. and this show is funny to me because i lived the life of Pam Beasly - the secretary/receptionist with an imappropriate-comment-making boss. So I can appreciate the humor in this program.

5/ jane austen's books are considered "classics." my husband remembers having to read "Pride and Prejudice" in 10th grade. and he hated it. do we need to force reading like this onto students of those ages?

it's monday....i know, everyone's favorite day of the week. i usually like it because it feels like you are given a fresh new start every week. who can resist fresh new starts?

speaking of fresh new starts...last night, i decided to go back to the very beginning of Persuasion because i was all the way through chapter 5 and had no idea what was going on. except that there were a bunch of characters with very similar names and some house that i have no idea how to pronounce (Kellynch....two syllables, or three?). i think this had something to do with the fact that i tried to read several of those chapters when i was sick and medicated two weeks ago. not a good combination with jane austen. so last night, i actually dove right back into the beginning and am grateful i did.

so...how's your reading going? did you remember that this is the week for our online discussion? serina is hosting the first of our discussions (chapters 1-8) at her blog this friday. stop by, have a bite, join the discussion (or not), and have fun! the conversation will continue here at smithical a week from friday for the second bunch of chapters. serina gave an official "DELURKING" invitation and i will as well. please pop your head in and say hello during our discussion! even if you're not reading along...at least you'll hear our thoughts about ms. austen. or was she a mrs?...i have some research to do before friday, it seems!

just after college, i read a book that gutted me, and continues to haunt me today

the book was Two Part Invention by Madeleine L'Engle. it's a beautiful telling of two people madly in love who married and raised a family all the while living life to the absolute fullest. at the end of the book, L'Engle's husband, Hugh, dies of cancer, and i remember feeling just heartbroken for her as she described the death of her husband being like an amputation.

i re-read the book a month before kenny and i got married and it struck the same deep sadness in me then as it did the first time i read it. perhaps it is time for me to read it again, as Madeleine herself passed away this week.

although news of her passing is so sad, i can't help but smile at the thought of hugh and madeleine reunited in that forever place where there are no more tears.

today is the first day of summer! which means the end of the Spring Reading Thing. here is my original post on the books i planned to read. i got through a few of them completely and some of them part-way. i think that's pretty good for a slow-reader who has a million other things to do in her spare time (like every other participant, i'm sure).

i'm already knee-deep in my two other challenges (posted here and here). the boys and i picked up five books from the library the other day and we've read 4 of them a few times through already. rowan's favorite is a book called Farmer Will. we've read it about 54 times already. :)

here is my "Spring Reading Thing" wrap-up:

• What was the best book you read this spring?

The Mommy Manual, hands down.

• What book could you have done without? 

unfortunately, i think i'm the only one who didn't enjoy The Thirteenth Tale. all the reviews i've read of it so far have been extremely positive and i just wasn't impressed.

i also wasn't as impressed as i thought i would be with The Liturgy of Motherhood. i think i wanted more on the "motherhood" part and less on the "liturgy" lessons. i was hoping for a clever weaving of the seasonal liturgies into the busy and somewhat chaotic life of mothering (especially mothering young children). i thought it did too much liturgical teaching and not much life application.

• Did you try out a new author this spring? If so, which one, and will you be reading that author again?

yes. i'd read Flannery O'Connor already, but every other book was written by an author i hadn't previously read. i'd love to read Marilynne Robinson's Gilead after reading Housekeeping for the Spring Reading Thing.

• If there were books you didn't finish, tell us why. Did you run out of time? Realize those books weren't worth it?

i'm still reading Five Quarters of the Orange, The Contented Life, and Sacred Rythms. i just haven't had the time to finish them! but I'm enjoying them a lot. the latter two are non-fiction works and i want to savor them. i could rush through them to "finish" them but i'm enjoying them too much to rush them.

• Did you come across a book or two on other participants' lists that you're planning to add to your own to-be-read pile? Which ones?

katrina mentioned sacred parenting and i'm hoping to pick up a copy of that. and everyone seems to really love lisa samson. so i might pick up one of her books to read eventually.

