21 New Books for Your Fall Reading List

Fall means new books, and we’re pretty excited about these.

After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again) by Dan Santat

Santat’s first book since Caldecott winner Are We There Yet? focuses on the psychological repercussions of Humpty Dumpty’s great fall. (Elementary)

La La La: A Story of Hope by Kate DiCamillo

Jaime King’s illustrations illuminate this lovely, almost wordless book about a brave little girl who ventures out into the world with a song. (Elementary)

The Antlered Ship by Dashka Slater

Curious fox Marco sets sail with a crew of deer, finding plenty of adventure on his search for a skulk of equally curious foxes. (Elementary)

Where’s Halmoni? by Julie Kim

Korean folk and fairy tales come to life in this charming graphic novel, in which two siblings go in search of their halmoni, or grandmother, through a magical door. (Elementary)

The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse by Mac Barnett

Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen team up again in this tongue-in-cheek tale of a mouse who gets swallowed by a wolf and finds that a duck has already set up a cozy abode inside the wolf ’s belly. (Elementary)

Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome

This gorgeous free verse biography recounts Tubman’s life from her childhood in slavery to her adult willingness to risk her own life for other people’s freedom, chronicling her strength, compassion, and resilience. (Elementary)

All’s Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson

Homeschooled Imogen Vega leaves her comfortable Renaissance Faire world to enter public high school in this graphic novel from the author of Roller Girl. (Middle grades)

The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M. Valente

The Bronte siblings’ imaginary world comes to life—wonderfully and dangerously—in Valente’s first (stand-alone) book since the Fairyland series. (Middle grades)

The Gauntlet by Karuna Riazi

Farah and her friends get sucked into a very dangerous game and must fight their way out to save themselves and the rest of the world in this diverse, steampunk take on the Jumanji idea of a game gone very, very bad. (Middle grades)

Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

In Applegate’s newest work, an ancient oak tree narrates the story of a Muslim boy who finds prejudice and fear in his new neighborhood. (Middle grades)

The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag

In Aster’s world, boys always grow up to be shapeshifters, and girls get to be witches. But Aster’s always dreamed of being a witch, so he sneaks off to the woods to study witchcraft on his own. (Middle grades)

A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney

I’m not convinced that these friendships are as secret as the authors (also literary friends) suggest, but this set of four dual biographies centered on some of literature’s best-known women and their friends is fascinating nonetheless. (High school)

Beren and Luthien by J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien’s son put together this lavishly illustrated version of a story told in the appendices of the Silmarillion, tracing the star-crossed lovers’ story’s evolution and significance across Tolkien’s work. (High school)

The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

Pullman’s long-awaited return to the alternate Oxford of the His Dark Materials trilogy introduces an 11-year-old boy named Malcolm who meets a baby named Lyra Belacqua—yes, that Lyra. (High school)

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds 

With a claustrophobic setting (it reminded me of Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine) and a critical perspective on gun violence, this tense story takes place on a seven-story elevator ride a 15-year-old boy with a gun is taking to avenge his brother’s murder. (High school)

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green 

Teen lit hero Green returns with his first novel since The Fault in Our Stars. This time, he’s exploring the world of a 16-year-old with a mental illness who becomes obsessed with the disappearance of a billionaire. (High school)

The Dire King by William Ritter

The supernatural Sherlock Holmes series Jackaby wraps up with its fourth book, in which Jackaby, his intrepid assistant Miss Rook, dog-shifting policeman Charlie Cane, and ghostly Jenny Cavanaugh work to prevent the apocalypse. (High school)

Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

Vivian Carter isn’t trying to start a revolution at her Texas high school when she starts publishing an underground feminist zine—she’s just fed up with her community’s sexist attitudes. As it turns out, she’s not the only one, and before she knows it, Vivian is leading the resistance. (High school)

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao

Dao’s first novel in a new fantasy series is steeped in Asian mythology and folklore. The first installment follows an 18-year-old beauty who must choose between good and evil en route to her destiny. (High school)

Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

In book two of this series, newly minted witch Sunny works to develop her skills so that she can fulfill her destiny and prevent the apocalypse. This series is a little like a feminist, Nigerian take on Harry Potter. (High school)

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Teenage Justyce starts a journal writing to Martin Luther King, Jr., after a false arrest has him questioning racism and resistance in his world. When his worst fears are realized in a police shooting, Justyce has to confront the darkest parts of himself and the world he lives in. (High school)

This list is reprinted from the fall 2017 issue of home/school/life.

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Library Chicken Update :: 11.7.17

Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!

How is it November already? I mean, I’m more than happy for 2017 to be nearly over with (it hasn’t been great, let’s be honest), but I’m just not sure how we’ve made it this far. Clearly I need to pay more attention to what’s going on in the outside world--OR I could bury my head in my books and continue to ignore the passage of time. Yep, that second option works for me.

The Just City by Jo Walton

This book, about Pallas Athene setting up an experimental community based on Plato’s Republic and populated by people chosen from throughout human history, begins with Athene and Artemis trying to explain the concept of consent to Apollo. I’d recommend it based on that alone, but it just gets better from there. (Wait til you get to the part where Socrates tries to talk to the robots.) It’s first in a trilogy, so I’ll be tackling the sequel next — and I suppose I should finally get around to reading the Republic.
(LC Score: +1)

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Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

The Scooby Gang accidentally reads from the Necronomicon. There. That’s all I’m going to say. If you don’t run out and IMMEDIATELY get this book, it’s no fault of mine.
(LC Score: +1)

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Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball

Elderly people are going missing in a small Japanese town. A young man confesses responsibility, but refuses to speak further, either in explanation or defense. This is a strange and compelling book. I found it both intriguing and irritating and honestly I’m not sure which reaction the author intended.
(LC Score: +1)

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One Foot in the Grave by Peter Dickinson

James Pibble mystery #6. This final Inspector Pibble mystery begins with Jimmy (now a widower and stuck in a fancy nursing home for the aged and infirm) contemplating suicide. Fortunately, before he can do anything drastic, he finds a dead body and gets caught up investigating the murder. After the depressing opening I was concerned that this last outing would be grim, but I found the ending to be unexpectedly sweet.
(LC Score: +1)

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Wobble to Death by Peter Lovesey

I could tell you that after finishing the Pibble books I needed to start a new mystery series, and this one — set at a Victorian six-day “pedestrian” competition and introducing Sergeant Cribb as our sleuth — seemed like a nice option, but we all know I had to pick it up because there’s no way I could resist that title, right?
(LC Score: +1)

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Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall

The (male) Transcendentalists may be obnoxious and annoying at times, but they did hang out with some incredibly brilliant and amazing women. (That I’ve SOMEHOW never heard of. American History, go to your room and think about what you’ve done wrong.) I didn’t quite fall in love with Margaret Fuller the way I have with some others in my recent Alcott-adjacent reading (Elizabeth Peabody, please be my best friend!) but this is a fascinating biography of a talented and unjustly-neglected American.
(LC Score: +1)

