NZ Filbruns

I was surprised to hear of a book sale only half an hour’s drive from us in the beginning of the month. There is normally one in early October every year, run by the Rotary Club, but this year a different group did one as a fundraiser now. Mr. Sweetie and Little Miss went with me to see what treasures we could find. We spent an hour searching the boxes and tables, and found a lot of books to bring home!

We already had these three books, but I replaced our worn copies of Freedom Train and Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express, and was delighted to find a hardcover of The Great Wheel.

I brought home several picture books, some to go on the Picture Books shelf, and some for the Science shelf. Miss Joy loves Too Much Noise; she went and found our copy of It Could Always Be Worse to compare the similar stories. Fishes and Animal Life in North America are delightful 1960s-style books.

I added four books to the Easy Reader shelf, and was very happy to find a Milly Molly Mandy book and another by the author of the Encyclopedia Brown books. My children all love those mysteries!

Mr. Sweetie found a box full of Companion Volume books, and chose four that he wanted. I am putting them on the Junior Fiction shelf.

One of the children thought about Miss Joy with these books–she loves babies, and she loves Anne Geddes’ books.

I got A Treasury of Little Golden Books and The Bedtime Book of 365 Nursery Rhymes because Miss Joy loves poetry and stories so much. They are going on the Picture Books and Poetry shelves.

We’ve gotten some laughs out of The Big Book of Boy Stuff. First, I noticed that it indicated a reversible cover, so I opened it–to find the Exercise Book cover inside the dust jacket, and the title Science on the book. Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination have been having fun reading this book, which is chock-full of experiments, stories, jokes and recipes. When they lose interest, it will go on the Junior Miscellaneous shelf.

Of course, we also got books in the mail. The one that is going directly onto the shelf is The Return, one of the few Amish Fiction books I have ever enjoyed. Find my review of it here, as well as some of my reasons for disliking Amish fiction in general! An interesting note–I didn’t realize this was a hardcover large print book when I bought it!

I also found time to read some of the books that have been on our shelves for many years without being read, and some of the ones on my massive stack that needs to be read before going on the shelves. First, the ones I have read aloud to the children!

Many years ago, we read the first book in The May Series, No One Went to Town. I decided to read the series again, since we now have four of the five books and a friend has the other. We started with the first one, and enjoyed this account of a family pioneering in the bush of the North Island of New Zealand.

One of the children chose The Lost Prince for me to read aloud. I was surprised by how much they all enjoyed this story! Because of some content concerns, however, I will be putting this book on the Classics shelf out in the container. See my review for details.

I read Night Preacher to the children for our history study. We enjoyed this perspective on Menno Simons and the early Anabaptists in Holland. This book is on the Junior Fiction shelf.

I read the Little Prairie Girl books to my youngest. She loved these stories about a Russian Mennonite girl growing up on the prairies of Manitoba, Canada. She got annoyed with the recipe that is at the end of each chapter–but didn’t want me to stop reading them! These are on the Independent Readers shelf.

My 10-year-old daughter chose Blue Willow. It’s been on the shelf, unread, for many years, and my co-librarian wanted to discard it a year or two ago. I knew it was a gem, so we kept it, but I had forgotten just how special it is. Friendship and family–those are the main themes. It’s a good one! It is on the Junior Fiction shelf.

The Lighted Heart is the best memoir I have read in many years! I bought it because we love the books we have by this author, especially Mountain Born, A Place for Peter, and The Journeyman. What a delightful story this one is, as Elizabeth Yates tells about the year when her husband went blind, how they changed their lives to accomodate him, and the highlights of the next few decades of their life in New England. It is full of humor, and sprinkled with gems of wisdom. This one goes on the Adult Biography shelf.

These next three books have been on our shelves for some time, but we haven’t gotten to them. Children of the Oregon Trail is a retelling of the story of the Sager children; we have a different version on the shelf, as well. This one is harder to read, and graphically describes some of the extreme dangers the children faced. Man-Shy is a story about wild cows in Australia, and what happened to them when the land was fenced. Have you ever come across a book about cows? I haven’t! Not for children who can’t handle sad endings. Walk Two Moons fit into a reading challenge I’m doing, so I finally read it. Wow, this is a good story. It’s actually two stories in one, both with similar themes, and girls who try to work through hard things that have happened to them. The author did a masterful job of keeping me in the dark until the very end, although I should have figured out what really happened near the beginning. This one is on the Young Adult shelf; the other two, on the Junior Fiction shelf.

I have loved David Macaulay’s books about architecture for over 30 years. I collected most of them when I was in the United States about eight years, but hadn’t found one of my favorites, Underground. I was excited when I saw it come up on the Facebook group! I probably paid way too much, but I think the collection is complete now. Bound for Oregon has been on the shelf since that trip eight years ago, and I finally read it. I loved this account of the Oregon Trail! It is based on the recollections of a woman who made the trip with her family as a child. It’s a lot gentler than the one in the last group of pictures.

I picked up a couple of the Who Is?/Where Is? books at the book sale, but held them back until I had read them myself. They are all right–not great, but all right, and very informative. I found them fairly engaging, written on an Independent Readers level. The one about the Brooklyn Bridge tells a story I haven’t come across before, and I enjoyed learning about how it was built. These books are going on the Junior Biography and Junior History shelves. I picked up The Diddakoi a year or two ago at a secondhand shop without knowing anything about it. It turns out to be a very good story about a gypsy girl who had to integrate into English society. A gentle romance runs through the story, along with themes of bullying and friendship. This is a special story! It will be on the Junior Fiction shelf.