• What did you learn -- about anything -- through this challenge? Maybe you learned something about yourself or your reading style, maybe you learned not to pick so many nonfiction books for a challenge, maybe you learned something from a book you read. Whatever it is, share!

from the mommy manual: "by the time a child is ready to enter school (kindergarten) it is already determined what kind of adult they're going to be." wow. that's why they call these years the "heavy investment" years.

• What was the best part of the Spring Reading Thing?

 i really liked reading all the reviews and lists of other participants.

• Would you be interested in participating in another reading challenge this fall?

absolutely! and i hope some of my blog readers will join in on the fun!

but it includes the boys!

it's monday morning. the boys and i are waiting for adam to wake up from his morning nap (his longest nap of the day!) and then we're headed to the library to sign up with the library summer reading club.

and then i found this (left) fun little book challenge (complete with an amazon gift certificate prize!) at a great blog. i'm looking forward to a few lazy afternoons on a blanket in the back yard with the boys...a few rainy days on a blanket in the living room...and many new adventures and stories shared. won't you join in?

until recently, i was one of the ones stating that "christian fiction" is an oxymoron. i felt it was in the same category as "christian music" or "christian television." 

but i was wrong.  lauren winner came to our church for a weekend retreat/workshop a little over a eyar ago, and she suggested authors and books in the "christian" category of fiction. i've read a few and i can safely say that there is such a thing as a great work of christian fiction.

i found a blog holding something called the "christy challenge" based on this year's awards given to christian books - non-fiction and fiction.

here is the definition of the challenge. join in!

_____________
i am also about 50% of the way through my list of books for the spring reading thing, which is due to "close" on the last day of spring - this month! yikes! the warm weather keeps me from reading too much (as do three buys little boys!), but i will report on the books i'm reading and almost finished with at the end of the challenge.

I finished my second fiction book in the Spring Reading Thing  earlier this week and think it's worthy of a review.

If you are not one to enjoy a slow-moving book, don't read this book. If you want short, succinct sentences to lull you to sleep at night, don't read this book. If you don't find comfort in reading about simple pleasures, this book is a waste of your time. I can't think of any other metaphor/simile for a book like Housekeeping but this: this book is like a conversation over a cup of tea on a warm, firefly-filled summer night; the cool grass tickling your feet while the words from your conversation will tangle lightly through your hair as you fall deeper into the chair like dead weight and slowly. fall. to. sleep.

That's probably why it took me so long to read. I can really only read now in the 20 minutes before falling asleep at night (since we've had such amazing weather, and when it's sunny outside, you work outside) and the writing in this book is so rich and intricate that it feels like i was reading a lullabye. In a good way.

Not that this book is boring at all. The story moves along comfortably, but it's enough to keep you reading and wanting to know what happens next. It's a gentle book with a big story. A sad story. A story that doesn't end with the last page.

I wanted to include a short excerpt of Robinson's writing. This is from the end of the book, and it won't give anything away, except the author's writing style:

Memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after it. God Himself was pulled after us into the vortex we made when we fell, or so the story goes. And while He was on earth He mended families. He gave Lazarus back to his mother, and to the centurion he gave his daughter again. He even restored the severed ear of the soldier who came to arrest Him - a fact that allows us to hope the resurrection will reflect a considerable attention to detail. Yet this was no more than tinkering. Being man He felt the pull of death, and being God He must have wondered more than we do what it would be like. He is known to have walked upon water, but He was not born to drown. And when He did die it was sad - such a young man, so full of promise, and His mother wept and His friends could not believe the loss, and the story spread everywhere and the mourning would not be comforted, until He was so sharply lacked and so powerfully remembered that his friends felt Him beside them as they walked along the road, and saw someone cooking fish on the shore and knew it to be Him, and sat down to supper with Him, all wounded as he was. There is so little to remember of anyone - an anecdote, a conversation at table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word however chance, wirtten in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair wthl dreaming, habitual fondness, not having meant to keep us waiting long.

last night, my mom attended a talk given by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, also known as the yarn harlot, at a local bookstore. she is author of several books, including At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much and Knit Lit (too): Stories from Sheep to Shawl.

and mom was pictured AND mentioned by name at stephanie's very own blog!

not only can mom drop Lauren Winner an email AND get a response, she meets and greets famous knitters/writers on their book tours.