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Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee

From Concord to Bloomsbury! I’ve read a bit of Virginia Woolf’s fiction (most recently the very charming Orlando) and have been meaning to get back to her (and her motley crew of associates), so I thought this massive biography by Lee would be a good place to start. (If you haven’t noticed, I have a weakness for massive biographies.) As a newbie to all things Woolf, I found it a bit overwhelming — Lee engages not only with her subject, but with all the biographers, commentators, and critics who have written about Woolf over the years. It’s difficult to jump into the middle of that multi-decade conversation, but I enjoyed Lee’s take and am looking forward to reading more about the Bloomsbury (and Bloomsbury-adjacent) folk.
(LC Score: +1)

Yeah, I STILL don’t really want to talk about it: RETURNED UNREAD
(LC Score: -5)

Library Chicken Score for 11/7/17: 2
Running Score: 109 ½

On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:

• The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton (sequel to The Just City)
• The Poison Oracle by Peter Dickinson (even though I’ve finished Inspector Pibble there is still Dickinson weirdness for me to enjoy)
• The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (rereading Woolf while reading about Woolf...)
• Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West by Matthew Dennison (...and Woolf’s buddies)

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52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 42: Identify Your Negativity Triggers

You can’t always control what happens in your life, but you can—at least to some extent—control your inner narrative about what happens. 

We all have a constant stream of conversation with ourselves running in our heads all the time—psychologists call it self talk, and we’re often only semi-aware of what we’re telling ourselves. But in between reminders to throw in a load of laundry or pay the sanitation bill, we’re silently opining on everything we do or see all day long. And the tone of this self talk plays a huge role in happiness—the more critical and pessimistic your self talk, the lower your everyday happiness quotient; the more positive your inner dialogue, the higher your overall happiness level.

The key to turning up the positive in your self talk is recognizing when your inner voice gets stuck in negativity. Some signs you might be focusing on the negative:

• After a great homeschool day, you immediately focus on updating your to-do list instead of congratulating yourself on a successful day full of good experiences.
• When something goes wrong, you jump straight into blaming yourself: your son’s math skills, your homeschool budget, your daughter’s social faux pas—you are responsible for any problems that happen in your homeschool life.
• When something isn’t going perfectly, you immediately leap to the worst case scenario—you missed a music lesson, so obviously your child will never graduate from college, have any friends, or have any kind of happiness in life. 
• You tend to see things as good or terrible—either your homeschool life is great, perfect, wonderful, or it’s the worst, most horrible, awful thing you’ve ever done. You have no middle ground.
• You keep rehashing problems and negative events—you’re focused on what went wrong, what you did wrong, and what might go wrong so that you’re spinning your mental wheels instead of moving forward.
• You can’t seem to make any decisions because you get stuck going over the choices again and again in your mind—you can’t teach math because you can’t settle on the “perfect” math curriculum.

Identifying the places where you’re prone to negative self talk isn’t a cure-all—it’s just the first step toward a more positive attitude. But it’s an essential first step toward upping your overall optimism. Only when you recognize your negative thinking can you start to make a mental shift to the positive—and give your everyday homeschool happiness a boost.

Your mission this week: Keep track of your negative thinking. Don’t judge yourself! Just be aware of where you’re ruminating or over-focusing on the negative, and pay attention to possible triggers, from not getting enough sleep or skipping lunch to struggles over history readings or doing homework for outside classes. 

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Readaloud of the Week: Tua and the Elephant

Tua and the Elephant

By R. P. Harris

TUA AND THE ELEPHANT by K.P. Harris

Tua knows every inch of her Chiang Mai neighborhood, but she’s never seen an elephant like Pohn-Pohn there before. Determined to rescue her new friend from his abusive handlers, Tua orchestrates a nighttime elephant liberation, and—with the elephant’s evil owners hot on her trail—makes her way first to her aunt’s house, then to a temple, and finally to an elephant sanctuary where Pohn-Pohn can live happily ever after. 

This is a fun adventure story, but what makes it so fun to read aloud is the way that it brings the culture and landscape of Thailand to life so vividly. Tua lives with her hard-working mom, but everyone in the village feels like part of her family: Uncle Somchai, who makes the best banana roti pancakes; Auntie Nam, who always has a curry treat for Tua; Uncle Sim, who tries to teach her how to haggle to get the best deals at the market; and famous Auntie Orchid, one of Thailand’s best known actresses. Everyone loves the “little peanut”—that’s what Tua’s name means—and wants to help her in general and in her quest. It’s great to read a children’s book with a Thai main character who isn’t a refugee, and there’s a strong environmental and ethical message running through the story.

There’s not a lot of subtlety in the good guy/bad guy dynamic for this book—the elephant hunters are unabashed bad guys—but that doesn’t bother me in a kids’ adventure tale. The book is sprinkled with Thai vocabulary and customs—some readers seem to have been irritated by the fact that not all of these cultural notes are explained and defined, but I actually like the way it makes you feel like you’ve dived into a entirely different world. (I’m always looking for ways to decenter Western perspectives, but if you aren’t, you could easily look up foreign words before reading the book with your kids.) I think it’s a lovely little book—I'd definitely pass it on to kids who loved Mr. Popper's Penguins or Owls in the Family—and Tua and Pohn-Pohn are delightful protagonists. 

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New Books: Recently Read in Middle Grades Fiction

It’s time for another new books roundup!

School Ship Tobermory

By Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander Smith McCall (you may already love him from the  No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency) has written a book about homeschoolers! In School Ship Tobermory, homeschooled twins Fee and Ben (they live in a submarine) sign on board a sailing school, where they study with children from all over the world while learning to navigate the ocean and find themselves in the middle of a mystery involving a movie crew on a neighboring ship.

School Ship Tobermory reminded me a little of Swallows and Amazons, which makes sense, since both books are focused around the adventures and pleasures of sailing. They also share a similar old-fashioned vibe—most everyone you meet is nice, except the bad guys, who are immediately and obviously up to no good. While I like a little more nuance in my books, this black-and-white moral universe never really annoys me in middle grades adventure books, which is definitely what this is. There’s lots of explanation of sailing terms and duties, which would be interesting to kids who are curious about sailing but might get annoying to kids who are already familiar with that world. It feels like a solid, pleasant book, and the detailed illustrations are really charming. (Plus it’s always nice to find totally normal homeschoolers in literature.)

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The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding

By Alexandra Bracken

Prosper Redding is the only ordinary person in his family of extraordinary people, so it seems pretty unfair that he’s the one who gets bitten by the family curse. Turns out, Prosper’s great-great-great-and-more-great-grandfather made a deal with a demon—and broke it. Oops. The 4,000-year-old demon has been biding its time waiting for its revenge, and now it’s decided Prosper seems like a good ghost. In The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding, Prosper goes from totally ordinary tween to a kid on the run, hiding out in a strange town and sharing his body with a not-so-friendly demon who is just waiting for Halloween to start wreaking vengeance.

