13 Fun Homeschool Extras that Will Give Your Winter Homeschool a Boost

Having a little trouble getting your post-holiday groove back? These fun extras (all less than $30!) will add a little oomph to your everyday homeschool routine and help ease you over the midwinter slump — without busting your budget.

MEDIUM CRACK-OPEN GEODES ($25)

Smash through the mid-winter blues literally with a box of crack- open geodes—they’ll break open to reveal cool crystalline structures formed by mineral deposit build-up in sedimentary or igneous rocks. (You’ll want to break out safety glasses for your smash session.)

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DRAWING WITH CHILDREN ($15)

You (yes, really, you) can add art to your curriculum even if you swear you don’t have an artistic bone in your body, thanks to the deliberate, detailed instructions in Mona Brookes’ easy-to-use art guide.

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MUDPIES TO MAGNETS ($11)

With more than 200 activities to choose from, the fact that some of these hands-on experiments were designed for classrooms or science centers shouldn’t get you down—just choose ones that work for your homeschool, and you can do a new science experiment every day this winter.

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GALILEO AND THE STARGAZERS CD ($19)

If your kids haven’t discovered the magic of Jim Weiss’s storytelling, this science- and history-rich tale is a great place to start. Bonus: It feels like playtime but totally counts as science.

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MOZZARELLA & RICOTTA CHEESEMAKING KIT ($23)

Science class doesn’t get more delicious than this. In this handy kit, you’ll find all the supplies you need to make eight one- pound batches of homemade mozzarella or ricotta cheese. (For best results, read directions online in addition to the ones included with the kit—if you’re a cheesemaking newbie, more details are helpful.)

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SILLY PUTTY SIX-PACK ($9)

While kids are stretching and molding this pliable putty, they’re also building hand strength and getting some of the fidgets out. 

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HARRY POTTER COLORING BOOK ($14)

Sometimes, everybody just needs to calm down and chill out for a few minutes. That’s when you break out this devilishly detailed coloring book and the colored pencils.

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KEEPING A NATURE JOURNAL ($13)

Winter may seem like a counterintuitive time to start a nature journal, but trust us: There’s plenty of window-side journaling to be done this time of year, and the more limited options will give you plenty of time to hone your skills and get into the journaling habit before the excitement of spring nature walks. Try a different area of focus every week.

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TANGOES ($10)

Put your tangram skills to the test with these classic Chinese puzzles. Use the seven included pieces to recreate the images shown on each puzzle card—some are surprisingly tricky. This is a great warm-up-and-get-focused activity or a handy transition between subjects on tough days.

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ANT FARM ($29)

Go ahead and order your ants from a supply company that ships them in a heated package— consider it the price of this excellent cold weather entertainment. You can hit the library to start a full-on ants unit study, or just watch your adopted insects tunnel their way through the weird blue gel.

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I’M JUST HERE FOR THE FOOD ($22)

Any cookbook can work as the basis for a kitchen science curriculum, but you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a better option that Alton Brown’s nerdy, detailed I’m Just Here for the Food, which explores the science behind cooking decisions (like how to sear a piece of meat) thoroughly and thoughtfully. 

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DJECO COLORED SAND ART ($17)

These art kits are perfect for meditative, focused work — we recommend the sand kit because the birds of paradise are so pretty, but any Djeco art kit makes a nice mid-winter pick-me-up for your homeschool.

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MOLYMOD ORGANIC CHEMISTRY MOLECULAR MODEL ($21)

Get hands-on building molecules with this molecular model set—it’s designed for students taking organic chemistry, but even elementary age kids with a passion for science will appreciate being able to see how atoms fit together. It may take a few sessions to get the hang of connecting the atom pieces to each other, so be on hand to help minimize frustration.

This was originally published in the winter 2016 issue of HSL. Prices and availability were updated in January 2018 but may have changed since then.

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Readaloud of the Week: Confessions of an Imaginary Friend: A Memoir by Jacques Papier

CONFESSIONS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND by Michelle Cuevas

Jacques has just discovered that he’s imaginary — which certainly explains why everyone always ignores him and talks to his “sister” Fleur instead but doesn’t really tell him much about where he fits into the world. When Fleur’s worried parents take her to a psychiatrist to talk about her attachment to her imaginary friend, Jacques meets a whole group of oddball Invisibles in the waiting room, including Stinky Sock, who invites Jacques to the next meeting of Imaginaries Anonymous. As Jacques is reassigned to child after child, reforming his identity to fit their imaginary friend needs, he ponders the nature of reality and existence.

So clearly this is a niche book that gets a little heavy-handed with the whimsy sometimes, but it’s a sweet, odd story that makes a great family readaloud and a springboard to conversations about friendship, belonging, and (why not?) the meaning of life. It’s particularly easy to identify with Jacques’s feelings of invisibility early on: No one ever picks him for kickball, bus drivers close the doors in his face, people never talk to him directly. Figuring out that he’s an imaginary friend — and therefore literally invisible to people who aren’t his imagine-ers — may throw Jacques into an existential crisis, but it’s also kind of a relief. You might think of this as Toy Story for imaginary friends — just as that popular Pixar flick introduced the idea that toys have their own inner lives and experiences that their children know nothing about, this book suggests we only know the tiniest bit about our imaginary friends.

There are plenty of funny parts clearly written for parent readers — when Jacques is on the phone with the hilariously bureaucratic imaginary friend placement agency, his phone tree options include “Press 1 if you have been imagined as a trademark character and are worried about legal action” and “Press 2 if you have been imagined as food and are about to be eaten.” If you have kids who just can’t handle lots of whimsy, this whimsy-rich book is not going to be a good pick, but for kids who love a gentle fantasy with a philosophical twist and who can handle a tender, bittersweet ending, this is a delightful winter readaloud.

Quotable: “To tell the truth, I was beginning to think you would be in awe of anyone if you saw the parts of them that no one else gets to see. If you could watch them making up little songs, and doing funny faces in the mirror; if you saw them high-fiving a leaf on a tree, or stopping to watch a green inchworm hanging midair from an invisible thread, or just being really different and lonely and crying sometimes at night. Seeing them, the real them, you couldn't help but think that anyone and everyone is amazing.” 

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Stuff We Like :: 1.5.18

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get more comfortable with myself, and so you might see a little more of my life peeking through here in these weekly roundups. For instance, I’m going to confess that I haven’t done a load of laundry since Hanukkah, and when I stumbled past the hamper this morning, I caused a clothing avalanche that I didn’t even pick up. This is what doing it all looks like in my house, y’all.

around the web

I love blogs. I really do. And I’ve learned a ton from homeschooler bloggers who’ve been willing to put their lives out there. Heck, we post on the HSL blog multiple times a week. But I worry when blogs take the place of real reporting — we need both! Real people’s stories and experiences AND serious journalism. I think that’s why this Wired piece about why journalism is a great place for tech to invest really hit home for me.

Love this! How “Get Out” inspired a college class on racism. (Suzanne and I are still trying to figure out how to teach an ethics class based on The Good Place.)

What was life like before the Internet? “‘Should I test out these pens on this turquoise pad?’ you’d ask yourself, staring at some pens by the phone.”

Warning: This piece by Clint Smith about visiting the National Museum of African History and Culture with his grandfather and realizing how not-at-all-long-ago legislated racism actually was might make you tear up a little.

at home/school/life

in the magazine: The winter issue’s out next week!

on the blog: Join our 2018 Reading Challenge!

one year ago: Perk up your homeschool space for a happiness boost

two years ago: Transitioning back to homeschooling after a break (I should probably go read this!)

three years ago: Education for a different version of success

four years ago: What do we mean when we say we’re a secular magazine?

reading list

Holiday reading is the best reading! We read Aru Shah and the End of Time together — it’s basically Percy Jackson with Indian mythology (and the heroine is a girl), but that’s not really a surprise since this is one of the first books in Rick Riordan’s new imprint. Maybe critically it would have been nice if it had diverged a little from the Percy Jackson narrative line, but hey, it’s the hero’s journey, right? That’s the story. And it was fun and full of Indian mythology, and I giggled every time someone got huffy about the Pandava brothers being the Pandava sisters in this incarnation, so I’ve got no complaints. It's out in March, so I'll plan to review it properly closer to the release date.

We also enjoyed Winterhouse, another middle grades book with a familiar feeling — it will remind you a bit of books like The Mysterious Benedict Society. Orphan Elizabeth Somers is summoned to Christmas at the resort Winterhouse, which she dreads until she arrives and discovers the friendly staff, delicious food, and (best of all) massive library. Elizabeth makes her first friend — Freddy, who loves word games as much as she does — and discovers a hidden book in the library that points to a dark Winterhouse mystery. We liked it but didn’t love it.

