Here are the rest of the books we brought home in our suitcases from America–at least, the ones that have been added to the library right away!
My children have all loved Carolyn Haywood’s books; one of my boys especially loved the Eddie books when he was about six or eight years old. These books are hard to find, so I was delighted to be able to get five of them!
I also like the Heroes for Young Readers, adaptations of the Christian Heroes: Then & Now and Heroes of History books for older children. These are the stories of famous people told in rhyme, with full-color illustrations.
I was able to get the Eloise Wilkin Stories collection and the Mother Goose book when Sonlight Curriculum had their clearance sale. I love Eloise Wilkin’s picture books! My littlest loves the Mother Goose book. I had read it aloud to her already when I found it online, and she is enjoying it again. I got How to Eat a Poem to go with a level of Sonlight we’ll be using soon. I got The Valentine Cat because we love Clyde Robert Bulla. We also like the animal stories from Thornton W. Burgess. Both of those are on the Independent Readers shelf. My mom was sorting out books to get rid of, to make more room on her shelves, and I asked her for The Usborne First Thousand Words in Spanish, since we already had the same book in English.
I also brought home a lot of adult fiction books–mainly women’s fiction. The Heart of Christmas and Song of Grace are anthologies of about half a dozen novellas by as many different authors. In each one, I enjoyed most of the stories. I wrote a review of The Thomas Sisters earlier this year, as well as The Daughter of Rome, The Aftermath, and What I Left for You. Esther and I both read and reviewed The Atlas of Untold Stories–easily my favorite of all these titles!
Sometime in the past year, my favorite author, Chautona Havig, offered a number of her books at half price because she had too many on her shelves. I jumped at the chance to get some I didn’t have in print yet. Under the Hibiscus, The Title Wave, and Trust Fall are a series set on a Pacific Island. Trust Fall is also a spin-off of The Agency Files. The New Cheltenham books are a fun series of Christmas books. Induction is the prequel to the entire Agency series, though written much later. I really liked Dial I for Identity–what is our identity in Christ? Clock Tower Bound is the fourth book in the Bookstrings series. Warning: It may make you want to read a lot of other books! I downloaded an audio book after reading this one. And Moore’s Code? Well, it’s the only Santa Claus book I have ever even wanted to read–and it’s fun! It is not a Christian story, but it does show character growth. And, it’s just plain fun.
We have a couple of new picture books! I Can’t Sleep is a delightful wordless book about a family who all apparently suffered from insomnia. The Practical Princess was given to us by a private lending library in the United States who partnered with Purple House Press to give a copy to each library registered on Biblioguides. I happened to be in the United States when they made this offer, and there was just enough time for them to send me a copy before we returned home. I am not big on fairy tales, but my little girls love them, and this is a delightful story. The book is sheer pleasure to hold, too; it is a well-bound hardcover. I recently bought a roll of dust jacket covers, so I have protected the beautiful cover that way.
We added a few more books to the Junior fiction shelf. I was able to get two more Jungle Doctor books. We are reading a Jungle Doctor book aloud in the mornings now, and really enjoying it. Raiders From the Sea is the first book in a series that I read to the children about 10 years ago. I bought the set in Kindle format, and we raced through them as fast as I could read. After reading each one, I paused long enough to write a review of it before moving on to the next–much to my children’s dismay, as they wanted to find out what happened next! I’m hoping to find the rest of the series eventually.
I found this copy of Now We Are Six at a secondhand shop one day. We love A. A. Milne’s poems! We also love Encyclopedia Brown. I actually bought four at once, but three were borrowed before I remembered to take a picture of them or had a chance to put them on the Independent Readers shelf. Esther just read Dreams Of Victory. This Junior Fiction book reminded her of Anne of Green Gables in a modern setting!
I bought this Easy Reader adaptation of The Black Stallion because I knew my youngest, who is starting to read, would love it. Speaking of Easy Readers, notice the crayon on the spine label? I color-coded the easy readers recently, hoping that will help choose the right books for beginners. I sorted the books into four levels, doing my best to match the ones with similar amounts of text on the pages. This one is in the third level. From Fear to Freedom is another book that Esther recently read. It is an inspiring account of a missionary and her life in New Guinea and will be on the Adult Biographies shelf. I bought The Dolphin Rider to add to our Classics shelf because twice in a few months my boys needed to read an adapt a Greek myth as part of their Language Arts curriculum.
When we did an inventory of our books to make sure that what we have on the shelf matches what is in the catalog, we came across In the Footprints of the Lamb, and Esther realized it should be on the Devotionals shelf instead of with the classics. It looks like a good one!
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