This is a spooky, frequently hilarious middle grades thriller with two likable protagonists in Prosper and his recently discovered cousin Nell. Alastor, the demon on a mission of revenge, is surprisingly funny as he attempts to adapt to life in the 21st century, and there’s a half-bat, half-cat creature named Toad that is kind of irresistible. Alastor and Prosper both discover things they never suspected about their families and end up liking each other—with healthy suspicion on both sides—more than either expected. The book has a (predictable) pair of twists near the end, and it finishes on a cliffhanger without resolving most of its plot points, which I find extremely annoying. Still, I think it’s one of the Halloween-iest books I’ve read in a long time, and I can see middle grade readers who like spooky-funny books really enjoying this one.

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The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street

By Lindsay Currie

In another spooky story, Tessa discovers her new house is haunted in The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street. Her family’s spontaneous move from the Florida suburbs to downtown Chicago is a big enough adjustment, but mysterious drawings and crying toys are too much for a new kid in school to handle. Tessa’s ghost hunt catches the attention of some of the kids in her new neighborhood, and she’s soon part of a ghost-hunting squad that helps her learn to appreciate her new neighborhood and make some much-needed new friends in addition to helping her lay her haunted house’s ghost to rest.

This is a real ghost story—the house really is haunted by a restless spirit, and Tessa has to solve the mystery of who the ghost is to help lay the spirit to rest. Lindsey Currie does a great job capturing the lonely frustration of leaving all your friends and having to start over in a new place, and Tessa and her new friends are believable middle schoolers—the book is as much about how to be a friend as it is about the mystery of the Shady Street ghost. There are some creepy haunted house scenes that are just spine-tingling enough without being too scary, and the haunting has a satisfying resolution. I’d pass this one on to kids who love read-it-by-flashlight spooky stories.

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Stuff We Like :: 11.3.17

How it it November already?

around the web

Relevant to my life: How to tell if you’re in an Edward Gorey book

This is a great list of picture books about Israel that acknowledge the complexities of the Jewish state. (Surely I am not the only person who has struggled with this?)

Ha! Pinterest farmhouse design fails. (I realize this may be a controversial opinion, but I just CANNOT with the shiplap.)

There’s a new First Aid Kit album coming out in January! (And apparently they do still call them albums, thank goodness!)

at home/school/life

on the blog: Shelli reviews Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

one year ago: Is it the homeschool blahs or time to stop homeschooling?

two years ago: Mindful Homeschool: What are you afraid of?

three years ago: 10 things we loved in October (we still eat baked avocado and egg with miso butter all the time!)

reading list

OK, so I am probably the last to know this, but Gary Blackwood (whom you may know from The Shakespeare Stealer) has written a Victorian murder mystery called Bucket’s List about the investigator who inspired Charles Dickens’ Inspector Bucket, and there are all kinds of delicious references to Dickens throughout.

I’m finally getting around to reading Down Among the Sticks and Bones, the second (?) in the Wayward Children series. I really loved Every Heart a Doorway, which made me almost not want to read the rest of the series — in case it didn’t feel like a perfect follow-up — but we all know I can only wait so long before I just give in and read the book anyway.

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World History at the Movies

Ever since D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, movies and historical fact have had an uneasy relationship. (Griffith himself thought that motion pictures would render history books irrelevant.) The messiness of history — its myriad inassimilable facts — does not easily fit into the regular mold of a Hollywood blockbuster. But movies can do something that history books often can’t — they can bring human stories to life and make us care about them. Here are a few excellent films (appropriate for high school world history students) that do just that.

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925)
Though the film’s central scene — the massacre on the Odessa steps — never in fact took place, Battleship Potemkin is an important record both of Soviet history and the history of cinema. Eisenstein was commissioned to make a film celebrating the 1905 mutiny on the Potemkin, a crucial pre-1917 event in the Soviet imagination, and the result, banned in the Soviet Union, had a huge influence worldwide.

THE LEOPARD (1963)
Based on Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel, Visconti’s The Leopard depicts the changes to Italian society during the Risorgimento and the decline of the Sicilian aristocracy. A classic of Italian cinema, The Leopard movingly evokes the decadent world of the old order and ambivalently registers its loss in the character of the Prince Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster).

THE KILLING FIELDS (1984)
Adapted from the book The Death and Life of Dith Pran, The Killing Fields tells the story of the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia towards the end of the VietnamWar and of two journalists’ attempt to both report on what was happening and stay alive. One of the journalists, Sydney Schanberg, won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting while the other, Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran, was captured by the Khmer Rouge. Both risked their lives to communicate what was happening in Cambodia to the world.

SHOAH (1985)
Director Claude Lanzmann spent more ten years making this nine-and-a-half hour documentary about the extermination of six million Jews during the Second World War. The result is the most honest and moving film created about the Holocaust. Lanzmann interviews survivors, Nazi functionaries, and witnesses, never hesitating to ask troubling questions and always refusing to give easy answers.

MALCOLM X (1992)
Spike Lee’s Malcolm X is the story of a man transforming himself — from a small-time crook into a fiery spokesman for racial separation into a prophet of universal brotherhood under Islam. Malcolm X was a complex, multi-faceted personality and Lee doesn’t reduce him to either a hero or a villain.

RABBIT PROOF FENCE (2002)
From the 1800s up until the 1970s, under the policies of multiple Australian governments, thousands of Australian aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their families and brought up in care homes or adopted by white families. Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the story of three mixed-race girls as they trek across the Australian outback to reunite with their families. A necessary film about a shameful period of Australian history.

HANNAH ARENDT (2013)
Arendt is best-known today for “Eichmann in Jerusalem”, the New Yorker article in which she coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe Adolf Eichmann’s bloodless approach to mass murder. But she was a fascinating figure who wrote about most of the important subjects of the twentieth century. Von Trotta’s film explores Arendt’s relationships with the philosopher Martin Heidegger and the writer Mary McCarthy and fills in the background to Arendt’s most famous work. —Jeremy Harris

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Curriculum Review: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

People have strong feelings about this step-by-step reading program, but it worked great for Shelli's family.

Curriculum Review: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann

You will either love it or hate it. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (a.k.a. the Distar Method) is a popular book for homeschooling families. It’s easy in that it’s just one big book, you pick it up, go to the lesson you’re on, and start reading the script to your child. In other words, there’s no prep time, although parents should read the front matter in the book before beginning the lessons. It’ll make more sense, if you do, but don’t get overwhelmed either. (Keep reading, and I’ll explain why.)

I taught my eldest son how to read using this book, and now I’m teaching my younger son with it. I also use Starfall.com and games to help reinforce the blend sounds or sight words, etc., but for the most part, I’ve relied on 100 Easy Lessons. 

I could be wrong, but I believe that a child will begin reading when he or she is ready to read. Some children are early readers and others begin reading later. I don’t think this has any bearing on intelligence. There is something about those connections in the brain that makes reading easy for a child to pick up on, or, if the connections haven’t happened yet, it’ll remain difficult — or impossible — until they do. Still, I have found it’s helpful to do short, light-hearted reading lessons, and I bet any reading curriculum (as long as you enjoy it) would do. Once my son was ready to read (at about 8.5 years old), it seemed to happen overnight. Everything I had taught him suddenly clicked.