Also read: A Darker Shade of Magic, which I have had forever on my Kindle and which I am now kicking myself for not reading sooner because it’s surprisingly compelling. Kell is a kind of magician who has the power to move between worlds: Red London (his world, where magic is real), Gray London (our world, where George III is king of England), and White London (a creepy place ruled by creepy people). There also used to be Black London, which now exists as a cautionary tale about the trouble that can happen when people introduce magic into worlds that don’t have it. I don’t always love fantasy, but this book had likable characters, great world-building, lots of action, and enough surprises to keep me reading.

at home

I have been wrapping up the winter issue and trying to get ahead on a couple of other projects, plus planning out the spring semester classes I’m teaching, so I am not sure this has been the totally chill, relaxing break I would have liked it to be. It has been lovely being home all day again, though, and I am not going to ever complain about getting to wear pajamas for 24 hours straight, so I am going to say it’s been a great holiday. I hope yours has, too!

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Mission Possible: Totally Doable New Year’s Resolutions for Your Homeschool

The ancient Babylonians — who started the whole New Year’s resolutions trend with annual self-improvement promises to their gods — had the right idea: Their resolutions were simple, concrete acts that they could accomplish easily — returning borrowed farm equipment or planting a tree. Today, New Year’s resolutions seem silly if they are not big, sweeping goals: be happier, make more money, keep a cleaner house. The nebulous nature of these pursuits (what does one do to be happier?) make them almost doomed to fail, but if we can hone in on specific, small, actionable pieces of these goals — making time for ourselves each day, say, or stopping the out-the-door chaos on co-op mornings — we can actually see our New Year’s resolutions, well, resolve themselves. We can make it a better year—realistically and meaningfully. So read on for steps you can take to tackle some of the more common homeschool life road bumps, and resolve to make 2016 a better year for your family, one step at a time.

RESOLUTION: Stop being late for everything.

If your clan is chronically late, changing into people who show up on time can be a big task—but it’s doable if you—and your kids—are willing to commit to making a series of small changes every day, says Pauline Wallin, clinical psychologist and author of Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide for Transforming Self-Defeating Behavior.

Start small. Set one manageable goal per day: I will not hit the snooze button this morning. I will put the library books by the door tonight instead of trying to find them in the morning. If you can’t commit to these small inconveniences, being on time may not be as important to you as you think it is.

Retrain your sense of time. Track your activities for a week — jot down daily tasks, how long you think each will take, and how long each actually takes, from morning readaloud to the breakfast dishes. Often, people are late because they have a fixed but incorrect idea of how long an activity takes.

Resist the urge to do one more thing. The need to feel productive is why you suddenly start opening mail or wiping counters when you should be walking out the door. Train yourself to stop what you’re doing — even if you’re in mid-wipe — at your designated go-time and walk right out the door.

Aim to be early. Plan to be exactly on time, and any unexpected event—your 6-year-old’s missing shoes or forgetting to charge your phone—will make you late. Instead, plan to be 15 minutes early, and bring along an activity you enjoy to fill those 15 minutes. (Family Uno game, anyone?)

What if it’s your kids who are always late? You can’t force someone to be on time— and tricks, like pretending events start earlier than they do, only work once or twice before kids figure you out. If being on time is important for an activity, talk to your kids about whether they’re willing to make it a priority. If not, this may not be the right year for that activity.

RESOLUTION: Clean up your homeschool clutter.

Let’s face facts: for a lot of us, some clutter is part of homeschool life. Even if you’re fairly vigilant about pruning papers and organizing supplies, stuff can get out of hand — and if you don’t stay on top of things, you can watch your dining room table disappear underneath your piles. You may never be a super-organized homeschooler, but you can make your space feel less chaotic with these tips and tricks. 

Aim higher. Add shelves to make your bookcases stretch all the way to the ceiling, and you’ll be amazed by how much extra space you get. Store very specific (5th grade math manipulatives or extra printer cartridges) or seldom-used items on the higher shelves.

Color code. Assign each kid a color, and use that color consistently: Buy notebooks, folders, and pencils, cover schoolbooks, and flag important pages in your own books or binders with your chosen color, and you’ll instantly know whose stuff is where. If your kids have lots of writing assignments, you may want to edit their papers using a pen in their designated color, too.

Back up. Invest in an off-site Internet service or external hard drive to keep your computer data safe, and you can scan and toss (or just plain toss) papers when they start to pile up.

Get into the habit. The key to staying organized is to spend about 10 minutes at the end of your school day tidying up your learning spaces and prepping for the next day. There’s no dramatic before- and-after with this habit, but the long-term difference is huge.

RESOLUTION: Get comfortable with imperfection.

Perfectionism gets a bad rap, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing: Heathy perfectionists know how to set ambitious-but-attainable goals and work to achieve them, which gives you a strong sense of purpose and accomplishment and a healthy perspective on the times when things don’t go right. (“This will make a great story someday!”) The problem is that it’s easy to veer into unhealthy perfectionism, where you’re mentally setting expectations that are just plain impossible and ensuring you hang on to that sinking feeling of constant failure. The key is to channel the good parts of your commitment to excellence without dragging in all the negative baggage — and a big piece of that is getting comfortable with the parts of life that may not live up to your high standards. “To be enlightened is to be without anxiety over imperfection,” Buddhists say, so think of these imperfection-accepting strategies as steps along the path to enlightenment.

Be your own measuring stick. Forget your friends, forget the blogs, forget Pinterest, and measure yourself against only your own abilities, says University of British Columbia, Vancouver clinical psychologist Jennifer Campbell. No one can be good at everything.

Know when okay is okay. Sometimes you want to be the best, but sometimes (Tuesday night dinner? Friday morning math?) just getting the job done counts as success.

Embrace the minimum. It is much better to have a terrific spontaneous 20 minutes of history than to plan out an entire year with a schedule so intense that you’re overwhelmed just reading your lesson plan. Find a balance that works for you, and don’t assume that more always means better.

Acknowledge the failures. Sometimes things go wrong, and it’s okay to say “this reading curriculum just isn’t working,” and let it go. Making failures into “I’m-not-trying-hard-enough” is a sure way to get stuck in a bad situation.

Be present. Live where you are with things as they are rather than getting hung up on the future or the past.

RESOLUTION: Make time for yourself.

We get it—oh, boy, do we ever get it: You’re busy. Like, insanely busy. But if you don’t make yourself a priority, you’re going to get burned out and grumpy. There’s a fine line between generosity — an integral part of being the kind of giving, doing parent we all want to be — and martyrdom, and we cross it when we get hung up on doing everything, including the things that someone else can do just as well — or sometimes better — than we can. It’s tempting to see this perpetual doing-too-much as an expression of love, but always putting yourself last will ultimately make you feel stressed out and resentful. And worse, over time it actually makes our kids appreciate all the things we do less and less because real respect can only come when someone recognizes that another person has hopes, dreams, and goals, too. Make this the year you channel some of your generous spirit into an area that needs it: you.

Consider yourself important. You are going to feel guilty about making me-time as long as you have the idea that your me-time is somehow less important than making-dinner, teaching-science, or cleaning-the-bathroom time. Say no to things that don’t feed your soul. Making yourself a priority means crossing some things off your to-do list. What can you let go of?

Write me-time on your calendar. Treat it just like any other part of your schedule, and write in 15 minutes a day of me-time — in pen.

RESOLUTION: Stay motivated when homeschooling gets hard.

Starting the school year, we have all these great plans and ideas for making this year the Best One Ever. By February, though, many of us hit a slump, where homeschooling feels like a slog and we’re taxing our inner resources just to do our version of the minimum. Sometimes, this is a sign that you need a mid-winter break. But if a break doesn’t boost your motivation, there are other ways to get it back.

If-then your routine. When you’re planning your week, anticipate bumps so that you have a plan in place to handle them: If we don’t get to math in the morning, we’ll do a lesson after dinner. If it’s raining, we’ll watch a documentary for nature study.

Be reasonable. If your homeschool plans are too ambitious, you can lose steam and give up. Set smaller goals, like doing an hour of school every weekday or doing one family project a week, and increase if you want to as you build stamina.

Keep a daily record. Some people opt to be accountable on public platforms, but even jotting down a paragraph in your homeschool journal every night can be commitment enough to keep you motivated. Feeling responsible to someone, even if it’s just yourself, can really help you stick with something when you aren’t feeling motivated.

Find a support network. One of the best tools in your motivation toolbox is a network of people who understand your challenges and will empathize or cheer you on as the situation requires. Every homeschool parent really needs at least one fellow homeschooler in her social circle — if you don’t have a real-life community, find an online group where you feel comfortable. (Just don’t forget to return the support when your friend is the one needing a motivation boost.)

Put your own learning on the lesson plan. One of the best ways to stay motivated in your homeschool life is to enjoy the process, so why limit all the learning fun to the kids? Sign up for a local college or online class that sparks your interest, and share your enthusiasm with your kids.

Remind yourself why this all matters. You’re more likely to stay motivated when a goal has true personal meaning for you, and when you hit a slump, remembering that meaning can pull you through. Multiplication drills may not inspire your heart, but raising kids who don’t stress over every math test they encounter might. Keep an eye on the big picture.

