Current Books

This has been the week of books...I took Lillie to toddler time at the library and she picked six books to check out (actually, she picked a lot more, but six was my limit since we didn't bring a book bag). Of course, most of the books are about dogs. But her FAVORITE, by far, is:

Baby Dance by Ann Taylor (copyright 1999 HarperCollins Pub.)
It starts out "Hush little baby, don't you cry. Hush little baby, mama's nearby"...
Every day (at least three times) she brings me the book and I pick her up and we dance while I sing the book to her. She giggles and giggles...oh, the summer is going to fast.

Lillie's other favorites of the week:
Doggies by Sandra Boynton
Olivia's Opposites by Ian Falconer
Rhymes around the year Dog Days by Jack Prelutsky (I think this book is funny...she reads it for the pictures)

Her favorites at home (we can't go anywhere without these):
From Head to Toe by Eric Carle (copyright 1997)
Ten Little Ladybugs by Melanie Gerth (copyright 2000)

I finished reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. A true story about a guy named Chris McCandless, who in 1992 leaves his well-to-do suburban family for the Alaskan wilderness. Based on his vague postcards and personal notes he wrote in books, this book follows his journey and inner tumoil through the US into the wilderness of Alaska. From the beginning, the reader knows that Chris dies alone in Alaska in a shelled out bus/van. One needs to read the book to fully understand how Chris dies. I can sympathize with some of Chris' feelings and frustrations with his family and the world in general, but he didn't seem fully prepared to enter the wild. Based on interviews in the book, Chris appeared to have plans to return to family (or at least return to civilation at some point). Good book, very sad. Not just sad because he dies at such a tender age (24), but sad because he felt so alone and unable to reconcile with some family/issues. Good descriptions of wildlife and Alaska scenery.

I'm almost done reading:
Reading Magic by Mem Fox (why reading aloud to our children will change their lives forever. copyright 2001 Harcourt Pub). Great book and makes me want to keep reading to Lillie forever. I have a hard time comprehending that parents would choose not to read to their child (unless, of course, they themselves were illiterate and unable to read/write). Mem Fox writes "...if every parent and every adult caring for a child read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation"

I also started reading a fiction book by Robert Ludlum...I love mystery/suspense. Its really long, so either I'll skim it or renew at the due date and probably have to skim it to finish it next month :-) Its not a 'hard to understand' book...just lots of people to remember and conversational words in a foreign language because the guy is hopping from country to country to outrun the CIA or FBI or KGB...any or all of them!
These are our books of the week :-)