I had two friends tell me that they tried 100 Easy Lessons, and they and their child hated it. Indeed, the “stories” are silly, and the pictures are too. This is why I say you’ll either love it or hate it. My boys both liked it. They thought the stories were fine, and they always looked forward to seeing the pictures, which I kept covered until they finished reading the story. (This is crucial.)

I recommend that parents read the front matter, and if you do, you may not like it because the instructions are rigid. For example, you’re supposed to follow the script exactly. I did that for a short time until I became comfortable with how the lessons worked. Then I was able to use my own words when doing the lessons. Now I don’t read the script or follow any of the instructions. In fact, I don’t have to say anything, if I don’t want to. My son knows the drill…. he reads all the sounds, words, and story (twice), and I help him, if he needs it. We don’t do the writing exercise because I have him work on handwriting separately.

I also don’t follow the rule that you have to do one lesson every day for one hundred days. This is silly, in my opinion. We do lessons about three times a week, and I find this is a good pace for a child who isn’t an eager reader. Also, for both my sons, I stopped using 100 Easy Lessons for a whole year somewhere between lessons 65 and 70. At this point, it gets harder. So, I waited a year, and then I started again at Lesson 50 and continued until the end of the book. (For my youngest, we’re currently doing that now.) This has worked very well for me because a child matures and is capable of so much more, if you just wait a year.

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Some people worry about the Distar Method because it uses an altered orthography or symbols to help a child read the sounds in the book. It also introduces basic grammar slowly, such as that you capitalize the first letter of a sentence. None of this was a problem for my boys. They didn’t get dependent on these “helpers.” First of all, my boys see the written word in many different places. I read books to them! Secondly, by the end of 100 Easy Lessons, there has been so much repetition that they can easily recognize many of the high frequency words. Overall, I found those “helpers” to be, well, very helpful.

You can’t assume that your child will be reading fluently by the time they have finished 100 Easy Lessons. Like I said, my eldest son was 8.5 years old before he began reading fluently. We finished 100 Easy Lessons when he was seven. I followed up with having him read several of the recommended books (listed in the back of 100 Easy Lessons), and we simply continued a reading practice a few times a week, a few minutes at a time. Once everything “clicked,” I never had to do another reading lesson with him.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons worked for us. I think it could work well for many children, but like with any curriculum, you might have to tweak it for your kids’ unique needs. Don’t be afraid to do that. Ever.

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Library Chicken Update :: 10.31.17

Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Now, I am 100% pro-candy, but hear me out: what if all the bibliophiles got together with all our old books that we are ready to pass on and then we trick-or-treated each other (dressing up as our favorite literary characters and authors, naturally) so that we each ended up with a bagful of books?? I mean, we’d need fairly large bags, obviously, but when I imagine hearing “trick or treat!” followed by the satisfying thwack of a book into my treat bag I get very happy...

Modern Lovers

By Emma Straub

I’m a fan of “getting the band back together” stories, where we see how long-term relationships have changed over the decades as friends interact and age. This is literally one of those stories: we follow two couples, close friends since their college days, when three of them were in a band and briefly experienced vicarious stardom via the fourth band member, who left the band, became wildly famous (with one of their songs), and then died young and tragically. Now a movie is being contemplated about their old bandmate and not everyone is excited to see their past up on the big screen. The younger generation (each couple has a teenage child) complicates things further with a possible romance of their own. This is the third novel I’ve read by Straub and my favorite so far.
(LC Score: +1)

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The Last and the First

By Ivy Compton-Burnett

I’ve been gradually working my way through Ivy Compton-Burnett’s books without any particular plan, so I was surprised to see (in the introduction to this edition) that this was her last novel, edited and published posthumously. Usually that’s not a great sign, but Ivy’s acerbic dialog and her usual cast of characters (including controlling and passive-aggressive matriarchs, ironic young men, and dourly humorous servants) are all on display here, proving that even at age 85 she was still in fine form.
(LC Score: +1)

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Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse

By Faith Sullivan

If I’m wandering through the library and spot a book with a title like Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse OF COURSE I’m going to pick it up immediately, regardless of how high the to-read stack is at home. This novel is apparently one of a series written by Sullivan about the fictional small town of Harvester, Minnesota and the personalities that inhabit it. Our protagonist is a widowed schoolteacher, who reads novels — especially those by P.G. Wodehouse — to distract herself from the difficulties and hardships of her life. It’s an interesting (and relatable) idea and I’m always up for a slice of small town life, but the more I learned about the citizens of Harvester, the more concerned I became. The schoolteacher receives ugly anonymous threats via mail for decades. Her son is viciously bullied both as a child and as a brain-damaged war veteran. Nasty gossip causes a town newcomer to lose his job, and eventually drives him to suicide. While I agree that Wodehouse is good for what ails you, it seems to me that maybe the schoolteacher would have been better off just moving to a new town.
(LC Score: +1)

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Blindspot: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle)

By Jane Kamensky, Jill Lepore

I’ve enjoyed Jill Lepore’s nonfiction so I was looking forward to this novel, set in Boston in 1764 and telling the story (in alternating narratives) of a disgraced young woman who disguises herself as a boy and becomes an apprentice to a Scottish painter (who is himself on the run from his creditors). As the painter becomes disturbed by his strange feelings for his young apprentice (and the apprentice wonders whether it is safe to let him in on her secret), we also follow a subplot where two slaves have been wrongfully accused of murder after the mysterious death of their master. A murder mystery in pre-Revolution New England, an over-the-top romance involving disguised lovers, and angry commentary on racism and slavery (provided by the painter’s best friend, a brilliant and highly educated black man) — by all rights I should have loved this book, but somehow it never quite came together for me. Guess I’ll have to go back to the library and get another stack of Lepore’s nonfiction work.
(LC Score: +1)

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Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays

By Zadie Smith

This is an eclectic collection of Smith’s essays from various sources and occasions. Smith can be intimidatingly intellectual and a few of these pieces were a bit too highbrow for me (hardcore literary criticism involving authors I’ve never heard of, a deep dive into Italian cinema, etc.), but I do love her writing.
(LC Score: +1)

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Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom

By Catherine Clinton

HARRIET TUBMAN IS THE BEST AND MOST AWESOME BUT HOW AM I ONLY LEARNING THE EXTENT OF HER AWESOMENESS NOW?!? (IT IS A TRAVESTY AND FLORIDA’S PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM — LOOKING AT YOU, BREVARD COUNTY — SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF ITSELF.) SHE SHOULD BE ON ALL THE MONEY AND HAVE ALL THE STATUES AND I IMMEDIATELY NEED AN ACTION-ADVENTURE MOVIE RETELLING HER REAL-LIFE EXPLOITS RESCUING ENSLAVED PEOPLE AND SPYING FOR THE UNION SO PLEASE MAKE THAT HAPPEN.
(LC Score: +1)