This article is excerpted from the winter 2016 issue of HSL.

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The HSL 2018 Reading Challenge

New year, new books! If you’re looking for a way to organize your (endless) reading lists for 2018, consider our Reading Challenge Bingo — it’s flexible enough to work for you and your younger readers and a fun way to keep track of what you’re reading throughout the year. You can be as ambitious as you like: Complete the card, or just complete a row. Ideally, this challenge will point you toward a few books you wanted to read anyway and toward a few books that you might not have picked up otherwise. (We’ll choose books that tick off bingo boxes for our readalouds of the week during 2018.) 

• a book at least 100 years older than you are
• a book you can read in one day
• a book by a Native American author
• a book that has more than 500 pages
• a novel based on a real person
• a book by a South American author
• a book told through letters
• a book with a protagonist who is (on the surface) nothing like you — from a different country, of a different ethnic background, etc.
• a book set on the continent of Africa
• a book your librarian recommends
• a book by a favorite author
• a novel written in verse
• a collection of short stories
• a banned book
• a book that’s been translated into English
• one of Suzanne’s Library Chicken recommendations
• a book by a writer from another country
• a book published in 2018
• a book about nature
• a book with a title you love
• a classic you’ve been meaning to read
• a book published the year you were born
• a book written by an immigrant
• a book inspired by Asian mythology or folklore
• the first book in a series

You can download a copy of the Bingo card here. (And Suzanne has some great tips for keeping up with what you're reading during the year.) Happy reading in 2018!

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Readaloud of the Week: The Children of Noisy Village

THE CHILDREN OF NOISY VILLAGE by Astrid Lindgren

Sometimes you just want a book that’s pure comfort reading — a story that’s warm and gentle and set in a time before Netflix and Instagram. Anyway, that’s the kind of readaloud I like to start a new year with, and if you’re feeling like a soothing story time, too, you can’t do much better than The Children of Noisy Village.

The Children of Noisy Village is set in a little community of Swedish farms: Middle Farm, where narrator Lisa and her two brothers live is nestled between two other family farms, each of which also has children. (The children spend most of their free time playing together, which earned their little village its name, explains Lisa.) It’s not a particularly eventful story, but it’s funny and charming and oddly captivating. When Lisa and her friend go to the market without a written list, they keep forgetting things and having to walk back to get them. Lisa decides she wants to do good deeds and goes around inadvertently torturing her neighbors with her efforts. Everyone wakes up at four in the morning to go fishing for crayfish. Lisa and her friends at the next farm send notes to each other through their windows. The seasons come and go, and with them, the seasonal celebrations and food and activities. (I find myself jotting ideas on our calendar that I don’t want to forget when our days are full and busy again.)

A lot of young readers could read this on their own — it falls somewhere between those very early I Can Read chapter books and Little House in the Big Woods, I think, as far as reading levels go. But I think it’s the most fun as a readaloud because it’s funnier and sweeter when you read it together.

FYI: The Audible version is a steal for $2.95 right now.

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Stuff We Like :: 12.29.17

Happy New Year! I hope you are getting to slow down a little and enjoy some downtime with your family.

 

around the web

Your perfect New Year’s resolution based on your favorite literary character. (I am Hermione Granger-ing all the way in 2018.)

Speaking of resolutions: How to get over the need to be liked by everyone you meet

Suzanne and I were just talking about this! Apparently “OK.” is the most passive-aggressive text you can send someone.

This is fascinating: The ongoing archaeology behind The Island of the Blue Dolphins

at home/school/life

in the magazine: We’re wrapping up the winter issue—hooray!

on the blog: Our family’s favorite books of 2017

one year ago: A high school history curriculum that asks big questions (I know lots of people who are using this program and loving it)

two years ago: How to start homeschooling in the middle of the year

three years ago: Three words every homeschooling parent should know

at home

I’m sort of obsessed with these coffee malted cookies, and I love that I have the extra time to actually bake them right now.

We are all really enjoying hanging out, playing games, reading our new books, and eating way too much yummy food. It probably doesn't make for very exciting reading, but it’s been pretty fabulous.

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Some of Our Favorite Books of 2017

Since it’s the end of the year, everybody’s getting new reading logs — which means our scribbled-up, book-filled 2017 reading logs have been getting marked up with stars to indicate our favorite books of the year. Some of these books were published this year, some weren’t, some I’m surprised to see on the list, but all of them were rated favorites by me or my kids. (They are not listed in any particular order.) I am terrible at categorizing books by age because my own kids read above and below their “levels” more than they read on them, but I’ve tried to group these loosely into children’s books, young adult books, fiction, and nonfiction — though I definitely wouldn't recommend treating these categories anything more than loose guidelines.

Children’s Books

5 WORLDS: THE SAND WARRIOR by Mark and Alexis Siegel

At the top of my son’s list is this gorgeous graphic fantasy about three friends on a quest to save the five worlds. The worlds are brilliantly imagined (a little bit “Avatar: The Last Air Bender,” a little bit “Star Wars), the action is fast-paced and exciting, and we can’t wait for book two.

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OUT OF WONDER: POEMS CELEBRATING POETS by Kwame Alexander and Chris Colderley

I try to pick up a new poetry collection for our bookshelf every year, and this was the one we chose this year. Visually, it’s gorgeous — the collage style illustrations are sheer exuberant joy. And I love that the poems are all tributes to other poets (including Naomi Shihab Nye, Langston Hughes, Basho, Pablo Neruda, and more) — it made us excited to go explore those poets, too. 

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LET’S PRETEND WE NEVER MET by Melissa Walker

Probably because he’s never been to school, my 10-year-old is fascinating by books about middle school politics. In this one, a lonely new girl in town finds out that her fun new neighbor is actually the “weird kid” at her new school. I think he also loved the book’s totally relatable, Judy Blume-ish vibe, which I enjoyed, too.

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ALL’S FAIRE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL by Victoria Jamieson 

Always homeschooled Imogen grew up working at the Renaissance Faire with her parents, and she’s determined to tackle her new challenge just like a brave knight would. But going back to traditional school seems more difficult than slaying dragons in this likable graphic novel.

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BEN FRANKLIN’S IN MY BATHROOM! by Candace Fleming

If your kids loved the Magic Treehouse and the Time Warp Trio series, they will probably be as happy as my son was to discover that there’s a new time travel history series in town. When Ben Franklin shows up in Nolan’s bathroom (go with it), Nolan has a great adventure showing the Founding Father how the world he helped imagine has turned out.

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CROWN: AN ODE TO THE FRESH CUT by Derrick Barnes

I loved this playful, freestyling ode to the barber shop — the place where little boys get to experience the thrill of being king for the length of a haircut. It’s a lovely book for young black boys, but I loved it, too.

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BRONZE AND SUNFLOWER by Cao Wenxuan

Oh my goodness, this little book packs such a wallop. It’s the story of two only children living in poverty in rural China during the Cultural Revolution who slowly build a friendship that enriches them both. It made me cry in the good way.

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THE ARRIVAL by Shaun Tan

This wordless graphic novel is incredibly powerful. Strange and surreal, it reads like a silent movie, as the newcomer discovers his new country, which is fantastic and beautiful, lonely and isolating, frightening and limited, warm and welcoming all at the same time.

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A MILLION SHADES OF GRAY by Cynthia Kadohata

This novel of the Vietnam war focuses on a side of the war that we seldom consider — what was life like for the Vietnamese after the U.S. soldiers withdrew? Y’Tin is a child of the war who dreams of training elephants one day but faces more immediate pressures when his village is captured by the North Vietnamese.

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UNDEFEATED: JIM THORPE AND THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM by Steve Sheinkin 

Everyone teases me that sports is my trivia kryptonite — I always just guess “Jim Thorpe” and hope for the best. So we may have been predisposed to dig this book about the future Olympian who was sent to a school designed to “un-Indian” him and who didn’t even become a U.S. citizen until 1924, when the government extended the privileges of citizenship to Native Americans. Sheinkin is always awesome; this book is no exception.

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OTTOLINE AND THE PURPLE FOX by Chris Riddell

Ottoline is one of our favorites! We loved this adventure with an urban safari and a secret poet, but it’s the illustrations that make this book so delightful.

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THE DOORMAN’S REPOSE by Chris Raschka

The interconnected stories centering around a possibly magical apartment building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan are just plain charming. 

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THE WINGSNATCHERS by Sarah Jean Horwitz

What a fun story! Part steampunk adventure, part twisted fairy tale, this fantasy teams up a frustrated would-be inventor (currently employed as a magician’s assistant) with a fiery faerie princess to find the cause behind a string of faerie disappearances. We read this aloud twice because everyone enjoyed it so much.

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AMINA’S VOICE by Hena Khan

Soojin and Amina are best friends who’ve always bonded over their “other” status — both of their families are immigrants who don’t exactly fit the “American” mold. But when Soojin embraces her new U.S. identity — even adopting an Americanized name — Amina is lonely and confused. 

