what we're reading now

The Giant Rat of Sumatra: or Pirates Galore

Don't you love it when I don't post for a week or so and then post multiple posts in one day? I'm not sure why I do that sometimes, but I do. I have one more in the works (a review of what we think of All About Spelling so far)... but I'm not sure when I'll get to it.

Anyway... back to our read aloud. :-)

We are currently reading The Giant Rat of Sumatra by Sid Fleischman. It is the book club book at the library for April. I am so glad that Alex decided to participate in the book club.... we have discovered so many good books through the club. Alex started out with reading the books himself... but one came up that interested Clara so I read it aloud. Clara so enjoyed participating in the book club discussions too that we're now doing the book club books as read alouds.

We started this book on Tuesday.... the kids are LOVING it. They kept begging for just one more chapter so we read SIX chapters on Tuesday alone. I think we read another five today. The book has the added bonus for them of being set in Mexico. It is actually set in the San Diego area before it was part of the United States. It is set during the war between the US and Mexico which Alex had read about when we did our short little study of Mexico before our trip. The book has adventure, drama and comedy as well.... combined with short cliff hanger like chapters... a great combination for us.

Anyway... so far so good on this one.... I can't wait to see where it's going!

a fun little find from the library

Last night at the library was one of those nights where I was frustrated. I like to have stacks of library books to strew around the house for the kids to pick up and read. I usually pick up books related to our history study... but right now our history topic doesn't have many books available.

So... I wandered around aimlessly, pulling random books off of the shelves and putting them into our library bag. This book was one of the random books I brought home...

Stories to Solve

I brought it out at dinner to look it over and quickly discovered what a gem it is. It is a whole book of folk tales for the kids to figure out! The kids asked me to read the first one aloud while we ate and the next thing I knew were totally hooked! They loved trying to figure out the answer to each story... it really got them thinking! I don't think that they've figured one out without hints yet, but even when I have to give them the answer, they have really enjoyed going back through and seeing how that answer works. They begged to do some more at breakfast this morning!

Anyway... I just thought I would share this find since so far we're really enjoying it!

Juliet Dove, Queen of Love

Juliet Dove, Queen of Love: A Magic Shop Book

We finished reading this book yesterday. I have to say... surprisingly, we all really enjoyed it.

This book is this month's selection for the library's book club Alex attends. None of us were very sure about it. Alex wasn't sure about reading a book about "love". And I wasn't sure about how appropriate it would be... given that it's a book about love that centers around middle school aged kids. That's how it became our read aloud.

The basic premise of the book is that Juliet is given a magic necklace (once it's on, she can't take it off) that makes boys fall in love with her. The book is about her adventures in trying to free herself from the necklace.

The kids really enjoyed it! They thought the boys following Juliet around were really funny. It helped that Juliet wasn't too impressed with having all of these boys in love with her (she's extremely shy). She gets help on her adventure from two talking rats which the kids enjoyed. She also has help from her younger brother, Byron (who happens to be Alex's age), her little sister, her little sister's imaginary friend and several Greek goddesses. All of this made it very amusing to my two.

However, this book wasn't without some concerns. The first chapter starts out with some "mean girl" stuff. I was a little disheartened, figuring that if it was in the first chapter it would continue throughout the whole book. Thankfully, the "mean girl" stuff was very limited. The other thing is a one line reference nearer the end of the book. One of the girls, jealous of all of the attention Juliet is getting from the boys, makes this comment...

"Well, Killer, you must be giving the boys everything they want!"

This line made my cringe.... but my two had no clue what was referenced. Later in the dialog Juliet asks if everyone thinks she's kissing the boys.

It was a surprisingly good read! I can't wait to see what the next book club book is!

The Doll People

The Doll People

We just finished reading The Doll People yesterday. I have to say that we LOVED this book. This was Alex's book for the book club he participates in at the library. He usually reads the books himself, but this month he was deep into Inkheart, lacking motivation to read something called "The Doll People" and then add in there that Clara expressed an interest in the book. So, it because our read aloud.

It was so much fun! Alex loved it every bit as much as Clara (in fact he gave it a 5 out of 5 star rating at book club last night). It has a bit of adventure and mystery.... strong female main characters and a great story about dolls who are alive. I always hesitate when doing book reviews since I don't want to give too much away.... so this will be brief. :-)

The kids got into this book so much that one night they created the Doll family and the Funcraft family out of Clara's dolls (and what the Clara didn't have, Alex made out of Legos). They even rounded up some animals so they could have "rancher family". This book truly captured their imaginations.

Anyway... now Clara wants me to track down the other books in the series since she loved The Doll People so much. Clara sits through most read aloud books but this one was the first that she really, really got into... she has proclaimed that it was her most favorite read aloud ever.

Now on to our next read aloud! :-)