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Mark Twain: A Life

By Ron Powers

Picked this up to prepare for our reading of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in middle school literature. I had no idea that Mark Twain was such a diva. I suspect he’s one of those people who I love to read about but would almost certainly have found insufferable in real life.
(LC Score: +1)

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Yeah, I don’t really want to talk about it: RETURNED UNREAD
(LC Score: -7)

Library Chicken Score for 10/31/17: 0
Running Score: 107 ½

On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:

• The Just City by Jo Walton (Pallas Athene helps set up an experimental city based on Plato’s Republic)
• Wobble to Death by Peter Lovesey (murder mystery set during a Victorian ‘pedestrian’ competition)
• Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall (those Transcendentalists just keep on coming)
• Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee (because I think I may need a break from Concord MA)

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52 Weeks of Happier Homeschooling Week 41: Make Up Your Mind to Make Happiness a Priority

Believe it or not, one of the most effective ways to boost your everyday happiness quotient is to actively decide that you want to be happier.

Just like you can improve your manners by making a habit of saying “thank you” or improve your health by putting a lunchtime walk reminder on your calendar, you can improve your overall outlook by taking advantage of opportunities to be happy. Is there a subject you love teaching that never seems to make it out of the curriculum box? Put it at the top of your to-do list. Does that clique-y mom group at park day make you feel down on yourself? Find another activity to keep you busy on those Tuesday afternoons. Are you happiest when you’re out in nature? Start a family nature journal or relocate your readalouds to take advantage of the fall sunshine. Do you have a tendency to hold on to frustration when you have a challenging day? Practice techniques like meditation or visualization that can help you let go of the negativity and see the positive. Make a point to look for ways to add a little joy to your day, and you’ll be surprised how many you find.

We tend to think of happiness as something that just magically happens—the stars align, and boom! whoosh! happiness. And sometimes happiness is like that. More often, though, happiness comes from the intention to be happy—a commitment for looking for the good stuff in the ordinary stuff of our everyday lives. And just like math or Latin vocabulary, the more we practice happiness, the better we get at it.

Your mission this week: Start a list of happiness opportunities that pop up in your everyday life. You don’t have to seize every one of them—though you certainly can!—just be aware of their existence.

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Readaloud of the Week: The Night Gardener

The Night Gardener

By Jonathan Auxier

Buy on Amazon

Molly and her brother Kip are looking for a place to call home—or at least a place that’s not an orphanage where they can work for a living. The crumbling old English manor where Molly’s managed to talk her way into a job is probably the least hospitable place they can imagine, but Molly figures that’s a plus when you’re a 14-year-old girl with a disabled brother to take care of. It’s not as though people are beating down the Windsors’ door to work there.

Molly isn’t even sure she wants to work there after the first night, when Kip sees a creepy man in a tall hat going into the house from the spooky tree in the front lawn. But she doesn’t have much choice—her parents aren’t around, and despite the stories she keeps telling Kip, she knows they aren’t coming back. She and Kip are alone in a strange country, and they have to make it work. So she tries to stay focused on her work and ignore the increasingly scary things that keep happening. Then one day she finds her way through the locked door at the top of the stairs, and she finally understands the dark secret of the house and why the Windsors can’t tear themselves away. Molly feels herself lured to the same bleak fate of the Windsors—unless she can be brave enough to face her darkest fears.

What makes it a great readaloud: This is a terrific middle grades take on classic Gothic literature, complete with a spooky old house, a deliciously creepy ghost, and a slow nightmarish unfolding. Auxier has a deft lyrical voice that echoes classic scary tales like Rebecca and The Woman in White, but the story has a steady action pacing that will appeal to tween readers. Kids will identify with Kip, who really wishes he could just be like everybody else, and Molly, who’s taken on adult responsibilities that are really too big for her to face alone. There’s plenty of suspense and drama, but it winds up with a satisfyingly safe and happy ending for pretty much everyone the reader has gotten fond of over the course of the book.

But be aware: This is a spooky, spooky book with a very creepy ghost who wanders around at night stealing pieces of people’s souls and giving them nightmares. Sensitive kids may want to steer clear.

Quotable: “A story helps folks face the world, even when it frightens 'em. And a lie does the opposite. It helps you hide.” 

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New Books: Recently Read Roundup

Here’s what we’ve been reading:

The Adventurers Guild

By Zack Loran Clark, Nick Eliopulos

The Adventurers Guild by Zack Loran Clark and Nick Eliopulos

In Zed’s world, your guild is your destiny—which is why he has his heart set on joining the Mages Guild, even though he knows the chances of a half-elf getting in are slim. So when he gets plucked by the very worst guild, the famously perilous Adventurers Guild, Zed is crushed. The only silver lining: The Adventurers Guild has also conscripted his best friend Brock.

Zed, Brock, and motley crew of new recruits quickly discover that being part of the Adventurers Guild is even worse than they’d imagined. Ever since the monsters took over the outside world, walled cities like Freestone have been the only safe places—but keeping them safe is a full-time, non-stop job. When a new danger threatens the city, Zed and his Guild-mates will have to venture outside the city to save it.

This book is written by a couple of long-time Dungeons and Dragons players, and it totally reads that way—and I mean that as a compliment! It’s playful, action-packed, and peopled with all kinds of unusual characters. The backstory is complex enough to leave room to explore but simple enough to follow without a lot of exposition, and lots of magic and magical creatures keep things interesting. Highly recommended for fantasy fans from about 5th grade and up.

(late elementary to middle grades)

The Song From Somewhere Else

By A.F. Harrold

The Song from Somewhere Else by A.F. Harrold

This is a surprisingly weird, tender little book. Frank, facing a rough summer being bullied by a neighborhood jerk, finds unexpected aid from the class weird kid, Nick Underhill. Nick rescues Frank and brings her home with him, and while she’s there, she hears a strange, haunting music that she can’t get out of her head. As Frank discovers Nick’s secret, she starts to realize that she’s not the only person who needs some help. It’s a very particular kind of book, but if you liked The Imaginary, give this one a try.

(late elementary grades)

The World's Greatest Chocolate-Covered Pork Chops

By Ryan K. Sager

The World’s Greatest Chocolate-Covered Pork Chop by Ryan K. Sager

What a fun read. Twelve-year-old Zoey Kate has everything it takes to be a great chef but her own restaurant—and after savvily negotiating her first business loan, she’s about to have that restaurant, too.

Plucky, precocious Zoey Kate is lots of fun, and her imaginative dishes (including cinnamon-bacon octopus pho, fried banana fondue and the titular chocolate pork chops) may well inspire some ambitious kitchen projects. The set-up—which requires you to believe that a tween can land a $50,000 bank loan pretty much on her own—is ridiculous and don’t get me started on the lack of insurance for Zoey Kate’s working trolley restaurant—but go with it—the story’s fun enough to suspend your disbelief. I’d pass this spunky story on to late elementary readers who can’t get enough Masterchef Junior.