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AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor

I know this one’s on Suzanne’s list, too, but I couldn’t leave it off — my daughter and I both  loved this book, which is much more than a Nigerian Harry Potter, even though that’s the most immediate reference that comes to mind. American-born 12-year-old Sunny doesn't fit in anywhere, until she gets admitted to a school for magical kids.

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HELLO, UNIVERSE by Erin Entrada Kelly 

Four unlikely friends get caught up in an unexpected journey together in this well-plotted story about finding your inner hero. My son liked this one so much he read it himself after we read it as a readaloud.

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RISE OF THE JUMBIES by Tracey Baptiste

Corinne doesn’t believe in the Jumbies — evil creatures that live in the dark forests of the island where she lives. But when a strange, beautiful woman named Severine appears, Corinne must battle the forces of darkness to save her home. I love that this book is based on a Haitian folktale that I’d never heard of, but the story definitely stands on its own.

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REFUGEE  by Alan Gratz

Focusing on three turbulent periods — 1930s Germany, 1994 Cuba, and 2015 Syria — Gratz imagines the stories of three young refugees fleeing unspeakable horrors in search of a better life. Maybe I wouldn’t hand this to particularly young or very sensitive kids, but I think this is the refugee book we should all be reading together.

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CHEF ROY CHOI AND THE STREET FOOD REMIX by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

My son and I loved this picture book biography of street food chef Roy Choi, whose Korean fusion food helped kick off the street food trend. We’re always looking for fun biographies, and this one proved to be a big hit.

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THE BOOK OF MISTAKES by Corinna Luyken

I am thrilled that my perfectionist son triple-starred this picture book about the unexpected magic of mistakes. Sometimes the thing you think you messed up ends up being the best part.

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Young Adult

A CORNER OF WHITE, THE CRACKS IN THE KINGDOM, and A TANGLE OF GOLD by Jacklyn Moriarty

I read The Colors of Madeleine trilogy on Suzanne’s recommendation — mostly because she said it was a great characterization of homeschoolers, which is true — and, as usual, she was right. I loved the world of Cello, which is full of marauding colors and rapidly shifting seasons, and I loved the friendship that develops between Madeleine and Elliot when they find a crack that connects Oxford in our world to Elliot’s world. Moriarty does a brilliant job building connections and ideas that deliver big pay-off in later books.

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CITY OF SAINTS AND THIEVES by Natalie C. Anderson

Tina, a teen refugee-turned-pickpocket, is determined to get revenge for her mother’s murder. She’s been harboring her dream of vengeance for years, but the closer she gets to fulfilling her mission, the less sure she is that she knows the truth about what happened that night. My daughter devoured this book.

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AMERICAN STREET by Ibi Zoboi

Fabiola Toussaint thought coming to America would be her happy ending. Instead, her mom gets detained by U.S. immigration, and Fabiola is forced to make sense of life with her rowdy cousins in a rough part of Detroit alone. We’ve been reading a lot of good books about immigration and the immigrant experience this year, but this is one of the best.

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STRANGE PRACTICE by Vivian Shaw

My daughter recommends this twist on traditional monster literature: Dr. Greta Helsing treats all kinds of undead ailments, from entropy in mummies to vocal strain in banshees. It’s an abnormally normal life — until a group of murderous monks start killing London’s living and dead inhabitants, and Greta may be the only one who can stop them.

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LUMBERJANES by Noelle Stevenson

Another title that also shows up on Suzanne’s list! My daughter loves this comic series starring five badass buds so much she keeps it stacked on her night table.

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MOXIE by Jennifer Mathieu

I adored this book about a girl whose underground zine accidentally starts a feminist revolution at her Texas high school.

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THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas

You’ve probably already seen this book on several best-of lists, but it really is pretty amazing — heartbreaking, hopeful, tense, and timely. Starr lives in a poor urban neighborhood but attends a fancy suburban prep school, a world-straddling proposition that gets even more complicated when she witnesses the police shooting of a childhood friend.

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THE BEST WE COULD DO by Thi Bui

Another great book we discovered while reading about immigration experiences, this graphic novel memoir is an achingly evocative account of one family’s escape from 1970s Vietnam. Bui weaves together her childhood memories with her experiences as a new mom in a roller coaster of emotions.

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PURPLE HIBISCUS by Chimamanda Adichi

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's debut novel focuses on 15-year-old Kambili and her life in her father’s harsh, abusive Nigerian home. As Kambili realizes — with the help of her free-spirited aunt — that her father’s authority is not absolute, she also realizes, for the first time, the possibility of her own life.

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THE DIRE KING by William Ritter 

My daughter was a huge fan of this supernatural Sherlock Holmes-ish series, so she greeted its last of four books with a combination of excitement and sadness, but as finales go, this one was pretty satisfying. As always, assistant-to-the-detective Abigail Rook shines in the apocalyptic battle that’s been building over the series, but shapeshifting police detective Charlie, ghostly Jenny, and expert on all things supernatural Jackaby all have great moments, too.

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THE RUBY IN THE SMOKE by Philip Pullman

My daughter got hooked on this mystery series this year thanks to this first book, in which 16-year-old Sally Lockhart sets out into the seamy underbelly of Victorian London to solve her father’s murder.

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THE POWER by Naomi Alderman

In this dystopian novel with a feminist twist, teenage girls around the world discover that their bodies have the power to emit a deadly electric charge on demand, totally shifting the traditional power dynamic. It was exactly the book I needed this year.

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Fiction

EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid

I was shell-shocked by this book in all the best possible ways. Hamid weaves a thread of magical realism through the all-too-real portrait of a city on the edge of war, making the story of Saeed and Nadia both an unlikely love story and a haunting tale of refugee life. It’s difficult, and gorgeous, and definitely worth reading.

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AUTUMN by Ali Smith

Set in post-Brexit England, this is the story of ]30-something art history lecturer Elisabeth and the 101-year-old man who helped care for her when she was a child. Now drifting in and out of consciousness at a residential care facility, Daniel becomes a “sleeping Socrates,” an anchor for Elisabeth in a turbulent, complicated time. It’s a tender, touching story that’s slow and subtle, and I really loved it.

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FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GOD by Louise Erdrich

Tis the season for dystopia, I guess, but this is another one that I enjoyed: I know Erdrich mostly for her lovely Native American stories, so this is a different vein for her. In a dark future where evolution reverses course, the government starts rounding up pregnant women, and a pregnant, part-Ojibwe woman goes on the run as society begins to disintegrate.

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THE SECRETS OF WISHTIDE by Kate Saunders

I don’t know if this prim-with-an-edge Victorian mystery — starring a clergyman’s widow who has been navigating life as a middle-aged woman in reduced circumstances — counts as great literature, but it was certainly enjoyable literature. I’m always on the lookout for a mystery that’s fun to solve and peopled with interesting characters, and this one delivered on both counts.

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THE MAGPIE MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz

My other favorite mystery of 2017 was this multi-layered treat: An editor gets a manuscript of a famous detective novelist’s last book, but the last chapter is missing — and, it turns out, the famous detective novelist in question may have been murdered. It’s an homage to classic British detective fiction and a modern-day mystery, and even though I didn’t love everything about the ending, I found the experience of reading it to be very, very satisfying.

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Nonfiction

BUNK: THE RISE OF HOAXES, HUMBUGS, PLAGIARISTS, PHONIES, POST-FACTS, AND FAKE NEWS by Kevin Young

Brilliant. Young considers the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, highlighting historical frauds in the context of their times and in the racism and stereotyping that often accompanied their chicanery. If you’ve been more than a little stressed out by the trend toward choose-your-own-facts, you will definitely appreciate this book.

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THE MAGIC OF REALITY: HOW WE KNOW WHAT’S REALLY TRUE by Richard Dawkins

We all four loved this readaloud about the science of everyday life — and the ways in which the scientific truths of reality are often even more interesting and exciting than any mythical explanation.

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WHAT SHE ATE: SIX REMARKABLE WOMEN AND THE FOOD THAT TELLS THEIR STORIES by Laura Shapiro

I’ve been recommending this book to everyone. Shapiro chronicles the lives of six women — Dorothy Wordsworth, Rosa Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt, Eva Braun, Barbara Pym, and Helen Gurley Brown — through the food they cooked and ate, and the result is utterly fascinating. 

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON by David Grann

David Grann rocks my world, and this book is everything I love about his obsessively researched, detail-rich writing. This is a tragic story that most of us have never heard about murders of Osage tribe members by their protectors in the 1920s — and how the investigation of those murders helped create the modern FBI.

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DINNER: CHANGING THE GAME by Melissa Clark

I buy cookbooks by the dozen, but this one is a standout. I love the variety of recipes and the keep-it-simple philosophy Clark embraces.