Warning...this post contains a few spoilers in The Thirteenth Tale. So if you haven't read it yet and want to, skip this post until you've read it.

I was really excited to read The Thirteenth Tale since the description sounded like just the kind of book I like. Afterall, I'm a big fan of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

There is no doubt that Diane Setterfield's writing is imaginative, articulate, and beautiful. I loved getting caught up in the world of Angelfield and its many characters. And characters they were. I don't remember "meeting through reading" such oddball characters that I actually liked. But Setterfield has a way of enticing you into this world you'd never enter on your own.

I guess this is where I admit to being a bit disappointed in the ending. It was the last 50-75 pages that let me down. In the movie Amadeus, there is a scene where Mozart is waiting for a verbal review of his latest opera from the Emperor and his response was, "It was wonderful...but there were...ah...too many notes." To which Mozart was obscenely offended, and quite understandably so as how could Mozart write one too many notes?

Setterfield isn't Mozart. She is a word craftsman and an incredible story-teller. But I think this particular story could have been 63 pages shorter and a character (or two) less. Then it would have packed a bigger punch. In my humble opinion.

When I finished the book last night (I have done a lot of reading with Adam draped over my shoulder for his afternoon nap, or out cold on our bed while I snuggled up next to him. His longer sleeping schedule over this sickness has given me more reading time than normal...which is how I already finished this 400 page novel), I looked up a few reviews of the book. People adored this book. People gushed over Setterfield's classic story-telling abilities. So many other bloggers participating in the Spring Reading Thing have read it and have loved it (I haven't heard one negative comment about it yet in the blogging world). What was wrong with me?  Then I finally came upon a few reviews at Amazon that I agreed with completely.

*SPOILER* One reviewer said that Setterfield just didn't want the story to end, and I have to agree. I think the "introduction" to the ghost child...or the revelation of Winter's true identity...was a complete let-down. There was no need for a third child. There could have been a much more clever explanation of how Adeline became the competent Vida instead of introducing another character to explain the secret story of Miss Winter's past. */SPOILER*

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book because Setterfield is extremely talented, and the story had me very interested for the first 3/4 of the book. I'd recommend it to people because it's a fun read. But I can't say it's a book that I'll read again.

If I were to rate it, I'd give The Thirteenth Tale 3 out of 5 stars.

the wait is over! my spring reading thing reading list is...

fiction:
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Recommended to me by my mom. I'm three chapters into it already and am hooked.
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. Another book recommendation from mom. I've met people who love it and hate it. I'm eager to make my own opinion.
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. Mom gave me this one too (see a paterrn here?). She is the author of Chocolat...I've seen the movie, but hadn't read the book. And if the book was better than the movie, which is generally the case, then it must have been a great book.
A Good Man is Hard to Find and other stories by Flannery O'Connor. NOT a recommendation from mom. In fact, Mom doesn't like Flannery O'Conner, but I love me some Flannery short stories. I read a few of these before but not since college and I can't wait to read them again...and read some new ones.

non-fiction:
The Mommy Manual by Barbara Curtis. This has been on my wishlist for months and months. Mary at Owlhaven recently reviewed it positively, so my need to have the book skyrocketed. :) It was a birthday present from my mom, and I'm already a quarter of the way through it. So far, I'm loving it, and every mom reading this should get yourself a copy.
Sacred Rhythms: Arranging our Lives for Spiritual Transformations by Ruth Haley Barton. I am cheating with this one. My old bible study in Pittsburgh is reading through this book, so I jumped in on the study today (their second week) and picked up my copy. It's a beautiful hard-back book that I don't want to mess up, but I'm sure I'll be underlining like a champ as soon as I start to read.
The Liturgy of Motherhood by Kathleen Finley. Anything with the words "liturgy" and "motherhood" or "laundry" in the title has me eager to read it.
The Contented Soul by Lisa Graham McMinn. This came up as a recommendation for me at Amazon and after reading a few reviews, I know I need to read this book. It is how I wish I could live my life...content with the here and now, not wishing for more. But society yells at us to wish into our lives bigger and better and flashier.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After I made the list this week, my mom informed me last night that there is a new Anne Lamott book out. It's the third in her "Thoughts on Faith" books, called Grace (Eventually):Thoughts on Faith, and of course, I can't wait to read it. But it'll have to wait until I've read each and every one of the above listed books.