(late elementary to middle grades)

The Hazel Wood: A Novel

By Melissa Albert

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

“Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”

That’s the last message from Alice’s mother, Ella, who’s finally been captured by the hidden enemies she’s been running from for as long as Alice can remember. Alice has lost count of all the rented apartments, houses, and motel rooms she’s called home over the years as her mom moved from place to place, but the one place she’s never been is her famous grandmother’s equally famous country estate, the Hazel Wood. Alice knows that’s where her mother has gone, and despite her mother’s desperate message, she’s determined to follow her and bring her home. But the Hazel Wood is more dangerous than Alice understands—a place where dark, twisty fairy tales are alive, a place where princesses are doomed, and danger lurks around every corner. 

This is one of the slow, spooky books that you don’t realize is freaking you out until you’re trying to fall asleep and all you can think about is Twice-Killed Katherine. It’s genuinely eerie, first as the fairytale folk stalk Alice and her mom through the city and then as Alice ventures into her grandmother’s mysterious estate, where the darkest story of all is waiting for her. Great for teens who love the gory original Grimm stories or who are in the mood for a spooky, atmospheric book tinged with horror.

(High school)

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Stuff We Like :: 10.27.17

Happy Halloween weekend!

around the web

I bet a lot of homeschoolers will agree with me that this start-up dedicated to teaching people endangered languages seems pretty darn cool.

Marilynne Robinson on why we should care about the humanities now more than ever: “Now, in a country richer than any they could have imagined, we are endlessly told we must cede that humane freedom to a very uncertain promise of employability.”

Making is awesome. But so are teaching, criticizing, caring, fixing, and lots of other things.

I would love to see this Harry Potter exhibition!

At home/school/life

magazine: Have you picked up your copy of the fall issue?

on the blog: When you have anxiety (or depression or chronic illness or …), some homeschool days are better than others. Nadine has some really wonderful advice for making the best of the hardest days.

one year ago: The embarrassing things I’ve tried that haven’t worked

two years ago: Let’s talk about Teddy Roosevelt

three years ago: What my children have taught me about pursuing my personal goals

Reading list

I have finally convinced my daughter to read Every Heart a Doorway with me—I loved it when I read it last fall, but it’s taken me this long to convince my daughter to give it a go. 

I had a great bonding moment with one of my favorite students this week when we both geeked out over the new Philip Pullman book. (He’s listening on Audible, I’m reading it, and we’re trying to pace ourselves to finish at the same time so we can talk about the ending.)

My 4th grader and I always reread The Children of Noisy Village in the fall, and he pulled it off the shelf yesterday to start next week. I love the way it sets up the rhythm of the year.

At home

Halloween is also my daughter’s (gulp!) 16th birthday, so we always make a big hullabaloo out of it it. We’ll be finishing up our costumes and baking cakes this weekend. I often feel like I completely lucked out in the kid lottery—my daughter is really the sweetest, most generous, most open-hearted person I know. I feel like everything I know about being a kind person I have learned through being her mom.

Are you watching The Good Place? I know I talk about it all the time, but there is a Kierkegaard RAP MUSICAL. 

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The Anxious Mom's Guide to Surviving Low-Energy Homeschool Days

Everyone else was in high speed, high energy, go go go. And it felt like all I could do was sit there and watch. Like I was in slow-mo and everyone else was in fast forward.

Living with anxiety means that some days are much harder than others. Some days I feel anxious, and shaky, and scatterbrained. But the worst of the worst days? The low energy days. The days where I feel like the most simple, mundane tasks take Herculean strength. Where all I can do is sit there and watch the world zoom around me.

But you guys, I'm a homeschool mama. 

I can't just sit - all - day. 

I can't let the days pass me by, because then they pass my kids by also. So what do I do? 

On the low energy days, with high energy kids, a home to run, and a homeschool day to facilitate — I have had to figure out ways to manage.

When I started out writing this post, I thought I would focus on being a homeschooling parent who struggles with anxiety disorder. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that what makes homeschooling hard when you're an anxious mom are the low-energy days. Those stretches of time when it feels like you're moving in quicksand. 

Then, I considered that the same things that work for ME on those low-energy homeschool days will work for other moms who have days (or weeks or months) where their energy has bottomed out and they're just trying to keep their heads above water. 

Low Energy Days :: Survival Guide

Self Care Can Be Simple: 

I know when we first hear the term self-care, we envision beautifully restful days of sitting at your favorite spa, or taking yourself on a night away at a hotel, or maybe a lunch out at your favorite restaurant. For some people, however, those types of self-care can feel more exhausting than helpful. 

When you are having a low-energy day (or week? Month?), sometimes the very simplest acts of self-care can be deeply helpful. Sit for 5 blissful minutes on a lawn chair in the sun, keep a stash of dark chocolate in the back of the fridge and grab a piece when you need a treat, say no to an outing, take a nap. You don't have to spend a lot or go very far — but you DO need to put yourself first and take good care of you. 

Have a backup school plan: 

I have recently been taking part in Pam Barnhill's "Homeschool Consistency Boot Camp", and it's been a total game changer. On days when normally I would have felt low and unable to 'do school' with the kids, I am now getting it done. How? Well, one of the things we've had to do as part of that course is to create what WE consider a "Minimum Viable Day" — meaning, the very basics of what needs to be done to satisfy OUR idea of a good enough homeschool. Doing this has allowed me to see what two to four things I CAN do and still feel like we had a good day. And it's been a lifesaver for us so far in this school year. 

Plan for Success - But Keep It Realistic:

Look, I am not a good planner. I mean, I love to PLAN. But not often would those plans come to much actual DOING. This past summer, I took a lot of time to think about not just who my kids are, but who I am also. This year, my focus is on making sure that THEIR school work does not suffer for MY low-energy. 

So, how did I plan for success? I did the following steps, slowly and with a lot of careful thought:

• Decided what our year would look like — mark off big holidays, field trips I knew about, and I decided this year to once again use a 3-term school year. I chose three terms of 12 weeks each, with a one week break in the middle of each term. December, the whole month, is a short term in its own in addition to the three full terms — just holiday prep, maybe drop the other school work and pick a unit study. It'll be a laid back breather before we kick it back up again after the holidays. 
• Chose how many days a week will we 'do school.’ based on outside commitments. 
• Looked at MY OWN BOOKSHELVES first — before I got overwhelmed with curriculum shopping!
• Decided with the kids which subjects THEY wanted and which were ones that I felt were really important this year. 
• Decide which subjects would happen how many times a week, and slot those into my planner. No specifics, just "Monday: Science, Reading, Math, etc.”
• I did NOT schedule which pages or lessons. Not yet. I want to see how our first half-term goes, and in our week break I can reassess and see if we're ready to plan specific lessons. 
• Make your minimum viable day list — for me, it was "morning basket, science, and independent reading time." For you, it can be whatever you want. 
• I only write in my planner in two week spurts — what we will do each day together, and what each child will do in their own lessons (with or without me). 