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I CAN’T BREATHE: A KILLING ON BAY STREET by Matt Taibbi

I feel like I read a lot of sad books this year, but this one is particularly gut-wrenching. Tabby tackles the problematic death of Eric Garner, a black man who died in New York City police custody. It’s like watching a really great episode of “The Wire” but without any humor in it — it’s honestly hard to get through in some places, but maybe that’s what makes it so important to read.

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Our Favorite Holiday Readalouds

Happy Holidays! If you're looking for an excuse to snuggle up with a good book and your favorite people, here's a handy roundup of some of our favorite holiday readalouds.

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Readaloud of the Week: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER by Barbara Robinson

The Herdmans are terrible. They’re the worst kids in town. And now they’re set to star in the annual Christmas pageant.

I can still remember laughing until my sides hurt when my 5th grade teacher read this book aloud, and it remains satisfyingly hilarious. Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie, and Gladys Herdman are delightfully awful kids, and watching them wreak havoc with the traditional, staid Christmas pageant is pure fun. 

This story is about a Christmas pageant at a church, so if you’re avoiding any Christmas-themed readings this year, steer clear of this one. Even though it gets a little sentimental about the “real meaning” of Christmas, though, the fact that everyone has to explain the Christmas story to the Herdmans gives it a playfulness that transcends religion. (Imogene, playing Mary, is horrified that they “tie the baby Jesus up and put him in a feedbox” and wants to know why no one called Child Services about that.) I think it does a nice job contrasting our shiny, perfect version of the story of Christmas with the historical facts of what it actually would have been like for a refugee family with a pregnant woman trying to make the best of a tough situation. The Herdmans get into the story, not just the mythology: They want to take down baby-murdering Herod and smack the interfering shepherds, and it’s a refreshingly funny way of looking at this very traditional story. If you do celebrate Christmas, you’ll probably find this story both funny and tender; if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you’ll appreciate the humor and the Herdman’s confusion over some of the details. Honestly, I think it would make a fun introduction to the traditional Christmas story since it manages to be both skeptical and respectful at the same time.

And did I mention that it’s hilarious?

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Stuff We Like :: 12.22.17

Happy Holidays! The offices of HSL will be closed for the next two weeks — which is a fancy way of saying I will be taking a little family vacation! Posts will go up as usual, but I will have limited access to email and messages, so thanks in advance for your patience.

around the web

Is Sherlock Holmes actually Henry David Thoreau?

Another feminist biography I need, stat: Ada Blackjack was the only survivor of a 1921 Arctic expedition. (She’d signed onto the expedition as a seamstress because it paid a generous salary that would allow her to finally pay for medical care for her ill son.)

Women’s fight against sexual harassment started long before Twitter. (No wonder we’re all so tired of it!)

A pretty disturbing look at the cost and success of SCAD.

at home/school/life

on the blog: We rounded up our must-have games for holiday playing.

one year ago: Here’s a roundup of some of our favorite holiday posts from years past. (I still love our No-Stuff Gift Guide!)

two years ago: Making your wellness a priority

three years ago: How second chances free us up for real learning

reading list

My favorite gift so far: Julia Turshen’s Feed the Resistance: Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved

Our current readaloud: One Mixed-Up Night, in which two kids run away to Ikea (instead of to the Metropolitan Museum of Art) — it’s fun, and the friendship is sweet, but when did we become people who would rather go to Ikea than a museum?

Suzanne swears that Angela Thirkell makes everything better, so I am going all in, starting with Christmas at High Rising, which is apparently a collection of short stories, which suits my current attention span just fine.

at home

I did not have my act together for the holidays, but we whipped up a giant batch of fig and ginger granola that ended up being a hit, so yay! My kids gave their friends copies of Ed Emberley’s Complete Funprint Drawing Book and a set of stamp pads. And I’m giving myself a holiday Negroni.

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Stuff We Like :: 12.15.17

You guys, it snowed! And it’s Hanukkah! And there was election news that didn’t make me want to hide under the bed. Please let this be a sign of things to come.

around the web

I hope this makes you laugh as hard as I did: 20 Authors I Don’t Have to Read Because I Have Dated Men for 16 Years (I actually love Kurt Vonnegut, but #2 made me laugh so hard I spat my coffee.)

Relevant to my interests: A lovely profile on the homeschoolers of Harvard. “Homeschooling prepared me for Harvard really well because it fostered such a strong love for the act of learning… Not learning for a grade, not learning for an exam, but learning for the sheer love of knowledge itself.”

Let’s nerd out together about weird interstellar space objects, okay?

The weirdest thing I read this week: Judah Maccabee Versus the Anti-Vaxxers

at home/school/life

on the blog: I think we all need Suzanne’s top 10 kid/YA books books of 2017 list, right?

one year ago: I forgot how much I love this nerdy t-shirt roundup!

two years ago: I always find myself going back to Shelli’s list of easy ways to celebrate the winter solstice. (It's coming up!)

three years ago: Learning authentically through homeschooling

reading list

You know I will read anything about the Tudors, but Black Tudors was particularly fascinating — it’s a group biography of ten African people who made their homes in Tudor England (including an independent single woman!). It’s always interesting to read Black history before slavery became its defining characteristic — it’s so sad but also fascinating to imagine what it would look like if slavery hadn’t happened, and this book offers a glimpse at some of those possibilities (as well as the racism that would allow slavery to take such a long hold on Western history).

I love books about food and its role in history (See also: Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine, What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories), so I was delighted to stumble upon A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression, which — as the name tells you —is a history of eating during the 1930s and the emergence of what we think of as “American cuisine.”

at home

I love snow days. And I love having an excuse to have a fire. And I love jelly doughnuts. And I love that finals are over, and there’s a lovely, lovely vacation just ahead of me.

Like I have free time, I know, but I’m considering carving a little out to take this Literature and Mental Health: Reading for Wellbeing course because I feel like it might be just what I need. Doesn’t it seem like it might be just what we all kind of need?

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Library Chicken Update :: Top 10 Kids/Young Adult Books Read in 2017

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!

It’s my favorite time of the year: LIST TIME! There’s nothing I love more than a good list, so we’re taking a break from your regularly scheduled Library Chicken Update to present (in no particular order) Library Chicken’s Top 10 Kids/Young Adult Books Read in 2017. (Stay tuned next week for Library Chicken’s Top 10 Nonfiction Books!)

THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL by Ryan North and Erica Henderson

LUMBERJANES by Noelle Stevenson (and others)

PAPER GIRLS by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang

One of the themes of my 2017 reading turned out to be graphic novels about awesome young women doing awesome things with all their awesome friends. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Lumberjanes series are wonderfully smart, funny, and diverse, and would make great gifts for your favorite 8- to 12-year-olds. (I’m speaking from experience, as two of my favorite 9-year-olds are now big fans after getting the first couple of volumes from their Auntie Suzanne.) For older YA readers (and fans of Stranger Things), Paper Girls is a fantastic time-traveling alien-invasion adventure set in the 80s. Definitely put these books on your holiday shopping lists, but be sure to enjoy them yourself before giving them away!

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AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor

I loved this story of a 12-year-old Nigerian-American girl discovering her magical powers with the help of fellow students and an assortment of mysterious elders. It’s a wonderful read, especially for anyone who obsessively checks bookstore shelves just in case another Harry Potter novel has suddenly appeared. I haven’t yet read the sequel, Akata Warrior, but it’s on my Christmas wishlist (HINT HINT).

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ONE CRAZY SUMMER (and sequels) by Rita Williams-Garcia

In 1968, three sisters travel from New York to California to spend the summer with the mother who left them to follow her own dreams. Instead of visiting Disneyland, they find themselves at a Black Panther day camp. After reading the first book, I couldn’t wait to read more about this amazing, loving, complicated family in P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series, as I’d happily follow these sisters from pre-teens to 40-somethings. (As an extra bonus, the covers of all three books are gorgeous.)

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THE GLASS TOWN GAME by Catherynne M. Valente

Valente is swiftly moving up the ranks in the list of my all-time favorite authors. This novel follows the four young Bronte siblings (Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne) as they accidentally find themselves in a magical world of their own creation. Similar in style to Valente’s Fairyland series with a dash of The Phantom Tollbooth, this would be a great read-aloud and introduction to the Brontes (although you may have to prepare your listeners for some post-book heartbreak when they learn about the eventual fates of the siblings). I especially loved the Jane Austen cameo, presented (as Valente apologetically notes) from Charlotte’s point of view (she’s not a fan).

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THE ALEX CROW by Andrew Smith

Smith’s YA novels (including the apocalyptic Grasshopper Jungle) are bizarre, upsetting, raunchy, utterly original, and chock full of adolescent males acting as adolescent-male-y as humanly possible. They are also entertaining, compelling, and surprisingly touching (even if you happen to be neither adolescent nor male). Our protagonist here is Ariel, a young war refugee adopted by an American family, and it only gets weirder (much much weirder) from there.

