NZ Filbruns

Graphic novels are not my style of book! I would much rather read a book with no pictures than this style. However, I have typical children who love any sort of comic book, so we have a few. I have just added these three to our shelves, and am thinking about whether maybe I should collect all the graphic books we have in one dedicated section. I’ll report it in one of these posts when/if I do that!

I was able to source some more I Survived books! I think we have all except 7 of them now. My 10-year-old is delighted every time she gets to read a new one, and can hardly wait for me to get through it first. I brought this Hank the Cowdog book home with us from America. I love the Hank stories–his use of language is fun, and the dog is so dumb, while thinking he’s incredibly smart, that I have a lot of fun reading these aloud. The one problem with them (other than the language, which I have censored) is Hank’s thoughts about “women.”

George Stephenson is an easy reader biography that I picked up at the Bookarama. I think it is the second one in this series that we have, and I will certainly keep my eyes open for more. I’m in a quandry–do I put a book like this with the children’s biographies, or with the easy readers? It fits in both places! If you have an opinion, please comment. I would like to know what other people think. Her Own Song is a very different book. Mellie’s father got hurt, and she was on her own, and the only person who helped her was a Chinese man–in Portland, Oregon in 1908! She learned a lot of disturbing things about her past in a short time. This book covers racism, adoption, family, and friendship. When I bought Ramona Quimby, Age 8, it meant that our set of Ramona books was complete. I read through all eight of them in a week to make a decision what to do with them. I remembered enjoying them, but a couple of other people I talked to couldn’t stand them. I have decided to keep the set, but because we are running out of space, I will put them on the shelf in the container. I like the way the author is able to get into a little girl’s mind and help me, as an adult, to understand the way a child thinks and sees the world. I also like the way she portrays Ramona growing up and changing from a spoiled brat at age 4 to a responsible young woman at age 9, at the end of the series. These are available for anyone who wants to borrow them, but I would recommend parental guidance for children under the age of about 10.

Esther finally read Someday You’ll Write and really liked it. She recommends it for middle-grade children who are interested in writing. I’m putting it on the Adult Miscellaneous shelf. I posted a review of Start Little, Dream Big, which you can see here. It is on the Adult Biography shelf. I have finally found a way to get myself to read inspirational books! I chose one slot of time in my day when I generally take five minutes to read something, and I read a couple of pages of one of these books at that time. In that way, I got through Prayers and Peanut Butter, which has been on the shelf for a few years. It is a wonderful book of encouragement to mothers. I put it on the Adult Devotional shelf.

We added several picture books to the shelf. One day when several of us were in town, the used book shop happened to be open. I had never been in there, but my oldest daughter had a couple of times. What a gem! That is a shop I plan to visit whenever I can. We found Rechenka’s Eggs in a basket of children’s books, and since I love Patricia Polacco’s books, that one was quickly added to our stack. As we talked with the owner after paying for our purchases, she picked up A Christmas Story by Brian Wildsmith and gave us this copy, because the corners were scuffed. Do we care about scuffed corners with such beautiful artwork? No! (Even though the story is rather fanciful.) One of the younger girls found this gorgeous copy of The Poky Little Puppy for free, too, there. The same day we received a package of books I bought, which included two by Ezra Jack Keats, one of our favorite picture book authors. They are delightful! I also got five Billy and Blaze books by C. W. Anderson that day in the mail. If you have a young horse-lover, don’t miss these. The illustrations are gorgeous, even though the stories are somewhat lame. We already had old hardcover copies of two of these, but they are so old the pages are becoming brittle, so I was quite happy to find better ones. A friend who uses our library a lot had a cleanout, and she gave me The Road to Tuapeka, among other books. It’s a fun fantasy about wekas, which are a troublesome bird in our area. Except for the last one, which is on the New Zealand Picture Books shelf, these are all with the picture books.

The day we went to town, we went to all the secondhand shops around, as well as the book shop. One of my finds was this gorgeous copy of Uncle Remus Stories! The cover doesn’t look like much, but just see the artwork! I’m looking forward to reading it to my littlest girl. We have a newer version of these stories, which I read to her last year, and she loved it. I also picked up The Lost Seal. It’s a story about a seal in Antarctica that lost its way and was helped back to safety by scientists–a true story, apparently. It is a bilingual book, both English and Maori. I found Red Fox and His Canoe in a listing on Facebook. My youngest is at the perfect stage for this I Can Read Book, and she enjoyed having one she hadn’t seen before. The same person was selling The One and Only Dr. Seuss, and one of my older sons snatched that one up; he loves Dr. Seuss. Looking for Solid Shapes was another gift from my friend. It’s a good introduction to geometry. Every one of these books goes on a different shelf: Junior Fiction, Easy Reader, Picture Books, Junior Science, and Junior Miscellaneous!