This is just a rough overview — but in each step, I was putting my kids' needs/abilities into consideration. I was also thinking about what I can ACTUALLY do. Not what I wished I could do, or daydreamed I could do. What was I actually capable of. Most importantly, I crafted a plan for our school days that could go on auto-pilot on the days I didn't have the energy to think — it's listed out for me, for two weeks at a time in my planner, and on the bad days I can just look at the list and do the next thing. 

Fake It Til You Make It

I know, this is the last thing you want me to say, right? Well. It does work — most of the time. 

If you have a bad day, that's okay. If you have a couple of not-so-great days, that's okay too. But one of the things I have noticed in my own struggles through anxiety and some other health issues? If I have a bad day, and I sit in that for too long, it becomes a bad week and then a bad month. 

If you just acknowledge the struggle, acknowledge the low-energy day, and then just put your shoes on, put your hair up in a ponytail, and walk outside. Just go do the thing — a walk, a hike, a trip to a park, or a play date with friends. Just do it. If you get yourself out the door, most times you MIGHT just find that it gets a bit easier. Plus, getting out into the fresh air will help lift your energy a bit. 

Let Go of The Guilt!

Having a bad day/week/month? Can't quite get a grasp on the schedule or get outside to shake it off? It's going to be fine. Your kids will be fine. We can beat ourselves up and drown in guilt (ask me how I know), but at the end of the day — we have a lot of time with our kids. Going through a rough patch is not going to damage your kids or destroy their education. 

Some days are high-energy, we-get-it-all-done, days. Other days are not so much. And in planning my school year, I really had to keep both of those extremes in mind. I crafted the first term of our school year to be a little on the light side, with lots of time each day to actually DO the things we want/need to do. 

My homeschool may not always look like other families' homeschools. We may not go to all the places, do all the things — but I am still able to give my kids a great education and many, many lessons in self-care and compassion for the struggles other people go through. 

If you find yourself having low energy days — hang in there, mama, you are doing a WONDERFUL job and your homeschool really is going to be just fine. And if you need a little reminder, come find me — I'll always have your back. 

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5 Spooky Writing Exercises for Your Little Monsters

Halloween is a great excuse for a little creative writing! Here are five ideas to add a little Halloween writing fun to your homeschool this fall.

The Haunted Mansion :: Creative Writing

Draw a creepy haunted mansion. Then do some research into the conventions of gothic literature. Write a gothic short story that’s set at your haunted house.

Monster Parts :: Expository Writing

Choose a partner, and then go into separate rooms, where each of you will draw a monster. Don’t share your monster drawings yet! Then, being as specific as possible, write directions for your partner to recreate your monster. Exchange directions and draw your partner’s monster exactly as directed. (No adding extra parts, and no oral additions to the directions!) Compare the original monsters to the partner-drawn monsters. 

Garbage Pail a Menu :: Descriptive Writing

Have you noticed the Cabbage Patch dolls in the toy department? Back in the 1980s there was a yuckier counterpart to the sweet Cabbage Patch Kids, the Garbage Pail Kids. Their faces were drawn in a like fashion, but that’s where the similarities ended. Garbage Pail Kids were delightfully disgusting, so parents hated them, and kids loved them. Characters included Orange Julius, whose skin was being peeled off like an orange, Freddy Spaghetti, who had noodles oozing out of every hole in his head, Foul Bill, whose face was being smashed in by a foul ball, and Doughy Chloe, who was mixing her own head in a bowl.  

Find a restaurant menu online, and then write a Garbage Pail Kids-style rendition of each item. Enjoy making your readers squirm with all of your graphically gross descriptions.  

Flash Fiction :: Creative Writing

Flash fiction works are stories with a low word count, ranging anywhere from just a few words that imply a story to a couple of pages. Ask a member of your family to give you a number between 5 and 10. Write the scariest story possible using only that number of words. Write several very short stories, and then ask your family to vote on which one is your scariest.

Urban Legends :: Creative Writing 

Urban legends are the scary folklore of our time. They aren’t true (though some of their elements may be based on facts), but people spread these tales to their friends and family as though they are, often warning them about some danger. 

Read some examples of urban legends here. Then invent your own urban legend. You’re all set for your turn at storytelling the next time you’re sitting around a campfire!

Homeschooling 2nd Grade for the Second Time

This year my youngest son is in the 2nd grade. I’ve been thinking a lot lately how different it feels homeschooling him than it did when I was homeschooling 2nd grade with my eldest son. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but homeschooling for the second time around seems so much easier. Maybe it’s because I’m an experienced homeschooling mom now, or maybe it’s his personality, or a little bit of both.

Now that I’ve “been there done that,” I am more laid back about teaching academics. From the experience I had with my elder son, I know my younger son will become fluent at reading in his own good time. Though I’m doing the same kind of reading lessons with him as I did with his older brother, I have no inner angst about whether what I’m doing is right or not. If he can’t remember something, I simply say, “That’s okay. You will.” 

My younger son is also different from his brother. For example, it astonishes me how he’ll fill out worksheets with minimal complaint, and sometimes he asks for certain workbooks! I couldn’t use any worksheets with my eldest when he was younger. Now he’s fine with them, but back then, I had to be more creative about teaching him. We did a lot of things orally, watched a lot of YouTube videos, and did hands-on projects that took several afternoons to complete.

My younger son loves hands-on projects, too, but he doesn’t initiate them or request them like his older brother did. I have to make a point of giving him an opportunity to do some of the fun experiments and building projects I did with his older brother, but he doesn’t always want to do them. He likes to play independently, so I give him plenty of time to do that. 

When I look back at my eldest son’s 2nd grade, it seems like there was more time during the day even though I was trying to teach while also handling his younger brother. We went on more play dates and nature walks. But now this same young man has different interests, and as he gets older, there is more to teach. So I do more lesson planning, and as a result, I do more lesson planning for the 2nd grader, too. He’s getting lessons that his older brother didn’t have to do in the 2nd grade, such as Spanish, history and cello lessons. He also listens to more middle school-age books that I read aloud.

Each of the 2nd grades I’ve conducted in this house has been similar, yet very different, too. They’ve each fulfilled the needs of the individual child while also fitting into what our family needs at the time. This makes me happy. My boys would not have gotten this individualized 2nd grade in a traditional school, and they would not have had the opportunity to figure out what they like to do, if they had they been restricted to a one-level curriculum with a heavy emphasis on a few academic subjects. Being part of a family where all the members are working on individual goals alongside each other has been enriching and inspiring for my boys as well as for my husband and me.

Do you have more than one child that you homeschool? What have you done differently each time, or what has the experience of teaching multiple children taught you?

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What’s in the Fall Issue of HSL?