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LANDSCAPE WITH INVISIBLE HAND by M.T. Anderson

This YA novella was short but memorable, exploring ideas about imperialism and cultural appropriation through the alien vuvv, Earth’s new, (mostly) benign overlords. To make money in the post-vuvv economy, our hero Adam and his girlfriend livestream their romance for the aliens’ enjoyment, but that’s a little more difficult now that they’ve broken up.

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GLORY O'BRIEN'S HISTORY OF THE FUTURE by A.S. King

Petrified bat drinking leads to strange visions of a near future anti-feminist Second American Civil War. Really, that’s all the info you should need to run out and read this YA novel, but if it helps it’s also a sensitive portrayal of family, loss, and friendship. (Also a good warning to readers not to drink petrified bats.)

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THE RAVEN CYCLE by Maggie Stiefvater

Stiefvater’s four book fantasy YA series (beginning with The Raven Boys) includes a family of eccentric psychics, the clairvoyant daughter of the house, and a set of cute prep school boys who may have strange powers of their own. It’s great all the way through and I look forward to reading more Stiefvater in 2018.

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Gift Guide: Gift Ideas for People Who Love Roald Dahl

We think there's no better holiday gift than a good book. But sometimes you want to kick it up a notch, so we've put together a few fun gift lists based around some of our favorite books and authors.

** We use some affiliate links on HSL. Learn more here. **

Roald Dahl’s silly, spectacular world is full of spunky heroes and heroines, deliciously evil villains, and all kinds of scrumptious treats. If you’ve got a reader who’s gone exploring with James, explored a candy factory with Charlie, loaded up a library tote with Matilda, or otherwise lived vicariously through one of Dahl’s fabulously imagined characters, one of these gifts might be the golden ticket you’ve been looking for.

There’s something comforting about knowing that the Big Friendly Giant is out there protecting you from bad dreams at night and whispering happy dreams in your ear. This cuddly little BFG plush is a perfect present for big and small dreamers.

A fancy framed print of a favorite Roald Dahl quote is a daily reminder that there’s magic to made out in the world. 

Or go with a real book lover’s print: This poster from the Roald Dahl Museum shop contains the full text of The Fantastic Mr. Fox. (Isn’t it so cool?)

This lovely handmade necklace by Deborah Blyth looks perfectly polished, but its Roald Dahl engraved message will subtly announce your affection for the beloved children’s author.

Every Roald Dahl fan needs a golden ticket — and this one comes in a cuddly cushion form. 

Speaking of Roald Dahl fan essentials, no Dahl loving bookshelf should be without The Roald Dahl Dictionary, a witty, whimsically illustrated companion to Dahl’s works. You’ll never be at a loss to explain a word like gobblefunking, jumpsquiffling, or squacking again.

When you’re feeling like one of the poor, overworked children forced to do housework for terrible adults in Roald Dahl’s books, at least you can dry the dishes with this adorable towel featuring some favorite characters.

I think you’ve just discovered your new library tote bag. 

I usually avoid transatlantic shipping issues, but how can any Dahl fan resist a batch of frobscottle popcorn? (You could also just whip up a batch of homemade frobscottle for your holiday toasts.)

Put your Roald Dahl knowledge to work in an I Spy-style game featuring illustrations by Quentin Blake.

If you don’t already have all the Dahl classics, here’s your chance to get a boxed set of 15 of his best known books for your bookshelf, including classics like The Witches and James and the Giant Peach with lesser-known but equally wonderful books like George’s Marvelous Medicine and The Twits.

Celebrate the way Matilda is the only person who really understands how much you love books every time you have a mug of chocolate this winter.

Did you know there’s a Roald Dahl coloring book? It’s all original art, so no Quentin Blake or Tony Ross (alas), but these are imaginative, fantastically detailed images that you’ll immediately recognize from the Dahl-verse.

Because the only thing better than reading a Roald Dahl book is having Roald Dahl read his books to you, we present for your consideration the Roald Dahl audio collection.

What would you make out of this whimsical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fabric? I’d wrap it up as-is for a crafty kid or use it make a cute Kindle case if I was feeling crafty myself.

Honestly, I don’t think you have to be a Roald Dahl fan to get excited about this chocolate collection, which includes a frobscottle and cucumber white chocolate bar, Bruce Bogtrotter’s chocolate fudge cake dark chocolate bar, and the “perfectly normal” milk chocolate bar.

You never know when you might get kidnapped by a Big Friendly Giant, so step up your pajama game with an old-fashioned printed nightie and a pair of velvet bear slippers. 

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You may also enjoy . . .

Readaloud of the Week: The Family Under the Bridge

THE FAMILY UNDER THE BRIDGE by Natalie Savage Carlson

Ah, Christmas in Paris. Armand may be homeless, but that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy the magic of the wintertime city. He is just settling into his cold weather routine when he discovers that a little family has taken over his favorite tunnel under a bridge off the Seine.

The family in question is a trio of children — Suzy, Paul, Evelyne, and their dog Jojo — who are hiding under the bridge while their mother works. Unable to make their rent payments with one income, the family has been forced into homelessness. Unlike Armand, they don’t see the vagabond life as a grand adventure but as a challenge they must overcome — if only they can figure out how. With the whole city coming alive with Christmas magic, Armand takes the children on a walking tour of Paris, gradually — very much against his better judgment — beginning to care about them. Their mother, Madame Calcet, is horrified that her children have taken up with a hobo and that they have been hanging out at a gypsy camp in the city, but Armand quickly reminds her that no one is inherently better than anyone else and that kindness and generosity — not privilege and immigration status — are what make people worth knowing. By the time the holiday arrives, Armand has changed his mind about families and being tied down.

This is such a lovely read for this time of year — partly because it captures some of the beauty of Yuletide Paris and partly because it’s a really lovely reminder that people find their families in all kinds of unexpected ways. It’s set in post-World War II Europe, and you can feel the damage caused by the war in the harsh economics of the Calcets’ life and in Armand’s reluctance to rejoin the civilized world. There is so much hope in this story of people coming together, and it feels like a much-needed alternative to holiday commercials full of presents and “gifting.” 

It’s true that this is an old-fashioned book, and the author casually uses some words that we don’t toss around anymore, including “hoboes” and “gypsies.” (I find myself editing out the world “hobo,” which is used to describe Armand over and over again.) It’s a good opportunity to talk about how the words we use matter and how as we learn more about how language can hurt people, we’re able to choose our words more thoughtfully. There’s also a little religion in the book — most notably when Armand goes to Christmas mass to pray for his new friends. Again, this didn’t bother our Jewish family, but your mileage may vary. 

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Previous Readalouds of the Week

Stuff We Like :: 12.8.17

Happy Birthday to Jason! And happy almost-Hanukkah! 

The SEA homeschool conference is coming to Atlanta in 2018, and you can score a great price on tickets right now. Please come hang out with me so I don't have to be socially awkward all by myself! :)

around the web

Dante’s nine circles of hell reimagined for linguistic transgressions (Avoid the sixth circle!)

Hear, hear, International Research Society for Children’s Literature: “IRSCL also knows that, in the current geopolitical climate, we cannot take for granted the values of intellectual freedom, scholarly expertise, careful and evidence-based argument and reflection, and the capacity to be open to contrary views, as substantiated through international exchange and collaboration. These values need ongoing articulation, implementation and defense, both within our own ranks and in global society at large.”

Relevant to my interests: The history of the packaged sandwich in Britain

Are we coming to the end of the social media age? (And is that maybe a good thing?)

at home/school/life

on the blog: I always love Suzanne’s book lists, but now that she’s reading all these haunted house books, my TBR list is basically exploding

also on the blog: Gift ideas for your favorite Nancy Drew fan (hint, hint)

one year ago: Books for everybody on your shopping list

two years ago: The Lazy Parent’s Guide to Holiday Cheer

three years ago: Driving Lessons: A Homeschool Mom's View from the Passenger's Seat

reading list

I’ve got an awesome stack of books waiting on my night table now that the semester is wrapping up: The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street, recommended to me by a fellow homeschooler, and Angela Thirkell’s High Rising, which Suzanne assures me will make me feel better about the state of the world while I am reading it.

I’ve also got a few books to tackle for next semester, including SPQR, which I am excited to reread. (If you are a fan of Roman history, I recommend this one — well, I recommend anything by Mary Beard. She’s awesome.)

Suzanne is putting together her best books of 2017 list, and I cannot wait to read it. Because obviously I need a longer list of books I need to read.

at home

Jason’s school is wrapping up its first full semester, and I feel like I should have some pithy wisdom about what it’s like to start a hybrid high school. I don’t, though. I expected it to be a lot of work, and I wasn’t wrong about that, but I was surprised by how much I fell in love with all the students and how completely exhausted I am at the end of every school day. If you want to start a project like this, I think the key is to be totally, 100-percent passionate about it — Jason and Shelly definitely are, and that passion has seen us over a LOT of humps.

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Library Chicken Update :: 12.5.17

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!

I’m back from Thanksgiving break with an extra-long list of books (read while digesting and/or having just a smidge more pumpkin pie). And if Thanksgiving’s over, that means it’s time to make up my holiday reading wishlist! (As in: I sure wish I had time to read all these books stacked all over my floor.)