thanks to katrina at callapidder days for hosting this event (and for making it long enough to make it possible for me to read all my books!)

before i post my "spring reading thing" challenge on Wednesday (it's SPRING! in less than 48 hours!) i thought i'd quickly rehash the books from my "fall into reading" challange, also hosted by callapidder days.

Simply Christian by N.T. Wright. very good book, but a difficult read for me as he's extremely academic in his writing (probably similar to his preaching and teaching). i tend to be drawn to beautifully-crafted sentences and his are very pragmatic and to-the-point. which isn't bad, it just makes it harder for me to get the point. i guess i need "poetry" in a lot of my non-fiction as well as my fiction! i owed the Carnegie Library a bunch of money for keeping it out well past my due-date.

Father Melancholy's Daughter by Gail Godwin. i'd read this book before, and if i were to re-write that book meme i did a couple of weeks ago, i'd change my all-time favorite book to this one. this is poetry. and tragedy. and a love story. and full of grace and God and...man, did this book make me cry. also recommended is its sequel, Evensong. i didn't get around to reading it this past fall, but it's always so close to my bedstand that i pick it up from time to time and just skim a few chapters. i'll pick it up again, i know it. for the record, i haven't been able to get into much of Godwin's other works. these two are her best.

The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. i loved this book...and i didn't get to read nearly the amount of it that i wanted to (it was also a library-loan). it's thick and dense, but such a fun read. i love reading books that make me excited to homeschool instead of fear it. i'm currently drooling over her earlier book The Well-Educated Mind.

Simple Hospitality by Jane Jarrell. i never read it because our libraries didn't have copies and i didn't feel like purchasing it yet. and Katrina (Callapidder Days) recommended buying a used copy as she wasn't as impressed with it as she had hoped to be since it didn't focus on the simplicity of being hospitible. which is something that's important to me as well (although I do like to spoil my guests!).

Recovered Body by Scott Cairns. again, i didn't read it because our libraries didn't have it, and i didn't purchase it. if you ever come across a copy of any of his poetry books, read them. now THAT'S some poetry. :)

another book i read along with Simply Christian was Kathleen Norris' The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and "Women's Work" which also was out a bit too long from the library...i should have just purchased these books! it's a small book - more like an essay, and i ate it up like...marshmallow Peeps! i never thought of laundry, grocery lists, diaper changes, meal preparation, and cleaning (especially cleaning!) as Holy. but she makes a great case for it. the work of the manager or keeper of your household works on hallowed ground making clean what is dirty and filling minds, souls and bellies of her/his loved ones with knowledge, love, and food. isn't that what God does for us daily?

i'm excited about my spring list - i even pre-purchased a few used copies of some of my books. the list is longer, but i'm ready for it! i know we have a busy spring ahead of us, but i'm up for the challenge! and i encourage you to get in on it!

spring-clean your mind with a few good books!

now that i'm sure i got your attention over there in Arizona....

today we picked up a box of Cheerios. the name-brand kind, not the store-brand, or the natural brand (although Cheerios is sold in Whole Foods, so "it's got to be good"). because when it comes to Cheerios...the name brand is the real deal. i just can't eat, or make my kids eat, a different "version." it's like reading cliff's notes for a shakespeare play. or worse...baking with sucralose.

so we picked up a box of Cheerios because they are adam's favorite finger food these days. they wrap up a meal well for him...he likes to delicately balance a cheerio that is stuck to the end of his saliva-ed index finger, and pinch it closed with this thumb and s-l-o-w-l-y bring it to his mouth. it's quite a sight - and very different than sawyer-at-9-months who took a fist of cheerios and jammed them into his mouth like cookie monster (complete with cheerio crumbs flying everywhere).