The fall issue is out! And in addition to our updated-for-2017 list of best cities for homeschoolers (which I know some of you have been counting down the months for), we’ve got some great stuff that you might want to check up. (You can view the full table of contents here.) Here’s a little roundup of some of the things we love in the fall issue:

• I loved digging into Native American history to put together a high school reading list for U.S. History. (In fact, I got a little carried away on the research end of this, so you can expect to see an elementary and a middle school reading list on the blog in November.) 
• Blair’s tips for vetting science curriculum are excellent and (sadly) essential as curriculum publishers continue to vague up what “secular” means when it comes to curricula. With her expert guidance, you can make sure that you’re getting peer-reviewed, facts-based science for your homeschool.
• Thurgood Marshall is so awesome that I spent most of August interjecting “You know another amazing thing about Thurgood Marshall?” into conversations, and people weren’t even that annoyed because he really is that amazing.
• Writing personalized book lists is one of my favorite things, so I was delighted when Nicky asked me to put together a list of books about bugs for her homeschool. (She also gave me an excuse to finally read Wicked Bugs, which I kind of loved.)
• Amy’s DIY stamp art project feels like an art project that I can actually do, and I am excited to use it to try to make holiday wrapping paper this year.
• I always enjoy stories that let me check in with real homeschoolers, so it was a pleasure working on our feature about ways to bust through a homeschool plateau—you know, when everything is fine, but it’s just fine, and you’d like it break through to the next level. I talked to several different homeschoolers about the little and big epiphanies that changed their homeschools for the better, and I’m excited to test-drive some of the strategies that worked for them in my own homeschool.
• I was glad a reader wrote in asking how to help kids recognize fake news because I think that’s a particularly relevant, important question in these days of instant-access information. Being able to assess and analyze information feels more important than being able to memorize it, and there are some specific skills you need to build in order to be able to do that.

If you’re a subscriber, you can download your copy of the fall issue right now. If you aren’t a subscriber, maybe you’d like to be? home/school/life is a quarterly magazine for secular homeschoolers, and we pack every issue full of ideas to make your homeschool more entertaining, richer, and happier for everyone involved. Many issues are completely ad-free, and we never include more than five advertisements (from carefully screened, totally secular companies) in any issue so you always know you're getting tons of relevant content in every issue.

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Readaloud of the Week: Stonewords

STONEWORDS by Pam Conrad

Continuing our month of spooky readalouds, I give you Stonewords, a book that's part time-travel story, part ghost story, and all creepy.

Zoe doesn't think it's strange when her very entertaining friend Zoe Louise disappears whenever a grown-up enters the room. She's not worried when she sees an old gravestone with the name ZOE on it. Zoe dismisses the fact that while she is growing up, Zoe Louise is always eleven years old and celebrating her birthday. But when Zoe follows Zoe Louise up the back stairs and finds herself in the late nineteenth century, Zoe realizes that something strange is going on. Slowly putting the pieces together, Zoe realizes that her friend is from the past—and that she's going to die if Zoe doesn't do something about it.

The chills in Stonewords: A Ghost Story come largely from ghostly Zoe Louise, who is petulant, willful, and increasingly terrifying as the tale progresses. (In fact, if Zoe had other friends, it's unlikely that she'd put up with Zoe Louise, who is a spoiled brat of a ghost.) As the book builds inexorably toward its climax—can Zoe change history and save her friend?—the book becomes un-put-down-able. If Zoe changes the past and saves Zoe Louise, she loses her best friend. If she doesn't, Zoe Louise will wither away to nothing. 

This is a genuinely scary book (with a few gruesome bits to boot), so it's only for kids who can handle a good scare. But those readers who like being spooked will appreciate its eerie vibe. 

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New Books: Human, Monster, Other

Monster, Human, Other

By Laurel Gale

Buy on Amazon

Isaac and Wren were born not to fit in.

The kids of the clespsit and human ambassadors (respectively), they’ll spend their childhoods with the other world: Isaac will grow up as an ordinary human kid (as long as his tail stays taped down), and red-haired Wren lives with the clepsits, who—except for her adoptive parents—aren’t big fans of humans. Though the two species share the same planet, they almost never interact—most humans have never even heard of clepsits, and it’s rare for a clepsit to see a human. The ambassadors keep peace between the two worlds, and that’s what Isaac and Wren will do when they grow up, too. If they grow up, that is.

Life has never been easy for Isaac or Wren, but now it’s downright dangerous: The voracans, spiny underground dwellers, are preparing to conquer the sunlight realms, and kidnapping one of the kid ambassadors is part of their plan. Even worse, somewhere in the clepsit and human world is a traitor who’s egging the vorcans on for sinister reasons of his own. When Isaac gets kidnapped and Wren sets off on an impossible mission to save him, the fate of the world rests in the hands of two kids who are meeting each other for the first time.

The tension between humans and clepsits feels particularly timely, and it’s easy to read parallels between current events and Gale’s world. Though the plotting is fast-paced, it’s also bumpy at times—there are some glaring inconsistencies in the story, and occasionally, the reader is asked to swallow a pretty big coincidence. Still, Wren and Isaac are so likable and the Gale’s world-building so interesting that these feel like fairly minor quibbles. It’s a fun story and one that should start some interesting conversations.

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Stuff We Like :: 10.20.17

It’s fall! I’m hoping since the fall issue is out and my midterms are all done, we can make time for a little hike in the mountains this weekend. (Very little hike, very big funnel cake afterwards!)

around the web

I’m not sure if I’m just slap-happy or if this is genuinely hilarious, but this Lutheran insulter has been cracking me up all afternoon.

I actually interrupted my husband’s Spanish class because I couldn’t wait to tell him that Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize for Literature. (It’s my Tonys!)

I will read anything about Alice Roosevelt because she is amazing and delightful. Can't you just imagine her on Twitter?

At home/school/life

in the magazine: The fall issue is out! (Thank goodness! :)) 

on the blog: How do you catch up if you’ve fallen behind?

on Pinterest: Our nerdy Halloween costumes board has a lots of fun ideas

one year ago: Reflections on mentorship (with a little help from Harry Potter)

two years ago: Spooky Halloween readalouds

three years ago: Welcome to My Salon: A Different Approach to Everyday Learning

Reading list

We are going to have to record the new podcast soon because I really want to talk about The Rabbit Back Literature Society, which is SO TOTALLY WEIRD. In a good way.

Now that the fall issue is officially out, I can dive — well, at least wade a little! — into my TBR list. First up: A Morbid Taste for Bones, which I’ve always meant to read and never got around to. (I love a historical mystery, so I am hoping this is a good one.)

I’m getting ready to read Euripides with my humanities class, so I am having a grand time loudly declaiming speeches on the front porch. Our neighborhood squirrels are not impressed. 

At home

Halloween has really snuck up on me this year, and I’m going to have to be SuperMom to keep up my tradition of homemade costumes. I managed to pull this off with two broken ankles two years ago, so I am optimistic but hoping their costumes of choice do not involve articulated wings or hand-sewn sequins! I did manage to find time to make our little dog a wizard hat, though.

My kids are also very excited to get some of my attention back, and we have an exciting weekend plan involving hot chocolate, Arete (the philosophy board game!), and The Great British Baking Show. And pajamas. Lots of pajamas!

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