The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf

My Girl-Who-Reads-Woolf project continues with a reread of her first novel, where Europeans travel to the wilds of South America for rest and recuperation, desperate (and doomed) love affairs, and many intense discussions on Life, Truth, and Connection (and the impossibility of same in today’s bourgeois world). Plus: a guest appearance by Mrs. Dalloway!

(LC Score: +1)

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Landscape With Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson

I’m a big fan of Anderson (especially his Pals in Peril series) and was excited to read this new YA novella about life on Earth after the arrival of the vuvv, an alien race that promises to deliver magical alien tech and a wonderful life for all. Not everything works out as planned, however, and it’s possible that Anderson is using this tale of alien invasion to comment on the dangers of imperialism and cultural appropriation. (SPOILER: That is DEFINITELY what he’s doing.) In fact, this would be a great conversation-starter (along with being a fun read) for middle and high schoolers as they are introduced to the (not so fun) idea of colonialism.

(LC Score: +1)

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Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A.S. King

And this was another great YA read with something to say about today’s world. Glory has just graduated from high school and is trying to figure out her future and deal with the long-delayed fallout of her mother’s suicide. Plus, the other day she and her best friend decided to drink a petrified bat (that is not a typo) and now Glory is having visions of a near-future Second American Civil War, which starts as a backlash to the feminist movement. King explores loss and friendship (and the loss of friendship) in original and memorable ways.

(LC Score: +1)

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This House is Haunted by John Boyne

“I blame Charles Dickens for the death of my father,” our Victorian narrator tells us in the opening sentence of this ghost story, as she explains how, after being orphaned, she was forced to become a governess and ended up in a strange empty mansion with her odd young charges and no other adults in sight. And YES, I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS, LET’S GO. Unfortunately, if you’re going to write about an isolated governess in a possibly haunted house, The Turn of the Screw sets a very high bar, and this story has too few surprises and drags on a bit too long to fulfill my initial excitement. (Also, when the governess tries to get help from the townsfolk because she’s living in a CLEARLY HAUNTED HOUSE THAT HAS ALREADY KILLED HER THREE PREDECESSORS they all treat her like she’s crazy, and I found that very annoying. IT’S SUPER OBVIOUSLY HAUNTED, PEOPLE.)

(LC Score: +1)

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Slade House by David Mitchell

Haunted houses everywhere! This novella, a companion to Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks (and the extended universe he’s apparently creating across all of his novels), tells the story of Slade House, occupied by “soul carnivores” who must feed every nine years. We learn its secrets from a series of doomed narrators (the first one, an autistic boy, is especially compelling) as the house reappears briefly and then vanishes on its nine-year cycle, leading to mysterious disappearances among the locals. I enjoyed this, but it did feel more like a DVD-extra or bonus track (is there a term for the literary version of that?) than a strong, stand-alone story.

(LC Score: +1)

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House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

And while I’m reading about haunted houses, it must be finally time to tackle this massive piece of metafiction. I love this kind of epistolary-plus storytelling, where we have different narrators telling different sections of the story that may themselves take the form of letters, transcripts, diagrams, and everything else, so it’s no surprise that I was completely caught up in this tale of a not-so-ordinary suburban house with corridors that appear and disappear and change shape in very disturbing fashion. It wasn’t quite as scary as I was expecting — perhaps because I’ve heard so much about it and have read other works that were obviously inspired by it — although Chapter Nine did give me a headache. Still totally worth it.

(LC Score: +1)

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The Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me, but I’m something of a completist (see: my Alcott-adjacent reading project, my Georgia history reading project, my Bronte sister reading project, my Girl-Who-Reads-Woolf project, etc. etc.) so once I learned that Danielewski had published this addition to House of Leaves, containing material that was mostly already published in that book as an appendix but WITH SEVERAL ADDITIONAL PAGES I of course had to check it out. As it turns out, I couldn’t really tell the new stuff from the old. Probably not worth it (unless you’re a fellow obsessive), though it only took an hour or so to read so no big deal.

(LC Score: +1)

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I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas

From the dismayingly Lovecraftian hallways of the House of Leaves we go to a murder mystery set at a Lovecraft convention in Providence, RI. It begins promisingly (and appropriately) with first-person narration from the corpse, who is inexplicably missing his face. As a long-term attendee of various science fiction conventions (only 269 days until DragonCon 2018, y’all!) I am always up for a literary glimpse of fandom, but Mamatas lost me when he depicted pretty much all of Lovecraft fandom as a sad, pathetic group of racist, sexist losers. Granted, Lovecraft himself was something of a racist, sexist loser, but that view ignores all of the recent amazing writing from diverse authors bringing Lovecraftian horrors to the modern world in creative and continually surprising ways. (See Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country and Ellen Datlow’s two anthologies, Lovecraft Unbound and Lovecraft’s Monsters, to name just a few.) When depicting fandom, the line between affectionate mockery and vicious satire can be hard to define (and varies with the eye of the beholder), but if you’re in the mood for a murder at a con, may I suggest Sharyn McCrumb’s Bimbos of the Death Sun — though I should warn you that younger readers may need to google ‘floppy disc’ and other 80s relics to understand certain plot points.

(LC Score: +1)

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Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls

So basically at this point I’m reading big thick biographies of Thoreau so I can put off finally reading Walden, which I’m not looking forward to but should really read because I’m doing this whole Transcendentalist thing right now and it’s an American masterpiece and I think of myself as a well-read person and all that. (I had to have read excerpts in high school, right? If so, I have completely blocked it out, which doesn’t make me eager to give it another go.) Whatever my motivations, though, I enjoyed this biography of the (often annoying) Thoreau. Walls is clearly a Big Fan, but she tells an engaging story and I appreciated her often insightful commentary on the Transcendentalist movement in general.

(LC Score: +1)

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The Modern Tradition: An Anthology of Short Stories edited by Daniel F. Howard

The Short Story: Fifty Masterpieces edited by Ellen C. Wynn

I’m teaching a short story course next semester, which means I get to pick a bunch of stories for the syllabus! And I probably should have started figuring the list out earlier! Especially as it’s been a long long time since I’ve read most of these! That said, I’m enjoying my trip down short-story lane — I’ve read novels almost exclusively for the past couple of decades, but I think that’s going to change. These collections contain stories and authors that have stood the test of time, so I was rereading old standbys (“Young Goodman Brown”) and finally reading classics that I’ve never quite gotten around to (“The Metamorphosis”) and discovering authors that I’ve heard of but never read and it turns out they’re awesome and I should read more of their stuff immediately (Doris Lessing). Also it turns out that I’ve been confusing Flannery O’Connor with Carson McCullers and I actually kind of like O’Connor? (Another blow to my long-standing prejudice against Southern Gothic fiction.) Anyway, it’s possible that I’ve picked up another dozen or so anthologies (i.e., more books that I can possibly read before the start of next semester) to keep me busy over the holidays. (I appear to be in an even more obsessive mood than usual these days.)

[Editor's note: Ahem.]

(LC Score: +2)

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Sadly, even with Thanksgiving break I was unable to keep up with all those due dates and my RETURNED UNREAD score for this week stands at a very disappointing -8. I feel like I owe my library branch an apology. (LC Score: -8)

Library Chicken Score for 12/5/17: 3
Running Score: 118 ½

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

• The Evolution Man, Or How I Ate My Father by Roy Lewis (my dad has been bugging me to read this)
• Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin (because my middle schoolers are reading Oliver Twist)
• Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life by Joan D. Hendrick (because I’m gradually moving from the Transcendentalists to the abolitionists)
• The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (over 1000 pages of spooky and upsetting stories that almost certainly will not make it onto next semester’s syllabus!)

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Stuff We Like :: 12.1.17

It’s December!

Around the web

Ooh, I love this list of alternatives to books by Dead White Men.

A great (and upsetting) breakdown of why net neutrality matters to your everyday Netflix habit

I loved this: The beginning of silent reading changed Westerners’ interior life

This essay asks some good questions: Have white women colonized children’s literature? And if so, what can we do to change things?

At home/school/life

on the blog: You don’t have to teach geography to have kids who know geography

also on the blog: The Greenglass House is the perfect early winter readaloud

one year ago: An Ellis Island unit study

two years ago: Rebecca reviewed a curriculum designed to put the fun back in the holidays

three years ago: Mindful homeschool: I am thankful for my homeschool life

Reading List

After many, many recommendations, I am finally getting around to The Fifth Season, the first book in N.K. Jemison’s Broken Earth series, and I am already so hooked that I am hiding in the bathroom to finish a chapter. Please let it keep being this good.

I’m reading Othello with my AP English class, and I am completely obsessed this read-around with the idea that Iago is a stand-in for Shakespeare — he’s totally stage-managing the entire play, right down to creating the dialogue for people to say. This is weirdly fascinating to me — what could it mean if Shakespeare sees himself in Iago’s “motiveless malignancy?” One of my students really needs to write a paper about this.