My friend also gave us all these easy readers that her family had finished with. Once again, it was great to have some new ones for my youngest to practice with. She spent a long time studying the pictures in all of them, and organizing them after I showed her the numbers on the covers indicating their order in the series.

I have continued working my way through the stacks of books on my dresser. Still More Two-Minute Mysteries joins the other books like this by Donald J. Sobol, who wrote the Encyclopedia Brown books that I loved when I was young and most of my children love now. I picked up Secret Admirer in the A to Z Mysteries series from the Bookarama. I wasn’t at all sure I would keep a book about Valentine’s Day, but I loved it! The House on the Volcano is set on the slopes of Mount Pele in Hawaii, and though I don’t love the Hawaiian mythology, I love the story and the glimpse at what it’s like to live beside an erupting volcano. El Blanco and Flaming Star are both perfect for young horse-lovers. The first is set in Mexico, the second in England. Emil and the Detectives is a fun mystery about a boy who was traveling alone to visit his grandmother in Berlin, and was robbed on the way. Because he had recently done something he shouldn’t have, and had a guilty conscience, he couldn’t ask the police for help; instead, he ended up with a lot of new friends. Norton was given to us a number of years ago by a friend. I debated a little about keeping it, but decided that cat-lovers would like it, so I’ll put it with the animal stories on the Junior Science shelf. A Grain of Rice is not new, but after reading it (for about the sixth time) this week, I decided to feature it because I love it so much. This is a wonderful love story, which also illustrates exponents. Then there is The Great Trouble. This is a great story about a medical mystery: how did cholera spread? Everyone in the slum area of London was sure it was spread by the terrible-smelling air–but one doctor believed it came from water. Eel made it his mission to help Dr. Snow prove his hypothesis.

When we went to the used book shop in town, I noticed The Gully That Gabriel Found in a box of free books outside. It is the story of a discovery of gold, written in the style of “The House That Jack Built.” My oldest daughter also found Endurance there. She had just listened to it, and said it was a very good book. I’m looking forward to reading it. We already had a copy of We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, but when I was able to get one in better condition along with more books in the series, I took it. (The old one has insect holes boring through many pages!). This series (Swallows and Amazons) is delightful. I’m planning to read them all aloud over the next year.

I have been going through American History with my 10-year-old. We just read The White House is Burning. This is a fascinating description of two or three days during the War of 1812. We also read The Constitution of the United States to learn about that document and how it was drafted, and then read The Bill of Rights to go along with it.

The day that we went secondhand shopping, one of my boys picked up Friends to the End and The Blue Day Book. They have beautiful photographs of animals along with sparse, witty text. I did take out a page or two in each of them that were not appropriate. This edition of The Pilgrim’s Progress is a graphic novel based on an animated film. My family has spent a lot of time studying the pictures in this book!

Colossal Creatures is a book packed with information about a number of different large animals. Dinosaur’s Day is an easy reader, perfect for children who love those creatures! Alamo All-Stars is a graphic book about the war between Texas and Mexico. I read it aloud to my daughter as part of our study of American history, and many others in the family have picked it up, too.

And yet more books from my stacks! One of the boys picked Page Boy of Camelot to read aloud; as I read the first few pages, I realized that I read it to them a few years ago from an online library. We enjoyed this King Arthur story again, and then I glued it back together, since it fell apart as I read it. The Wild Boy in the Bush is a story about pioneer life in New Zealand, and children who found moa bones. Mystery of the Empty House is a fun story about some children who solved a puzzle that revealed secrets from the American Revolution.

The last book I read from my stacks this month is Escape From Stalingrad. I don’t think I had ever read anything before about the battle for Stalingrad, when Hitler threw his troops against that Russian city. Whew! That was a terrible time in history. Turkey for Christmas is a recently-reprinted book that I brought home from America. I read it to the family on Christmas evening, and we enjoyed it.

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