the boys (and i!) were excited to see eric carle's "very hungry caterpiller" gracing the front of this particular Cheerios box (sawyer kept saying, "looks like MY book!"). eric carle is donating 100,000 copies of his book The Tiny Seed to the state that answers (and votes for!) the most correct children's book trivia questions.

so...only those of you who live in MY STATE...go to www.firstbook.org/carle and have fun answering some children's book trivia (i didn't get that many correct, but i did find new books to add to the boys' wishlist) and vote for our state to be the recipiants of his book. we already own this book, and it's actually a favorite of rowan's. and the artwork doesn't disappoint (especially if you're a fan of carle's illustrations).

while you're online, hop on over to carle's other great cause at www.picturebookart.org. there's some fun artwork to look at, booklists, and activities.

and no, eric carle or General Mills is in no way paying me for this post. i could only be so lucky.

i'm EXTREMELY excited to be entering the warmer months, but that also means i'll be doing more outside work and needing less hibernation (aka, reading cozied up under a blanket come 7:00 pm every night). but my stack-o-books keeps getting larger (thanks, in part, to my mother) and i'm excited to be involved in callapidder's "spring reading thing 2007":

thanks to Rocks in My Dryer for this meme....

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? Hardback, when I can.

Amazon or brick and mortar? I love bookstores. But there are no bookstores here. So we use Amazon.

Barnes and Noble or Borders? Barnes and Noble (the train table in the kids' section!!!).

Bookmark or dogear?   Dogear. It's a bad habit?  Really?

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?   I wish I were as organized (like my friend Emily). But my books are just thrown on shelves in random rooms. At least we have shelves!

Keep, throw away, or sell?   I'd love to keep them all. Kenny likes to cull through them from time to time. We generally keep, and give to Goodwill when we find books that haven't been opened since 1995.

Keep dustjacket or toss it?  I love dustjackets...the boys tears theirs off. So I try to keep theirs neatly in a pile on their dressers so they don't rip them to shreds. 

Read with dustjacket or remove it?  But I normally take it off to read it. And then replace it when I'm done (if it's not lost)

Short story or novel?   Novel.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)?  Collection. Especially when it's Raymond Carver.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? Um. I'm not sure what Lemony Snicket is. And I love Harry Potter!!!!

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?  I love to try to get to the end of a chapter, but sometimes I drop the book because I've fallen asleep before I get ot the end. And then I get all mad because i"ve lost my place...

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?  Once Upon a Time. I want to like mystery novels - I really do. There's a whole bookstore devoted to mystery lovers near Pittsburgh and I want to be a patron. But they just don't catch my interest. Every once in a while I'll read one...I think I read one by Jane Smiley once and liked it.

Buy or Borrow?  I love owning books. But I love the library. I have a lot of my mother's books, though.

New or used?  Used.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Recommendation and browse. And "read previous books by same author and liked it."

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?  Tidy ending, please.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? I can really only read right before bed. Or right after we put the kids to bed.

Stand-alone or series? Stand-alone. I love Harry Potter, but I'm ready for the books to be done and over with, I think.

Favorite series? The Mitford Series - I cannot, however, stand that these books are done. I want MORE.

Favorite children's book?  Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Guess How Much I Love You by Sam Mcbratney and Anita Jeram.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?  Celia's House - I read it when I was in 6th grade and I'm always looking for it.

Favorite books read last year?  Last year, I moved and had a baby. There was no reading. But this year...I just finished The Memory Keepers Daughter  by Kim Edwards and reallyreally loved it.

Favorite books of all time? A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (the end of each chapter gives me shivers...), 

Least favorite book you finished last year?  I reread More Than You Know by Beth Gutcheon and I didn't love it the way I loved it the first time. 

What are you reading right now?  This morning, I just finished a The Memory Keepers Daughter (see link above), and now I think I'll read...(see next question)

What are you reading next?  Leeway Cottage by Beth Gutcheon. I still love her even though I can only read her books once. I think.