Also in work-related reading: Plato’s Symposium, which is so much easier going than the Republic, especially when reading them back-to-back.

I have already bought two copies of this book to give as holiday presents. 

At home

We’re moving on to Project Runway Junior season two! I’m also looking forward to getting through season 2 of Stranger Things, season 2 of Agent Carter, and season 3 of Broadchurch over the break, even though that seems pretty ambitious.

I am sort of hooked on this Civil War podcast. I have added another loop to my morning dog walk to fit in more listening time.

I do not feel ready for the holidays, but I am hoping making some tiny sufganiyot this weekend will help get me in the spirit.

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A Start-Here Plan for New Homeschoolers

We just started homeschooling, and honestly, I’m feeling overwhelmed. I don’t know where to start. Is there some kind of start-here strategy for new homeschoolers?

Well, a lot of people will tell you to research, research, research to find the curriculum that’s right for you — and you can find discussions all over the internet with people doing just that, obsessing over the details in this program versus that program and discussing how they’ve adapted or used a particular curriculum. There’s a lot of good information out there when you’re ready to start shopping, but I think it can feel intimidating to someone who’s just getting started homeschooling. 

That’s why I’d actually recommend avoiding the whole curriculum buying process for at least the first six months of your homeschool life. It’s so easy to get bogged down in curriculum and methods and to miss out on one of the most important pieces of getting your homeschool up and running: the process of figuring out how your particular homeschool works best. Honestly, I think most people shouldn’t buy any curriculum that costs more than $50 during their first year of homeschooling. Really — how are you going to know what curriculum is right for your homeschool when you haven’t even had a chance to see your homeschool in action yet? It takes a few months just to find your homeschool’s rhythm and get comfortable with your new routine. It takes a few months to get to know your child as your student and yourself as your child’s learning facilitator. So instead of committing to a curriculum plan right away, I suggest skipping the big decisions and making it simple for yourself by opting to get your homeschool started with a unit study.

A unit study, you probably know, is basically just picking a topic that interests you and focusing on it. (When we started homeschooling back when my daughter was in 2nd grade, we started with a unit study on the constellations.) Depending on your child’s age and interests, you might choose any number of topics to explore: Minecraft, Jane Austen, evolution, bugs, westward expansion in the United States, baking, and art history are among the wild mishmash of possibilities we’ve explored through unit studies, but the possibilities really are endless. Start with one book, and see where it takes you — a unit study can be as big or as brief as your interest and can scale up or down to meet your child at her interest and ability level. (You can check out some unit study inspiration from the HSL archives here.)

There are a few advantages to the unit study approach for new homeschoolers. For starters, you can do it for free — or mostly free — with a little help from online resources and your library. For another, you can choose any topic that you and your child are both interested in, which will make the project more pleasant for both of you. With a unit study, you’ve got a narrow, clear focus that’s easy to build around, so you won’t have the burden of that “How will I ever learn everything I need to teach her?” stress. And best of all, a unit study gives you the opportunity to see how your child learns and works. Maybe she’s a terrific writer. Maybe she learns best when she’s making charts and graphs. Maybe she likes to take notes. You’ll also see where you’re a good facilitator: Maybe you’ll find that you’re looking forward to reading aloud, or you can’t wait for nature study every day. It’s fun to do something you’re both interested in every day, which will help both of you feel like your homeschool is off to a great start.

If you’re just starting homeschooling for the first time, the information you gain from engaging in this first unit study will be invaluable when you decide you’re ready to move on to curriculum shopping: If your daughter hates working on the computer, you’re not going to want to buy an online math curriculum. If she’s passionate about reading, you may want to look for a history plan that focuses on living books. Those are things you might not know if you jumped right into experimenting with curricula. Giving yourself a little breathing space before you dive in full-force can help you avoid making the kinds of mistakes that frustrate you, your student, and your homeschooling budget.

This Q&A was originally published in the fall 2015 issue of HSL.

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Need help getting started? You can download our free New Homeschooler Cheat Sheet for a step-by-step guide to figuring out your happiest homeschool.

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I Don’t Teach Geography

You don't have to use a curriculum to learn a lot about geography. Here's how Shell's family does it.

Someone who was worried about our decision to homeschool asked, “Do you teach geography?” Considering how much the person asking knew about geography, I have no idea where that came from. The problem with these kinds of questions is that the questioner does not realize that homeschooled kids can learn quite differently than their public school peers. So on one hand, I could answer truthfully, “No, I don’t teach geography.” But on the other hand, I could also answer, “My kids know a lot about geography.” My 11-year-old, especially, knows much more about geography than I did at his age. (And I went to public school!)

The question made me start thinking about how we have learned about geography because I have never bought a formal geography curriculum. I have never checked out a book from the library that would teach my kids map skills. But my son knows how to read a map, he knows all the continents and several of the country names in our world, and he even knows what kind of terrain exists in most places of the world. He even knows what the people and cultures of some other countries are like. How does he know all this, if I didn’t plan any lessons?

Well, when you are a curious, love-to-explore, documentary-watching, globe-and-map-using kind of family, you’re going to learn elementary geography and then some.

Here are just a few ways my kids have learned about geography without any formal lessons:

First of all, we own a globe. When we watch documentaries, we pull it out because we’re curious to know exactly where the place is that we’re seeing on the T.V. My eight-year-old, especially, loves to get the globe and find places on it.

We also own a lot of maps. We own a map of our state, and we’ve pulled it out when we’re traveling somewhere. We also own maps of all the states we’ve traveled to. During our trip out west, my eleven-year-old kept our Rand McNally Atlas by his side most of the way, often looking at it to see where we were. His younger brother looked over his shoulder.

Also, puzzles! We have a United States puzzle with the names and capitals of each state on it. We have a world map puzzle, and we also have a book of puzzles for each continent in the world. The boys love working on puzzles again and again, so these map puzzles are popular in our house. 

I also snatched up a box of National Geographic U.S.A. ©1978 maps at a library book sale for $5. These were the same maps my dad owned when I was a girl, and I longed to look at them. I pestered him about them, but he would never let me touch them. Well, guess what? My boys and I pull them out whenever we want. They may be a little outdated, but they have gorgeous illustrations and details about each state’s history and recreational sites. 

At some point while looking at our maps, I’ve briefly talked to the boys about the compass, legend and scale on the map. I’ve also told them about latitude and longitude. (This has also come up in discussions about how ships navigate the oceans.) I’m sure over the next few years, we’ll have plenty of other reasons to look at maps, so this will come up again. How can they not learn about it?

While we’re speaking about maps, I shouldn’t fail to mention Google Earth. My boys love exploring Google Earth. They have zoomed down to Mt. Everest and even found the beach we visited once in Florida. Also, they are constantly looking over my shoulder as I use Google Maps on my phone to navigate our way through unfamiliar places.

Learning about maps is just a small part of geography, though. Geography also has to do with the terrain and how humans interact with the landscape around them. I can’t think of a better way to learn about this (besides traveling) than through our daily dose of documentaries. Everyday at lunchtime, my husband, two boys and I watch part of a documentary. Most of what we watch are nature documentaries, but we also watch science and history documentaries. We occasionally watch travel shows or cooking shows that take us to other parts of the world too. (See below for a few recommendations.)

It would take a book-length blog post to describe what we’ve seen and learned through these documentaries. My boys have watched people in the Arctic ice fishing, native tribes in the Amazon hunt for food, and they’ve seen the ancient practice of fishing with cormorants in Asia. They know where the taiga, tundra, and the rain forests are located. They also know about the efforts of the North American Prairie Reserve, which we try to support when we can.

When I think about how I learned about geography in schools – through a textbook and drawing a map of my neighborhood – it’s no wonder that I didn’t truly appreciate this subject until I began to explore it in a different way with my kids. While I do plan lessons for reading, writing, math and history, geography – at least elementary geography – is easily learned by owning a few maps, being curious, watching documentaries, and reading interesting books about the world. I guess the one thing I’ve failed to tell the boys is “This is geography!” I think I’ll do that tomorrow.

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DOCUMENTARIES WE LIKE

Many documentaries take you to other places and teach you about people, animals and the land they inhabit, but here are a few documentaries I especially recommend for your social studies and geography lessons.

If you watch only one documentary series about our planet and the humans that inhabit it, it should be this one: Human Planet (We found it on Netflix.)

The following are several series that I like to call the “Wildest Series.” These are some of the most educational documentaries we’ve ever watched, and we learned about wildlife we never knew existed. Look for these and others like them on Netflix.

• Wildest Indochina

• Wildest Arctic

• Wildest Islands

• Wildest India

• Wildest Middle East

Planet Earth is so popular that you’ve probably already seen it, but I couldn’t leave it off this list. It’s available now on Netflix.

See how humans have changed their planet in Generation Earth. If you love engineering, it’s a must see.

For a list of all the documentaries I recommend, see my Pinterest board.

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