I was also able to find some more I Survived books. As with the others I have read, I am impressed with how this author is able to take such a hard topic, with many people dying, and create a story that I feel like I can allow my children to read. These are written on the level of our Independent Readers, but due to the hard content, I am shelving them with the Junior Fiction books.

One day while I was in town with some of the children, Miss Joy spent an hour or two in the garden entertaining Esther while she was digging potatoes. Miss Joy was picking up the earthworms she found and relocating them to a different bed. She was blown away when Esther told her that earthworms are both boys and girls. Because of her interest in them, I offered to read her the book I recently bought about earthworms. It has nine chapters, but kept her interest all the way through. None of the children have yet read The Wild Whale Watch, but now that I have vetted it I expect Little Miss to snatch it up. Both of those will be on the Junior Science shelf. One of my recent purchases was Lyla, the story of the February 22, 2011 Christchurch earthquake from the point of view of a 13-year-old girl. It’s rather weird to read a historical fiction story about an event that I have lived through. Because of where we lived during the Kaikoura earthquake of 2016, I could relate to her feelings, especially to the way she reacted to tremors and even the rumble of trucks afterwards. Despite some language (which I have censored), I found this an engrossing story, and very real.

More new books (no one except Esther and I get excited about book mail–it happens too often)!

Esther was delighted to be able to get this beautiful edition of The Story Girl. It’s hardcover, and the perfect size to hold, and matches some of her other classics.

I found some more Jungle Doctor books. We now have 11 of the chapter books, and two of the picture books. The chapter books are on the Junior Fiction shelf.

I have also been able to read a few more books that I bought in the last several months. These are good enough that I added them to the shelves (there were some that didn’t make the cut, unfortunately, for one reason or another). Goodnight Mister Tom is a heart-wrenching story, set during the London Blitz–but that is not the hard part. The main character is a little boy who had been terribly abused by his mother, and has now been sent to live with a crusty old man whose love died many years ago along with his only child. As with many of the My Story books, Plagues and Federation has some attitudes I don’t care for, but I decided to keep it because it tells of a time and place in history that I had never read about before. This book about William the Conqueror is an amazing glimpse into a time long gone–I learned a lot about that famous man!

Circle of Gold is a beautiful story about a girl’s love for her mother, and about being honest even when it’s very hard to do so. The Dolphin Crossing describes the rescue at Dunkirk, near the beginning of World War II, from the perspective of two boys, one of whom had been evacuated. I loved the way the two boys cared for the mother of the one when she badly needed help. These two books are on the Junior Fiction shelf. Treasures Beneath the Sea was a book I picked up at a local secondhand shop recently. It describes the search for treasures from ships that sank while carrying large amounts of gold. I’ll put it on the Junior History Shelf. Arctic Hero is the amazing story of Matthew Henson, who accompanied Robert Peary to the North Pole; it goes on the Junior Biography shelf. Both of those are the same reading level as our Independent Readers, a step above Easy Readers, for those who are ready for short chapter books. The Secret Three is a delightful story about three boys who created adventure together. It will go to the Easy Reader shelf.

Lisa Settles In is a delightful story about a little girl who moved to a new place and had to figure out how to make friends. She did wrong things a few times, and always made them right. Interestingly, this book was translated into English from some other language! I am placing it on the Independent Readers shelf, for children who have grown past the Easy Readers but are not ready for Junior Fiction yet. Swallows and Amazons is a classic from the 1930s, about a family of children who enjoyed a summer of freedom, camping on an island and sailing a small boat about the lake. It will be on the Junior Fiction shelf.The Red Pony has been on my TBR stack for a long time. It is called a children’s book, but because of the subject matter I’m putting it on the Classics shelf instead. I picked up The Magic School Bus: The Fishy Field Trip because my children enjoy those books. It is a chapter book about the Great Barrier Reef. It would go on the Independent Readers shelf if I didn’t keep the Magic School Bus books together on the Junior Science shelf. Trina is another delightful story of a little girl trying to make friends. Trina and her family are Mexicans, living in a small town in Wyoming because her father works on the railroad. Her problem with making friends is that she can’t speak English, so her father sets to work to help her.

Here are a few more books we bought secondhand, recently. I loved Encyclopedia Brown books when I was young, and my children love them, too, so I was delighted to find two that we didn’t have already–and one of them is hardcover! The two books in the next photo are written with a second-grade reading level, what we here call “Independent Readers.” However, the subject matter is for a much more mature audience, so I decided to put them on the Readers shelf, which is above eye level for most children. They are books that I will offer to mothers who have early-mid teens who struggle with reading. Then there are three hardcovers from the Narnia series that Esther was delighted to find! She will keep them on the Classics shelf.

I also found a copy of Shakespeare’s Globe, a pop-up model of the famous theatre. I’ve seen this in the home of a couple of friends, and thought it would be great to have on hand when we read The Shakespeare Stealer again, so we can see the setting.

We also reread a couple of books that have been on the shelf for many years, which I decided to feature here. We are studying the Reformation for history, and have reached the Anabaptist movement, so I picked out all the books from the shelves that cover that time and had the children choose the ones they wanted me to read aloud. Fire in the Zurich Hills is the story of the first Anabaptist congregation, in a small village near Zurich, Switzerland, in 1525. It really brings the history of that time to life. Not Regina is a fictional story of a young woman who lived near Zurich in 1525 and had to figure out for herself what the truth about the Anabaptists was. Forever With the Lord tells the story of Michael Sattler, one of the early martyrs of the Anabaptist movement.

Esther spent a weekend with some friends, and they all went op shopping together. Esther found these beautiful hardcover copies of the Winnie the Pooh books and Wind in the Willows, and couldn’t resist. Then, she found Tactics, which Elijah had just listened to and decided he want to buy a physical copy of. He was delighted!